The federal government is deluged with information regarding all of us — now legal on account of the new law. The not-yet-refined data mining algorithms flush out a few ‘bad guys’, and a lot of ‘look-alike’. The latter drain FBI resources, and dilute the attention given to the real threat. Another case of the law of unintended consequences.
The insurance industry: shaken by cyber exposure
Published July 26th, 2008 in Uncategorized and IT. 1 CommentInsurance works on ignorance. Neither the insured, nor the insurer know if an accident will occur, sickness will pop up, fire will erupt — and this ignorance is why the insured pays the premium, and why the insurance companies pay up the afflicted. But the modern fish-bowl, where each of us leaves a fresh digital footprint on the vast digital terrain we traverse — this premise is in danger. Our habits, conduct, life style, choices — as they are reflected by our credit card use, and public cameras, etc. — give the insurers a wealth of data to re-evaluate our chances to make a claim. Increasingly insurers deny coverage to high-risk individuals as they are so flagged by data mining algorithms that traverse cyberspace. It becomes a competitive pressure. Insurers who don’t practice such illegal discrimination become less competitive. The abusers of this scheme can offer more attractive rates to those who are very likely not ever to make a claim. So pure capitalism drags the entire industry to essentially crack down on the aspect of ignorance that is in fact its foundation. If these data mining algorithms are perfected then people who would realize they are not likely to make a claim will not get insurance, and the other folks, will not be able to get insurance. It’s not clear how this cyber exposure will play out, but for now the entire industry is shaken.
Strategic Cyber-Threat Forum Suggests Data Confidence Risk
Published July 20th, 2008 in Uncategorized and IT. 0 CommentsOne of the first suggestions that seemed to get participants approval regarding our strategic cyber threat was pretty much unrecognized before. It is the risk for sleeper applets throughout the database programming environment to be activated to effect minute data rewrites. Once detected, the database as a whole will be shrouded with suspicion and its integrity will be questioned. The more critical the database, the more devastating the results. Air traffic, port traffic, financial transactions, medical prescription and treatment will all be halted or seriously slowed down. The data corruption might be over a tiny fraction of the data, but that is enough to shatter confidence. Stay tuned for the next threat scenarios picked up by the forum. Would you care to join?
The principle of imminent domain says that individual property rights may be overruled by a pressing societal need. With the energy crisis we face a similar situation on an international scale. The UN, or a similar global body, should confiscate the major oil fields on earth and water, overruling property rights of the countries in whose territory those fields are found. This universal natural treasure should then be distributed rationally and fairly through an international body where all nations have a vote. Much as we don’t allow one stubborn property owner to stop the construction of a critical railway, so we should not allow some backwards, or messianic rulers, and unstable dictators to toy with six billions consumers. (65% of world oil is owned by 3% of the earth population).
Just raising this international imminent domain concept into a point of discussion would send a strong message to OPEC: Don’t overdo it! Calming the market in one fell swoop.
Don’t Let Your Internet Activity Be Used Against You: Deniability To The Rescue
Published July 6th, 2008 in IT. 0 CommentsMany Americans are very careful these days not to frequent websites that may cast a shadow on their character, preferences, lifestyle. Even temporary IP addresses will be tracked down, and the government, Google, and Yahoo would compile a most revealing dossier on who you are, what you do, what you like, and anything embarrassing will be piled up, recorded, subpoenaed, and used against you in court of law, or in employment application. The record of your Internet activity is one of the most asked for items at detective agencies. Even the public library is no safe haven. Most require you to log on using your library card — exposed. This is not just a question of hiding something non-complimenting. It is a question of our well being. Like I said before: “Freedom without privacy is not” and added “Privacy without deniability, is not!”. And indeed deniability is our last ditch weapon, and it is effective. Some dedicated programs will use your computer to randomly log in to websites, traverse them, download files from them (into a safe and quarantined section of the hard drive), and by so doing you acquire deniability. Was it you that checked out that gay and lesbian website, or was it the computer? Are you reading off-color postings by that group or the other, or did your random logger go there? Web activity deniability is how you secure cyberprivacy.
Israel and The US To Cyber-Paralyze Iran Before The Planes Take Off
Published July 6th, 2008 in IT. 0 CommentsIsrael and the US have jointly implemented an extremely innovative concept that would mark a new era in global warfare. Activating pre-positioned hacking-nodes throughout the Iranian cyber landscape, the Iranian massive daily data flow will be subtly altered to effect an escalating confusion leading to self damaging ad-hoc command decisions, insuring executive blindness when Israeli planes and American missiles converge on the scattered and well fortified atomic weapon facilities in Iran. Claims to that effect could not be substantiated. But they are consistent with recent advances in exploiting mathematical cracking of supposedly intractable ciphersystems, and cleverly using this fact to minutely alter the flow of encrypted messages so that they pass the authentication and verification tests, and taken at face value. Repeating this in a coordinated way, such minor modifications throughout the Iranian cyber landscape will indeed totally confuse the affected command and control centers who might, for quite a long time, not even realize that they are under an attack by a foreign power, preparing the ground for a dramatic and comprehensive elimination of Iran’s nuclear threat to humanity. The initiative (“Gideon’s Torch”) is reminiscent of Biblical Gideon’s tactics, as well as of the surprise and effective elimination of the Egyptian and Syrian air forces at the opening of the Six Days war.
90% of the email stuff you write to your friends is innocuous, you don’t really mind if someone takes a peek, so why bother with complicated encryption? But in the course of communicating you are likely to develop a sudden need to send along an account number, a secret password, an embarrassing confession, etc. You may now encrypt it on the fly. All you need is to think of a number you could send to your friend without specifying it. Like: your friend’s house address times the number of his children; or: his cellphone number minus his age. Once you agree on such a number, you both go to YouDeny.com, and use that shared number to generate your private copy of the YouDeny encryption package. You use the package to encrypt your secret, and send the encrypted sequence in your email. Your friend will paste the encrypted stuff into his copy of YouDeny, decrypt it, and read your message. Case closed, nothing to install, nothing to remember, no after effects. Simple, free, secure.
Case Western Reserve University has conducted a global expert survey on this pivotal controversy: are we running out of oil soon, or is it just an alarmist view? (PeakOilwhen.org) The latest report published last summer was quite conclusive: in the mid-term of the next US president, oil production will peak. Recently the experts’ survey was complemented with a public opinion poll, using the same BiPSA methodology, and the public and the experts agree. What remains as a big wonder is how come nobody grabs the bull by its horns?
Freedom without Privacy is not; Privacy without Deniability is Not!
Published May 20th, 2008 in IT. 0 CommentsIf everything you do, say, and think is exposed, criticized, responded-to, you don’t really have freedom — do you? The government today, and all sorts of shady organizations keep track of everything we do, buy, email. They take note of our travel, our taste, our preferences, and destroy our core sense of wellbeing associated with privacy and the ability to build a fence around our most intimate emotions, most delicate actions, most tentative experiments of mind, body and soul. Technology gave government the tools, security concerns gave them the legitimacy. We walk naked, we think in the open, we have no refuge to hide us, to be embarrassment-safe in. When we look around there is only one countermeasure left for us to fight back: deniability. If you can plausibly deny what you are accused of, you have a chance to fight back, to safeguard your privacy. Deniability is a difficult challenge, but it is a challenge we must face. Get started with YouDeny.com
So many people have so much to say, to reveal, to expose, to enlighten — and to resolve, but most of these people, most of the time, keep their mouth shut because it may “prove to be nothing”, it would “put them in risk for reprisal,” it would lead to unknown consequences… And they refuse to say it anonymously because they are unsure about how to guarantee their anonymity, and also, they have no way to claim credit, should their revelation be proven helpful. The people of AGS Encryptions have now addressed this issue. They posted the Anonymo.biz site carefully designed to both insure anonymity, and to provide the means for the anonymous speaker to claim due credit, should he or she choose to do so. The site has already attracted some bloggers and anonymous authors of controversial, or sensitive materials. The public has now a secure way to communicate with these authors. So many good things would happen when mattes now hidden will come to light. Bless be the sunshine!
