Hamilton is a famous American musical. I would think it encourages people to innovate around how to deepfake the dead because it not only is not wrong, it can be very right.
Visit Grant’s Tomb, meet actors in real life who play him and bring his amazing story to light to get rid of decades of disinformation.
To deepfake the dead can be very right.
The big question is who owns a content control/consent role for someone in our past. If you can’t decide that, there’s a much bigger problem at hand than the presentation layer.
I write this in response to a long blog post by You the Data asking “is it ever ok”, which wanders around this topic yet doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.
…for others to warp, manipulate, and supplement it with inauthentic sentiment or action does seem to wreak damage. This damage — a dilution of the truth — is what critics are responding to. Now, as we begin to figure out what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable in this strange new world, we should undoubtedly be considering whether we’re content to be reimagined as a scripted bot, avatar, or deepfake after our death.
Begin to figure out what is right and wrong? What?
Don’t dilute the truth, sure. And don’t blame that on deepfakes.
The presentation layer isn’t as significant here as the need for measuring integrity of any message (e.g. ask any historian if the Hamilton musical is damaging).
The only case to be made here is that people believe in novel platforms more (overlooking obvious errors) because of novelty, but that itself is an ages old problem not unique to deepfakes.
Google’s driverless car for example failed it’s driving test three times (revealed via FOIA) yet was given a license by the state of Nevada anyway because someone stupidly said “let’s give robots a chance”. That’s base human corruption, not really to do with risk from the technology itself.
To deepfake the dead can be very right.
Do I need to say it again?
Now go visit Grant’s Tomb and meet the actors who deepfake Grant and help end the rampant problem of disinformation about him. In fact, finding human actors to deepfake Grant is so costly, using technology to do it inexpensively may be an imperative.
On the approach to Mont Blanc, France. Photo by me, 2001.
The esteemed and prolific poet Amanda Gorman has been chosen to read at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden
She is calling her inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb” while otherwise declining to preview any lines. Gorman says she was not given specific instructions on what to write, but was encouraged to emphasize unity and hope over “denigrating anyone” or declaring “ding, dong, the witch is dead” over the departure of President Donald Trump.
Sad to hear “ding, dong” has been discouraged, as I kind of like the sound of it.
…”shatter our nation rather than share it” came from reading Tweets by people who don’t want to share the country with the rest of us…
Video of her reading:
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
A very long time ago I was in Chicago meeting with the man who wrote the security system for IBM’s AS400. I asked him “but why a Q” as we discussed the QSECOFR user account (Q Security Officer) used to manage the system.
He said it was a rare letter, denoting something special, and I had no reason to doubt him. This man claimed to have created the system for IBM and chose a Q for the simple reasons he said.
It’s true Q is rare. There’s only one Q tile in Scrabble and it has 10 points assigned (highest possible).
And it’s true such a letter would seem unique and distinctive and therefore sensible for special system communications.
Then many years later I was sitting on a train as the whistle blew several times when a pattern suddenly sounded familiar…
Two longs, a short and a long: – – . – (LLsL)
In international Morse code that signal pattern is the letter… wait for it… Q.
I did some searching and sure enough Union Pacific guideline (PDF) says Q is designated as crossing warning:
5.8.2 [7] Sound: – – o – Indication: When approaching public crossings at grade, with engine in front, sound signal…. Prolong or repeat signal until the engine completely occupies the crossing(s)…
Prolonging the signal until the engine is in the crossing probably explains why a letter would be preferred that ends in long instead of a short. Engineers can just hold the signal open until they’re well positioned.
However, I needed more. So from there I poked around the history of Q-codes in Morse, a list of special communications started around 1909 to facilitate transmissions.
Here’s part of a table of 1912 in a UK government handbook of wireless showing some of the basics (initially just 12 Q codes):
Source: Handbook for wireless telegraph operators working installations licensed by His Majesty’s Postmaster-General : revised in accordance with the Radiotelegraph Convention of London, 1912.
These days on video calls we say “your mute button is on” and “you’re breaking up” but a few decades ago radio operators could use codes like QLF (Q Left Foot) to indicate “try sending with your LEFT foot” and QNB (Q Number Buttons) for “How many buttons does your radio have?”
Amusing of course, yet still no deeper meaning for Q. It did little more than backup the story that IBM had used Q to emphasize uniqueness in system communications.
A book from 1952 called Thudbury however, gave this funny explanation:
I’ve heard that signal started on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy line that everybody calls the ‘Q’ and just spread…
A similar sounding story from geography is found in a history of Britain’s Q fleet (“naval vessels that officially didn’t exist; the mystery ships of World War One”) designed to deceive, trap, and destroy German U-boats:
While in the dockyards, the mystery ships were known under various names, from decoy ships, which gave the game away somewhat, to “Q-ships”, or “S.S. (name)” ships. The “S.S.” in this case stood for “Special Service (Vessel)”. The “Q”, it’s suggested, was because they were operating from Queenstown, now Cobh, in Ireland.
Neither Queenstown for ships nor Quincy for trains are very convincing origin stories. A more likely possibility to me is that use of a Q flag on ships (yellow jack, Quebec) is an old signal meaning “I am ready for boarding” in harbor (a formal request for “free pratique“).
…ships signal either “My vessel is ‘healthy’ and I request free pratique” with a single Q (Quebec) flag or “I require health clearance” with the double signal QQ (Quebec Quebec). Either is correct for a vessel yet to be cleared for pratique (pratique is permission to do business at a port, granted to a ship that has met quarantine or other health regulations). The Q (Quebec) flag is square in shape and pure yellow. Continuing to fly either of these signals indicates a vessel is yet to receive clearance (and is thus effectively in quarantine).
Thus a Q ship in 1914 also could have been a play on words; an invitation to the enemy to come closer and be ambushed.
Further to this point Q also may stand for Quartermaster, the person on ancient ships designated to lead a boarding party to another ship across the aft (quarter deck).
It’s an interesting point to consider how Q for ships meant ready for boarding by local authorities (“effectively in quarantine”) when entering a harbor, yet Q for trains was taken to be the opposite and a warning for everyone to move away from them. Or are those two the same thing?
Some theories on the Internet include bits of Q stands for the Queen Victoria in England and royalty on ships or trains would use a Q to indicate their right of way.
According to W. M. Acworth in The Railways of England, whenever the Queen travelled by train, special precautions were taken. All work along the line was stopped, the points were locked, trains going in the opposite direction were halted and level crossings were closed and guarded.
Here’s another version in video format:
Back in the time when the queen traveled by ship in England, ships with the queen on board would do this sequence on the horn to announce to other ships in the harbour to get out of the way. When the queen switched to railways, the same signal followed and the Engineer
would do the sequence coming into a station to allow some space for Her Majesty.
The problem I have with these royal takes is nothing yet seems to actually support such use for the letter Q (why not use K for King?). And that is not to mention ships and trains seem to have landed on opposite ends with their uses for Q.
Speaking of Queens and right of way, the Q was repurposed recently allegedly by someone with a signals or intelligence background who called themselves “Q Clearance Patriot” in reference to DOE’s Q level of access authorization
The DOE classifications for access come from the end of WWII when a newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was faced with qualifying lots of civilian workers. A book called Advanced Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Operations explains:
Source: Advanced Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Operations, by Robert J Girod, p 23
This is not to be confused with the Army Special Forces Q Course (SFQC) for qualification.
And it now amounts to be a symbol of fascism extensively used by right-wing groups to signal intentions to replace democratic norms of law and order with “permanent improvisation“.
Although maybe one could argue the banner of “Quod Semper Quod Ubique Quod Ab Omnibus” (That will always be taken everywhere by all) is like saying the KKK carried a QQQ message.
A mounted Klansmen in Tennessee holding a flag with the Latin motto ‘Quod Semper Quod Ubique Quod Ab Omnibus’
And maybe that banner today would translate more roughly into the QAnon slogan of “Where we go one we go all”.
The typical KKK “QQQ” patch still sold online
Speaking of Q banners and patches, below you can see an infamous image posted by the White House on their Twitter account showing Florida law enforcement and US Vice President are all smiles around a very prominent red “Q” patch being worn:
Source: White House, as archived by https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pence_posing_with_QAnon_police_crop.jpg and reported by https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/01/pence-shares-picture-him-meeting-swat-officer-wearing-qanon-conspiracy-patch/
QAnon’s conspiracy theory is a rebranded version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion… The world has seen QAnon before. It was called Nazism. In QAnon, Nazism wants a comeback.
That man in the image I suppose to be a physical manifestation of someone who wanted to elevate to QSECOFR by applying a fascist Q symbol to himself yet instead “he ‘discredited the agency, the country and himself’” and lost his system privileges.
Update January 11:
I’ve been asked several questions privately about this so I’ll post answers here publicly in case others have the same interest.
1) What about the Q hypothesis of Christianity?
I don’t know but that’s a very interesting twist based on an English Bishop (Herbert Marsh). Q Anon then could be a pun by Christian Party (Nazi) adherents to myths rather than just something to do with alleged authorization in US government. Even if Matthew and Luke were independent yet used a common document, the Q hypothesis is indeed about a secret source for faith.
2) How hard is it to find Q Clearance Patriot?
This begs the question of whether such a person exists, or is an intentional fabrication and myth (see answer above) managed by several people and their associates. It also begs whether the right people are motivated to find any person(s). It’s not that hard to find a person when they make mistakes, and everyone makes mistakes, so the right people just have to be watching to capture and respond to the error.
Did you know Nazi minister of propaganda Goebbels, one of Hitlers closest men, said “The truth will always win”?
There’s been a problem on the Internet for a long time, as we all know, that data integrity gets ignored by security professionals. Cliff “Cuckoo Egg” Stoll in 1995 infamously warned us about this in “Why the Web Won’t Be Nirvana“, which everyone has basically ignored.
Sure people work on availability (howabout them nines!) and of course after 2003 the boom of documented huge privacy breaches have been lighting up news headlines and even board-level radar screens.
But — and it’s a very BIG but — integrity largely has been ignored.
People now repeatedly and freely post quotes and attributions that simply were never said, or fake pictures that were never taken (as I made light of several times here).
Yet show me a security team prepared and ready to do a correction on data and deal with sources disputing veracity. It was some kind of major problem to get Facebook to post warnings and moderate speech after how many years of obvious safety harms including atrocity crimes?
So what did Goebbels really say?
This is a natural environment for the historian. Which source to trust, what really happened and was said? That’s the heart of the mission for anyone claiming to understand and be able to explain history.
Now bring the typical security professional into such a fray and it’s like having a deer in headlights.
I’ve given talks about this disconnect in our industry for decades now. In several cases I’ve tried to illuminate how easy it is for security professionals to use low integrity themselves while talking about the importance of privacy.
The over-specialization in security actually has led to an even greater problem (e.g. integrity flaw risk increases dramatically as transparency decreases) few are willing to talk about either.
If you hear a CISO press 100% into encryption and not at all into issues of keeping data safe behind a lock and key, where they throw away the key, hold up one minute and think about what you’re doing.
Anyway, one good example is how Goebbels somehow has been attributed with saying “Truth is the enemy of the state” when in fact he said the opposite. No, seriously, Goebbels was a huge proponent of telling the truth.
Goebbels’ moral position in the diary was straightforward: he told the truth, his enemies told lies. Actually the question for him was one of expediency and not morality. Truth, he thought, should be used as frequently as possible; otherwise the enemy or the facts themselves might expose falsehood, and the credibility of his own output would suffer. Germans, he also stated, had grown more sophisticated since 1914: they could “read between the lines” and hence could not be easily deceived.
Thus we can easily see Goebbels’ actual words in 1941 were that truth wins and the use of lies — such as what he observed the Allies to use — are stupid and will lose:
The astonishing thing is that Mr. Churchill, a genuine John Bull, holds to his lies, and in fact repeats them until he himself believes them.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Goebbels never said THAT.
What Goebbels believed in, just to be clear, is “the ultimate victory of the truth”, explained by German professor of history Peter Longerich in a 2014 biography.
Source: “Goebbels : a biography” by Peter Longerich, New York: Random House, 2014.
Goebbels said THAT, and good luck getting take downs or corrections filed on all the pages to correct the record. Will the truth really win?
And speaking of Internet activism, guess who has been spreading Goebbels’ saying that truth will always win?
Yup. WikiLeaks has a Nazi propaganda minister reference as their byline. Ok, to be fair, a lot of people say this across the spectrum. Just imagine for a minute that Goebbels’ saying was correctly cited and known.
I mean imagine a future world (it may in fact be coming soon) where security professionals are working on how best to wade into this problem of integrity flaws. Too many have been acting for too long like the risk of Nazis deploying harms on every available platform is some kind of new thing or outside their expertise or domain…
Hitler was photographed with his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, and yet someone painstakingly removed the latter from the image.
If a lie is only printed often enough, it becomes a quasi-truth, and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article of belief, a dogma, and men will die for it.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
