Comcast STEEPLY increasing rates nationwide -- thanks Ajit Pande!

       The lie of losing net neutrality - that that will serve to protect capitalism by allowing companies to profit from selling bandwidth, thus reducing prices for service - is unravelling. Since it was a lie to get votes, of course this is the case. Prices will go up, not down. Any reports (I have seen several) that prices are decreasing due to the repeal of NN are not correct, as can be seen by inspecting the actual numbers and service(s) provided. Here's an article on the latest price increase from Comcast -- you may expect all cable and internet providers to follow suit in 2020. 

     This article is citing the increasing costs are due to consumers fleeing the service. If you recall economics, a decrease in demand decreases price. Like other articles we read in the news nowadays, you cannot trust the reasons or explanations given for anything, intuitive though they may seem. Understand the details of the market and the forces driving it and you will see the reports are incorrect - meant to make such price gouging seem palatable and understandable. The real force is the stranglehold these large corporations were given by the grace and protection of net neutrality's repeal.

     Of course in a true capitalist-style market, the consumer could simply switch to another provider. Not so with cable, internet and telephony (communications) providers though. Choices are limited, companies change prices in lockstep (illegal though that is), and companies are restricted by area, limiting choice and ability to switch.

Just say: bye, bye money! 

https://www.inquirer.com/business/comcast/comcast-cable-bill-rise-broadcast-fee-regional-sports-20191213.html

Google's Magic Touch, or, Quantum Supremacy is the Thing to Have

Stretching while the sun peeped over the horizon this morning, I pried open one eye to enjoy this interesting headline:

"Today Google officially published in the journal Nature an article claiming their 53 Qubit Quantum Computer solves a problem in 3 minutes and 20 seconds that it would take Summit, the world's largest supercomputer, 10,000 years to solve"

Whoa! Wut? Rilly?

Note that IBM has been working on this problem for more than 2 decades and has been the leader in this field, with a well-developed infrastructure, a couple of generations of in-house experience, and teams of experienced engineers. And Google surpassed their efforts - in less than a single decade. 

Note that the largest area of application of quantum supercomputing is solving cryptography problems - i.e., breaking encryption. As I learned in my Cryptography class (Prof Dan Boneh Stanford), all cryptographic algorithms depend on the length of time it takes to crack them, which is brought to nearly zero by quantum computing. ALL of them. 

Which explains Google's interest. 

Good morning! We're doomed. 

Ham Radio's Amazing History as Volunteer Emergency Communicators vs Google...?

Hello friends! Some of you may know that I am a ham radio operator, in fact trained as an Emergency Communicator (EC) in the glorious state of California, where I spent many weekends and evenings in training, listening to lectures, schmoozing, and otherwise hanging around with some of the most amazing engineers in the world. Silicon Valley is the best place to be a ham. And I was proud to be trained and ready to help as part of an EC team if necessary. 

Fast forward a decade+ or so and I found the following fascinating Google Tech Talk from 2013 about how Google is positioning themselves to be the most powerful emergency responder in the world, WOW, and how they will use internet bandwidth during emergencies to get critical information through when needed.

You can be sure their system will eventually be determined to be a more valuable use of bandwidth anything civilian, such as packet or digital radio, and that their internet-wide technologies are more efficient and robust than any civilian ham radio efforts can ever be.

You can be sure DARPA is funding this research arm of Google and also that gov't will be able to determine what information goes through in an emergency, and which geopolitical areas get priority.

Google has a damn good system set up, no denying it, backed by a huge and powerful infrastructure which is resistant to outages and is pretty much impenetrable. Large amounts of emergency bandwidth will be allocated to them and away from public use when deemed necessary by government.. 

Their communications project is extremely well-done. A high level of government funding helped them get there. My geek bump thinks this  is utterly fabulous. Alas, the implications of their success to society is dreadful. It is pushing out civilian contributions, and thus further disempowering citizens. It is taking the power of communication out of our hands. The government and large corporations do not always know best, even when informed by technology and AI, even when really cool, no no nope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCvbNAD8tfc&list=PLAD8A7B6D66DDD297&index=19&t=0s

The Mathematical and Game Theory proofs of the possibility of Ethical Consensus

OK, ok, I know the title sounds sort of impenetrable. Actually its a much bigger subject than I can cover in my blog anyway. So this post is really just a place where I scribbled some thoughts to share.

Interestingly, this paper can be used as model re: the impossibility of ethical consensus:

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/tds/papers/Lynch/jacm85.pdf

The process is inevitable, and it is up to our generation to point out and solve the *very* deep ethical issues with AI making ANY human-level decisions. 

With the tools described in this paper we can try to do this using logic, not opinion or emotion. No one paid attention to the clear impossibility of securing UNIX back in the day and look at the trouble, insecurity, and expense that has caused!

-------

One of my personal heroes, John Nash, addressed an aspect of this very issue we're discussing as we consider the struggle for privacy.

Think of corporations and government agencies as the virus (albeit with more adaptive tools and an exponentially faster response ability) requiring each individual to mount a sort of immune response (which is linear, not exponential) to protect private information. 

Individuals are forced to attempt to design an optimal, effective response in order to preserve information they deem private, or essential to protection of their assets which includes agency and freedom of expression. This paper gives guidance in proposing a solution.

"....in “Defensive complexity and the Phylogenetic Conservation of Immune Control” by Carl Bergstrom.

The main idea in the paper is of coevolutionary struggle between a host's immune system and invading viruses. 

This is of the theme of "arms races" or "evolutionary arms races" where species compete to evolve faster than the other (this nomenclature comes directly from political arms races like in war). There are two sides to this-- one is that you can try to run faster than your opponent, and the other is that you can try to slow down your opponent. In the case of Bergstrom's paper, the immune system slows down the virus.

Roughly, the virus is trying to crack the immune system's code and the immune system is trying to prevent this. The virus learns the immune system's code, then the immune system makes the code more complex, then the virus learns the new code, and so on. What's peculiar about this case is that a virus can go through an entire evolutionary process while the host is, in many ways, the same. So why doesn't the virus just dominate? How can the immune system keep up?

Bergstrom et. al. find inspiration in a particular arms race that was happening in the 1950s involving creating and breaking codes (cryptography). Quoting a letter written by John Nash (who, in addition to game theory, worked on cryptography-- you can find the quote in the paper), Bergstrom connects breaking codes as a human activity and a virus-host interaction. The idea presented by John Nash is that it is possible for a code to grow or change in linear speed while its decryption grows in exponential speed.

In other words, the immune system in a host cannot compete with a virus in terms of evolutionary speed (the virus is much faster). However, the immune system can slow down the virus by moving slowly itself (linear speed) and causing the problem faced by the fast-moving virus (cracking the code) to grow exponentially."

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.2878.pdf

 (From an email sent to members of the Complexity Explorer, made by SFI professor, Prof: Santiago)

Coverage, Coverage Everywhere - But not (really) a Drop for You

Wow! I didn't realize this - there is literally nowhere in the US except National Parks and mountaintops that does not have some wireless coverage. And of course, there is global coverage via the satellite system.

That's a lot of radio waves, baby.

I was looking for places that would have low coverage, both for security reasons, and also to reduce the biological exposure load. Literally, there is nowhere. I thought moving away from NYC would significantly reduce my exposure and connectivity but apparently it doesn't.

The coming 5G rollout will vastly increase this coverage, both in terms of bandwidth and in terms of exposure.

It's creepy when you realize you can't get away from connectivity! It's one thing to want it - why doesn't my phone work? I'm stranded ! But another to realize you can't just go be one with nature, alone with your own bad self. And now there are silently (or "constitutive", to borrow a biological word) connecting devices. This means they are transmitting on the wireless system, doing their own thing (which is always uploading your private information, in one form or another). Yes, this is including your phone, which even with airplane mode on (yes! off!) is still connected - unless the GPS shows you to be at an airport. And including Alexa, and the newest appliances which now have (hidden or not) microphones -- and some have hidden video. Why does your stove have a hidden video camera? Or your car?

Which appliances, I hear you cry? Why, the newest, 5G running, microwaves, refrigerators, ovens, routers, smart bulbs, utility meters - all have hidden embedded microphones and some have hidden cameras too. And that's just a sampling. 5G is the door to unlimited spying. And explains why Ajit Pande is rolling it out to all cheers of the country, to the glee of those who want - indeed need - more rural service. It's a Trojan horse and they don't realize it.

Beyond worrisome.

https://www.fleetistics.com/resources/misc/cellular-network-coverage-maps/

In 1958 We Had Geodesists. Now we have - Google Maps??

I find old issues of Life magazine utterly fascinating.  They're archived in Google Books, you know. This article in Life May 12 1958 gives a look through time to the very beginning of a sensible, well thought out, US funded, ground mapping project intended to increase the military edge of our country and protect our citizens during difficult times. This military project matured over subsequent decades into today's GPS satellite system and morphed into, among other things, Google Maps.

Reading this, I found myself imagining being back in 1958 (Father Knows Best! Five and Dime stores! Bad, BAD, communism! Segregation, quiz shows, Marilyn Monroe, fresh foods in season, kids playing outside after school, Laura Petrie, homemade pies...you get it.) There is simply NO WAY I would imagine being able to predict the consequences of this humble and important project of mapping the physical world to protect our country's interests.

 In fact, I'd say it was a great project, essential to national security, and represented well-spent tax-dollars. In fact, in the context of 1958, I can't see any sensible way to NOT have done this project.

But the subsequent steps taken - obtaining this data began to be done using computers and satellites, not geodesists; GPS was invented, facilitating gathering information on land that grew to be gathering information in general; mapping became tracking, tracking became not only invasive and omnipresent, but secretive and malicious, endangering the underpinnings of our liberty itself which is privacy and individuality --  are destroying the Western world by increasingly controlling its citizens, and with that destruction goes all the progress of the Enlightenment, past and future.

My cheerful analysis - enjoy!

Love, 

Regina Roars

I Cry Foul on the Opioid Crisis!

Everyone is cheering! Ars Technica  reports this:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/purdue-sacklers-offering-10-12-billion-to-settle-2000-opioid-cases-report/

ARRRRGH! This is disgraceful in so many different ways. 

While opioids were marketed aggressively by this company and others in this same space, the choice to prescribe was made by physicians, all of whom are responsible to have taken the Hippocratic Oath, and to have actually learned something in medical school. 

Physicians have a huge responsibility to the health of their patients and therefore, a duty to remain informed and to be responsible for the care they recommend. Physicians are subjected to a barrage of claims from pharmaceutical reps almost daily, but they are also tasked to be the final voice in determining what is the correct treatment for their patients. 

A company may make claims, such as that their medication is "not addictive", but physicians are the one who took advanced courses in pharmacology and they should have known that claims of non-addictiveness were impossible. 

Instead, "pain management" clinics popped up everywhere, and "pain management physicians" claimed expertise in this brand-new area of medicine while propagating the overuse of opioids for at least two decades! Really. You can't make this stuff up.

Now, to feel like they're doing something, everyone wants the Sacklers, who made the most money as a single and public entity, to take the fall. 

I cry nonsense. 

There would have been no problem to public health whatsoever if physicians had done their job. They are the ones who are entirely responsible for the overuse of opioids in the past and, by the bye, the UNDERuse of opioids now, causing much needless suffering for those in legitimate pain. 

The entire case is a tragedy for patients -- while big pharma, physicians, clinics, and hospitals rake in the dough. Disgraceful.

A Wild Ride

I  am writing up a paper on the interaction of GHz radiation with DNA, which led me to reading up on milliwave radiation, which led to readings on milliwave tadar (not a typo!) being used in airports for security screening - despite its suspected danger to public health, and its use in medical radiotherapy to kill cells, in direct opposition to claims of its safety and lack of any proven biological interaction. Really. " WTF, Regina Roars??!", I hear you cry. yeah, me too. 

Anyhow, this led to my discovering that tadar (milliwave radar) is already in use in a large number of international airports and screens passengers without their knowledge over a 50 meter radius from un-identified airport locations, exposing travelers to milliwave radiation at levels thought to be dangerous without their knowledge.

And then I read this gem of public manipulation:

https://www.nap.edu/read/5116/chapter/2

In Chapter 2 is a clearly written description of experiments done on the American public which showed that a perceived risk of danger makes airline passengers much more tolerant of longer and more invasive security surveillance -- therefore the agencies job is to make the public "aware" (i.e., scare the heck out of us with exaggerated or even fake news) of security threats to assure the agency retains the ability to deploy lengthy surveillance (and by the way, to also continue to grow their agency, bringing in more tax dollars for themselves, whether justified by actually increasing public safety or not).

What struck me is that my research on this topic ranged so widely, over health issues, security issues, public manipulation schemes, 5G antennas (not mentioned above!), and DNA research. At every level I found misinformation and corruption. This is over several fields including academia, corporate interests, and government.

Dig it. We the people are f'ed.  We can't "drain the swamp" anymore -- there will be nothing left.

Don't be Evil, My Tushie

Nothing to Hide??

The original motto of Google was, Don’t be Evil. It meant a number of specific things to the founders at Google: here and here.


This ethos was already cracking, even way back in 2003 -- but no one really cared. You didn't. Ho hum.

Because most people feel that they are not hiding anything, they are not doing anything illegal, and they are leading normal, ordinary lives that no one would particularly care about. So why bother about that pesky old concept, privacy??

People seem to be oblivious to the power of huge corporations such as Google and Amazon to distort the world and the world’s marketplace beyond recognition. Beyond your experience. And against your interests.

It began with Google’s products, which are so appealingly useful, such brilliant, privacy-invasive Trojan horses - free email! free online storage!! Freeeee stuff hooray!! - and now this phenomenon continues far beyond Google’s now ubiquitous online tools into a series of daily corporate indignities that have long since become invisible to us all.

Google opened the eyes of all of corporate America (and beyond, alas) to the fact that people don't actually care about privacy if you give them fun, free stuff. Now that ploy is used all over the internet, slowly and softly creeping up and into our lives, homes, and societies.

Credit card companies know exactly what you buy – and hence, exactly what you need. Phone and cable companies knowing exactly what you watch, who you talk with, what you say, what plots you might be hatching for the next bake-sale, or who you like - or that affair you're having (shhhh!). And theses companies, they sell your information. Utility companies know when you are home and how much energy you use compared to your neighbors through the spreading, forced use of “smart meters”. Your smartphone is already too damn smart, knowing things like who your friends are, where you are and when, who you are with, and depending on your apps, things like how much exercise you get, what courses you might be taking, what your favorite restaurants are, what languages you speak, what your opinions are, what your sexual orientation is – in short, all your secrets. ALL of them. You have nothing to hide, right?

Perhaps this really, slowly began to begin around the time of the introduction of supermarket discount cards, way back in the 1990’s, tracking individual purchases; or with pre-internet government inquiries at public libraries into reader’s choice of books (supposedly to find early “hackers” who were made out to the public as being a threat to national security, or “terrorists” who might be building homemade bombs) – which was considered an outrageous intrusion and caused a huge hullabaloo, with vocal public pushback against such an invasion of reader’s privacy. Can you imagine that now? People until very recently understood the value of individual privacy and how it could be used against you. Germans in particular sadly understand these concepts, from World War II to today, as they were learned in horror and blood. But we refuse to acknowledge this today. Because we are having too much fun using free email, talking to Alexa, befriending Siri, and using all our new toys. Fun fun fun. Who would hurt me?

You may feel safe now, because no one hates you. You see how others who are not you are treated – maybe this is people who live in ghettos, people who are female, people who are transgender or gay, people who are dark-skinned, people who are “other” – thank goodness that’s not you, right? Who wants to be treated like that? Underrepresented, locked out from prestigious jobs, provided with poor education, poor services – no sir, that sucks. So glad it’s not me. And, wink wink nudge nudge, you know those others? They are, well, different. Inferior, you know? They brought all that trouble and those bad things on themselves. They are Y, where Y = lazy, deviant, genetically inferior, criminal, immoral, stupid, incapable -- less-than.

They are not me. I am safe.

This thinking is patently false, it is dangerous, it is incorrect, it is justifying, it is comforting, it is denial, it is sticking your head in the sand. If you believe these statements or any form of them, you are not understanding the ugliness and strength of social forces, the brutality of unchecked government power, the reality of black-swan effects. The next holocaust isn’t going to happen to some other, it has already begun happening to the 99%. That’s you, buddy.

Corporations who want them now have access to vast, correlated personal histories compiled for every individual, associated with your email, computer location, credit card, internet, Facebook, and other identifying information. Medical information, financial information, insurance information, auto information, personal information. And they cross-correlate it using machine learning and artifical intelligence, and you can’t see the results, much less the raw data. You think TransUnion knows too much about you? Ha. Today’s technology and astonishing invasive overreach puts older data collection efforts to shame.

Credit companies, in those bad old days of limited information and collecting data in drips and drabs, collection of which was limited at the time and solely due to the efforts of public interest groups, and protected by laws that have long since been rescinded, ignored and/or forgotten, still managed to damage and degrade the lives of decades of individuals by utilizing proprietary algorithms that issued you a credit score in a cryptic way that you the consumer could not easily understand, much less protest. Credit scores are known to greatly overestimate the purported risk of a person to not be able to meet their financial obligations, which leads to expensive credit for those individuals and huge unearned profits for corporations. This is how corporations will use the vast treasure that is the corpus of your personal, private information. Against you.

As far as protecting privacy, no one ever bothers to read corporate privacy statements anymore – who has the time, amiright? They’re long. And boring. And sort of incomprehensible - but rest assured that in the small print every company has given themselves the ability, ostensibly agreed to by you, to swap information between them in order to scrape together a very, very full and complete portrait of you – your name, address, DOB, credit card information, income, and most importantly for your future finances – your purchasing preferences.

We as a society have tolerated distorted airline seat pricing for decades. There seem to be reasons, right? And we are comfortable that physicians charge all sorts of inhomogeneous fees. You can hardly get a straight answer from your doctor as to what a procedure or visit costs – because, they claim, their prices depend on your insurance carrier. Why is that ok?

These past, established financial practices have unwittingly, as an unintended consequence, prepared American consumers for the next step in a logical evolution of expropriating ever higher fees from you.

Here's a benign example. In the near future, if your shopping preferences and profile shows that you favor, for example, consistently purchasing foods such as rice, or skim milk, or Entenmann's crumb cakes, or tomato sauce, or Doritos – for you, that price for that item will increase. You won’t be able to avoid it, because you pay with a credit card and can be identified in a number of other ways as well – Google email address, IP computer ID, or smartphone broadcasting, as examples. Rest assured all this information is already correlated somewhere in a file with your unique identity. You cannot access that file, but it has been bought and sold, and others are making money from it. A lot of money.

If you move – publicly available information – furniture, house furnishings, and other items associated with moving, will increase in price for you. If you switch from sugar to honey – honey will increase in price for you. If your car is more than 3 years old – car dealers will begin to quote you higher prices for models that match your needs, scraped from their agglomerated knowledge of you. Did you have a baby? Baby supplies, diapers, carriages, larger family car prices - all will go up for you. Did you retire and are you male? Sports car prices will increase – for you! If you switch to a paleo diet, meat and protein food item prices will go up for you. If you’re a single woman and you break up with your partner, ice cream prices will soar - for you. This is in part due to the information Amazon and Google continually collect already from all sorts of coordinated technology – your emails, audio and video streams from Alexa-like devices in your home and on your smartphone, the cameras on your phone, computer, and TVs, any IoT device with a speaker, your home security system – any technology on the IoT. 5G will make this better and faster, too. Your refrigerator, which soon will know the moment you’re out of milk, will order it. Your home, which knows you’re on vacation because your utility usage is low, will report you’re away, and your online travel ticket purchases will report where you have gone. If you go on a very expensive vacation and your salary doesn’t justify it, the IRS will audit you. Far fetched? This already happens in France – beginning over a decade ago.

I'm saying - it's not ok, it's hapenning now, and it IS A BIG DEAL!!


I hope you're saying, I KNEW IT!!!

5G: A Secretly Aggressive Move Against the 99% - Shhhh!

Wow, this woke me up today.

Below I've compiled a group of articles (which also have interesting links within them) on the deployment of 5G and some of its consequences - which include a total loss of privacy, extreme cost to the public, and even some health hazards. The articles show that there is evidence of telecom corporate malfeasance, and of course that there has been unsurprising but egregious fake news being spread on 5G benefits and safety, including in the NYT. Sigh.

It takes a little time to go through but it's totally worth it. It's fascinating.

Bottom line - 5G is a very aggressive move against the public. It's not anything like previous technology (4G, 3G etc) in its reach (due to build-out) and scope. The technology will not be capable of offering the benefits as being advertised. 5G will be unavoidable - unlike previous technology. That means via the IoT you will be connected to it no matter what and without your logging in or even necessarily knowing, via devices you may not even be aware have an uplink. 5G may seem like a natural step in technological advancement - but this one, there is no turning back from. 

So. Get a cup of coffee (or beverage of your choice!) and browse a little~!

Oh and - YES 5G frequencies interact with and can disrupt DNA structure, and yes it can cause damage and oncogenic changes. The frequency of 5G matches the breathing mode of helical DNA, causing the opening of soliton-like bubbles along the helical (long) axis, which facilitates further deleterious molecular interactions.  In general you just do not want your DNA structure flopping around like a fish out of water.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/science/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html

"In 2000, the Broward County Public Schools in Florida received an alarming report. Like many affluent school districts at the time, Broward was considering laptops and wireless networks for its classrooms and 250,000 students. Were there any health risks to worry about?

The district asked Bill P. Curry, a consultant and physicist, to study the matter. The technology, he reported back, was “likely to be a serious health hazard.” He summarized his most troubling evidence in a large graph labeled “Microwave Absorption in Brain Tissue (Grey Matter).”

(Not my) Comment: "Actually, this sensationalist piece is the real wolf crier, as  his article has been debunked numerous times by numerous people since it was published, and criticizes actual sound science while offering little more than empty, baseless, and/or false claims throughout."

The 5G Health Hazard That Isn't - How one scientist and his inaccurate chart led to

unwarranted fears of wireless technology.  https://microwavenews.com/news-center/fact-free-hit-5g-critic

https://www.nytimes.com/by/william-j-broad

https://emfrefugee.blogspot.com/2019/07/setting-record-straight-william-broad
.html

https://www.telecompowergrab.org/science.html

https://whatis5g.info/health/2017/09/millimeter-wave-frequency-studies-and-reviews/

https://web.archive.org/web/20180823220918/https:/www.pcmag.com/commentary/363244/the-problem-with-5g

We knew Roomba was spying on and making a database of the interior our homes! Turns out your phone is too!!

Well, first read this. You won't like it:

https://thegeekherald.com/p/att-is-invading-user-privacy-heres-how/


"According to recent reports, an AT&T service technician claims the company is invading user’s privacy. According to him, the company’s iPad app maps the interiors of their customers’ homes without their knowledge...."

And if they can, they match the data up to photos on Zillow and other real estate sites to visualize the inside of your home, furnishings and all!

Wow, this just keep getting worse. The matching of the data with online real estate sites is outrageously creepy. And I'm sure when friends come over, their phones grab this data up too.

I don't know about you, dear Reader, but more and more I'm thinking of tethering my phones to a single spot, attaching my computers via cable (no router) likewise to a single desk, and purging everything else. Also, only buying old cars, which alas I predict will become difficult or impossible within 10 years.

And also remember, 5G will allow multitudes of low power wifi "reporters" to be placed in everything, no login required, so soon everything will report on you. Your vacuum cleaner. Your pen. Your refrigerator. Your walls in new construction (Hello, Amazon Real Estate). Your coat. Your pants. Will there be external 5G wifi, meaning you don;t even need to install a router yourself? Yes, there already is already in several test areas within selected cities.

Unless you want to say goodbye FOREVER to your privacy, people must begin to be aware and protest this or the train-wreck of lost privacy will simply continue to an inevitable end of your agency and freedom. What's that you say? "I'm not doing anything I'm ashamed of, so I don't care"? Unless you feel like it's cool to post your credit card and bank info to strangers, fun to put a public camera in your bathroom and bedroom, and enjoy having every spat with your spouse or kids posted publicly in Facebook, I call nonsense. Of course you care. So do something about it.

Right? Yasssss!

Screw you, Privacy!

Another intrusion. Surprise! And you can't - cannot - opt out. This use of facial recognition is used in NY as well.

"PennDOT uses state-of-the-art facial recognition technology when an individual has their photo taken for their driver's license/identification card renewal."

The state sells this data, and they also purchase facial recognition databases from Amazon and FB as well. It is a simple programming matter to collect all your photo data in a file, and train their AI technology to identify and follow you through a network of cameras that Ajit Pai is ensuring will be both in the home and in all public places by 2020. 5G will be the information backbone for this unprecedented volume of dynamic data. Places like Hudson Yards are currently being used as testbeds for developing the algorithms for surveilling public spaces.

YOU. CANNOT. OPT. OUT.

You can't even hide your face.

Did I mention that your IRS and passport information are also connected to your driver license file? And that the existing law is that you cannot travel if you have any "serious" financial issue with the IRS? Your passport and/or drivers license rights are suspended until the IRS bill is settled.

I can't believe citizens still don't see this juggernaught coming.

Period, the end, goodbye.

Power, Families, Networks, Persistance and Cronyisim is not Capitalisim

The rich don't just get richer, they stay richer...

https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence

 I was reading an interesting article on the wealthiest 129 families in the world, in that list are the DiMedicis and other old, old families. You've heard of many of them. Rothschild. Astor. Anyhow, that article also concluded that if you're in this group, you stay. 

What I'd like to note is that the ONLY nation in the history of the world that has created new wealth and new elite families in that list has been America, due to our (now practically completely dead because: replaced by cronyism) philosophy of Capitalism.  Yeah, your read that right - philosophy first, economics later. Bad things can and have been attributed (and misattributed!) to capitalism but it is the only system that allows new families into this elite class. This is good - it is what we want! You want in, right? Or your kids? Or your neighbors? Just so that its not a closed group - it should be open to those who aspire and work and succeed. But its not.

Many think it is a problem that once you're in this group, you're in. I agree, I think its this "stickiness" that led to the destruction of the positive parts of American capitalism and ushered in a progressing, nearly invisible adoption of deadly, dreaded, unfair and corrupt practices of cronyism. The ultra-wealthy can and do buy politicians to wield political power in their own interest - not yours! - and created a web of loopholes over time that destroyed the system for everyone. 

Most recently, as the wealthy elite + newer, modern billionaires and their companies discovered the value of their controlling the personal data of us peons, they have been stealthily acquiring it without any regard to morality, lawfulness or invasion of privacy. I do not believe that this would have been allowed if we had been able to hold onto our Constitutionally-based, uncorrupted American government. Even socialist Europe has restricted this collection of private data - and you'll notice America isn't even trying to adopt the European privacy safeguards. Because FB and Amazon and Google founders and their families are getting very, very wealthy and they want to keep their wealth. And power.

Cronyisim = danger for you and me, power and money for the monied and wealthy 0.001%.

Google Wants to know If Your Phone is On You!!

Google introduced on-body detection with Lollypop OS. People like it because it seems innocuous, like everything else they offer, and convenient. Lovely!

But it does this:

"On-body detection will get better the longer you have it enabled as it will continually collect data on your walking patterns."

So you eventually won't be able to hide your location or confuse the algos by trading phones with others. 

If there is a change in your movement patterns they will diagnose you whether you like it or not. This is already in place as of January of this year. Dementia, aging, schizophrenia, depression, agitation. The list can be endless. Big medicine will love it because once diagnosed you will be forced to be treated. Current state of affairs is that new diagnostic methods detect Alzheimer's years before symptoms begin. Years. The patient protesting this diagnosis is meaningless. And you'd better get treated or you'll be costing everyone else money - it'll be your social duty. 

Likewise for ADD, PTSD, and other psychiatric maladies. They are all being studied right now for correlations with movement, sentence construction complexity, spelling and syntax error freqyency, use of "angry" or violent words or concepts, and typing patterns. No one is protesting the huge potential for misuse of this highly invasive technology, nor its intense privacy invasiveness. Most people do not know this information is even being collected much less judged. Did you?

Small moves add up to huge consequences. Everyone I talk to says, what do I care? I'm not doing anything illegal! Hmmm. Its not about dealing drugs or hatching crimes. That's a red herring.

People forget the natural, adversarial nature of privacy. In general - each of us doesn't need privacy in order to hide illegal activity, because the vast majority of people don't carry out illegal actions (stealing office pens is not the issue!). You need your privacy to compete with others who want to take your resources, most definitely including government and businesses.

You. Need. It. Protect it. When its gone, its gone, baby.