Social Media Cowboys, the Ranges Are Getting Fences
September 2, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Several recent developments suggest that the wide open and free ranges are being fenced in. How can I justify this statement, pardner? Easy. Check out these recent developments:
- The founder of Telegram is Pavel Durov. He was arrested on Saturday, August 26, 2024, at Le Bourget airport near Paris
- TikTok will stand trial for the harms to children caused by the “algorithm”
- Brazil has put up barbed wire to keep Twitter (now X.com) out of the country.
I am not the smartest dinobaby in the rest home, but even I can figure out that governments are taking action after decades of thinking about more weighty matters than the safety of children, the problems social media causes for parents and teachers, and the importance of taking immediate and direct action against those breaking laws.
A couple of social media ranchers are wondering about the actions of some judicial officials. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough like most software today.
Several questions seem to be warranted.
First, the actions are uncoordinated. Brazil, France, and the US have reached conclusions about different social media companies and acted without consulting one another. How quickly with other countries consider their particular situation and reach similar conclusions about free range technology outfits?
Second, why have legal authorities and legislators in many countries failed to recognize the issues radiating from social media and related technology operators? Was it the novelty of technology? Was it a lack of technology savvy? Was it moral or financial considerations?
Third, how will the harms be remediated? Is it enough to block a service or change penalties for certain companies?
I am personally not moved by those who say speech must be free and unfettered. Sorry. The obvious harms outweigh that self-serving statement from those who are mesmerized by online or paid to have that idea and promote it. I understand that a percentage of students will become high achievers with or without traditional reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, my concern is the other 95 percent of students. Structured learning is necessary for a society to function. That’s why there is education.
I don’t have any big ideas about ameliorating the obvious damage done by social media. I am a dinobaby and largely untouched by TikTok-type videos or Facebook-type pressures. I am, however, delighted to be able to cite three examples of long overdue action by Brazilian, French, and US officials. Will some of these wild west digital cowboys end up in jail? I might support that, pardner.
Stephen E Arnold, September 2, 2024
Can an AI Journalist Be Dragged into Court and Arrested?
August 28, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read “Being on Camera Is No Longer Sensible: Persecuted Venezuelan Journalists Turn to AI.” The main idea is that a video journalist can present the news, not a “real” human journalist. The write up says:
In daily broadcasts, the AI-created newsreaders have been telling the world about the president’s post-election crackdown on opponents, activists and the media, without putting the reporters behind the stories at risk.
The write up points out:
The need for virtual-reality newscasters is easy to understand given the political chill that has descended on Venezuela since Maduro was first elected in 2013, and has worsened in recent days.
Suppression of information seems to be increasing. With the detainment of Pavel Durov, Russia has expressed concern about this abrogation of free speech. Ukrainian government officials might find this rallying in support of Mr. Durov ironic. In April 2024, Telegram filtered content from Ukraine to Russian citizens.
An AI news presenter sitting in a holding cell. Government authorities want to discuss her approach to “real” news. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
Will AI “presenters” or AI “content” prevent the type of intervention suggested by Venezuelan-type government officials?
Several observations:
- Individual journalists may find that the AI avatar “plays” may not fool or amuse certain government authorities. It is possible that the use of AI and the coverage of the tactic in highly-regarded “real” news services exacerbates the problem. Somewhere, somehow a human is behind the avatar. The obvious question is, “Who is that person?”
- Once the individual journalist behind an avatar has been identified and included in an informal or formal discussion, who or what is next in the AI food chain? Is it an organization associated with “free speech”, an online service, or an organization like a giant high-technology company. What will a government do to explore a chat with these entities?
- Once the organization has been pinpointed, what about the people who wrote the software powering the avatar? What will a government do to interact with these individuals?
Step 1 seems fairly simple. Step 2 may involve some legal back and forth, but the process is not particularly novel. However, Step 3 presents a bit of a conundrum, and it presents some challenges. Lawyers and law enforcement for the country whose “laws” have been broken have to deal with certain protocols. Embracing different techniques can have significant political consequences.
My view is that using AI intermediaries is an interesting use case for smart software. The AI doomsayers invoke smart software taking over. A more practical view of AI is that its use can lead to actions which are at first tempests in tea pots. Then when a cluster of AI tea pots get dumped over, difficult to predict activities can emerge. The Venezuelan government’s response to AI talking heads delivering the “real” news is a precursor and worth monitoring.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2024
Meta Leadership: Thank you for That Question
August 26, 2024
Who needs the Dark Web when one has Facebook? We learn from The Hill, “Lawmakers Press Meta Over Illicit Drug Advertising Concerns.” Writer Sarah Fortinsky pulls highlights from the open letter a group of House representatives sent directly to Mark Zuckerberg. The rebuke follows a March report from The Wall Street Journal that Meta was under investigation for “facilitating the sale of illicit drugs.” Since that report, the lawmakers lament, Meta has continued to run such ads. We learn:
The Tech Transparency Project recently reported that it found more than 450 advertisements on those platforms that sell pharmaceuticals and other drugs in the last several months. ‘Meta appears to have continued to shirk its social responsibility and defy its own community guidelines. Protecting users online, especially children and teenagers, is one of our top priorities,’ the lawmakers wrote in their letter, which was signed by 19 lawmakers. ‘We are continuously concerned that Meta is not up to the task and this dereliction of duty needs to be addressed,’ they continued. Meta uses artificial intelligence to moderate content, but the Journal reported the company’s tools have not managed to detect the drug advertisements that bypass the system.”
The bipartisan representatives did not shy from accusing Meta of dragging its heels because it profits off these illicit ad campaigns:
“The lawmakers said it was ‘particularly egregious’ that the advertisements were ‘approved and monetized by Meta.’ … The lawmakers noted Meta repeatedly pushes back against their efforts to establish greater data privacy protections for users and makes the argument ‘that we would drastically disrupt this personalization you are providing,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘If this personalization you are providing is pushing advertisements of illicit drugs to vulnerable Americans, then it is difficult for us to believe that you are not complicit in the trafficking of illicit drugs,’ they added.”
The letter includes a list of questions for Meta. There is a request for data on how many of these ads the company has discovered itself and how many it missed that were discovered by third parties. It also asks about the ad review process, how much money Meta has made off these ads, what measures are in place to guard against them, and how minors have interacted with them. The legislators also ask how Meta uses personal data to target these ads, a secret the company will surely resist disclosing. The letter gives Zuckerberg until September 6 to respond.
Cynthia Murrell, August 26, 2024
Which Is It, City of Columbus: Corrupted or Not Corrupted Data
August 23, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I learned that Columbus, Ohio, suffered one of those cyber security missteps. But the good news is that I learned from the ever reliable Associated Press, “Mayor of Columbus, Ohio, Says Ransomware Attackers Stole Corrupted, Unusable Data.” But then I read the StateScoop story “Columbus, Ohio, Ransomware Data Might Not Be Corrupted After All.”
The answer is, “I don’t know.” Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The story is a groundhog day tale. A bad actor compromises a system. The bad actor delivers ransomware. The senior officers know little about ransomware and even less about the cyber security systems marketed as a proactive, intelligent defense against bad stuff like ransomware. My view, as you know, is that it is easier to create sales decks and marketing collateral than it is is to deliver cyber security software that works. Keep in mind that I am a dinobaby. I like products that under promise and over deliver. I like software that works, not sort of works or mostly works. Works. That’s it.
What’s interesting about Columbus other than its zoo, its annual flower festival, and the OCLC organization is that no one can agree on this issue. I believe this is a variation on the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello routine “Who’s on First.”
StateScoop’s story reported:
An anonymous cybersecurity expert told local news station WBNS Tuesday that the personal information of hundreds of thousands of Columbus residents is available on the dark web. The claim comes one day after Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther announced to the public that the stolen data had been “corrupted” and most likely “unusable.” That assessment was based on recent findings of the city’s forensic investigation into the incident.
The article noted:
Last week, the city shared a fact sheet about the incident, which explains: “While the city continues to evaluate the data impacted, as of Friday August 9, 2024, our data mining efforts have not revealed that any of the dark web-posted data includes personally identifiable information.”
What are the lessons I have learned from these two stories about a security violation and ransomware extortion?
- Lousy cyber security is a result of indifferent (maybe lousy) management? How do I know? The City of Columbus cannot generate a consistent story.
- The compromised data were described in two different and opposite ways. The confusion underscores that the individuals involved are struggling with basic data processes. Who’s on first? I don’t know. No, he’s on third.
- The generalization that no one wants the data misses an important point. Data, once available, is of considerable interest to state actors who might be interested in the employees associated with either the university, Chemical Abstracts, or some other information-centric entity in Columbus, Ohio.
Net net: The incident is one more grim reminder of the vulnerabilities which “managers” choose to ignore or leave to people who may lack certain expertise. The fix may begin in the hiring process.
Stephen E Arnold, August 23, 2024
An Ed Critique That Pans the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Act
August 16, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read Ed.
Ed refers to Edward Zitron, the thinker behind Where’s Your Ed At. The write up which caught my attention is “Monopoly Money.” I think that Ed’s one-liners will not be incorporated into the Sundar & Prabhakar comedy act. The flubbed live demos are knee slappers, but Ed’s write up is nipping at the heels of the latest Googley gaffe.
Young people are keen observers of certain high-technology companies. What happens if one of the giants becomes virtual and moves to a Dubai-type location? Who has jurisdiction? Regulatory enforcement delayed means big high-tech outfits are more portable than old-fashioned monopolies. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Big industrial images are clearly a core competency you have.
Ed’s focus is on the legal decision which concluded that the online advertising company is a monopoly in “general text advertising.” The essay states:
The ruling precisely explains how Google managed to limit competition and choice in the search and ad markets. Documents obtained through discovery revealed the eye-watering amounts Google paid to Samsung ($8 billion over four years) and Apple ($20 billion in 2022 alone) to remain the default search engine on their devices, as well as Mozilla (around $500 million a year), which (despite being an organization that I genuinely admire, and that does a lot of cool stuff technologically) is largely dependent on Google’s cash to remain afloat.
Ed notes:
Monopolies are a big part of why everything feels like it stopped working.
Ed is on to something. The large technology outfits in the US control online. But one of the downstream consequences of what I call the Silicon Valley way or the Googley approach to business is that other industries and market sectors have watched how modern monopolies work. The result is that concentration of power has not been a regulatory priority. The role of data aggregation has been ignored. As a result, outfits like Kroger (a grocery company) is trying to apply Googley tactics to vegetables.
Ed points out:
Remember when “inflation” raised prices everywhere? It’s because the increasingly-dwindling amount of competition in many consumer goods companies allowed them to all raise their prices, gouging consumers in a way that should have had someone sent to jail rather than make $19 million for bleeding Americans dry. It’s also much, much easier for a tech company to establish one, because they often do so nestled in their own platforms, making them a little harder to pull apart. One can easily say “if you own all the grocery stores in an area that means you can control prices of groceries,” but it’s a little harder to point at the problem with the tech industry, because said monopolies are new, and different, yet mostly come down to owning, on some level, both the customer and those selling to the customer.
Blue chip consulting firms flip this comment around. The points Ed makes are the recommendations and tactics the would-be monopolists convert to action plans. My reaction is, “Thanks, Silicon Valley. Nice contribution to society.”
Ed then gets to artificial intelligence, definitely a hot topic. He notes:
Monopolies are inherently anti-consumer and anti-innovation, and the big push toward generative AI is a blatant attempt to create another monopoly — the dominance of Large Language Models owned by Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta. While this might seem like a competitive marketplace, because these models all require incredibly large amounts of cloud compute and cash to both train and maintain, most companies can’t really compete at scale.
Bingo.
I noted this Ed comment about AI too:
This is the ideal situation for a monopolist — you pay them money for a service and it runs without you knowing how it does so, which in turn means that you have no way of building your own version. This master plan only falls apart when the “thing” that needs to be trained using hardware that they monopolize doesn’t actually provide the business returns that they need to justify its existence.
Ed then makes a comment which will cause some stakeholders to take a breath:
As I’ve written before, big tech has run out of hyper-growth markets to sell into, leaving them with further iterations of whatever products they’re selling you today, which is a huge problem when big tech is only really built to rest on its laurels. Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have at least been smart enough to not totally destroy their own products, but Meta and Google have done the opposite, using every opportunity to squeeze as much revenue out of every corner, making escape difficult for the customer and impossible for those selling to them. And without something new — and no, generative AI is not the answer — they really don’t have a way to keep growing, and in the case of Meta and Google, may not have a way to sustain their companies past the next decade. These companies are not built to compete because they don’t have to, and if they’re ever faced with a force that requires them to do good stuff that people like or win a customer’s love, I’m not sure they even know what that looks like.
Viewed from a Googley point of view, these high-technology outfits are doing what is logical. That’s why the Google advertisement for itself troubled people. The person writing his child willfully used smart software. The fellow embodied a logical solution to the knotty problem of feelings and appropriate behavior.
Ed suggests several remedies for the Google issue. These make sense, but the next step for Google will be an appeal. Appeals take time. US government officials change. The appetite to fight legions of well resourced lawyers can wane. The decision reveals some interesting insights into the behavior of Google. The problem now is how to alter that behavior without causing significant market disruption. Google is really big, and changes can have difficult-to-predict consequences.
The essay concludes:
I personally cannot leave Google Docs or Gmail without a significant upheaval to my workflow — is a way that they reinforce their monopolies. So start deleting sh*t. Do it now. Think deeply about what it is you really need — be it the accounts you have and the services you need — and take action. They’re not scared of you, and they should be.
Interesting stance.
Several observations:
- Appeals take time. Time favors outfits like losers of anti-trust cases.
- Google can adapt and morph. The size and scale equip the Google in ways not fathomable to those outside Google.
- Google is not Standard Oil. Google is like AT&T. That break up resulted in reconsolidation and two big Baby Bells and one outside player. So a shattered Google may just reassemble itself. The fancy word for this is emergent.
Ed hits some good points. My view is that the Google fumbles forward putting the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Act in every city the digital wagon can reach.
Stephen E Arnold, August 16, 2024
Canadians Unhappy about Tax on Streaming Video
August 15, 2024
Unfortunately the movie industry has tanked worldwide because streaming services have democratized delivery. Producers, directors, actors, and other industry professionals are all feeling the pain of tighter purse strings. The problems aren’t limited to Hollywood, because Morningstar explains that the US’s northern neighbor is also feeling the strain: “The Motion Picture Association-Canada Asks Canada Appeal Court To Stop Proposed Tax On Streaming Revenue.”
A group representing big entertainment companies: Walt Disney, Netflix, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Paramount Global, and more are asking a Canadian court to stop a law that would force the companies to pay 5% of their sales to the country to fund local news and other domestic content. The Motion Picture Association- Canada stated that tax from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission oversteps the organization’s authority. The group representing the Hollywood bigwigs also mentions that its clients spent billions in Canada every year.
The representative group are also arguing that the tax would force Canadian subscribers to pay more for streaming services and the companies might consider leaving the northern country. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission countered that without the tax local content might not be made or distributed anymore. Hollywood’s lawyers doesn’t like it at all:
“In their filing with Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal, lawyers for the group say the regulator didn’t reveal “any basis” for why foreign streamers are required to contribute to the production of local television and radio newscasts. The broadcast regulator “concluded, without evidence, that ‘there is a need to increase support for news production,'” the lawyers said in their filing. ‘Imposing on foreign online undertakings a requirement to fund news production is not appropriate in the light of the nature of the services that foreign online undertakings provide.’”
Canada will probably keep the tax and Hollywood, instead of the executives eating the costs, will pass it onto consumers. Consumers will also be shafted, because their entertainment streaming services will continue to become expensive.
Whitney Grace, August 15, 2024
The US Government Wants Honesty about Security
August 6, 2024
I am not sure what to make of words like “trust,” “honesty,” and “security.”
The United States government doesn’t want opinions from its people. They only want people to vote, pay their taxes, and not cause trouble. In an event rarer than a blue moon, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wants to know what it could better. Washington Technology shares the story, “CISA’s New Cybersecurity Official Jeff Greene Wants To Know Where The Agency Can Improve On Collaboration Efforts That Have Been Previously Criticized For Their Misdirection.”
Jeff Greene is the new executive assistant director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). He recently held a meeting at the US Chamber of Commerce and asked the private sector attendees that his agency holding an “open house” discussion. The open house discussion welcomes input from the private sector about how the US government and its industry partners can improve on sharing information about cyber threats.
Why does the government want input?
“The remarks come in the wake of reports from earlier this year that said a slew of private sector players have been pulling back from the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative — stood up by CISA in 2021 to encourage cyber firms to team up with the government to detect and deter hacking threats — due to various management mishaps, including cases where CISA allegedly did not staff enough technical analysts for the program.”
Greene wants to know what CISA is doing correctly, but also what the agency is doing wrong. He hopes the private sector will give the agency grace as they make changes, because they’re working on numerous projects. Greene said that the private sector is better at detecting threats before the federal government. The 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act enabled the private sector and US government to collaborate. The act allowed the private sector to bypass obstacles they were otherwise barred from so white hat hackers could stop bad actors.
CISA has a good thing going for it with Greene. Hopefully the rest of the government will listen. It might be useful if cyber security outfits and commercial organizations caught the pods, the vlogs, and the blogs about the issue.
Whitney Grace, August 6, 2024
Google AdWords in Russia?
July 23, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
I have been working on a project requiring me to examine a handful of Web sites hosted in Russia, in the Russian language, and tailored for people residing in Russia and its affiliated countries. I came away today with a screenshot from the site for IT Cube Studio. The outfit creates Web sites and provides advertising services. Here’s a screenshot in Russian which advertises the firm’s ability to place Google AdWords for a Russian client:
If you don’t read Russian, here’s the translation of the text. I used Google Translate which seems to do an okay job with the language pair Russian to English. The ad says:
Contextual advertising. Potential customers and buyers on your website a week after the start of work.
The word
is the Russian spelling of Yandex. The Google word is “Google.”
I thought there were sanctions. In fact, I navigated to Google and entered this query “google AdWords Russia.” What did Google tell me on July 22, 2024, 503 pm US Eastern time?
Here’s the Google results page:
The screenshot is difficult to read, but let me highlight the answer to my question about Google’s selling AdWords in Russia.
There is a March 10, 2022, update which says:
Mar 10, 2022 — As part of our recent suspension of ads in Russia, we will also pause ads on Google properties and networks globally for advertisers based in [Russia] …
Plus there is one of those “smart” answers which says:
People also ask
Does Google Ads work in Russia?
Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we will be temporarily pausing Google ads from serving to users located in Russia. [Emphasis in the original Google results page display}
I know my Russian is terrible, but I am probably slightly better equipped to read and understand English. The Google results seem to say, “Hey, we don’t sell AdWords in Russia.”
I wonder if the company IT Cube Studio is just doing some marketing razzle dazzle. Is it possible that Google is saying one thing and doing another in Russia? I recall that Google said it wasn’t WiFi sniffing in Germany a number of years ago. I believe that Google was surprised when the WiFi sniffing was documented and disclosed.
I find these big company questions difficult to answer. I am certainly not a Google-grade intellect. I am a dinobaby. And I am inclined to believe that there is a really simple explanation or a very, very sincere apology if the IT Cube Studio outfit is selling Google AdWords when sanctions are in place.
If anyone of the two or three people who follow my Web log knows the answer to my questions, please, let me know. You can write me at benkent2020 at yahoo dot com. For now, I find this interesting. The Google would not violate sanctions, would it?
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2024
What Will the AT&T Executives Serve Their Lawyers at the Security Breach Debrief?
July 15, 2024
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This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
On the flight back to my digital redoubt in rural Kentucky, I had the thrill of sitting behind a couple of telecom types who were laughing at the pickle AT&T has plopped on top of what I think of a Judge Green slushee. Do lime slushees and dill pickles go together? For my tastes, nope. Judge Green wanted to de-monopolize the Ma Bell I knew and loved. (Yes, I cashed some Ma Bell checks and I had a Young Pioneers hat.)
We are back to what amounts a Ma Bell trifecta: AT&T (the new version which wears spurs and chaps), Verizon (everyone’s favorite throw back carrier), and the new T-Mobile (bite those customer pocketbooks as if they were bratwursts mit sauerkraut). Each of these outfits is interesting. But at the moment, AT&T is in the spotlight.
“Data of Nearly All AT&T Customers Downloaded to a Third-Party Platform in a 2022 Security Breach” dances around a modest cyber misstep at what is now a quite old and frail Ma Bell. Imagine the good old days before the Judge Green decision to create Baby Bells. Security breaches were possible, but it was quite tough to get the customer data. Attacks were limited to those with the knowledge (somewhat tough to obtain), the tools (3B series computers and lots of mainframes), and access to network connections. Technology has advanced. Consequently competition means that no one makes money via security. Security is better at old-school monopolies because money can be spent without worrying about revenue. As one AT&T executive said to my boss at a blue-chip consulting company, “You guys charge so much we will have to get another railroad car filled with quarters to pay your bill.” Ho ho ho — except the fellow was not joking. At the pre-Judge Green AT&T, spending money on security was definitely not an issue. Today? Seems to be different.
A more pointed discussion of Ma Bell’s breaking her hip again appears in “AT&T Breach Leaked Call and Text Records from Nearly All Wireless Customers” states:
AT&T revealed Friday morning (July 12, 2024) that a cybersecurity attack had exposed call records and texts from “nearly all” of the carrier’s cellular customers (including people on mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, that use AT&T’s network, like Cricket, Boost Mobile, and Consumer Cellular). The breach contains data from between May 1st, 2022, and October 31st, 2022, in addition to records from a “very small number” of customers on January 2nd, 2023.
The “problem” if I understand the reference to Snowflake. Is AT&T suggesting that Snowflake is responsible for the breach? Big outfits like to identify the source of the problem. If Snowflake made the misstep, isn’t it the responsibility of AT&T’s cyber unit to make sure that the security was as good as or better than the security implemented before the Judge Green break up? I think AT&T, like other big companies, wants to find a way to shift blame, not say, “We put the pickle in the lime slushee.”
My posture toward two year old security issues is, “What’s the point of covering up a loss of ‘nearly all’ customers’ data?” I know the answer: Optics and the share price.
As a person who owned a Young Pioneers’ hat, I am truly disappointed in the company. The Regional Managers for whom I worked as a contractor had security on the list of top priorities from day one. Whether we were fooling around with a Western Electric data service or the research charge back system prior to the break up, security was not someone else’s problem.
Today it appears that AT&T has made some decisions which are now perched on the top officer’s head. Security problems are, therefore, tough to miss. Boeing loses doors and wheels from aircraft. Microsoft tantalizes bad actors with insecure systems. AT&T outsources high value data and then moves more slowly than the last remaining turtle in the mine run off pond near my home in Harrod’s Creek.
Maybe big is not as wonderful as some expect the idea to be? Responsibility for one’s decisions and an ethical compass are not cyber tools, but both notions are missing in some big company operations. Will the after-action team guzzle lime slushees with pickles on top?
Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2024
AI Weapons: Someone Just Did Actual Research!
July 12, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
I read a write up that had more in common with a write up about the wonders of a steam engine than a technological report of note. The title of the “real” news report is “AI and Ukraine Drone Warfare Are Bringing Us One Step Closer to Killer Robots.”
I poked through my files and found a couple of images posted as either advertisements for specialized manufacturing firms or by marketers hunting for clicks among the warfighting crowd. Here’s one:
The illustration represents a warfighting drone. I was able to snap this image in a lecture I attended in 2021. At that time, an individual could purchase online the device in quantity for about US$9,000.
Here’s another view:
This militarized drone has 10 inch (254 millimeter) propellers / blades.
The boxy looking thing below the rotors houses electronics, batteries, and a payload of something like a Octanitrocubane- or HMX-type of kinetic charge.
Imagine four years ago, a person or organization could buy a couple of these devices and use them in a way warmly supported by bad actors. Why fool around with an unreliable individual pumped on drugs to carry a mobile phone that would receive the “show time” command? Just sit back. Guide the drone. And — well — evidence that kinetics work.
The write up is, therefore, years behind what’s been happening in some countries for years. Yep, years.
Consider this passage:
As the involvement of AI in military applications grows, alarm over the eventual emergence of fully autonomous weapons grows with it.
I want to point out that Palmer Lucky’s Andruil outfit has been fooling around in the autonomous system space since 2017. One buzz phrase an Andruil person used in a talk was, “Lattice for Mission Autonomy.” Was Mr. Lucky to focus on this area? Based on what I picked up at a couple of conferences in Europe in 2015, the answer is, “Nope.”
The write up does have a useful factoid in the “real” news report?
It is not technology. It is not range. It is not speed, stealth, or sleekness.
It is cheap. Yes, low cost. Why spend thousands when one can assemble a drone with hobby parts, a repurposed radio control unit from the local model airplane club, and a workable but old mobile phone?
Sign up for Telegram. Get some coordinates and let that cheap drone fly. If an operating unit has a technical whiz on the team, just let the gizmo go and look for rectangular shapes with a backpack near them. (That’s a soldier answering nature’s call.) Autonomy may not be perfect, but close enough can work.
The write up says:
Attack drones used by Ukraine and Russia have typically been remotely piloted by humans thus far – often wearing VR headsets – but numerous Ukrainian companies have developed systems that can fly drones, identify targets, and track them using only AI. The detection systems employ the same fundamentals as the facial recognition systems often controversially associated with law enforcement. Some are trained with deep learning or live combat footage.
Does anyone believe that other nation-states have figured out how to use off-the-shelf components to change how warfighting takes place? Ukraine started the drone innovation thing late. Some other countries have been beavering away on autonomous capabilities for many years.
For me, the most important factoid in the write up is:
… Ukrainian AI warfare reveals that the technology can be developed rapidly and relatively cheaply. Some companies are making AI drones using off-the-shelf parts and code, which can be sent to the frontlines for immediate live testing. That speed has attracted overseas companies seeking access to battlefield data.
Yep, cheap and fast.
Innovation in some countries is locked in a time warp due to procurement policies and bureaucracy. The US F 35 was conceived decades ago. Not surprisingly, today’s deployed aircraft lack the computing sophistication of the semiconductors in a mobile phone I can acquire today a local mobile phone repair shop, often operating from a trailer on Dixie Highway. A chip from the 2001 time period is not going to do the TikTok-type or smart software-type of function like an iPhone.
So cheap and speedy iteration are the big reveals in the write up. Are those the hallmarks of US defense procurement?
Stephen E Arnold, July 12, 2024
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