Category Archives: Security

Cars Are Just Primitive Exoskeletons

The “carriage” form-factor is ancient.

So even though today we say “car” instead of carriage, we should know that to augment a single person’s travel with a giant opulent box is primitive thinking, and obviously doesn’t scale well to meet modern transit needs. Study after study by design experts have shown us how illogical it is to continue to build and use cars:

Fortunately, modern exoskeletons are more suited (no pun intended) to the flexibility of both the traveler and those around. Rex is a good example of why some data scientists are spending their entire career trying to unravel “gait” in order analyse and improve the “signature” of human movement. They discuss here how they are improving mobility for augmentation of a particular target audience:

This is an early-stage and yet it still shows us how wrong it is to use a car. When I expand such technology use to everyone I imagine people putting on a pair of auto-trousers to jog 10 miles at 20 mph to “commute” while exercising, or to lift rubble off people for 12 hours without breaks after an earthquake, or both.

We already see this class of power-assist augmented travel in tiny form-factors in the latest generation of electric bicycles, like the Shimano e8000 motor. It adds power as a cyclist pedals, creating a mixed-drive model:

For what it’s worth, the “gait” (wobble) of bicycles also is super complicated and a rich area of data science research. Robots fail miserably (nice try Yamaha) to emulate the nuance of controlling/driving two-wheels. Anyone saying driverless cars will reduce deaths isn’t looking at why driverless cars are more likely than human drivers to crash into pedestrians and cyclists. Any human can ride a bicycle, but to a driverless car this prediction tree is an impenetrable puzzle:

Unlike sitting in a cage, the possibilities of micro-engines form-fitted to the human body are seemingly endless, just like the branches in that tree. So it makes less and less sense for anyone to want cages for personal transit, unless they’re trying to make a forceful statement by taking up shared space to deny freedom to others.

What is missing in the above sequence of photos? One where cars are completely gone, like bell-bottom trousers, because they waste so much for so little gain, lowering quality of life for everyone involved.

Floating around in a giant private box really is a status thing, when you think about it. It’s a poorly thought out exoskeleton, like a massive blow-up suit or fluffy dress that everyone has to clean up after (and avoid being hit by). Here’s some excellent perspective on the stupidity of carrying forward the carriage design into modern transit:

Rapstatus tells us cars still get a lot of lip service so I suspect we’re a long way from carriages being relegated to ancient history, where they belong.

Nontheless I’m told new generations have less patience for carriages, and so I hope already they visualize something like this when people ask them if they would get in a car to get around…

This Day in History: Gettysburg Shoes

July 1st marks the beginning of a Civil War battle that many historians say is one of the most pivotal. And, as many historians also like to note, a love of pillaging Americans for their shoes supposedly is what drew pro-slavery forces arrogantly into Gettysburg on this date.

This topic of shaking-down hardworking Americans for their shoes is tied to General A. P. Hill. The man was a wealthy elitist who expected things for free (see also: slavery) and eagerly had abandoned his appointment in the U.S. Army to fight against freedom. To put it simply, Hill was committed to the violent expansion of slavery long after the practice had been abolished around the world.

Two decades before Hill was born, in 1807 the English already had abolished its slave trade. The idea of slavery became so unjustifiable in English society that by “1824 there were more than 200 branches of the Anti-Slavery Society in Britain“. No surprise then the agrarian state of New York abolished slavery 1827, England emancipated slaves in 1833, English Colonies 1838…but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Mary Wollstonecraft, credited with helping found modern British feminist ethics, famously wrote against slavery in 1792:

Is sugar always to be produced by vital blood? Is one half of the human species, like the poor African slaves, to be subject to prejudices that brutalise them, when principles would be a surer guard, only to sweeten the cup of man? Is not this indirectly to deny woman reason?

Wollstonecraft’s sentiment was shared in the colonies, believe it or not, and thus we see examples like the agrarian colony of New York debating how to expedite emancipation, two decades earlier than Wollstonecraft’s call for a boycott on slave-made goods:

Most of the Revolutionary leaders who came to power in New York in 1777 had anti-slavery sentiments, yet, as elsewhere in the North, the urgency of the war with Britain made them delay, and they restricted their activity to a policy statement and an appeal to future legislatures “to take the most effective measures consistent with public safety for abolishing domestic slavery.” This resolution passed in the state Constitutional Convention by a vote of 29 to 5.

Note the five dissenters. Obviously some in the 1700s were not quite convinced. And so by 1861 we have a treasonous General A. P. Hill taking up arms against his own country. In a nutshell, many white elitist men in America did not want to do hard work and believed their easy/lazy lives and financial inheritances (see also: people treated as property to be bought and sold) were threatened unless they could continue to enslave Americans and steal their goods.

Today you may be surprised to see the U.S. Army has named a fort after an infamously treasonous and foolish man like A. P. Hill. Given that he dedicated his life to killing American soldiers for personal profit, who thought this made any sense?

The installation was named in honor of Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, a Virginia native who distinguished himself…

Please take special note of the fact that the U.S. Army doesn’t call the person they are honoring an American, because his treason to preserve slavery by killing Americans, killed his citizenship.

Also nice try U.S. Army with your Virginia reference. Obviously Hill was far from being a true native of Virginia.

That being said I must agree with the second part of the sentence, this treasonous man hateful of his own country certainly distinguished himself. The U.S. Army doesn’t mention it but his impatience, as well as lust for plundering Americans and putting people in chains, may have led to one of the greatest tactical blunders in U.S. military history. So distinguishable.

Also he contracted gonorrhea while a cadet at West Point, screwed around so much he graduated late, and became known for taking “sick leave” right in the heat of any major battle.

Now, to be fair to Hill being so distinguished, I must admit he shared poor decision-making with his pro-slavery General Heth on June 30th, 1863. Heth had ordered his pro-slavery General Pettigrew to enter Gettysburg and ransack it. Pettigrew had followed these orders at first but turned tail after he observed American cavalry and infantry already near the town.

In “The Civil War: A Narrative” there’s a scene where Hill approaches Heth and hears of Pettigrew’s reluctance. Hill, our man of the hour, then insists to Heth there can be no significant American forces present.

OOPS.

The narrative tells us Heth obediently then sends his Pettigrew back once again to plunder Gettysburg and “get those shoes!”

Narratives aside, by 5AM on July 1st, as Heth himself approached Gettysburg to damage it, he realized Pettigrew had been right, Hill was stupidly wrong, and significant numbers of American forces were present. Yet even that didn’t dissuade Heth, who continued ordering Pettigrew to march on.

Hill’s insistence that he conferred with Lee and there would be no resistance to plunder seems to be the real story here, shoes or not. There was an inherent desperation of Lee and his pro-slavery men to plunder America (see also: slavery), which on this particular day began the largest land battle in the western hemisphere, lasting 3 days and killing nearly 50,000 people, to the disadvantage of pro-slavery forces.

One of the stranger footnotes (no pun intended) to this story is that while Gettysburg had a lot of American forces defending freedom, it didn’t have any shoes.

These pro-slavery Generals, all of them, not only chose to be blind to the evils of slavery, they also were blind on two more levels. A particularly inhumane General with the ironic name of Early (infamous for helping to invent the “Lost Cause” view) had tried to pillage Gettysburg days before Heth had set his sights on it.

This means Americans living in Gettysburg already had been subjected to pro-slavery militia demanding ransom in 1,000 shoes and attacking the town.

No shoes were found, as you can plainly read here:

Had there been any shoes, they might have been the standard issue “Jefferson Boots”, named after Thomas Jefferson who is thought to have created an American fad for French ankle-high laced shoes by wearing them instead of previously common English ones with large buckles.

However, again I must say, NO SHOES IN GETTYSBURG.

So for those historians arguing pro-slavery forces really centered their offensive on shoes, maybe put a sock in it.

Is there any evidence that pro-slavery General Early told others that the town couldn’t cough up any Jefferson boots despite his violent demands? Lee and Hill both supposedly had scouts relaying information but perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference what Early said, given how Pettigrew was rebuffed when he tried to explain the dangers of trying to plunder Americans on this day.

To put this in perspective, it’s not like in the days leading up to the Gettysburg battle someone could tell Lee or Hill that slavery is unjustified and they would listen; if these men wanted stealing to be in their plans, they were going to threaten and kill Americans until some damn things to steal were found or everyone was dead for refusing to see things the pro-slavery way.

Again, Hill quit the U.S. Army to plunder America in the most unjustified way to retain elite status. In that sense Gettysburg was simply another day of plunder to Hill and his men, whether stealing goods, separating babies from mothers, or perpetuating slavery to improve his own status at the expense of others.

Within three days pro-slavery forces had been destroyed at Gettysburg, which helped signal an end to their plans to use violence against fellow citizens to expand slavery practices into western territories (what the war was really about); 60 years after England had abolished slavery, and 30 years after slaves in America (if still colonies) would have been emancipated, the self-proclaimed “elite” white supremacists fighting to perpetuate obviously tyrannical practices of their former King were defeated (pun not intended).

Also, just as one final footnote, I think it is time for the U.S. Army to officially remove honors to Hill. I say that not only because Hill was a murderous traitor and terror to Americans, but also because we could say he finally got the boot he so desired.

Book Review: “The Mission, the Men and Me”

Pete Blaber’s book “The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander” gets a lot of rave reviews about business practices and management tips.

It’s hard not to agree with some of his principles, such as “Don’t Get Treed by a Chihuahua”. This phrase is a cute way of saying know your adversary before taking extreme self-limiting action.

Who would disagree with that?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The book begins with a story of childhood, where Pete reflects on how he topographically mastered his neighborhood and could escape authorities. That gives way to a story of his trials and tribulations in the Army, where during training he was tested by unfamiliar topography and uncertain threats.

It is from this training scenario that Pete formulates his principle to not jump off a cliff when a pig grunted at him (sorry, spoiler alert).

Maybe a less cute and more common way of saying this would be that managers should avoid rushing into conclusions when a little reflection on the situation is possible to help choose the most effective path. Abraham Lincoln probably said it best:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

How should someone identify whether they are facing only a Chihuahua-level threat, given their other option is to run and blindly climb a tree?

Pete leaves this quandary up to the reader, making it less than ideal advice. I mean if in an attempt to identify whether you are facing a Chihuahua, wild pig or a bear you get mauled to death, could you sue Pete for bad advice? No, because it was a bear and instead of being up a tree you are dead.

Michael Shermer covered this dilemma extensively in his book “The Believing Brain: From Ghost and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.”

Given his lessons learned in joining the Army, Pete transitions to even more topographical study. He masters mountain climbing with a team in harsh weather. It’s a very enjoyable read.

I especially like the part where money is no object and the absolute best climbing technology is available. There’s no escaping the fact that the military pushes boundaries in gear research and keeps an open mind/wallet to technology innovations.

From there I can easily make the connection to the climax of the book, where he leads a team on a topographically challenging mission and minimizes their risk of detection. It really comes full circle to his childhood stories.

However, there are a few parts of the book that I found strangely inconsistent, which marred an otherwise quick and interesting read.

For example, Pete makes a comment about religion and culture that seems uninformed or just lazy. He refers to Cat Stevens as the “most renowned celebrity convert to Islam”:

I’m not claiming to be an expert in celebrity status or Islam, just saying it should be kind of obvious to everyone in the world that Muhammad Ali (nee Cassius Clay) is far more renowned as a celebrity convert to Islam. I don’t think Cat Stevens even breaks into top ten territory.

Afer winning the Olympics in 1960, the hugely popular Clay not only went on to convert he also refused serving US armed forces in Vietnam because a “minister in the religion of Islam”. As the FBI puts it in their release of surveillance files:

…famed Olympian, professional boxer and noted public figure. This release consists of materials from FBI files that show Ali’s relationship with the Nation of Islam in 1966.

Pete’s comment about the popularity of Cat Stevens suggests that despite the no-holds-barred approach to piles of rock, he may lack knowledge in human topics essential to conflicts he was training to win. A quick look at discussion of Islamic celebrities backs up this point:

Worldwide celebrity searches, past 12 months.

Pete was wandering on that flat line at the bottom while giant mountains of culture stood right above him, unexplored, despite his access to the best tools. When Pete doesn’t mention any ethnic or religious diversity values in childhood it perhaps comes as foreshadowing, leaving him inexperienced and unprepared his whole life to properly identify an Islamic Chihuahua.

Perhaps also important to note, in terms of celebrity status, white Muslims are the most prevalent in America

No racial or ethnic group makes up a majority of Muslim American adults. A plurality (41%) are white… and one-fifth are black (20%).

The famous three-time Golden Globe-winning actor Omar Sharif, for example, was a Catholic who converted to Islam in 1955.

“Though Sharif was Egyptian, his ethnic good looks were used in a less-globally aware Hollywood to represent different nationalities.”

There are at least two more examples of this class of error in the book. I may update the post with them as I have time.

The Psychology of “Talking Paper”

Sometime in the late 1980s I managed to push a fake “bomb” screen to Macintosh users in networked computer labs. It looked something like this:

There wasn’t anything wrong with the system. I simply wanted the users in a remote room to restart because I had pushed an “extension” to their system that allowed me remote control of their speaker (and microphone). They always pushed the restart button. Why wouldn’t they?

Once they restarted I was able to speak to them from my microphone. In those days it was mostly burps and jokes, mischievous stuff, because it was fun to surprise users and listen to their reactions.

A few years later, as I was burrowing around in the dusty archives of the University of London (a room sadly which no longer exists because it was replaced by computer labs, but Duke University has a huge collection), I found vivid color leaflets that had been dropped by the RAF into occupied Ethiopia during WWII.

There in my hand was the actual leaflet credited with psychological operations “101”, and so a color copy soon became a page in my graduate degree thesis. In my mind these two experiences were never far apart.

For years afterwards when I would receive a greeting card with a tiny speaker and silly voice or song, of course I would take it apart and look for ways to re-purpose or modify its message. Eventually I had a drawer full of these tiny “talking paper” devices, ready to deploy, and sometimes they would end up in a friend’s book or bag as a surprise.

One of my favorite “talking” devices had a tiny plastic box that upon sensing light would yodel “YAHOOOOOO!” I tended to leave it near my bed so I could be awakened by yodeling, to set the tone of the new day. Of course when anyone else walked into the room and turned on the light their eyes would grow wide and I’d hear the invariable “WTF WAS THAT?”

Fast forward to today and I’m pleased to hear that “talking paper” has become a real security market and getting thinner, lighter and more durable. In areas of the world where Facebook doesn’t reach, military researchers still believe psychological manipulation requires deploying their own small remote platforms. Thus talking paper is as much a thing as it was in the 1940s or before and we’re seeing cool mergers of physical and digital formats, which I tried to suggest in my presentation slides from recent years:

While some tell us the market shift from printed leaflets to devices that speak is a matter of literacy, we all can see clearly in this DefenseOne story how sounds can be worth a thousand words.

Over time, the operation had the desired effect, culminating in the defection of Michael Omono, Kony’s radio telephone operator and a key intelligence source. Army Col. Bethany C. Aragon described the operation from the perspective of Omono.

“You are working for a leader who is clearly unhinged and not inspired by the original motivations that people join the Lord’s Resistance Army for. [Omono] is susceptible. Then, as he’s walking through the jungle, he hears [a recording of] his mother’s voice and her message begging him to come home. He sees leaflets with his daughter’s picture begging him to come home, from his uncle that raised him and was a father to him.”

Is anyone else wondering if Omono had been a typewriter operator instead of radio telephone whether the US Army could have convinced him via print alone?

Much of the story about the “new” talking paper technology is speculative about the market, like allowing recipients to be targeted by biometrics. Of course if you want a message to spread widely and quickly via sound (as he’s walking through the jungle), using biometric authenticators to prevent it from spreading at all makes basically no sense.

On the other hand (pun not intended) if a written page will speak only when a targeted person touches it, that sounds like a great way to evolve the envelope/letter boundary concepts. On the paper is the address of the recipient, which everyone and anyone can see, much like how an email address or phone number sits exposed on encrypted messaging. Only when the recipient touches it or looks at it, and their biometrics are verified, does it let out the secret “YAHOOOO!”