Writing Science Fiction

A couple of years ago while observing the relentless anti-Science diatribe coming from the conservatives. I came up with a Idea for a Science Fiction story, and it went something like this;

Many different Scientist had been ‘blackballed’ by the government in power, and removed from their jobs. Unable to work, they had taken any jobs they could get, pumping gas, fast food, and delivery people. Low pay, no respect, and no Science. While many had offers to work abroad in their fields, they were blocked from leaving the U.S. by being placed on no-fly and no-travel restrictions. The government did not want the brain drain, but they didn’t want the scientist from becoming active again, and casting doubts upon the U.S.

So here we are, science suppressed, and scientist restricted. So a group of Irish (where I currently reside) conspired with the Irish government (covertly) to create passports and travel documents for the scientist being held. Then an Irish person who could pass in appearance to a scientist, would enter the U.S. as a visitor, and assume the identity of the individual, and work their jobs, fill their roles and report to their parole boards. In the mean time, the scientists would use the created Irish identities to flee the U.S. and then sometime later the substitutes themselves would exit. The scientists would then be free, and able to resume their Scientific Research.

The story would then detail this activity for several different scientists…etc, etc, etc

Now, in the present, this is no longer a Science Fiction story, and not even really a Fiction of any sort. It is a sad telling of the near reality.

UPDATE: It’s already beginning – Make our Planet Great!

Apple vs FBI: The unspoken Truth on Encryption

While one can admire Apple for ‘defending’ it’s customers privacy, while also benefiting with the positive advertising. It is probably a moot, and hollow victory as the NSA and the CIA have already broken Apple security.

Not that it shouldn’t be of high importance, the resources required to do the cracking of any particular extraction of an encrypted message sent with a iPhone would most likely exceed the budget of a small country. Which is exactly the point of encryption, making it hard, and expensive to decrypt. Imagine the joviality at the NSA/CIA after the hours of decryption, that the ‘Important’ message turns out to be a high priority, top secret Cookie Recipe from you mothers cookbook.

And thereby is the unspoken truth of encryption the first one is this: you must either decrypt everything, to find what is being said, because if you can only choose strategic messages, choosing the right ones are tantamount.

During WWII monitoring enemy communication was aided by observing the frequency of communication traffic, when frequency increased, something important was being communicated. Modern military communications is continuous and unbroken, transmitting meaningless message traffic, and therefore not highlighting any particular message in the traffic stream that would be required to be decrypted. This would now be a requirement to decrypt everything, in the military traffic stream.

The second Truth is this; The assumption that you can decrypt all the messages is the hight of arrogance and ignorance. Anyone, yes anyone can create an encryption that will be impossible for a machine of any sort to decrypt, and many of these can be hidden to the point that even a human expert directly observing the message can not decipher.

Imagine hiding messages in the continuous email stream called Spam, which now constitutes more that 80% of all email traffic?

Thoughts like this keep the NSA/CIA/FBI up nights, and no matter what Bull Shit they might tell you about the need to have back doors and encryption keys it will NEVER catch all the potential secret messages that terrorists might choose to pass to each other.

Because the simplest of truths: It isn’t possible.

Hiding in plain sight

In this age of ‘Big Data’ the masters are the ones who hide in plain sight. If you generate billions of media bits that must be parsed by the powers that be, the devil really is in the details.

During a stint in a fraud unit I learned that the trick wasn’t to read all the monitored data, but to build patterns of ‘normal’ for everyone monitored. If the patterned changed then something had changed, and an investigator was assigned.

Another article I keep remembering is an interview with with a ‘Ninja Assissan’ who was quoted as;

” I never sleep in the same bed two nights in a row (he had 5 bedrooms), and he never ate the same thing for breakfast (though he always ate what he wanted)

Hence the pattern he would generate would always be random, and therefore a consistent repeated event would be considered abnormal and a ‘red flag’ that something wasn’t normal.

So to hide, and maintain privacy would be to either overwhelm the bit watchers, or develop such a random lifestyle as to make normal pattern matching methods useless.

anyone want to be a Ninja Assissan?

UPDATE: Pattern Reconition

UPDATE 2: Global consumer data broker plans to reveal your data

If you Can’t dazzle them with data, baffle them with Bull Shit!!!

UPDATE 3: Just so you know: US government is hoovering data from Apple, Microsoft and Google servers

Skype security, and privacy

Communications and privacy will always be a concern, any protocol a computer can generate can be broken, the question is how long, and how important.

If your ego about your importance in the world is justified by others, then expect them to be listening. You can only slow them down.

For the rest of us, who are meaningless, no one will take the time to break through tissue paper to listen in on us. And we are safe enough.

If you seek real security, don’t use a computer to encrypt your message, find a better way.

Underground War – Whistle Blowers strike back.

I may be the last to see this, a war, underground and undeclared, but a war. The opponents are a bit undefined but there is a clear and escalating combat in the world. I’m not talking about Terrorists, (although the establishment who is under assault may declare their attackers as such) I am talking about the the established order, The Multi-Nationals, the Big Press, Governments, Military establishments, Religious organizations. The big anonymous bodies that have been abusing their positions to detriment everyone else.

On the opposing side, are all the little people, groups and oppressed, or the perceived oppressed. Your fellow ‘pissed off’ worker setting next to you, who will explode in a fountain of Whistle blowing. A venting of frustration that will result in the next big internet explosion.

The WikiLeaks is merely the first oozing pustule on the face of the corporeal Corporations of the world. The World of Blogging has for many years undermined the world press both broadcast and print to the point that now the majority of the population now refer to the Internet for real news rather than the handful of corporation owned ‘News’ services.

Control has now slipped out of the hands of those who for years have managed the information flow. Evidence of this ‘management’ appears almost daily in the presentations of ignorance passed off as ‘News’. And where ‘Fair and Balanced’ openly bribe governments to maintain control, religious organizations openly attempt to promote such myths as Creationism at the scientific Truth.

The tide has turned, and the failing newspapers are only the start. Watch for more WikiLeaks and Whistle Blower sites springing up, more Lawsuits more Smear campaigns as the giant attempts to swat the Whistleblowers who are biting it to death.

Internet Privacy myths

One of the enduring myths of the internet is the one involving privacy. This article on CNN titled U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google takes umbrage at the notion that everyones email is secret and private. And while this myth might comfort many, the truth is that email was NEVER private. Every email host, every email relay was able, and in fact, completely open to reading, scanning and snooping, by man-in-the-middle processes and furthermore always has been since the beginning of the internet. And even if everyone was using https or ssh with their email clients while connected to their mail server, it did not encrypt the contents of the email. It may have minimized the likelihood of it being read in the data stream, but unless you were in the habit of encrypting your email with PGP or some other cypher your email and hence your ‘Privacy’ is negligible, hence, the privacy myth.

And while on the CNN article the discussions brought up the same old saw that governments HAD to have backdoors to snoop on email communications to prevent crime and terrorism without the concern that at no time has it proved itself in practice. Anyone wishing to sent communication, and have it stay private can do so, even in the face of a dedicated snoop. Anyone who had even browsed an encryption textbook can create a completely uncrackable code, and I mean uncrackable by anyone, by any means and present their messages in plain text in emails. Hacking them by any government is merely security theater and fundamentally has NO value.

If you seek ‘privacy’ stop sending anything through the internet unless it is encrypted by at least PGP (if not something more substantial). The only thing Google has lost in this privacy issue is the trust of their users to protect their email ‘publications’ on the internet. Now everyone will know that they have another recipient to all their emails, in other words, all the other governments, hackers, scammers and spammers in the internet.

Fear and Loathing in the U.S.

I found this on the @SarahPalin_Blog and it reads in the discription;

The continuing story of a moose hunting, hockey Mom who may become leader of the free world.

And I find this disturbing and frightening on so many levels, however after thinking about it for a bit it could never happen. For if Ms. Palin should ever become President of the United States, The United States would cease to be part of the ‘Free World’ and be in fact, the antithesis of a free country, a new Fascist state would rise, and have to be putdown by the remaining ‘Free World’ countries.

Be afraid, be very afraid!

For if you don’t put down a mad dog now, you will surly have to put it down later after it’s bitten someone!

A great article on the Amercan Future (GOP) Fascist future.

Nothing is more convincing than a logical and well documented description of the Path to Fascism
Fascist in America, are we there yet? Everyday I’m glad I don’t live there anymore. It’s a shame that the GOP has chosen to commit Treason against the American Constitution and actively seek to institute a Fascist overthrow of the American government.

The Guise of truth

Israel lost the last war with Hezbollah and I Blogged about it here when I wrote that Israel loses the War on Terror and it looks like the Israeli government has learned to change their propaganda to alter perceptions but are we trusting what we see?. Can we recognize a YouTube campaign when we see one? Not likely, but what is worse is that this ‘war’ may be more about upcoming elections in Israel than anything Hamas has been doing.

UPDATE:

Kinda says it all!

Indian violence in Mumbai is a guise

This article Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India’s Muslims in Crisis pretends that the Muslim outcry of violence is over Indian mistreatment of Muslims. Then why the targeting of Americans, and British? Something does not ring true here. This is a guise for something more, a threat of Jehad with a mask of righteous religious zeal? Something, it’s not clear, and early pronouncements of it’s cause, premature.

The wounded (GOP) animal is very dangerous

With the Presidential contest going down the tubes for the Republican (GOP) party, and the potential to lose majority, and even filibuster control of both houses of Congress. The GOP is coming off as a wounded animal and wounded animals are very dangerous. They can attack Iran, swing to radical right and declare independance from the union. They can assasinate opposition, declare martial law and suspend elections.

And that’s just if they want to be open about it.

Data mining Terrorism

I have been, and will continue to be amused about the Storm over Big Brother database. Amused because I know ultimately that it will fail to stop terrorism, but also that I know how easily such a system can be overwhelmed into oblivion. The only reason for these databases is for political control, not for protection, but political gain. Security Theater, and nothing more.

Consider for a minute, should someone discover a method to product Weapons of Mass Destruction out of say, peanut butter. A database would have to track the purchase and use of every gram of peanut butter, and latter peanuts, raw and roasted, and then farmers who could grow peanuts. The data would grow exponentially and it wouldn’t find anyone who could or does produce WMD’s from peanut butter. It wouldn’t even be able to detect that the Peanut butter Bomb was a hoax.