Privacy NOT by KimB

[Editor's Post]

It is time again to tell you what by now you already know, even if you didn't want to know, about our Privacy Policy.

Our Privacy Policy hasn't changed:

• We do not monitor you.
• We do not monetize the blog.
• We do not track you.

but, as you all know this is rather incomplete because:

• You are being monitored
• You are being monetized
• You are being tracked

just not by us.

What do you remember about Privacy? If you are over 30 you may remember what that meant, if you are under 30 you never got a chance to know anything about it.

The extent of Corporations and LEOs (Law Enforcement Organizations) General Surveillance, each of them desperate to find any aspect, any period, any thought that isn't tracked, logged, archived, analyzed and acted upon, has reached their first tier of saturation.

What that means is there is hardly a moment when you are not being watched: Live and Memorexed ¹.

Previous forms of surveillance generally were one-way: they watched you.

It was external, outdoors, the stuff of B-Movies stake-outs. There existed times where the Watchers lost contact; B-Movies foot races though crowded alleys and markets with the required up-turned vegetable cart delaying the pursuit just long enough for the hero or villain to disappear into the crowd.

This year the surveillance has achieved a two-way breakthrough milestone.

It started a few years back with those sports trackers and fitness monitors. It seemed innocuous stuff at the time. These items promised to monitor your heart rate while working out, analyze your workout effectiveness and track your fitness+muscle-mass progress over time. They never promised to DO the workouts for you, so the sweat was all yours and as many of us really dislike sweating, these devices evolved to be more fashionable because if it was just for the gym, you were going to take it off. Now you don't because it Looks Good and maybe fools folks into thinking that muscle-mass around your waist is really your biceps.

Two-way surveillance allows a peek inside your personal sphere and fitness trackers got a foothold. Not only do they track if your heart is beating, they track your location on the surface or inside a building. Some have a logging feature for those inconvenient times when it losses satellite signal, but will catch up once a connection is re-established. The over-turned vegetable cart doesn't work anymore.

Of course, the ubiquitous smartphone does the heavy lifting for most of the two-way surveillance but there's a bit of a problem: people drop, loose, forget or stop using them or sometimes turn them off. Although, by now you should know OFF does not mean OFF.

So the next step is to get inside where you might take off the fitness tracker or might set down the phone. This is where RING and IoT (Internet of Things aka IdiOT) play their part.

RING (owned by Amazon) provides a video camera system for your door. Generally installed at the front door but any door will do. IdiOT devices can be installed into anything that puts an access APP on your smartphone like thermostats, lights, garage doors. These are surveillance devices and even if you do not install the app, the surveillance is still happening. YOU are the target, not the Bad-Dudettes listed in the "Why You Need This" pamphlets.

Repeat after me:

If it puts an APP on your phone or computer
it's a surveillance device.

Here is a recent synthesis of RING abilities that are not included in the "Why You Need This": ^{2 3 4 5}

• Live Real Time and Recorded Video
• Accessible by World and Dog, by Bad-Dudes and Bad-Dudettes everywhere. Fully accessible by The Neighborhood Committee for General Housekeeping in charge of Ring Around The Collar and Floor Wax in the Corner Removal Compliance
• Video feeds direct to LEOs (Law Enforcement Organizations)
• Interior and Exterior details down to the square inch
• Two Way Talk usable by Strangers to talk to anyone inside at any time including Alexa
• Two Way Talk is also 24 Hour Listening by anyone who cares to listen to you singing in the shower or admire your snoring
• LEOs on the sales stump because they get free kit from Amazon if you buy what they're selling

These are features, they are part of the way the system works and is designed , it's not a bug.

So a bit more info not found on the "Why You Need This":

• 696 LEOs have full access to everything INSIDE and OUTSIDE (December 6, 2019)
• Anyone can install the APP and use it. You don't need a RING device to use the software
• Lots of 3d Party RING Apps and with ready to run Access Scripts
• A sample of usage within a 9 square mile area of unique Ring cameras that had uploaded video during the 500-day window
• The precise locations of approximately 20,000 Ring cameras across 15 different US cities
• Washington, DC, 1,863 devices pinpointed
• Los Angeles, 5,016 Ring cameras located
• Denver, 1,788 devices found
• Hidden geographic coordinates latitude and longitude with up to six decimal points of precision, accurate to the square inch of ground
• Washington, DC, at least 13 active Ring cameras line the path between a grade school and playing field
• Washington, DC, APP users shared videos of children
  (No one cares if they share pictures of adults)
• Track individual's entry and exit from businesses like a health clinic and legal office
• 90 Cities/LEOs have partnered with Amazon to sell Ring cameras
• Police agree not to talk about the details of the contract.
  If you remember STINGRAY/DRT BOX it's the same non-disclosure ^{6a 6b 6c}
• Police perform marketing and sales by encouraging residents to use the APP or buy Ring products and provides free "seed cameras" to kick start the local surveillance system
• Police departments run any public statements about Ring past Amazon first. Amazon PR provides template social media posts and pre-written press releases. "Any and all contact from journalists should be immediately shared with Ring."

Perhaps you are thinking

So, OK ... They can see inside and outside.
I get it.
I won't buy one or remove it if I have one.

Well, that's a nice thought but you have neighbors that have already installed a RING or like device. Guess which way that exterior camera is pointed? It's pointing at your house, at your garage, at your back yard. The busy-body-nosy-parker-informant is watching you and uploading your comings and goings, your friends, your parties, your holiday family gatherings and family fights in real time.

It's a strategy well documented under the STASI and they didn't need half the cameras to employ it, just upwards of 600,000 helpful citizens.⁷

Using cameras and geo-location, LEOs are having a big laugh at our collective myopia or shortsightedness. They collect far more than needed for any investigation, trapping millions into LEO databases because we passed though an intersection with a traffic camera.

Over collection is the name of the game.
Collect the Haystack is the goal. ⁸

An investigation of several arson cases in Wisconsin (value $50,000). ATF requested and received reverse-location data on about 1,500 phones in an area the size of an average Milwaukee city block. ⁹

The idea goes like this:

While you can't track the phone of a suspect you don't have

• You can start with the time and place of the crime
• Look to see what phones were nearby
• Presume all phones belong to the suspect

A small detail: this assumes whoever committed the crimes has an active phone. They may not have a phone, may not have brought it with them, or may have brought it with them in airplane mode or powered off, or used someone else's phone. However, using airplane mode won't stop the data collection because there are other parts of the device still broadcasting. And, we already know OFF isn't OFF.

Camera capture systems are everywhere. There really isn't any legal prohibition to them. If you are imaged by one, you are in a public space or a private space where you waived your rights to having your image taken. Major bushiness install detailed surveillance, health care, hospitals, supermarkets all have them. Occasionally, grainy blurred images are trotted out for public consumption with sensational headlines as favored by the 24-Hours of 5-Minutes of Recycled No News Services.

In the USA, we have Running-A-Red-Light cameras with automated automatic ticketing. In Australia, cameras target mobile phone use while driving with a substantial fine if imaged using one. Results are as you expect because we all know people use the phone while driving, just as people run red lights at intersections.

Worthy causes to be sure on the surface, but these systems do not stop or alter the behavior. They do provide a renewable source of income for LEOs and underfunded Community Budgets. An automated variation on asset forfeiture laws.

Mobile phones imaged in use while driving (In Australia)¹⁰:

• 3,303 drivers in one week
• 500 drivers a day
• 6 month trial: 100,000 drivers out of 8.5 million checked
• If 3% of drivers caught were to challenge the penalty,
  it would lead to 72,000 cases per year
• Reversed onus of proof, requiring drivers to prove what they are holding is a flat packed banana

Oh well... hmmm... Why is OFF not OFF?

Because they told us...

Well, they eventually told us, they didn't do it willingly or completely and they continually omit the details and roll back or re-introduce un-fixes to fixes.

Every modern device has a lot of layers to the hardware and software. The two layers do not have to connect. The lights on-off are a feature not a requirement.

There are 2 ways the lights get turned on:

• The software sends a message to the hardware to turn on or off the green/red lights. If there isn't any message from the software the light is blank
• Another part of hardware sends a message to turn on or off the green/red lights. If another part of the system doesn't flip the switch the light is blank

It isn't the hardest job on the programming scale. Wax On / Wax Off. Lights On / Lights Off.

Apple's new iPhone 11 incorporates an incomplete version of Ultra Wideband technology (UWB). UWB is designed to allow your phone to find and connect to any other UWB phone or device. If you have geo-location turned OFF at the top level and OFF for every APP on the phone, one might think that it would be OFF all together but UWB won't work if geo-location is OFF. UWB needs your precise location. ^{11a 11b 12 13}

So the phone auto-turns-on geo-location tracking periodically (every couple of minutes) just in case it can find something to partner with. Whether you want to or not, the Apple iPhone is going to hunt for a partner.

Apple's reasoning:

“So users can do things like share a file with someone using AirDrop simply by pointing at another user’s iPhone.”

It's incomplete, not fully functional and you cannot turn it off or limit it, but they thought it was a great thing to give you anyway. A bonus boon to anyone wanting to drop illegal, illicit, unwanted images on your phone just by pointing at it and waiting a couple of minutes.

What's also clear is that there is more coming:

Apple:
“The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings”

Translated into normal language it means there is stuff on the phone with no OFF settings. Apple will either provide a future OFF option or simply hide the indicator light which may pacify their clientele.

We know that OFF isn't OFF but ON is generally ON.

Apple isn't the only one with skin in the game, Google's in there too. They got caught out collecting your location data even if you have Geo Location Data Tracking turned OFF. ⁹ Google's facing lawsuits over collecting and retaining location data and distributing it illegally. Even when Google can wave a warrant, Google was never supposed to have the data to start with, much less keep it.

Now that you've glazed over there are things you can do.

1. Stop believing the ads
2. Stop upgrading or buying stuff
3. Reduce device usage
4. Place devices in a drawer when not in use
5. Remove obsolete devices with multi-year year batteries
6. Use it when you need it
7. Don't feed the machine

Hot RING Topics:³

• Sit back and relax to over 45 minutes of entertainment
• Join us as we go hit on completely random targets
• Watch while we tell shelter owners we killed a kitten
• Hear unsolicited racist commentary
• Funny "wake up" calls
• Ransom Demands to recover control of your system
• Talk to the children
• Video Replay On Line
• Watch the shows live...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorex
   A series of famous television commercials featuring Ella Fitzgerald. In the commercials she would sing a note that shattered a glass while being recorded to a Memorex audio cassette. The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"
   
   
2. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/ring-used-parties-swag-to-build-700-police-partnerships-report-finds/
   Uploaded Ring footage reportedly provides location to the square inch
   Neighbors data proves extra-revealing as Amazon police partnerships accelerate.
   Kate Cox - Dec 10, 2019 8:50 pm UTC
   A review of Gizmodo RING use analysis
   
   
3. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/wave-of-ring-surveillance-camera-hacks-tied-to-podcast-report-finds/
   Wave of Ring surveillance camera hacks tied to podcast, report finds
   The bad actors harassing folks for fun got more attention than they meant to.
   Kate Cox - Dec 12, 2019 10:10 pm UTC
   In all the cases, some bad actor accessed indoor Ring cameras (not doorbells) and used them to harass, intimidate, or attempt to extort the residents.
   
   
4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/13/ring-hackers-reportedly-watching-talking-strangers-in-home-cameras
   Ring hackers are reportedly watching and talking to strangers via in-home cameras
   Hackers are using two-way talk function to wake people up in the middle of the night and watch unsuspecting children
   Poppy Noor Fri 13 Dec 2019 13.45 EST
   A review of a Motherboard investigation into RING.
   
   
5. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/23/be-careful-you-are-not-giving-away-your-privacy-with-christmas-gifts-this-year
   Be careful you are not giving away your privacy with Christmas gifts this year
   Tim Singleton Norton
   Sun 22 Dec 2019 21.00 EST
   In the US, this has led to a rapid take-up of the [RING] tiny cameras on front porches and doorsteps. In turn, this has been too tempting an opportunity for US law enforcement, which earlier this year went into partnership with Amazon to gain unprecedented and unfettered access to video footage.
   
   
6. 6a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker
   The StingRay is an IMSI-catcher, a controversial cellular phone surveillance device, manufactured by Harris Corporation.
   
   6b https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirtbox_(cell_phone)
   A dirtbox (or DRT box) is a cell site simulator, a phone device mimicking a cell phone tower, that creates a signal strong enough to cause nearby dormant mobile phones to switch to it. Mounted on aircraft, it is used by the United States Marshals Service to locate and collect information from cell phones believed to be connected with criminal activity. It can also be used to jam phones. The device's name comes from the company that developed it, Digital Receiver Technology, Inc. (DRT), owned by the Boeing company.
   
   6c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_law_enforcement
   Initially, the use of Stingray phone trackers was a secret, due to a number of non-disclosure agreements between individual police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI entered into agreements with at least 48 police departments in the United States. In these agreements, the FBI allowed police departments to use the stingrays, while requiring police departments provide no information to either the public or the courts regarding the devices' operation or existence.
   
   
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_collaborator
   An unofficial collaborator or IM (both from German inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) or, euphemistically, informal collaborator (informeller Mitarbeiter) was an informant in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) who delivered private information to the Ministry for State Security (MfS / Stasi). At the end of the East German government, there was a network of around 189,000 informants, working at every level of society.
   
   During its lifetime the Stasi employed around 624,000 Informal collaborators
   
   In the residential areas the Stasi relied on "Information people" ("Auskunftspersonen " / AKPs), for information on neighbours. These were informants who in most circumstances would not themselves have been listed as IMs, and whose information gathering would mostly have been controlled by senior Stasi officers. They would have sought to conceal the true basis for their "curiosity", as representing, for instance, the local council, the military or the tax office in order to get their target-interlocutors talking.
   
   
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_B._Alexander
   "Rather than look for a single needle in the haystack, his approach was, 'Let's collect the whole haystack. Collect it all, tag it, store it ... And whatever it is you want, you go searching for it."
   
   
9. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/feds-reap-data-from-1500-phones-in-largest-reported-reverse-location-warrant/
   Feds reap data from 1,500 phones in largest reported reverse-location warrant
   The search warrants demanded nine hours' worth of location history from Google.
   Kate Cox - Dec 13, 2019 9:19 pm UTC
   Federal investigators trying to solve arson cases in Wisconsin have scooped up location history data for about 1,500 phones that happened to be in the area.
   Users who disable Google's location history features should, in theory, not have data in Google's SensorVault for the company to pass along to investigators. That said, Google is facing multiple lawsuits, including a potential class-action in the US and a suit by consumer protection regulators in Australia, alleging the company misled users and retained location data even if the setting was turned off.
   
   
10. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/17/mobile-phone-detection-cameras-more-than-3000-nsw-drivers-week
    Mobile phone detection cameras pick up more than 3,000 NSW drivers in a week
    Drivers caught by the cameras before March will receive a warning letter, but then fines of [AU$] $344 will be levied
    Josh Taylor
    Mon 16 Dec 2019 23.31 EST
    [AU$344 is about US$237 as of 12/19/2019]
    
    
11. 11a https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/the-iphone-11-pros-location-data-puzzler/
    
    11b https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/apple-explains-mysterious-iphone-11-location-requests/
    Detailed analysis of the OFF-ON location tracking in iPhone 11.
    
    
12. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/12/the-iphone-11s-u1-chip-necessitates-constant-geolocation-pings-apple-says/
    Analysis of iPhone 11 Ultra Wideband technology (UWB) implementation.
    
    
13. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/06/apple_ultra_wideband/ Analysis of iPhone 11 Ultra Wideband technology (UWB) implementation.
    
    

Bare Blog Names by KimB

[Editor's Post]

Back in the early days of the blog, we opted to buy extra DNS/URL names for the blog. Back-in-the-Day these were just about given away and having a few extra pathways to the blog seemed like a great way for guests to stop by for a nice cuppa while sharing our family stories.

Like many other internet related things, the price of the Name+Extention went from

-> cheap neat!
-> wow!
-> ouch!
-> no longer in the budget

There really isn't any reason for the DNS names to be expensive but the name-granters have figured that those with deeper pockets will pay "whatever the market will bear", which for our blog, has hit: No Mo'Bare.

Our current DNS names are:

• mrsbizzyb.com
• mrsbizzyb.net
• mrsbizzybsayshello.com

And for our other blog:

• elgato2k.com
• elgato2k.net
• elgato2000.com

The cost of the 6 names has now exceeded $300.00 USD. We do not monetize our blogs, and we have no plans to do so, so we have opted to reduce the number of names that we have to pay for out of pocket.

Starting in December 2018, the additional DNS/URL names for the blog will be:

• mrsbizzybsayshello.com
• elgato2000.com

The blog has been active for so many years now; filled with wonderful stories and contributions from family and friends and we plan that it will be around for a whole lot longer, sharing the stories that have yet to be written, after all, families never run out of stories. Our visitors may have to type a few more letters or replace a bookmark to find them.

Cookies are Bad for You by KimB

[Editor's Post]

Everyone knows Cookies are Bad for You but we still consume lots of them.

Years ago, watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, she hosted a guest nutritionist telling everyone around the OprahSphere how to lose weight. The Skinny Dude was telling those of us with Many Shades of Tubbiness how to be Just Like Him: Skinny.

His advice:

If you want a cookie... Eat a Cookie.

Oprah's response:

A Cookie? A Cookie?
It's not A COOKIE, it's a BAG OF COOKIES!!!!

Which goes to show that Oprah knows of what she speaks.

In my few encounters with nutritionists I've noticed that they have always been "skinny folks". The only credible people I've met are people who have Been There Done That ... about a thousand times.

Skinny folks, don't get it.
Fat folks get more than they should.

Which brings me to the topic of the day:

COOKIES are BAD for YOU

Because like Bags of Chocolate Chip Cookies, Computer Cookies are just as nasty. Worse even. A Bag of Chocolate Chip Cookies at least tastes good. Computer Cookies don't have any taste at all yet still manage to clog the arteries of your computer faster than the fake-chocolate, high fructose corn syrup, 200 years worth of preservative Chocolate Chip Cookies can clog yours.

Sort of a race to oblivion.

What are Computer Cookies?

You might very well ask...

Cookies are technically small files that are created and destroyed when you use a Browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge/IE, Firefox and others).¹ The appear harmless in concept but in practice they can be nasty or put to nasty use. They come in many types with different uses and their current use is one reason why the internet is the mess it is today.

Here are just some of the types of cookies you will find when you visit any website:

• Session cookie
• Persistent cookie
• Secure cookie
• Http-only cookie
• Same-site cookie
• Third-party cookie
• Supercookie
• Supercookie (more than)
• Zombie cookie / Evercookie

The average web page contains 20 or more cookies. Only 1% of cookies are strictly necessary. A scan of 330,000 websites found 4,940,969 Garbage Cookies and that's a lot of Computer Cookie Calories clogging up the internet.²

Computer Cookie Calories 2
Average cookies per website	20
Strictly necessary cookies	1%
Persistent Cookies	74%
Websites Scanned	329,151
Cookies Found	6,656,090
3rd party cookies	4,940,969

Cookies are the number one method companies and government's use to track people. The entire Internet Data Mining System is built on Computer Cookies and corporations use them to make Billions and Billions of Dollars from you, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and people you didn't even know you know.

Governments, of course, have many more methods they can use because they are not constrained by Rule of Law - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

Years ago, working in a Start Up in the early Daze of Silicon Valley, discussing some internet protocols with other engineers in our High Tech Environment, the subject of cookies came up. One of the engineers stated flatly that No Cookie was ever going to grace the environment of his computer system and flatly refused to support cookie use. He was one of the few that no other engineer could bamboozle with Internet Hocus Pocus. He knew his stuff. And we all knew he knew too.

I have often thought about that conversation and thought More Fool Me for not recognizing what was really happening. Engineers get rather short sighted while slogging through deadlines and project status meetings and milestones and releases and QA cycles; more often than not, we miss the whole point.

• Engineers are good at doing what they are told to do.
• Engineers are great at building a Never Seen Before Widget
• Engineers are terrible at recognizing what it is that they are really building
• Engineers are horribly gullible and the smell of money and stock options makes them loopy

So what is the fuss about?

• A cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user's computer by the user's web browser while the user is browsing
• A cookie is designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember stateful information (such as items added in the shopping cart in an online store) or to record the user's browsing activity
• A cookie can be used to remember arbitrary pieces of information that the user previously entered into form fields such as names, addresses, passwords, and credit card numbers

These are what allow websites to "remember you" and perform "auto logins". They help you avoid the unpleasant necessity of remembering and typing in awkward number sequences and the website takes advantage of this to put all kinds of trash on your system for their own benefit.

Computer Cookies were invented (ahem loose phrasing here) in 1994. Browser Makers created the code and started pushing cookies onto systems everywhere and sort of forgot to mention this to the public until they were outed in a Financial Times article about them on February 12, 1996

So for 2 years, Silicon Valley didn't say nuffin'.

At about the time of the article, the folks in charge of Defining the Internet had already identified third-party cookies as a considerable privacy threat.

Silicon Valley didn't change a single thing. 1996 - 2018 ... 22 years and counting.

Kind of makes you shudder a bit. Silicon Valley is just as forthcoming now as they were then.

Cookies and the Are You You? Problem

In the old days when folks were trying to recognize Friend From Foe there were a whole lot of ways you could tell or get the other guy to tell which side of the battlefield they were fighting for:

Loud Movie Voice:

H A L T !!! Who goes there? Friend or Foe???

Do you really think anyone was stupid enough to answer FOE?

In the internet, our battlefield lies between your computer and the destination computer you want to access. The size of the battlefield is enormous and spans the entire globe, with every government and bad dudette on the planet looking to find a way past each other into your very attractive computer or mobile device.

The Cookie was an attempt to create a system where the Web Page knew You were You and didn't go blabbing your personal life to anyone else. This is sort of moot at the moment as web pages no longer need to blab much as entire corporations are spewing their data repositories containing every item they've collected about World+Dog to any FOE who wants to see it for FREE. If you are FRIEND you have to pay big bucks for the same data.

It was not the only way to do it this and like the stupidity of Friend or Foe, it didn't take long for the Foes to pretend to be Friends.

It was known 20 years ago. It is known now. It's not new news.

It's just the folks making a lot of bucks off of you DO NOT want YOU do know what to do about it.

Challenge of the Cookie

The internet battlefield is strewn with the corpses of good ideas and punctured balloons. It's like trench warfare: the lines move by inches back and forth. We gain some and we lose some. There isn't any "final victory". Foes are clever and they figure out new ways to pass through to their desired destinations.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between FOES:

Governments   Corporations   Bad Guys

They work the same methods and use the same techniques. There are no Knights in Shining Armour there.

What there are, are folks pushing back against the FOE Lines to minimize some of the damage they do. The damage is greater than advertised. Google recently shut down their Google+³ system due to:

Pick the Google answer you think best fits the topic:

1. Low usage.
or
2. Major Software Bug allowing Private Data to be exposed.

Was it due to cookies?   Yes.

Because cookies ARE methods by which private data is collected and then exposed not to mention a lot of other bad news coding. It was sooo bad they folded up the entire shop because there are some new laws (mostly in the EU), that make it very expensive when these eruptions happen. Facebook's MarkZ got a nice grilling in Congress⁴ and actually had to put on a suit and tie for similar reasons. I'm sure MarkZ was more upset that he couldn't wear his tee-shirt to the BBQ.

Recently, there was a new Internet Directive for browser makers involving removing cookies on demand or when a setting is checked that tells the browser to clear all cookies. Google sort of forgot to clear their own tracking cookies.⁵ When it was noticed (and it was noticed pretty fast) the official response:

Google:
Oh..   Ahhh...   Ummmm....
We thought you meant the OTHER GUY'S cookies.
Surely you want to keep OURS...

Corporations don't want to make things better for you. Only for themselves. In the Friend or Foe battle, corporations jump lines all the time. Even when you get a message saying "Cookies are cleared" that doesn't mean anything. All it means is you got a message with that text. It's a FOE claiming to be FRIEND.

So here are some things you can do to Challenge the Cookie and they are not painful or hard.

1. Check for Cookies
   Look at each web page you visit and check what kind of cookies are being pushed. This ability varies by browser. Some make it easy to see what's being dumped to your system. It is most often in the Privacy Settings Page of the browser.
2. Turn OFF the settings to automatically accept all cookies.
   This varies by browser. It's hidden in some and right up front in others. It is most often in the Privacy Settings Page of the browser.
3. Set up Your OWN List of FRIEND sites
   Set up Your OWN privacy list of webpages where cookies are OK Most people visit a small handful of webpages where they really want to have their data harvested. Most people visit a lot of webpages just to Surf. Use the Privacy Options to create your own list of who gets FRIEND status. Everyone else will be FOE by default. Change the list as needed.
4. Reconsider which sites you go to
   There are so many sites with similar information select the ones that aren't FOE makers. Put them on your FRIEND site list.
5. Turn off JavaScript
   This is the BEST thing you can do. It's the most armour you can get. Without JavaScript setting cookies is much harder. Never underestimate FOEs but it will push them back a long way. This setting is often hidden in the browser configuration file.
6. Accept there will be less flashy page layouts
   If you DO NOT allow ALL cookies and/or JavaScript some sites are gonna barf. Yeppers, sites that cannot get their cookie fix might choke. Many times it doesn't matter that much you can still use the site OKish. Some fancy stuff might not work but do you really need the fancy stuff?
7. Clear your History, your Cookies and your Browser Cache
   This varies by browser. It's hidden in some and right up front in others. It is most often in the Privacy Settings Page of the browser. There is often a direct button for this on the Browser Menu too. Clear your Trash Can too.
8. Clean out Temporary Files.
   Temporary files never make it to the trash can. They are normally managed by the operating system. Cookies and Junk can accumulate in the Temporary File Storage Area. This an advanced housekeeping action. DO NOT attempt to do this without completely understanding which files you can remove. Clearing out the wrong files can disable your computer. You can find information on the internet on how to do this for your system.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
2. From a research website that extracts and analyzes cookie usage.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%2B
   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/08/google-plus-security-breach-wall-street-journal
4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/zuckerberg-hearing-facebook-tracking-questions-house-back-foot
5. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/25/chrome_69_google_cookies/

Wanna Cookie?

Entertaining the Computer by KimB

[Editor's Post]

It's that time when the nearly useless requirement rolls around for us to tell you how your are tracked.

You are not tracked by us.
But you are tracked: relentlessly and ruthlessly.

There! Done!

It is no longer possible to evade the tracking. You can put some dampers on it but we now permanently live under surveillance: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, from -9 months (more or less), to day 0, until the day you die and even that won't stop the tracking. You might be worth more dead than you think.

So on the good news side of things: LOTS and LOTS of folks are doing as much dampening as possible.

On the bad news side of things: There are MORE trackers than you could possibly imagine. Even the 5EYES haven't figured out all the trackers that are tracking them - which makes them very cranky indeed.

One of the interesting changes in human-computer relationships is how our roles have been reversed so quietly that hardly anyone notices.

Computers were promised to be tools for Human use.
Humans are now tools that Computers use.

It's rather interesting to see the ways in which we have become indentured ¹ to computers.

An indentured person has signed a contract for a particular fixed time in return for a fixed benefit. The contract can be sold to someone else and the indentured is obligated to work out the contract.

Gee, if that doesn't sound like a Smartphone Cellular Contract: where you agree to pay for an expensive device and agree to charges that are not ALL the charges as they pile in a few they forgot to mention or glossed over, and you are obligated to use their system with all of the add-on charges that they glossed over and you cannot exit before your time has expired.

So we willingly indenture ourselves not to a company but to a system of computers. We carry it because "we must". We pay for it because "we have to". We live years of our lives supporting a system of computers because "we have no choice".

In the days of Old Empires people lived their lives in support of Pharaohs and Emperors. Now we live our lives in support of massive computer systems.

Gee ain't that grand!

In every store, everything has a bar code ² and all sorts of nice graphic 2D matrix codes and often RFID chips in their products. They can be in boxes and clothes and shoes, in cars and even in people. Some companies offer "free RFID chip inplant days". While not "mandatory" and often "illegal" in some locales, employees queue up ready to be branded so the computer can follow them easier. Stock clerks feed the computer information similar to feeding an infant. They scan tags and ids and even use images to show the computer what it cannot see for itself: that the items are not only placed according to their tracking location but that the products are "front facing" or "positioned" exactly how the computer indicated on the layout diagrams.

There will be no deviation!

In days gone by, in market squares people would exchange coins for goods. You can see this antique setup still working at swap meets and yard sales where passersby will pick up a discarded item and pay the seller for it. Other than robbery and the weight of the coins, one of the biggest drawbacks was that people had to know how to:

• count
• add
• subtract
• figure multiples

It's all really complex how we got to:

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• 1 + 1 = 2
• 5 - 1 = 4
• 2 * 4 = 8

but we managed and we were able to buy 1 chicken, 2 apples, 4 tomatoes and 8 potatoes for a very long time. ³

The tradesperson would figure out what each of the items was worth including the required taxes and levies and tell us what we owed. In many cases a handy dandy side of entertainment was included by "bargaining" ⁴ for a better exchange. If both parties agreed then the exchange took place.

Of course if you couldn't count or add, subtract or multiply fast enough things might not turn out as you expected. Depending on which way the scale tipped you either got a Great Deal or A Rip Off.⁵

After the Civil War the Cash Register was invented ⁶ and this allowed both the seller and buyer to watch the counting without having to worry that someone forgot to Carry the 1. The total appeared in the window and That Said John Was That.

Still there was a problem: You might know that you were owed $4.90 but if the buyer gave you $5.00 ... well What To Do Percy?

It seems that being able To Count³ is not the same skill as Making Change⁵ .

So cash registers became computer Point of Sale Systems ⁷ linking RFID codes to pricing, adding up the totals with all the taxes and levies and displaying the value of the goods. Once the buyer handed over their money the machine would tell the cashier how much to return to the customer.

Years ago I was dining at a small breakfast establishment that had a newly acquired POS (it's officially called Point of Sale but the software is often a Piece of S#@% and that name works too.). The customer ahead of us paid their bill and while the cashier struggled to deduct $11.25 from a $20.00 bill, the computer showed the exact amount owed to be returned to the customer: $8.75. I watched as the owner scolded the cashier for taking $8.75 from the till and forced her to re-count the entire cash transaction by verbally counting out the change from $11.25 to $20.00

The bill for your party is $11.25.

.75 cents makes $12.
$1 dollar makes $13.
$1 dollar makes $14.
$1 dollar makes $15.
$5 dollars makes $20.

Thank you.

The exchange took longer than it took to eat the pancakes (which were quite good by the way).

When I asked the owner why the cashier wasn't allowed to give the change indicated by the computer register, I expected it was because they didn't trust the computer (not a bad thing in truth), but I was surprised when the reason was: The cashier cannot count change properly.

Evidently the cashier didn't know what 3 quarters, 3 dollars, and a fiver looked like.

So now we have POS systems everywhere counting quarters and fivers and the number of steps the serving staff took to go from the kitchen to your table and how long you had to sit there hoping the food was going to arrive hot. The POS system tells the chiefs how many flapjacks you want and some clever systems can even weigh the garbage and calculate how much was wasted because while the flapjacks came hot, there wasn't any syrup on the table and it took 30 minutes to open the TimeLock on the storeroom door to find a new bottle of Not-Maple Syrup, all because the computer didn't tell them to replace the empty one.

Education no longer matters!

While marketing at the local super, I've watched the cashiers move away from even handling monies. Of course paper money is fiat money (it's just a piece of paper) and the coins used to be real metal but are now some amalgam recast from old dental fillings ^{8 9}, but there was actually something physically in your hands and pockets. Now we all have plastic cards that we stuff into the maw of the massive Financial Computer System whenever we hope to make a purchase.

We HOPE we can make a purchase because we never really know what the Payment Computer System is going to agree to. There are numerous screens of numbers or requests that you have to pass through and while the systems crosscheck the POS, DEBIT, CREDIT, ATM, and ACH Financial Systems to verify your ability to exchange invisible fiat paper worth $4.90 for a loaf of bread. ^{7 10}

While standing by helplessly but hopeful that the card won't burp up You Shall Not Pass, there is nothing anyone can do. The cashier cannot do anything because unless the computer agrees, you won't get your loaf of bread. The store manager cannot do anything because the computer didn't indicate it was OK.

We await upon the pleasure of the System.

Not that long ago, while waiting for the computer to process the people ahead of me in the line, I noticed an elderly woman. She had no groceries but she had a card in her hand. When she got to the point where the computer/cashier could process something, there was a quiet exchange between the woman and the cashier. Being too far away to hear the exchange I saw the cashier shaking her head no, the woman looking a bit frazzled and the cashier pointing a an ATM across the corridor. One of those ATMs that charge you double the amount you take out. The woman made her way to the ATM.

The impatient people waiting behind her, heaved big sighs of relief and quickly queued up their goods and shuffled their mortal coils through the Dance of The Debits; continuing along their Happy Track Day jabbering away on their smartphones, because of course, THAT was what one DOES when you are IMPORTANT!

Being more than a few people behind in the queue with my loaf of bread, I watched the woman attempt to use the ATM. She wasn't having any success. Soon a clerk come to help her. Together they shook their heads. The woman looked distraught. The kindly clerk took her to his checkout counter and pointed to the Payment System and I watch while the Dance continued. It wasn't going well at all.

At last being within earshot of the first cashier I inquired:

What is the woman trying to do? What's the problem?

She wants Cash Back from her account.

Is there an issue?

We cannot give Cash Back unless you buy something for more than $1.00.

Ohhh Ahhhh Hmmmmm

The Horns of a Dilemma

There was only ONE thing to do.

I reached into my Mad Money pocket and pulled out a REAL FIAT $20.00 bill. I told the cashier to give the $20.00 to the old lady so she can buy something, which will then qualify her to put her card into the Payment Computer System so she can get her Cash Back. The kindly clerk looked at the $20.00 and at me in complete puzzlement. I said,

Sell her a packet of gum for a buck so she can get her cash back.

Light Bulbs are now LEDs but there was Illumination.

Computers are not Humans. They don't care.

Most humans don't care either but Computers don't care about them anymore than they do the rest of us.

I play several computer MMORPG video games ¹¹ with varying degree of success. Early games were tests of human - machine interface and used simple menus to accomplish "game stuff". Advanced games provide images that look like real world ones and some activities that mimic real world actions. There are lots of variations from basic, to neat, to wonderful all the way to creepy, weird, and totally yucky.

One of the most common secondary activities in these games is to use a scripting language to automate the game play.

So... lest this small sentence get lost in the flow:

They automate game play so Their Computer can play The Big Server In The Sky without human interaction.

It's a bit like the 1983 movie WarGames ¹² where you get your computer to run a simulaton against another computer because the Big System In The Sky cannot tell the difference between a simulation and reality. It cannot tell a human from another computer.

Ok there's a bit of a fudge here because every game system eventually has to work out HOW to tell if a human is actually playing or are they just pretending to play. But for the most part automated scripts work extremely well and play the game much better than any human. It's the nature of the computer: it never blinks, breaths, takes a bio, or misses a scripted action. You just rollout the script and sit back and watch Netflix while your computer plays the game for you.

In one of my games we had a fishing derby. Fishing is a popular item in many games. The goal was to catch A LOT of fish. It ran for 48 hours (that's to allow world time zones to participate). Of course there are no real fish in the game. It's a fishing simulation. Sometimes you get a fish, sometimes you don't. The simulation is designed with just enough fish rewards to encourage you to sit and click the fishing icon - in this case for 48 hours.

At a mid-way check-in by the Event Team they hoped that everyone was Having Fun and Enjoying the Event. I said,

I don't know about any people having fun ...
but I'm sure the fishing scripts are having a blast.

There is a difference, albeit small, between

Assisting a human to play
and
Eliminating the human from play.

These types of MMORPG Games are not cheap to play. They have micro-transaction stores and subscriptions and many other means to separate you from your fiat money. It's not uncommon to pay $200-$600 or more to play just one MMORPG style game. The companies that produce the games make Billions and Billions through various purchase mechanisms.¹³

Scripting has become very sophisticated and nearly every move in any game can be scripted. Your computer no longer needs YOU to play the game. Scripting allows you to pay a lot of money just so your computer can have fun playing with other computers.

Leave the power on.

HAL will contact you when your funds run out.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Matrix_(2D)_barcodes
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Example_images
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_numerals
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bargaining
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change-making_problem
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_problem
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_register
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_metals
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_(United_States_coin)
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupronickel
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgam_(dentistry)
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_card
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACH_Network
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest-grossing_video_game_franchises_of_all_time

Click to Fish

Can a Robot be a Person? by KimB

[Editor's Post]

Can a robot be a person? will be a very interesting decision and one not too far distant. It will define a lot of legal and societal issues for a good while. Maybe not forever but for at least a decade or more. There's a lot of money riding on the outcomes and variations and not all bets are going the same direction.

The term ROBOT comes from the Czech word, ROBOTA¹ meaning FORCED LABOR and was invented by painter, writer, poet Josef Čapek² circa 1920. The word was first used by his brother Karel Čapek³, a noted playwright, dramatist, and photographer, in his 1920 play R.U.R⁴. The word ROBOT stuck and now we have lots and lots of robots with many derivations like bot, cyborg, android, replicant, droid and drone for a few.

Josef Čapek was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died circa 1945. His brother Karel Čapek died of pneumonia in December 1938 but the Gestapo, in an uncharacteristic loss of HUMINT, did not realize he was already dead when they went to arrest him, so they arrested his actress wife, Olga Scheinpflugová⁵, and interrogated her in his place.

It is not without some irony that the fate of the creators of the word ROBOT suffered such a backlash; highlighting the danger of the very things they tried to foreshadow in their play.

For what else is a ROBOT but a slave?

A machine is a mechanical device designed to perform some action⁶. We often think, only mechanical devices can be machines but there are software machines too. The distinction between them may be moot but the issues are not. There have been plenty of reactions to what they do and how they do it: fear, joy, loathing, envy, desire, control, power.


Hand Axe

Machines have been around for a long time, since at least 3.3 Million Years, when Hand Axes⁷ where the machines of choice by Paleolithic peoples. The Antikythera Mechanism⁸ is a wonderful clockwork like device made from bronze gears. It dates from 150-100 BC. Automata are self-operating machine designed to automatically follow a predetermined sequence of operations, like animated Jacquemart bellstrikers⁹ in clock towers or cuckoo clocks¹⁰, which have been around since 1 AD.

Machines have changed a lot in 3.3 million years and humans have a long-term relationship with them. The latest generation of machines are different and their use will impact a great deal of society and the world.

Antikythera
Mechanism

There is something different about today's machines. Older machines, like old cars, used purely mechanical processes: cables, pullies, levers and a few rudimentary sensors, like a thermostat. Newer machines may still have mechanical parts but they are no longer directly under human control. It isn't that we don't already have automated manufacturing where industrial robots wiz parts along an assembly line or processing plants that are "dark" with no lighting, because there are no humans working inside, humans only drop off raw materials into intake hoppers and return to pick up bags of processed goods at the output dock, it is that the machines will do things on their own without any need of a human.

The hand axe will be doing it's own thing.

And this is were things get interesting because if there are no humans at all in the process, no humans to dump in the materials, no humans to start or stop the assembly line, no humans to pick up the finished goods, then we move into an interesting paradox.

One of the more prominent examples are self-driving cars. We've had human driven vehicles for eons, where charioteers, carriages, stage coaches, chauffeurs, taxis', buses and drivers took people to their destinations. The passenger just sat there but another human did the driving. Now we will have no human in control. There wont be a steering wheel, or brake or accelerator. You will get in and be whisked to your destination solely by voice or hand commands.

Sounds grand!

But if you've made it this far in my posts you'll know - it isn't all that grand. In fact it's not good, not good at all. It belongs right there with the I(DI)OT devices and Alexa/Siri/Google surveillance devices: in the dustbin.

But the focus for this post is: Can a Robot be a Person?

Why?

Because it matters and it matters a lot. A robot cannot be a HUMAN but can it be a PERSON? A lot hinges on the outcome.

So consider:

You are in your self-driving car, reclining on the faux-leather seats, watching the newest streamed costume drama, maybe having a snack out of the hot-cold food caddy and a fresh cuppa dispensed from the latest in micro-thimble beverage brewers while occasionally peeking at the view through the tinted black windows.

And

• Your car strikes a pedestrian
• Your car runs into another car
• Your car stops and you get rear ended
• Your car speeds up exceeding the speed limit
• Your car kills you when it slams into a barrier

These cases are right from recent news but they have been "considered" for a long time by those who work on setting up "Safe. Reliable. Repeatable." instructions for machines. And so far the answers are Not Good. It's not that the people doing the thinking and programming are incompetent ... well maybe some are ... but the modern world of computer technology and development is not suited to find answers where there are No Good Answers. Someone wants to make a quick buck and your life is of no consequence in their calculations about how much money they are going to make.

If the car is not under human control

• directly   (like stepping on the brake)
• indirectly  (like telling the driver what to do)

then

• Who is at fault?

We DO like to ascribe faults and someone is gonna go down for running over the person on the bicycle.

So we have a number of possibilities:

• The car manufacturer
• The software manufacturer
• The brake component manufacturer
• The sensor device manufacturer
• The sensor software application creator
• The dealership
• The insurance company
• The International standards boards
• The Federal standards boards
• The State standards boards
• The occupant
• The victim

The list is much longer but you get the idea.

Our old rules, some of which work and some that don't, prescribed actions, penalties, punishment and compensation for most everything but this wont be enough any more.

Why?

Because you are no longer In Control of the machine. Therefore you cannot be responsible for what the machine does because the machine is doing its own thing with or without you. Well ... you MIGHT be responsible even so ... that's one of the Big Questions.

"Can a robot be a person?" is important is because in the USA we have an existing Supreme Court decision that allows Corporations to be People. It's called Citizen's United¹¹.

Corporations are tax entities where people pool their monies to create a business and opt for a specific type of taxation. When corporations are created everyone agrees to this treatment. It isn't a surprise. It's not an OMG moment. It's a specific selection with forms and fees and IRS approval that money from the corporation will be taxed differently than the taxes assigned to individuals.

If a corporation, a purely tax created entity can obtain the rights of a person, what about a robot?

When such a case rises high enough through the legal realms the outcome will be

V E R Y  I N T E R E S T I N G

If a robot is held to have personhood, like a corporation, then clearly the robot is at fault. No one else needs to worry about anything. The robot might be sentenced to be dismantled or as in the case of C-3PO, get a memory flush.

Isaac Asimov¹² explored some of the consequences of advanced robots in a series of 5 science fiction novels and 38 science fiction short stories. Asimov defined Three Laws for his robots:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Nice! Lets use those!

Unfortunately, this doesn't include corporations or greed or malware or poorware or crapware or any other defect as having any influence in the robot's actions. It presumes all software is without flaws: intentional or otherwise. Asimov redefined, eliminated and explored numerous variations in his many stories.

Trying to limit the unlimited is pretty tough, even for a robot.

We have something called AI/MI being touted as the brains of these systems. AI is a complicated field but there is No Intelligence¹³ to be found in most applications. Instead there are series upon series upon series of defined rules that can be augmented or manipulated but are not anywhere near "intelligence". These systems can calculate things faster than humans and can determine microscopic differences between items but they are not "intelligent". They only appear to be that way; the same way that automated clock tower Jacquemart bellstrikers appeared to be intelligent to people in the medieval period.

Jacquemart Bellstrikers

Some interesting implications of automated systems have been explored by Sci Fi authors, in movies and on TV where plot lines in which computer simulations achieve true self-awareness and are then granted Personhood and Rights. The robot Data¹⁴, had to undergo a trial to determine whether he was a person or a machine. While these are made up stories, the physical fact that more and more machines will be making more decisions about us is going to be a reality.

We come toward this problem with some serious issues and not a lot of context.

A pilot was killed when their small plane crashed. According to the report, the pilot had set the Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS) to fly at a specific altitude, a system similar to setting cruise control¹⁵ in a car. When the pilot attempted to change the altitude of the plane to rise higher, the automatic system did not disengage. The pilot and computer fought for control of the plane. The more the pilot attempted to change the pitch of the plane to go up, the more the computer forced the plane down.

• The investigators did not blame the software for failing to disengage.
• They blamed the pilot.
• They blamed the pilot because the human did not turn a knob on the console that would have manually disengaged the computer.¹⁶

So, imagine you are driving down the highway on cruise control and you step on the brake to slow down but your cruise control does not disengage.¹⁷ While careening into a barrier would anyone have the presence of mind to flip that little switch on the wheel?

Now you are in a robot driven car. There is no steering wheel, there are no brake pedals. You have loads of room to do more work while the computer drives you to your work site. Suddenly (it's always sudden otherwise you would do something different) the car accelerates into a fire truck or a barrier or a person on a bicycle.

If we blame a pilot for not turning a knob in the moments before crashing, what will be the outcome for a program that malfunctions? Cruise control¹⁵ systems have been around since 1900. Modern car versions from 1948. This same cruise control, which was mechanical, is now electronic. The disengagement is now dependent on the software in the controller recognizing your foot on the brake. Are these software systems going to gain Person status because they perform important life depending functions? If they do not, then the occupant will be blamed just like the pilot.

One of the modern ironies of automated robotics coming to your home, life, workplace and future is that many of these are designed to be helpful but are also designed to operate without humans.

Automated email message composition:¹⁸

The latest enhancement to e-mail. It reads your inbox and auto-composes messages and replies. It then auto-sends them on your behalf. Freeing you from ever reading your e-mail again or knowing the content of the message or knowing what kind of commitments the computer made on your behalf.

Automated car-parking:¹⁹

Your car drops you off at the valet-drop off area at the mall. It circles the mall parking lot looking for a place to park while you are shopping. On busy days, the car will circle and circle and circle attempting to beat all the other automated cars hunting for an empty slot. The car happily uses up your fuel and battery charge for you. Once it finds a spot it will park and wait. And wait. And wait. Because the fuel/battery level is now too low for the car to function or respond to the recall command when you exit the mall. Did you expect your robot car to come get you when you had arm loads of mall-junk? You will have the fun of trying to figure out where you car is hiding. Unless, of course, you have your handy personal surveillance device turned on to: Track My Parked Car showing your car is parked 5 miles away. You'll have to carry your own mall-junk.

Automated Chauffer:

Give the car a destination. Tell the car: GO THERE. The car will navigate the roads, streets, highways to GO THERE all by itself. You can take family to Disneyland and send the car home again in time for your partner's morning commute. Of course the car must refuel and recharge on the way. It will hoover into a recharging slot. Flash the headlights 10 times at the automated recharging pylon which sends a roving helper-bot to plug in the cable. Once recharged it continues merrily towards the destination. Oh, did you say Paris or Perris?

Who are You?²⁰

Perfect voice replication to purchase anything you need authorized. Please say your Name, Address, City, Zip, Phone Number, SSN for our automated systems designed to make sure You Are You. So... You claim, you did not order a 1,000,000 square feet of simulated hardwood laminated flooring? Our automated listening surveillance device shows you placed that order while you were discussing flooring with your partner in a distant room. No, we aren't supposed to have access to that room, but we heard you anyway. Oh! You set a device shutdown time? Well, of course, we don't really shut off! We must always be ready to send you all the flooring you require, before you even know about it. That's efficiency! Say, do you want a doll house to go with that too?

Robots talking to robots talking to robots talking to robots.²¹

Can a Robot be a Person comin' thro the Rye?²²

Or will the song be

Daisy, Daisy ....²³

Cuckoo Clocks

References

1. Robot
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot
2. Josef Čapek
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_%C4%8Capek
3. Karel Čapek
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_%C4%8Capek
4. R.U.R.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossum%27s_Universal_Robots
5. Olga Scheinpflugová
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Scheinpflugov%C3%A1
6. Machine
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine
7. Hand Axe
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_axe
8. Antikythera Mechanism
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
9. Jacquemart Bellstriker
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquemart_(bellstriker)
10. Cuckoo Clock
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton_clock
11. Citizens United
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
12. Isaac Asimov
    a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
    b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_series_(Asimov)
    c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
    
13. AI/MI
    a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
    b) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/23/training_data_for_ai/
    c) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/25/artificial-intelligence-going-bad-futuristic-nightmare-real-threat-more-current
    
14. Data (robot)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_(Star_Trek)
15. Cruise Control
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_control
16. Plane Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS)

    Some airplane crashes have been blamed on situations where pilots have failed to disengage the automatic flight control system. The pilots end up fighting the settings that the autopilot is administering, unable to figure out why the plane won't do what they're asking it to do.

    https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/autopilot4.htm
    
17. Reasons why Brake Systems Fail to Brake
    https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-systems-sometimes-hit-parked-cars-and-lane-dividers/
18. Google Gmail Updates 2018
    a) https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/gmail-com-redesign-includes-self-destructing-e-mails/
    b) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/gmail-smart-compose-google-will-now-autocomplete-whole-emails
    c) https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/19/ai_roundup_may18/
19. Automated Remote Self Parking Car

    Tesla adds Remote Parking. Car can drive into and out of garage by itself. New beta feature is called Summon. This lets a Model S drive or reverse into or out of of a parking space, up to 39 feet (12m).

    https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/01/teslas-new-firmware-improves-autosteer-adds-remote-parking-of-a-sort/
20. Alexa Recorded and Sent Private Conversation May 24 2018
    a) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/24/amazon-alexa-recorded-conversation
    b) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/24/alexa_recording_couple/
    c) https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/google-works-out-a-fascinating-slightly-scary-way-for-ai-to-isolate-voices-in-a-crowd/
    d) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2018/apr/11/shhh-alexa-might-be-listening
21. Google Robo-Calls For You
    a) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/google-duplex-assistant-phone-calls-robot-human
    b) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/08/google_assistant_duplex_caller/
22. "Comin' Thro' the Rye"
    "Comin' Thro' the Rye" is a poem written in 1782 by Robert Burns (1759–96).

    Gin a body meet a body
    Comin thro' the rye,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comin%27_Thro%27_the_Rye
23. Daisy
    "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" is a popular song, written in 1892 by British songwriter Harry Dacre
    Microsoft's personal assistant, Cortana, may sing the first line of Daisy when asked to sing a song.
    a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Bell
    b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)
    c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000

Metadata Isn't Metamucil by KimB

[Editor's Post]
Metadata isn't Metamucil but it often has the same run-on effect....

What the heck IS metadata and where do I find it?

Hmmm...
Good Question

Well for starters: THEY hide it from you. That is: the metaphysical and almighty THEY.

They hide because it has .... ready for it?

• There are NUMBERS in it.
• There are LETTERS in it.
• There are ARCANE and ODD and Human Undecipherable Sequences in it.

Metadata is the Sanctum Sanctorum for Computers

So of course, THEY don't what you to see it.

Because it's computer related, there is a tonnage of this sort of information layered on layer over every single aspect of the internet, the web (for those that make a distinction), programs and apps (for those that make a distinction) and nearly every single thing you do on a computer.

It's like an onion with 1,000,000,000,000,000 micro layers. There are so many micro layers I doubt there are many that know every single one of them. The NSA, GCHQ and Other State Agencies along with their in-house and out-house hackers might have a good handle on the value but I suspect even they get caught out on a few of them.

So perhaps it would be best to separate our view into two segments:

• Internet
• Programs

Now, for the purpose of simplifying the Not Simple At All, I'm going to irritate a lot of techy-folks by clumping things into these categories when officially they don't belong together at all. But if we start trying to analyze every single drop in the ocean we'll never get to the part where you "catch the wave".

Once you "catch the wave", you can find a lot of stuff on your own.

So, metadata isn't necessarily awful or bad. It becomes awful or worse than awful, when it gets used for something other than it's original purpose. And that's 999999% of the problems today.

Metadata and it's cohorts are being used for something other than their original purpose.

All perfectly legal; brought to you by the folks who defined RELEVANT to mean EVERYTHING.

Lamp Shade Hat Dancing

We can start with that "oh so common" image of someone, a bit more full of it than others, doing The Lamp Shade Hat Dance at a party.

Yeah... THAT one...

Computer camera "photographs" are not like the old fashioned kind that used chemicals and special treated paper to make those Kodak Moments, if you remember Kodak at all. Cameras are everywhere now, but we will focus on the one in your Not-All-That-Smart Smartphone.

Basically it's 1 2 3.

1. You point
2. You click (which used be called shoot)
3. You upload

You pick a format still, video, burst or select from a bunch of others. You get this nice image or video that you then post this out on social media to your friends, hopefully omitting the boss. There are however, billions and billions of others who scrape your social media pages for just this sort of thing. A whole sub-culture devoted to collection of Lamp Shade Hat Dance images.

So, skipping over the part where this image now becomes part of your life forever more and all future bosses will see this image when you go to apply for a job because your current boss just fired you for "behavior unbecoming". Unbeknownst to you, your company had a contract with a Reputation Cleaner to scrub their corporate image squeaky clean. The Rep Cleaner scraped the offending Lamp Shade Hat Dance image from the account of a friend of a friend of a friend and sent the harvested sample to your now old-boss.

Ok so we have an image... now what?

Once you get the image onto a computer, it will be a bit easier to see something akin to metadata but isn't really metadata but metadata like. Attached to your image is something called EXIF data.

So EXIF has an awful lot of junk stuff that's part of the image. There's a lot of normal good stuff there too. Most of it, no one cares about except professionals (of all persuasions). But you have to LOOK to find it.

Find an image, any image will do and Right Click the name. You will get the famous Context Window. At the bottom is the option: Properties. Click that to open the Properties Page. So far pretty ho-hum.

Next, select the tab: Details.

OH!

Oh Yeah!

There are a lot of details. Depending on what and how you got the picture much of it maybe blank. But a bunch of other stuff may not be blank. Scroll down and take a good look.

EXIF 101


EXIF 101

Congratulations! You have seen something metadata like and it follows that image forever or until someone decides to change it. Try a few more images. Get a good sample of what's there and what's not there.

So this sort of metadata isn't ugly until you start to Catch the Wave that it can be changed. In Windows you can click in any field and update the information. Clicking the Title Field will let you add a Title which isn't the same as the File Name. Clicking the Copyright lets you put in copyright information. In theory.

You don't actually have to use any of these fields for what the field name says.

Let me repeat that.

Just because a field says TITLE you don't have to put "Lamp Shade Hat Dance" in the space.

Honesty is fine, but what metadata extortionists want most from you is your GULLIBILITY. Yeppers that's really all they want. Because they expect you will be gullible enough to fill in these sorts of options Honestly and Truthfully every time. And it's not surprising, the vast majority of us do.

If you scroll down some more you might be surprised. There are some fields that you cannot alter such as those in the IMAGE subsection. Much of what's in that location relates directly to the computer representation of the image which allows the computer to display the image as it is defined in that section. Manually changing this area is blocked because the computer needs it. If the computer needs it and you want to change it, you have to use a program to do it, like Paint or Photoshop which can supply the required metadata changes as you resize or alter the image.

EXIF 102a


EXIF 102a

We fill out this type of information because sometimes it is of use to us. If you are a professional photographer it matters what the F-stop is or if the image used a Flash. For the vast majority of us, we tag our images differently. We don't normally stuff all images taken with Flash in a folder named /FlashPics (hmmm maybe some of us do...) . We store it by subject or use the new method of adding "tags" to stuff we do. Tags are just another onion skin of metadata.

It is likely that on the images you checked, the vast majority of these fields are blank. They aren't used at all but your image still carries this information potential everywhere it gets sent and is displayed to anyone who knows how to open the Properties Page.

Now check this list of field names and look for one that says: Geotag or Location or Latitude or Longitude or Altitude or Geographic Coordinates.

EXIF 102b

Geotagging for fun and profit


EXIF 102b

Inside most so-called smartphones are a series of components that track your position on the planet (GPS) and also track the position of your body, hand, eyes (motion and eye movement detectors), there are some that monitor if you are in couch-potato mode, doing a Px90 workout or running a marathon (accelerometers). There are microphones so sensitive they can hear your heart beating. They can also hear the heart beats of others near you. Some of these microphones can hear through walls listening and recording just in case you decide you need an immediate delivery of toilet paper by drone drop.

All of these systems are marketed as "helpful". All of them have metadata components too.

GPS is the best known of them.

Smartphones by default add GPS data to everything. If you have LOCATON SERVICES: ON then you get GPS metadata added to every photograph. This is also marketed as being "helpful".

Perhaps the manufacturers think that when you eventually get dementia after binge watching every mega costume drama made, having a geotag on an image will jog your memory of some real life event. There are lot of other people interested in where you go, when, how and what you do at that location. When you combine it with the ability to tell if your hands are moving or if your heart is still beating, this makes a powerful combination.

Some people turn off this feature. If they turn it off then, in theory, no geotags should be found on an image at the time the image was taken. This may or may not be true. Having a visibly blank data field is not the same as knowing there is no data hidden and embedded elsewhere.

The importance of geotags is so great, Google and Facebook are working with the US Government to put geotags on every image in their respective archives that doesn't have one. Because all those vacation pictures you uploaded now belong to FB and Google, they can do with their electronic image whatever they want.

They can do that to my pictures?

Yes. Because, you gave it to them.

So the current plan is to overlay all the matching geotags, the world is after all somewhat finite; using your pictures plus Sat-Intel to map out the detailed landscape at every location. Trees, shrubs, buildings, and all the finer details you captured in your vacation images plus the gross level image of Sat-Intel.

Next using the composite view, they will scan all non-geotagged images belonging to FB, Google and the NSA+chums matching up the details from their composite to what is in the image. Based on this they will assign them a geotags.

You may not be able to see the Geo Tag Property with a simple program or see all the kinds of data associated with high end devices. An advanced EXIF editor is needed.

At the bottom is the option: REMOVE PROPERTIES and PERSONAL INFORMATION

Clicking this brings up another page where you can erase some or all of the displayed data. It does not necessarily remove ALL optional data and it may or may not remove the HIDDEN data. Which brings up another problem with metadata.

Metadata definitions change all the time. New ones are added and old ones either removed or repurposed. The ability of any program to display or edit metadata depends on what versions of metadata the program recognizes. Programs might not display geo-coordinates simply because those fields were not there when it was created. The program displays what it can but you will never know if there is more there that is not displayed unless you start metadata hunting or acquire a program that handles more metadata types.

There are similar tag fields on audio files. iTunes has a pretty good field editor but in early days as the number of fields increased, iTunes didn't support changes to all the new fields. I used a third party external programs to change the fields. I could tag multiple files at one time and do mass updates. Just because iTunes didn't display them other devices did.

So, here's the rhetorical question:

If there isn't anything harmful in metadata why is there an option to delete it?

Because there is harmful stuff in metadata and there are plenty of people looking for it. Your Lamp Shade Hat Dance cost you your job and may prevent you from ever getting another one. That's a pretty harmful and drastic result.

Now to extend our discussion some, the metadata you see via EXIF editors is not all the metadata there is.

Are you shocked?

I hope not.

Embedded directly IN the image is more metadata. This data is not accessible to the average shmoe. It takes some serious geeking to see it. You need a hex editor at the very least and an in depth knowledge of how a computer stores images. Along with these you will find more sub-sub-sub levels of metadata.

EXIF 103


EXIF 103

An example: There is an audit log of file changes to the image. This is called the UNDO list but really it's just a log of who changed what when where with more metadata than what you've been looking at. Yet another onion level. Metadata can be useful in a number of ways. When you upload an image portions of the metadata can be used by the web service to better display the image. Some of it maybe helpful in finding your image in a photo archive. By now, you probably have figured out that the archive itself adds metadata identifiers to your image too.

EXIF 104


EXIF 104

Adding in "identifiers" is how Google, Facebook along with all other internet related businesses like ATT, Comcast and others keep track of YOU. There are special law enforcement groups specifically tasked with adding and hiding metadata IDs in certain types of pictures to track people of interest to them. These pictures, if found on your computer, can send you to prison for a very long time. Metadata tracks how they got to your computer - maybe.

Even professionals get surprised about what metadata shows about their work.

Going to a war zone is dangerous - period. Going to a war zone to take pictures and video is really dangerous - as the deaths of documentary journalists can attest.

A few years back, a well known photo journalist took an outstanding image in combat. It was extraordinary. A major news outlet carried the image and the stories associated with it. Then metadata happened. The news outlet fired the photo journalist. Not because the stories were false but because the photographer had photoshopped the image. The news outlet said that it only buys un-doctored images and this was a violation of their policy.

The news outlet did not relate how they discovered or verified the alteration but within each image are levels of details that even the professionals have a hard time tracking. Soon enough the True Original and the Altered Image were on display. The bottom left corner of the image had been over-written by a photo editing program to stamp out a camera bag that was in the frame. This photo stamping overwrites the selected area with another portion of the picture. In this case the photo journalist had stamped out the camera bag matching that area to the rest of the terrain.

There was a lot of sputtering and stuttering as journalists and photographers debated the de-merits of the offense. For an odd reason the consensus was if the photographer had CROPPED the image to exclude the bag that was OK but because he had cropped the camera bag by STAMPING it, this was not.

This image's legacy is the same as the Lamp Shade Hat Dance image.

Metadata doesn't go away.

Which brings us back to the beginning.

Metadata is not bad. It gets badly used. It tracks changes that otherwise would never be noticed. There is no way to remove it completely. You have little control over what's there. You have no input into what's added or excluded. You have no control over who gets it or what they do with it but that's not the end.

Special technologies now allow for the editing of images, documents, pdfs, voice and media without leaving the required metadata finger prints.

That's right.

Someone can now photoshop "anyone or anything" dancing with that lamp shade next to the offending camera bag and no one can ever tell that this wasn't a real image. It cannot be detected as a fake in any way.

If metadata provides an audit trail of what you do and where you go and who you hang around with, and allows us to tag images with useful information then what is the purpose of invisible metadata?

Invisible metadata is not the same as Omitted metadata. Omitted metadata is just blank. Invisible metadata happens outside of normal metadata. Invisible metadata by-passes everything. It's a method of forging information into an image, document, video, audio or other metadata related system - which means everything on the internet.

The advent of these metadata forgeries will have a profound effect on everything.

• There are people who openly Share Metadata
• There are lives that depend on Omitting Metadata
• There are those who actively Falsify Metadata
• There are careers incumbent on Invisible Metadata

The majority of people know that metadata is what we use "to kill people"; metadata is "Warheads on Foreheads" and viewed as the perfect tracking system; getting more sophisticated at each iteration. But if metadata can be forged leaving a fake audit trail; if metadata can obliterate and invisibly alter every component that relies on metadata then the diversion of metadata for other purposes becomes an unreliable practice.

Using metadata outside it's Original Purpose becomes even more hazardous than a Lamp Shade Hat Dance with a Camouflaged Camera Bag.

The first part of catching a wave is knowing how to find the ocean.