Short Cuts? Nah, Just Business as Usual in the Big Apple Publishing World
June 28, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
One of my team alerted me to this Fortune Magazine story: “Telegram Has Become the Go-To App for Heroin, Guns, and Everything Illegal. Can Crypto Save It?” The author appears to be Niamh Rowe. I do not know this “real” journalist. The Fortune Magazine write up is interesting for several reasons. I want to share these because if I am correct in my hypotheses, the problems of big publishing extend beyond artificial intelligence.
First, I prepared a lecture about Telegram specifically for several law enforcement conferences this year. One of our research findings was that a Clear Web site, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and a browser, could buy stolen bank cards. But these ready-to-use bank cards were just bait. The real play was the use of an encrypted messaging service to facilitate a switch to a malware once the customer paid via crypto for a bundle of stolen credit and debit cards. The mechanism was not the Dark Web. The Dark Web is showing its age, despite the wild tales which appear in the online news services and semi-crazy videos on YouTube-type services. The new go-to vehicle is an encrypted messaging service. The information in the lecture was not intended to be disseminated outside of the law enforcement community.
A big time “real” journalist explains his process to an old person who lives in the Golden Rest Old Age Home. The old-timer thinks the approach is just peachy-keen. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Close enough like most modern work.
Second, in my talk I used idiosyncratic lingo for one reason. The coinages and phrases allow my team to locate documents and the individuals who rip off my work without permission.
I have had experience with having my research pirated. I won’t name a major Big Apple consulting firm which used my profiles of search vendors as part of the firm’s training materials. Believe it or not, a senior consultant at this ethics-free firm told me that my work was used to train their new “experts.” Was I surprised? Nope. New York. Consultants. What did I expect? Integrity was not a word I used to describe this Big Apple publishing outfitthen, and it sure isn’t today. The Fortune Magazine article uses my lingo, specifically “superapp” and includes comments which struck my researcher as a coincidental channeling of my observations about an end-to-end encrypted service’s crypto play. Yep, coincidence. No problem. Big time publishing. Eighty-year-old person from Kentucky. Who cares? Obviously not the “real” news professional who is in telepathic communication with me and my study team. Oh, well, mind reading must exist, right?
Third, my team and I are working hard on a monograph about E2EE specifically for law enforcement. If my energy holds out, I will make the report available free to any member of a law enforcement cyber investigative team in the US as well as investigators at agencies in which I have some contacts; for example, the UK’s National Crime Agency, Europol, and Interpol.
I thought (silly me) that I was ahead of the curve as I was with some of my other research reports; for example, in the the year 1995 my publisher released Internet 2000: The Path to the Total Network, then in 2004, my publisher issued The Google Legacy, and in 2006 a different outfit sold out of my Enterprise Search Report. Will I be ahead of the curve with my E2EE monograph? Probably not. Telepathy I guess.
But my plan is to finish the monograph and get it in the hands of cyber investigators. I will continue to be on watch for documents which recycle my words, phrases, and content. I am not a person who writes for a living. I write to share my research team’s findings with the men and women who work hard to make it safe to live and work in the US and other countries allied with America. I do not chase clicks like those who must beg for dollars, appeal to advertisers, and provide links to Patreon-type services.
I have never been interested in having a “fortune” and I learned after working with a very entitled, horse-farm-owning Fortune Magazine writer that I had zero in common with him, his beliefs, and, by logical reasoning, the culture of Fortune Magazine.
My hunch is that absolutely no one will remember where the information in the cited write up with my lingo originated. My son, who owns the DC-based GovWizely.com consulting firm, opined, “I think the story was written by AI.” Maybe I should use that AI and save myself money, time, and effort?
To be frank, I laughed at the spin on the Fortune Magazine story’s interpretation of superapp. Not only does the write up misrepresent what crypto means to Telegram, the superapp assertion is not documented with fungible evidence about how the mechanics of Telegram-anchored crime can work.
Net net: I am 80. I sort of care. But come on, young wizards. Up your game. At least, get stuff right, please.
Stephen E Arnold, June 28, 2024
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