A Swelling Wave: Internet Shutdowns in Africa
March 18, 2025
Another dinobaby blog post. No AI involved which could be good or bad depending on one’s point of view.
How does a government deal with information it does not like, want, or believe? The question is a pragmatic one. Not long ago, Russia suggested to Telegram that it cut the flow of Messenger content to Chechnya. Telegram has been somewhat more responsive to government requests since Pavel Durov’s detainment in France, but it dragged its digital feet. The fix? The Kremlin worked with service providers to kill off the content flow or at least as much of it as was possible. Similar methods have been used in other semi-enlightened countries.
“Internet Shutdowns at Record High in Africa As Access Weaponised’ reports:
A report released by the internet rights group Access Now and #KeepItOn, a coalition of hundreds of civil society organisations worldwide, found there were 21 shutdowns in 15 African countries, surpassing the existing record of 19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021.
There are workarounds, but some of these are expensive and impractical for the people in Cormoros, Guinea-Bassau, Mauritius, Burundi, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, and Kenya. I am not sure the list is complete, but the idea of killing Internet access seems to be an accepted response in some countries.
Several observations:
- Recent announcements about Google making explicit its access to users’ browser histories provide a rich and actionable pool of information. Will these type of data be used to pinpoint a dissident or a problematic individual? In my visits to Africa, including the thrilling Zimbabwe, I would suggest that the answer could be, “Absolutely.”
- Online is now pervasive, and due to a lack of meaningful regulation, the idea of going online and sharing information is a negative. In the late 1980s, I gave a lecture for ASIS at Rutgers University. I pointed out that flows of information work like silica grit in a sand blasting device to remove rust in an autobody shop. I can say from personal experience that no one knew what I was talking about. In 40 years, people and governments have figured out how online flows erode structures and social conventions.
- The trend of shutdown is now in the playbook of outfits around the world. Commercial companies can play the game of killing a service too. Certain large US high technology companies have made it clear that their service would summarily be blocked if certain countries did not play ball the US way.
As a dinobaby who has worked in online for decades, I find it interesting that the pigeons are coming home to roost. A failure years ago to recognize and establish rules and regulation for online is the same as having those lovable birds loose in the halls of government. What do pigeons produce? Yep, that’s right. A mess, a potentially deadly one too.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2025
AI Hiring Spoofs: A How To
March 12, 2025
Be aware. A dinobaby wrote this essay. No smart software involved.
The late Robert Steele, one of first government professionals to hop on the open source information bandwagon, and I worked together for many years. In one of our conversations in the 1980s, Robert explained how he used a fake persona to recruit people to assist him in his work on a US government project. He explained that job interviews were an outstanding source of information about a company or an organization.
“AI Fakers Exposed in Tech Dev Recruitment: Postmortem” is a modern spin on Robert’s approach. Instead of newspaper ads and telephone calls, today’s approach uses AI and video conferencing. The article presents a recipe for what was at one time a technique not widely discussed in the 1980s. Robert learned his approach from colleagues in the US government.
The write up explains that a company wants to hire a professional. Everything hums along and then:
…you discover that two imposters hiding behind deepfake avatars almost succeeded in tricking your startup into hiring them. This may sound like the stuff of fiction, but it really did happen to a startup called Vidoc Security, recently. Fortunately, they caught the AI impostors – and the second time it happened they got video evidence.
The cited article explains how to set and operate this type of deep fake play. I am not going to present the “how to” in this blog post. If you want the details, head to the original. The penetration tactic requires Microsoft LinkedIn, which gives that platform another use case for certain individuals gathering intelligence.
Several observations:
- Keep in mind that the method works for fake employers looking for “real” employees in order to obtain information from job candidates. (Some candidates are blissfully unaware that the job is a front for obtaining data about an alleged former employer.)
- The best way to avoid AI centric scams is to do the work the old-fashioned way. Smart software opens up a wealth of opportunities to obtain allegedly actionable information. Unfortunately the old fashioned way is slow, expensive, and prone to social engineering tactics.
- As AI and bad actors take advantage of the increased capabilities of smart software, humans do not adapt quickly when those humans are not actively involved with AI capabilities. Personnel related matters are a pain point for many organizations.
To sum up, AI is a tool. It can be used in interesting ways. Is the contractor you hired on Fiverr or via some online service a real person? Is the job a real job or a way to obtain information via an AI that is a wonderful conversationalist? One final point: The target referenced in the write was a cyber security outfit. Did the early alert, proactive, AI infused system prevent penetration?
Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2025
Shocker! Students Use AI and Engage in Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll
March 5, 2025
The work of a real, live dinobaby. Sorry, no smart software involved. Whuff, whuff. That’s the sound of my swishing dino tail. Whuff.
I read “Surge in UK University Students Using AI to Complete Work.” The write up says:
The number of UK undergraduate students using artificial intelligence to help them complete their studies has surged over the past 12 months, raising questions about how universities assess their work. More than nine out of 10 students are now using AI in some form, compared with two-thirds a year ago…
I understand the need to create “real” news; however, the information did not surprise me. But the weird orange newspaper tosses in this observation:
Experts warned that the sheer speed of take-up of AI among undergraduates required universities to rapidly develop policies to give students clarity on acceptable uses of the technology.
As a purely practical matter, information has crossed my about professors cranking out papers for peer review or the ever-popular gray literature consumers that are not reproducible, contain data which have been shaped like a kindergartener’s clay animal, and links to pals who engage in citation boosting.
Plus, students who use Microsoft have a tough time escaping the often inept outputs of the Redmond crowd. A Google user is no longer certain what information is created by a semi reputable human or a cheese-crazed Google system. Emails write themselves. Message systems suggest emojis. Agentic AIs take care of mum’s and pop’s questions about life at the uni.
The topper for me was the inclusion in the cited article of this statement:
it was almost unheard of to see such rapid changes in student behavior…
Did this fellow miss drinking, drugs, staying up late, and sex on campus? How fast did those innovations take to sweep through the student body?
I liked the note of optimism at the end of the write up. Check this:
Janice Kay, a director of a higher education consulting firm: ““There is little evidence here that AI tools are being misused to cheat and play the system. [But] there are quite a lot of signs that will pose serious challenges for learners, teachers and institutions and these will need to be addressed as higher education transforms,” she added.”
That encouraging. The academic research crowd does one thing, and I am to assume that students will do everything the old-fashioned way. When you figure out how to remove smart software from online systems and local installations of smart helpers, let me know. Fix up AI usage and then turn one’s attention to changing student behavior in the drinking, sex, and drug departments too.
Good luck.
Stephen E Arnold, March 5, 2025
Men, Are You Loving Those AI Babes with Big Bits?
February 11, 2025
The dating scene has never been easy. It is apparently so difficult to find love these days that men are turning to digital love in the form of AI girlfriends. Vice News shares that “Most Men Would Marry Their AI Girlfriends If It Were Legal” and it is astounding the lengths men will go to for companionship.
EVA AI is a platform that allows people to connect with an AI partner. The platform recently surveyed 2000 men and discovered that 8 in 10 men would considered marrying their AI girlfriends if it was legal. It sounds like something out of the science fiction genre. The survey also found more startling news about men and AI girlfriends:
“Not only that, but 83% of men also believe they could form a deep emotional bond with an AI girlfriend. What’s even scarier is that a whopping 78% of men surveyed said they would consider creating a replica of their ex, and three-quarters would duplicate their current partner to create a “polished” version of them.”
Cale Jones, head of community growth at EVA AI, said that men find AI girlfriends to be safe and they are allowed to be their authentic selves. Jones continued that because AI girlfriends are safe, men feel free to share their thoughts, emotions, and desires. Continuing on the safety train of thought, Jones explained that individuals are also exploring their sexual identities without fear.
AI girlfriends and boyfriends are their own brand of creepiness. If the AI copies an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, a movie star, or even a random person, it creates many psychological and potentially dangerous issues:
“I think what raises the most concern is the ability to replicate another person. That feels exploitative and even dangerous in many ways. I mean, imagine some random dude created an AI girlfriend based on your sister, daughter, or mother…then, picture them beginning to feel possessive over this person, forming actual feelings for the individual but channeling them into the robot. If they were to run into the actual human version of their AI girlfriend in real life, well…who knows what could/would happen? Ever heard of a crime of passion?
Of course, this is just a hypothetical, but it’s the first thing that came to mind. Many people already have issues feeling like they have a right to someone else’s body. Think about the number of celebrities who are harassed by superfans. Is this going to feed that issue even further, making it a problem for everyday people, like classmates, friends, and colleagues?”
Let’s remember that the men surveyed by EVA AI are probably a small sample of “men.” So far.
Whitney Grace, February 10, 2025
Online Generates Fans and Only Fans
February 6, 2025
Ah, the World Wide Web—virtual land of opportunity! For example, as Canada’s CBC reports, "Olympians Are Turning to OnlyFans to Fund Dreams as they Face a ‘Broken’ Finance System." Because paying athletes to compete tarnishes the Olympic ideal, obviously. Never mind the big bucks raked in by the Olympic Committee. It’s the principle of the thing. We learn:
"Dire financial straits are leading droves of Olympic athletes to sell images of their bodies to subscribers on OnlyFans — known for sexually explicit content — to sustain their dreams of gold at the Games. As they struggle to make ends meet, a spotlight is being cast on an Olympics funding system that watchdog groups condemn as ‘broken,’ claiming most athletes ‘can barely pay their rent.’ The Olympics, the world’s biggest sporting stage, bring in billions of dollars in TV rights, ticket sales and sponsorship, but most athletes must fend for themselves financially."
But wait, what about those Olympians like Michael Phelps and Simone Biles who make millions? Success stories like theirs are few. The article shares anecdotes of athletes who have taken the Only Fans route. They are now able to pay their bills, including thousands of dollars in expenses like coaching, physical therapy, and equipment. However, in doing so they face social stigma. None are doing this because they want to, opines Mexican diver Diego Balleza Isaias, but because they have to.
Why are the world’s top athletes selling (images of) their finely honed bodies to pay the bills? The write-up cites comments from the director of Global Athlete, an athlete-founded organization addressing the power imbalance in sports:
"’The entire funding model for Olympic sport is broken. The IOC generates now over $1.7 billion US per year and they refuse to pay athletes who attend the Olympics,’ said Rob Koehler, Global Athlete’s director general. He criticized the IOC for forcing athletes to sign away their image rights. ‘The majority of athletes can barely pay their rent, yet the IOC, national Olympic committees and national federations that oversee the sport have employees making over six figures. They all are making money off the backs of athletes."
Will this trend prompt the Olympic Committee to change its ways? Or will it just make a rule against the practice and try to sweep this whole chapter under the mat? The corroding Olympic medals complement this story too.
Cynthia Murrell, February 6, 2025
And the Video Game Struggler for 2024 Is… Video Games
January 24, 2025
Yep, 2024 sas the worst year for videogames since 1983.
Videogames are still a young medium, but they’re over fifty years old. The gaming industry has seen ups and downs with the first (and still legendary) being the 1983 crash. Arcade games were all the rage back then, but these days consoles and computers have the action. At least, they should.
Wired writes that “2024 Was The Year The Bottom Fell Out Of The Games Industry” due to multiple reasons. There was massive layoffs in 2023 with over 10,000 game developers losing their jobs. Some of this was attributed to AI slowly replacing developers. The gaming industry’s job loss in 2024 was forty percent higher than the prior year. Yikes!
DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) combined with woke mantra was also blamed for the failue of many games, including Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The phrase “go woke, go broke” echoed throughout the industry as it is in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and other fields. I noted:
“According to Matthew Ball, an adviser and producer in the games and TV space…says that the blame for all of this can’t be pinned to a single thing, like capitalism, mismanagement, Covid-19, or even interest rates. It also involves development costs, how studios are staffed, consumers’ spending habits, and game pricing. “This storm is so brutal,” he says, ‘because it is all of these things at once, and none have really alleviated since the layoffs began.’”
Many indie studios were shuttered and large tech leaders such as Microsoft and Sony shut down parts of their gaming division. Also a chain of events influenced by the hatred of DEI and its associated mindsets that is being called a second GamerGate.
The gaming industry will continue through the beginnings of 2025 with business as usual. The industry will bounce back, but it will be different than the past.
Whitney Grace, January 24, 2025
Bookmark This: HathiTrust Digital Library
October 30, 2024
Concerned for the Internet Archive? So are we. (For multiple reasons.) But while that venerable site recovers from its recent cyberattacks, remember Hathi exists. Founded in 2008, the not-for-profit HathiTrust Digital Library is a collaborative of academic and research libraries. The site makes millions of digitized items available for study by humans as well as for data mining. The site shares the collection’s story:
“HathiTrust’s digital library came into being during the mid-2000s when companies such as Google began scanning print titles from the shelves of university and college campus libraries. When many of those same libraries created HathiTrust in 2008, they united library copies of those digitized books into a single, shared collection to make as much of the collection available for access as allowable by copyright law. Through HathiTrust, libraries collaborate on long-term management, preservation, and access of their collections. Book lovers and researchers like you can explore this huge collection of digitized materials! Today, HathiTrust Digital Library is the largest set of digitized books managed by academic and research libraries. The collection includes materials typically found on the shelves of North American university and college campuses with the benefit of being available online instead of scattered in buildings around the globe. Our enormous collection includes thousands of years of human knowledge and published materials from around the world, selected by librarians and preserved in the libraries of academic and research libraries. You can find all kinds of digitized books and primary source materials to suit a wide range of research needs.”
The collection contains books and “book-like” items—basically anything except audio/visual files. All Library of Congress subjects are represented, but the largest treasures lie in the Language & Literature, Philosophy, Religion, History, and Social Sciences chambers. All volumes not restricted by copyright are free for anyone to read. Just over half the works are in English, while the rest span over 400 languages, including some that are now extinct. Ninety-five percent were scanned from print by Google, but a few specialized collections were contributed by individuals or institutions. The Collection page offers several sample collections to get you started, or you can build your own. Have fun browsing their collections, and with luck the Internet Archive will be back up and running in no time.
Cynthia Murrell, October 30, 2024
FOGINT: Internet Service Providers in the Hot Box
October 9, 2024
The 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.
For several years, I have used the term “ghost providers” to describe online service providers as enablers of online crime. The advent of virtual machines and virtual servers operated by customers who just pay a monthly fee and do everything themselves provides a great foggy ground cover. If an investigators speaks with one of these providers, the response includes variations of “We don’t know” and “No clue, bro.” The reason is that the service provider provides access to a system, includes no support, and leaves it up to the person paying the bill to be the cook, bottlewasher, and janitor. These outfits are in the service business with a range of offerings: Full service to DIY.
“Oh, we cannot see what is on the virtual machines working as virtual servers,” says the bright ISP operator. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. That’s pretty lousy fog if I say so myself.
Italy wants to take action to prevent enablers who provide ghost services with bare metal and zero service other than pings, plumbing, and power. “ISPs ‘Betrayed’ Over Pirate Site-Blocking Threats, The Reckoning Will Be Invisible” reports that Italy’s
advanced legal weaponry is incapable of dealing with distant pirate IPTV services. Instead, it mainly targets communications infrastructure, much of it operated by rightsholders’ supposed allies – ISPs – who were given no say in the matter.
Torrent Freak’s view of the law is somewhat reserved, even skeptical. The cited article continues:
if pirate sites share an IP address with entirely innocent sites, and the innocent sites are outnumbered, ISPs, VPNs and DNS services will be legally required to block them all. Since nobody ever passes bad law and good laws hurt no one, blocking innocent sites can be conducted guilt-free from the moral high ground.
Among those with a strong view of the law is Giovanni Zorzoni, president of the Italian Internet Provider Association. No big surprise, FOGINT surmises. The article quotes him as saying:
“Irresponsible initiative that, in the sole interest of the football lobby, tramples on operators, [AGCOM] and the Internet ecosystem,” he said. “Thanks to the new law, they will be able to block sites that are no longer exclusively, but also ‘mainly’ used to distribute illegal content, substantially widening the scope of [rightsholders’] discretion. It may therefore happen, much more frequently, that even legitimate addresses that are only accidentally used for the transmission of pirated content are blocked,” Zorzoni added.
Google offered some input which Torrent Freak presented; to wit:
Diego Ciulli, Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google in Italy, expressed concern over the likely effect on the justice system in Italy should Google be required to comply. Under the label of “fighting piracy”, Ciulli said that digital platforms will be required to notify the judicial authorities of ALL copyright infringements – present, past and future – when they become aware of them. That could be a problem. “Do you know how many there are in the case of Google? At the moment, 9,756,931,770. In short, the Senate is asking us to flood the judicial authorities with almost 10 billion URLs – and provides for prison if we miss a single notification. If the law is not amended, the risk is to do the opposite of the spirit of the law: clog up the judicial authorities, and take resources away from the fight against piracy,” he warned.
Yep, imagine if ISPs had to block packets containing information directly linked to illegal activities. That is, it seems, to be a lot of work for the ISPs to do.
Several observations:
- Some service providers are known for their willingness to facilitate content which breaks laws
- The “virtualization” of “services” provides a 24×7 disco dance fog machine to hide certain activities from staff, other customers, and government authorities
- The money derived from the customers who exploit the willful obfuscation makes the service provider business tick.
Is the Italian law a remedy? No. Will other countries crank up regulation of ISPs? Yes. But after decades of a digital Wild West, fences will not be erected overnight. As a result, the black sheep will roam among wild ponies and make a range of online crimes possible and lucrative. That’s quite a marketing position for some firms.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2024
Rapid Change: The Technological Meteor Causing Craziness
September 6, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The mantra “Move fast and break things” creates opportunities for entrepreneurs and mental health professionals. “Eminent Scientist Richard Dawkins Reveals Fascinating Theory Behind West’s Mental Health Crisis” quotes Dr. Dawkins:
‘Certainly, the rate at which we are evolving genetically is miniscule compared to the rate at which we are evolving non-genetically, culturally,’ Dawkins told the hosts of the TRIGGERnometry podcast. ‘And much of the mental illness that afflicts people may be because we are in a constantly changing unpredictable environment,’ the biologist added, ‘in a way that our ancestors were not.’
Thanks, Microsoft Copilot. Is that a Windows Phone doing the flame out thing?
The write up reports:
Dawkins expressed more direct concerns with other aspects of human technology’s impact on evolution: climate change and basic self-reliance in the face of a new Dark Age. ‘The internet is a huge change, it’s gigantic change,’ he noted. ‘We’ve become adapted to it with astonishing rapidity.’ ‘if we lost electricity, if we suddenly lost the technology we’re used to,’ Dawkins worried, humanity might not be able to eve ‘begin’ to adapt in time, without great social upheaval and death… ‘Man-made extinction,’ he said, ‘it’s just as bad as the others. I think it’s tragic.’
There you go, death.
I know that brilliant people often speak carefully. Experts take time to develop their knowledge base and put words together that make complex ideas easy to understand.
From my redoubt in rural Kentucky, I have watched the panoply of events parading across my computer monitor. Among the notable moments were:
- Images from US cities showing homeless people slumped over either scrolling on their mobile phones or from the impact of certain compounds on their body
- Young people looting stores and noting similar items offered for sale on Craigslist.com-type sites
- Graphs of US academic performance illustrating the winners and losers of educational achievement tests
- The number of people driving around at times I associated with being in an office at “work” when I was younger
- Advertisements for prescription drugs with peculiar names and high-resolution images of people with smiles and contented lives but for the unnamed disease plaguing the otherwise cheerful folk.
What are the links between these unrelated situations and online access? I think I have a reasonably good idea. Why have experts, parents, and others required decades to figure out that flows of information are similar to sand-blasting systems. Provide electronic information to an organization, and it begins to decompose. The “bonds” which hold the people, processes, and products together are weakened. Then some break. Pump electronic information into younger people. They begin to come apart too. Give college students a tool to write their essays. Like lemmings, many take the AI solution and watch TikToks.
I am pleased that Dr. Dawkins has identified a problem. Now what’s the fix? The digital meteor has collided with human civilization. Can the dinosaurs be revivified?
Stephen E Arnold, September 6, 2024
New Research about Telegram and Its Technology
August 29, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Next week, my team and I will be presenting a couple of lectures to a group of US government cyber experts. Our topic is Telegram, which has been a focal point of my research team for most of 2024. Much of the information we have included in our talks will be new; that is, it presents a view of Telegram which is novel. However, we have available a public version of the material. Most of our work is delivered via video conferencing with PDFs of selected exhibits provided to those participating in a public version of our research.
For the Telegram project, the public lecture includes:
- A block diagram of the Telegram distributed system, including the crypto and social media components
- A timeline of Telegram innovations with important or high-impact innovations identified
- A flow diagram of the Open Network and its principal components
- Likely “next steps” for the distributed operation.
With the first stage of the French judiciary process involving the founder of Telegram completed, our research project has become one of the first operational analyses of what to many people outside of Russia, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and other countries is unfamiliar. Although usage of Telegram in North America is increasing, the service is off the radar of many people.
In fact, knowledge of Telegram’s basic functions is sketchy. Our research revealed:
- Users lack knowledge of Telegram’s approach to encryption
- The role US companies play in keeping the service online and stable
- The automation features of the system
- The reach of certain Telegram dApps (distributed applications) and YouTube, to cite one example.
The public version of our presentation at the US government professionals will be available in mid-September 2024. If you are interested in this lecture, please, write benkent2020 at yahoo dot com. One of the Beyond Search team will respond to your inquiry with dates and fees, if applicable.
Stephen E Arnold, August 29, 2024
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