FOGINT: A Doggie Telegram Play in the Mists of Crypto

October 8, 2024

The FOGINT team has noticed an uptick about the Simplex messenger. You can download the end to end encrypted application from this link. According to chatter on interesting discussion services, individuals espousing certain beliefs are abandoning Telegram because Mr. Freedom (Pavel Durov is allegedly cooperating with law enforcement and other government officials in certain investigation). The causal link between Simplex and Telegram’s new, flexible approach to allegedly illegal activities may be clear to some people. That’s fine.

image

Some people will not be aware that the sheep are ignoring a government worker wearing a rather poor sheep disguise. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How are those Windows updates going? Oh, how about those security changes?

However, Telegram continues to push into territory far more significant than fooling around with the craziness of those who use Telegram to organize traffic jams and sell contraband. The big fish is now on the dock. The fish mongers are crowding around to find out the value of the snatch.

The First Telegram ICO Is Here: Dogizen, Launches Today” reveals what may be a more significant move in the underground financial ecosystem. The FOGINT teams thinks that Telegram is doing its part to undermine the US dollar, not make weird animal games available to people who want free money. The article reported on October 4, 2024:

This is the first ICO to offer investors the chance to purchase the DOGIZ token directly from within Telegram itself and could open up a whole new slice of the crypto community. DOGIZ will go on sale at $0.00007, with a total of one hundred billion presale tokens available for purchase. Dogizen finds itself in the midst of Telegram gaming’s surge, which has recently gained attention with multiple successful launches, collectively amassing a market cap nearing $2 billion in just six months.

Telegram ran into a brick wall several years ago when the US Securities & Exchange Commission blocked the messaging company’s initial foray into crypto. Now the Telegram plan is coming into focus. There are STARs, TONcoins, and deals with outfits like Tether. This play with doggies is a transactional platform applied to providing for a fee the plumbing necessary to ramp crypto with essentially zero friction. The estimable Durov brothers are demonstrating that there is more to a messaging application than groups, channels, advertising, and faux compliance with government officials.

The Durovs are doggies who want to grow up to be wolves.

Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2024

Windows Fruit Loop Code, Oops. Boot Loop Code.

October 8, 2024

Windows Update Produces Boot Loops. Again.

Some Windows 11 users are vigilant about staying on top of the latest updates. Recently, such users paid for their diligence with infinite reboots, freezes, and/ or the dreaded blue screen of death. Digitaltrends warns, “Whatever You Do, Don’t Install the Windows 11 September Update.” Writer Judy Sanhz reports:

“The bug here can cause what’s known as a ‘boot loop.’ This is an issue that Windows versions have had for decades, where the PC will boot and restart endlessly with no way for users to interact, forcing a hard shutdown by holding the power button. Boot loops can be incredibly hard to diagnose and even more complicated to fix, so the fact that we know the latest Windows 11 update can trigger the problem already solves half the battle. The Automatic Repair tool is a built-in feature on your PC that automatically detects and fixes any issues that prevent your computer from booting correctly. However, recent Windows updates, including the September update, have introduced problems such as freezing the task manager and others in the Edge browser. If you’re experiencing these issues, our handy PC troubleshooting guide can help.”

So for many the update hobbled the means to fix it. Wonderful. It may be worthwhile to bookmark that troubleshooting guide. On multiple devices, if possible. Because this is not the first time Microsoft has unleased this particular aggravation on its users. In fact, the last instance was just this past August. The company has since issued a rollback fix, but one wonders: Why ship a problematic update in the first place? Was it not tested? And is it just us, or does this sound eerily similar to July’s CrowdStrike outage?

(Does the fruit loop experience come with sour grapes?)

Cynthia Murrell, October 8, 2024

Hey, Live to Be a 100 like a Tech Bro

October 8, 2024

If you, gentle reader, are like me, you have taken heart at tales of people around the world living past 100. Well, get ready to tamp down some of that hope. An interview at The Conversation declares, “The Data on Extreme Human Ageing Is Rotten from the Inside Out.” Researcher Saul Justin Newman recently won an Ig Nobel Prize (not to be confused with a Nobel Prize) for his work on data about ageing. When asked about his work, Newman summarizes:

“In general, the claims about how long people are living mostly don’t stack up. I’ve tracked down 80% of the people aged over 110 in the world (the other 20% are from countries you can’t meaningfully analyze). Of those, almost none have a birth certificate. In the US there are over 500 of these people; seven have a birth certificate. Even worse, only about 10% have a death certificate. The epitome of this is blue zones, which are regions where people supposedly reach age 100 at a remarkable rate. For almost 20 years, they have been marketed to the public. They’re the subject of tons of scientific work, a popular Netflix documentary, tons of cookbooks about things like the Mediterranean diet, and so on. Okinawa in Japan is one of these zones. There was a Japanese government review in 2010, which found that 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.”

That is one way to go, we suppose. We learn of other places Newman found bad ageing data. Europe’s “blue zones” of Sardinia in Italy and Ikaria in Greece, for example. There can be several reasons for erroneous data. For example, wars or other disasters that destroyed public records. Or clerical errors that set the wrong birth years in stone. But one of the biggest factors seems to be pension fraud. We learn:

“Regions where people most often reach 100-110 years old are the ones where there’s the most pressure to commit pension fraud, and they also have the worst records. For example, the best place to reach 105 in England is Tower Hamlets. It has more 105-year-olds than all of the rich places in England put together. It’s closely followed by downtown Manchester, Liverpool and Hull. Yet these places have the lowest frequency of 90-year-olds and are rated by the UK as the worst places to be an old person.”

That does seem fishy. Especially since it is clear rich folks generally live longer than poor ones. (And that gap is growing, by the way.) So get those wills notarized, trusts set up, and farewell letters written sooner than later. We may not have as much time as we hoped.

Cynthia Murrell, October 8, 2024

From the Land of Science Fiction: AI Is Alive

October 7, 2024

dino 10 19_thumb_thumb_thumbThis blog post did not require the use of smart software, just a dumb humanoid.

Those somewhat erratic podcasters at Windows Central published a “real” news story. I am a dinobaby, and I must confess: I am easily amused. The “real” news story in question is “Sam Altman Admits ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode Tricked Him into Thinking AI Was a Real Person: “I Kind of Still Say ‘Please’ to ChatGPT, But in Voice Mode, I Couldn’t Use the Normal Niceties. I Was So Convinced, Like, Argh, It Might Be a Real Person.

I call Sam Altman Mr. AI Man. He has been the A Number One sales professional pitching OpenAI’s smart software. As far as I know, that system is still software and demonstrating some predictable weirdnesses. Even though we have done a couple of successful start ups and worked on numerous advanced technology projects, few forgot at Halliburton that nuclear stuff could go bang. At Booz, Allen no one forgot a heads up display would improve mission success rates and save lives as well. At Ziff, no one forgot our next-generation subscription management system as software, not a diligent 21 year old from Queens. Therefore, I find it just plain crazy the Sam AI-Man has forgotten that software coded by people who continue to abandon the good ship OpenAI wrote software.

image

Another AI believer has formed a humanoid attachment to a machine and software. Perhaps the female computer scientist is representative of a rapidly increasing cohort of people who have some personality quirks. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How are those updates to Windows going? About as expected, right.

Last time I checked, the software I have is not alive. I just pinged ChatGPT’s most recent confection and received the same old error to a query I run when I want to benchmark “improvements.” Nope. ChatGPT is not alive. It is software. It is stupid in a way only neural networks can be. Like the hapless Googler who got fired because he went public with his belief that Google’s smart software was alive, Sam AI-Man may want to consider his remarks.

Let’s look at how the esteemed Windows Central write up tells the quite PR-shaped, somewhat sad story. The write up says without much humor, satire, or critical thinking:

In a short clip shared on r/OpenAI’s subreddit on Reddit, Altman admits that ChatGPT’s Voice Mode was the first time he was tricked into thinking AI was a real person.

Ah, an output for the Reddit users. PR, right?

The canny folk at Windows Central report:

In a recent blog post by Sam Altman, Superintelligence might only be “a few thousand days away.” The CEO outlined an audacious plan to edge OpenAI closer to this vision of “$7 trillion and many years to build 36 semiconductor plants and additional data centers.”

Okay, a “few thousand.”

Then the payoff for the OpenAI outfit but not for the staff leaving the impressive electricity consuming OpenAI:

Coincidentally, OpenAI just closed its funding round, where it raised $6.6 from investors, including Microsoft and NVIDIA, pushing its market capitalization to $157 billion. Interestingly, the AI firm reportedly pleaded with investors for exclusive funding, leaving competitors like Former OpenAI Chief Scientist Illya Sustever’s SuperIntelligence Inc. and Elon Musk’s xAI to fend for themselves. However, investors are still confident that OpenAI is on the right trajectory to prosperity, potentially becoming the world’s dominant AI company worth trillions of dollars.

Nope, not coincidentally. The money is the payoff from a full court press for funds. Apple seems to have an aversion for sweaty, easily fooled sales professionals. But other outfits want buy into the Sam AI-Man vision. The dream the money people have are formed from piles of real money, no HMSTR coin for these optimists.

Several observations, whether you want ‘em or not:

  1. OpenAI is an outfit which has zoomed because of the Microsoft deal and announcement that OpenAI would be the Clippy for Windows and Azure. Without that “play,” OpenAI probably would have remained a peculiarly structure non-profit thinking about where to find a couple of bucks.
  2. The revenue-generating aspect of OpenAI is working. People are giving Sam AI-Man money. Other outfits with AI are not quite in OpenAI’s league and most may never be within shouting distance of the OpenAI PR megaphone. (Yep, that’s you folks, Windows Central.)
  3. Sam AI-Man may believe the software written by former employees is alive. Okay, Sam, that’s your perception. Mine is that OpenAI is zeros and ones with some quirks; namely, making stuff up just like a certain luminary in the AI universe.

Net net: I wonder if this was a story intended for the Onion and rejected because it was too wacky for Onion readers.

Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024

FOGINT: Ukraine Government Telegram Restrictions

October 7, 2024

VeaThe only smart software involved in producing this short FOGINT post was Microsoft Copilot’s estimable art generation tool. Why? It is offered at no cost.

Ukrainian Parliament to Restrict Telegram Usage” reports that Telegram faces new restrictions due to security concerns. The news story says:

The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) will introduce restrictions on the use of the Telegram messenger app for official purposes.

Mr. Durov’s willingness to cooperate with government requests for user information is not the primary reason for this set of restrictions on Ukrainian government staff use of Telegram. The write up points out:

These measures are justified by past incidents where third parties gained access to government employees’ data through Telegram or created fake accounts

What are the measures used by Ukrainian officials to discourage the use of Telegram? Among those in use are:

  • No contact synchronization
  • No official information transmitted on a Telegram channel
  • No Telegram app on work computers, government-provided mobile phones, or personal devices used for government communication
  • “Technical blocks” will be implemented to prevent Telegram usage.

Will these measures work? The answer, “To some degree.” However, the increase in interest in alternatives has created a mini-boom for the Simple X end-to-end encrypted application. Certain ultra leaning groups are moving to other secure messaging systems.

image

A person who looks a bit like Pavel Durov demonstrates his patented exercise: A sudden twist and back flip from a cell in a French prison. Thanks, MSFT Copilot, good enough like some many things in 2024.

The problem, however, is that Telegram has more than 900 million users and offers a number of user-centric features not available in other E2EE applications; for example, Telegram does not charge for data storage or bandwidth. The fix is to acquire a burner phone or use specialized services.

The interesting facet of this move is that it comes after Telegram’s decision to block certain Ukrainian produced content from distribution to Telegram users in Russia. Prior to Telegram’s surprising action Ukrainian government officials disseminated text content to Russians who were members of Ukrainian Telegram channels.

That action made clear that Telegram was demonstrating its flexibility. Pavel Durov then did a cirque de soleil vault with his fancy move to cooperate with legitimate requests for information from unnamed government authorities.

FOGINT thinks Mr. Durov is confident he stuck his landing for this trick and scored a 10. FOGINT scored Mr. Durov an imaginary number.

Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024

Why Present Bad Sites?

October 7, 2024

dino 10 19_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumbThis blog post did not require the use of smart software, just a dumb humanoid.

I read “Google Search Is Testing Blue Checkmark Feature That Helps Users Spot Genuine Websites.” I know this is a test, but I have a question: What’s genuine mean to Google and its smart software? I know that Google cannot answer this question without resorting to consulting nonsensicalness, but “genuine” is a word. I just don’t know what’s genuine to Google. Is a Web site that uses SEO trickery to appear in a results list? Is it a blog post written by a duplicitous PR person working at a large Google-type firm? Is it a PDF appearing on a “genuine” government’s Web site?

image

A programmer thinking about blue check marks. The obvious conclusion is to provide a free blue check mark. Then later one can charge for that sign of goodness. Thanks, Microsoft. Good enough. Just like that big Windows update. Good enough.

The write up reports:

Blue checkmarks have appeared next to certain websites on Google Search for some users. According to a report from The Verge, this is because Google is experimenting with a verification feature to let users know that sites aren’t fraudulent or scams.

Okay, what’s “fraudulent” and what’s a “scam”?

What does Google say? According to the write up:

A Google spokesperson confirmed the experiment, telling Mashable, “We regularly experiment with features that help shoppers identify trustworthy businesses online, and we are currently running a small experiment showing checkmarks next to certain businesses on Google.”

A couple of observations:

  1. Why not allow the user to NOT out these sites? Better yet, give the user a choice of seeing de-junked or fully junked sites? Wow, that’s too hard. Imagine. A Boolean operator.
  2. Why does Google bother to index these sites? Why not change the block list for the crawl? Wow, that’s too much work. Imagine a Googler editing a “do not crawl” list manually.
  3. Is Google admitting that it can identify problematic sites like those which push fake medications or the stolen software videos on YouTube? That’s pretty useful information for an attorney taking legal action against Google, isn’t it?

Net net: Google is unregulated and spouts baloney. Google needs to jack up its revenue. It has fines to pay and AI wizards to pay. Tough work.

Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024

A Modern Employee Wants Love, Support, and Compassion

October 5, 2024

green-dino_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb1This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.

Beyond Search is a “Wordpress” blog. I have followed with (to be honest) not much interest the dispute between a founder and a couple of organizations. WordPress has some widgets that one of the Beyond Search team “subscribes” to each year. These, based on my experience, are so-so. We have moved the blog to WordPress-friendly hosting services because [a] the service was not stable, [b] not speedy, and [c] not connected to any known communication service except Visa.

I read “I Stayed,” a blog post. The write up expresses a number of sentiments about WordPress, its employees, and its mission. (Who knew? A content management system with a “mission.” ) I noted this statement:

Listen, I’m struggling with medical debts and financial obligations incurred by the closing of my conference and publishing businesses.

I don’t know much about modern work practices, but this sentence suggests to me that a full-time employee was running two side gigs. Both of these failed, and the author of the post is in debt. I am a dinobaby, and I assumed that when a company hired me as a full time employee like Halliburton or Booz, Allen & Hamilton, my superiors expected me to focus on the tasks given to me by Halliburton and Booz, Allen & Hamilton. “Go to a uranium mine. Learn. Ask questions. Take photographs or ore processing,” so I went. No side gigs, no questions about breathing mine dust. Just do the work. Not now. The answer to a superior’s request apparently means, “Hey, you have spare time to pay attention to that conference and publishing business. No problemo.” Times have changed.

The write up includes this statement about not quitting or taking a buy out:

I stayed because I believe in the work we do. I believe in the open web and owning your own content. I’ve devoted nearly three decades of work to this cause, and when I chose to move in-house, I knew there was only one house that would suit me. In nearly six years at Automattic, I’ve been able to do work that mattered to me and helped others, and I know that the best is yet to come.

I think I am supposed to interpret this decision as noble or allegedly noble. My view is that WordPress professionals who remain on the job includes these elements:

  1. If you have a full-time job at a commercial or quasi-commercial enterprise, focus on the job. It would be great if WordPress fixed the wonky cursor movement in its editor. You know it really doesn’t work. In fact, it sucks on my machines both Mac and Windows.
  2. Think about the interface. Hiding frequently used functions is not helpful.
  3. Use words to make clear certain completely weird icons. Yep, actual words.
  4. Display explicate which are not confusing. I don’t find multiple uses of the word “Publish” particularly helpful.

To sum up: Suck it up, buttercup.

Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024

The Future of Copyright: AI + Bots = Surprise. Disappeared Mario Content.

October 4, 2024

green-dino_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[2]This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.

Did famously litigious Nintendo hire “brand protection” firm Tracer to find and eliminate AI-made Mario mimics? According to The Verge, “An AI-Powered Copyright Tool Is Taking Down AI-Generated Mario Pictures.” We learn the tool went on a rampage through X, filing takedown notices for dozens of images featuring the beloved Nintendo character. Many of the images were generated by xAI’s Grok AI tool, which is remarkably cavalier about infringing (or offensive) content. But some seem to have been old-school fan art. (Whether noncommercial fan art is fair use or copyright violation continues to be debated.) Verge writer and editor Wes Davis reports:

“The company apparently used AI to identify the images and serve takedown notices on behalf of Nintendo, hitting AI-generated images as well as some fan art. The Verge’s Tom Warren received an X notice that some content from his account was removed following a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint issued by a ‘customer success manager’ at Tracer. Tracer offers AI-powered services to companies, purporting to identify trademark and copyright violations online. The image in question, shown above, was a Grok-generated picture of Mario smoking a cigarette and drinking an oddly steaming beer.”

Navigate to the post to see the referenced image, where the beer does indeed smoke but the ash-laden cigarette does not. Davis notes the rest of the posts are, of course, no longer available to analyze. However, some users have complained their original fan art was caught in the sweep. We learn:

“One of the accounts that was listed in the DMCA request, OtakuRockU, posted that they were warned their account could be terminated over ‘a drawing of Mario,’ while another, PoyoSilly, posted an edited version of a drawing they said was identified in a notice. (The new one had a picture of a vaguely Mario-resembling doll inserted over a part of the image, obscuring the original part containing Mario.)”

Since neither Nintendo nor Tracer responded to Davis’ request for comment, he could not confirm Tracer was acting at the game company’s request. He is not, however, ready to let the matter go: The post closes with a request for readers to contact him if they had a Mario image taken down, whether AI-generated or not. See the post for that contact information, if applicable.

Cynthia Murrell, October 4, 2024

Skills You Can Skip: Someone Is Pushing What Seems to Be Craziness

October 4, 2024

green-dino_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[2]_thumbThis essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.

The Harvard ethics research scam has ended. The Stanford University president resigned over fake data late in 2023. A clump of students in an ethics class used smart software to write their first paper. Why not use smart software? Why not let AI or just dishonest professors make up data with the help of assorted tools like Excel and Photoshop? Yeah, why not?

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A successful pundit and lecturer explains to his acolyte that learning to write is a waste of time. And what does the pundit lecture about? I think he was pitching his new book, which does not require that one learn to write. Logical? Absolutely. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.

My answer to the question is: “Learning is fundamental.” No, I did not make that up, nor did I believe the information in “How AI Can Save You Time: Here Are 5 Skills You No Longer Need to Learn.” The write up has sources; it has quotes; and it has the type of information which is hard to believe assembled by humans who presumably have some education, maybe a college degree.

What are the five skills you no longer need to learn? Hang on:

  1. Writing
  2. Art design
  3. Data entry
  4. Data analysis
  5. Video editing.

The expert who generously shared his remarkable insights for the Euro News article is Bernard Marr, a futurist and internationally best-selling author. What did Mr. Marr author? He has written “Artificial Intelligence in Practice: How 50 Successful Companies Used Artificial Intelligence To Solve Problems,” “Key Performance Indicators For Dummies,” and “The Intelligence Revolution: Transforming Your Business With AI.”

One question: If writing is a skill one does not need to learn, why does Mr. Marr write books?

I wonder if Mr. Marr relies on AI to help him write his books. He seems prolific because Amazon reports that he has outputted more than a dozen, maybe more. But volume does not explain the tension between Mr. Marr’s “writing” (which may be outputting) versus the suggestion that one does not need to learn or develop the skill of writing.

The cited article quotes the prolific Mr. Marr as saying:

“People often get scared when you think about all the capabilities that AI now have. So what does it mean for my job as someone that writes, for example, will this mean that in the future tools like ChatGPT will write all our articles? And the answer is no. But what it will do is it will augment our jobs.”

Yep, Mr. Marr’s job is outputting. You don’t need to learn writing. Smart software will augment one’s job.

My conclusion is that the five identified areas are plucked from a listicle, either generated by a human or an AI system. Euro News was impressed with Mr. Marr’s laser-bright insight about smart software. Will I purchase and learn from Mr. Marr’s “Generative AI in Practice: 100+ Amazing Ways Generative Artificial Intelligence is Changing Business and Society.”

Nope.

Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2024

META and Another PR Content Marketing Play

October 4, 2024

dino 10 19This write up is the work of a dinobaby. No smart software required.

I worked through a 3,400 word interview in the orange newspaper. “Alice Newton-Rex: WhatsApp Makes People Feel Confident to Be Themselves: The Messaging Platform’s Director of Product Discusses Privacy Issues, AI and New Features for the App’s 2bn Users” contains a number of interesting statements. The write up is behind the Financial Times’s paywall, but it is worth subscribing if you are monitoring what Meta (the Zuck) is planning to do with regard to E2EE or end-to-end encrypted messaging. I want to pull out four statements from the WhatsApp professional. My approach will be to present the Meta statements and then pose one question which I thought the interviewer should have asked. After the quotes, I will offer a few observations, primarily focusing on Meta’s apparent “me too” approach to innovation. Telegram’s feature cadence appears to be two to four ahead of Meta’s own efforts.

image

A WhatsApp user is throwing big, soft, fluffy snowballs at the company. Everyone is impressed. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.

Okay, let’s look at the quotes which I will color blue. My questions will be in black.

Meta Statement 1: The value of end-to-end encryption.

We think that end-to-end encryption is one of the best technologies for keeping people safe online. It makes people feel confident to be themselves, just like they would in a real-life conversation.

What data does Meta have to back up this “we think” assertion?

Meta Statement 2: Privacy

Privacy has always been at the core of WhatsApp. We have tons of other features that ensure people’s privacy, like disappearing messages, which we launched a few years ago. There’s also chat lock, which enables you to hide any particular conversation behind a PIN so it doesn’t appear in your main chat list.

Always? (That means that privacy is the foundation of WhatsApp in a categorically affirmative way.) What do you mean by “always”?

Meta Statement 3:

… we work to prevent abuse on WhatsApp. There are three main ways that we do this. The first is to design the product up front to prevent abuse, by limiting your ability to discover new people on WhatsApp and limiting the possibility of going viral. Second, we use the signals we have to detect abuse and ban bad accounts — scammers, spammers or fake ones. And last, we work with third parties, like law enforcement or fact-checkers, on misinformation to make sure that the app is healthy.

What data can you present to back up these statements about what Meta does to prevent abuse?

Meta Statement 4:

if we are forced under the Online Safety Act to break encryption, we wouldn’t be willing to do it — and that continues to be our position.

Is this position tenable in light of France’s action against Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, and the financial and legal penalties nation states can are are imposing on Meta?

Observations:

  1. Just like Mr. Zuck’s cosmetic and physical make over, these statements describe a WhatsApp which is out of step with the firm’s historical behavior.
  2. The changes in WhatsApp appear to be emulation of some Telegram innovations but with a two to three year time lag. I wonder if Meta views Telegram as a live test of certain features and functions.
  3. The responsiveness of Meta to lawful requests has, based on what I have heard from my limited number of contacts, has been underwhelming. Cooperation is something in which Meta requires some additional investment and incentivization of Meta employees interacting with government personnel.

Net net: A fairly high profile PR and content marketing play. FT is into kid glove leather interviews and throwing big soft Nerf balls, it seems.

Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2024

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