Infotopia - A Rant

 Warning, incoming rant...


Picture this, if you will - 

 

It is 100 years after a massive, global, data-gathering and analysis system, linked to a network of sensors, cameras and geo-location systems begin tracking everything.

In the background, with  no effort on your part, they record your blood samples, urine samples,hair samples, skin cell samples, what you eat, drink, where you go, what activities you participate in, everything.

Now consider the following short story of a woman we will call Jenna:

Jenna awakens slowly, pleasantly, to the soothing sounds of ocean waves, played through the speakers in her bedroom. The room grows brighter as the LED wall simulates a beautiful sunrise. She yawns and stretches, smiling as she is bathed in the sensory simulation.

Hopping out of bed, she begins the day with her usual routine; water, toothbrush, toilet, and a light workout and invigorating cool shower.

"Good morning Jenna," the voice of her AI personal assistant greets her as she stands in front of the LED wall, now serving as a mirror as she applies the finishing touches to her outfit and makeup.

"I have observed an anomaly in your urine sample this morning. Nothing serious, but I would recommend a blood sample, if you have time."

"Okay," Jenna returns to the bathroom and places her finger against a small receptacle which has extended from the wall, a slight poke and a drop of blood is extracted.

She returns to the LED wall and reviews her schedule for the day,  instructing her assistant to reschedule her hair appointment to the day following, to make additional time for a lunch date with a dear friend who is in town for the day.

"I have completed analysis of the blood sample," the assistant reports as Jenna sits down to eat breakfast. "There appears to be a higher than normal level of adenosine, and a reduced level of bromine. Specifically in this region of the country, this combination has shown a high correlation to adrenal-cortical carcinoma in people of your age and genetic profile, at a probability of 65%."

"I have found three strategies which show a high probability of reducing this risk to less than 2%. Would you like to review them?"

"Yes, please." It always seemed a bit silly to Jenna that the assistant asked that question. Who wouldn't want to? She glanced to the small display next to the dining table, as it populated with information"
 

-
1. Reduce intake of Meats (to lower adenosine intake)
2. Increase grains (to increase bromelain intake)
3. Add a bromelain supplement for 30 days.

Recommendation to follow one ore more of the above alternatives for thirty days and re-assess.

-

"Please adjust my meal plan to accommodate recommendations one and two, and add 'get bromelain' to my todo list." Might was well try them all.

Jenna finishes breakfast, reviews and approves the newly recommended menu and sends off the grocery order, then heads out the door to her first appointment of the day.

-----

How cool would that be?!!

Can you imagine how many problems might be preventable with information that deep and broad? Analyzed and correlated for the many thousands of variables contained therein - far more than any human or group of humans could digest. Can you imagine the potential leap in quality of life?


But, we can't have that.

Why? you ask.

<begin rant>

Because anytime anybody starts collecting data, somebody finds a way to abuse it.

Creeps use gps data from fitness-gadgets and smart-watches and phones to stalk people.

Marketing agencies use all kinds of data to discover your interests, obsessions, guilty pleasures, and the most effective ways to manipulate you into buy garbage you don't really need.

Governments use any and all data to identify potential threats -  which could range anywhere from legitimate terrorist to 'political enemy', depending on who is in charge at the time. In some countries now, you can face prison time if you say the wrong things on social media. What constitutes 'wrong things'? Depends entirely on who is interpreting the law at any time.

Sleazy, money-grubbing scammers will use that data to find ways to steal your retirement funds, and your personal savings.

Political idealists/activists will use that data to dox, swat, or otherwise terrorize those they see as enemies to their cause. They will manipulate and misrepresent that data to justify unwarranted and abusive actions on the part of governments to enforce their 'utopian' vision, a the expense of those who don't share their particular views.

We can't have that because a small handful of the population value personal wealth, personal fears, personal power, or a personal vision of the future more than they value their 'neighbor'.

And so, all the decent folk (who I still believe make up the majority), wind up going into "hiding" (The dark forest), to protect ourselves from the minority of predators.

So a hearty "Thank-you" to all the Kochs,Soros,Gates,Musks, and many other well-known, lesser-known, and unknown, political and corporate 'luminaries', groups of deranged lunatics, and individual, self-serving scum-buckets (and by 'thank-you' I mean 'no-thank-you').

You're the reason we can't have nice things.

<end rant>

 

A few headlines supporting above rant:

[Microsoft is scanning the inside of password-protected zip files for malware | Ars Technica]

[Former cop abused unrevoked system access to extort women (malwarebytes.com)]

[Saudi arabia woman jailed for 11 years for online expression supporting womens-rights]

[Death penalty for hate speech?]

[German woman given harsher sentence than-rapist for defamation]

[UK warns of stalking risks from connected devices]

Some discussions on the "dark forest" concept (focused specifically on the exponential growth of this phenomenon due to  generative AI):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXkDaDDJjoA&t=21s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrcbH0ge2WE

Leaving Microsoft: Taking the Plunge

 Well, I did it.

I started out with the best of intentions to thoroughly and carefully plan, test and then install. To be fair I did do SOME planning and testing. Just not thorough.

A few weeks back, I took a Saturday, copied all my documents, pictures etc... to an external hard drive. Then I rebooted, and installed Debian version 12.

The first week was a bit problematic. The computer would occasionally freeze. I didn't get to the root cause, but I did resolve the problem.

When I installed, I did not use the default, Gnome windows environment. Instead I switched to KDE Plasma. I am more comfortable with it, as it is more similar to Microsoft Windows in look and feel. It is also more configurable, allowing me to more easily tailor it to my specific needs.

The freezing problem appeared to be related - not to KDE specifically, but to a subsystem used to translate between KDE and the video drivers.

Switching to Gnome removed that subsystem, and the problem went away. There is probably a way to fix it, but again, I'm trying to avoid digging in the guts too much.

So really. Where I have ended up is essentially the default install, which would be fairly trivial for anybody to do. I've made a few minor changes after the fact, but nothing that would be difficult for anyone to do, given instructions. I might try putting together some how-to videos to post on YouTube.

Gnome is taking a little getting used to. I have had to change the way I do a few things. I would say it is neither better nor worse, just different.

All of my critical applications (or their replacements) are working just fine, and I have even managed to move a few of them to more updated versions than what is part of the Debian 12 ecosystem by using an application ecosystem called flathub. It has worked out nicely.

So, all in all, happy with my decision to pivot and revert to Debian. What they lack in "up-to-date-ness" of applications, they make up for in ease and stability.

I did have one totally geek-out moment yesterday. A small detail I suppose, but totally made my day.

I was watching a youtube video when my cell phone rang. I was closer to my phone than the computer, so I grabbed it and answer the call, while racing to pause the video.

But I didn't haven't to. The Linux phone integration automatically paused the video for me the moment I answered the call! It was the coolest thing ever! It was technology as technology should be! Technology working for me, making my life more convenient and enabling me to be more productive and effective.

That moment alone made the switch worthwhile.

So I am now operating Microsoft free, with respect to operating system on computers.

I still need to move to a new email provider. That will be a painful process, as I need to:
1. Find a privacy respecting email provider
2. Set up the new email address
3. Change the email address on all services I use

I might not be fully Microsoft-free until next year, but I am happy with my progress thus far.

Is It a Sin To Be Efficient?

 A few weeks ago I was asked to lead a discussion in a church meeting, on the topic of the two great commandments. More specifically, It was a discussion of a Talk given by Gary E. Stevenson last April, Titled 'Bridging The Two great Commandments' (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2024/04/53stevenson?lang=eng).

As part of that talk, I printed out the 613 Laws of the Old Testament (Mosaic Law)  and the ten commandments to start the conversation out by noting that, for the most part, The Two Commandments were a higher-order law - that if one was following those two laws the other laws were not really necessary (is you love your neighbor as yourself, you obviously won't kill them, or steal from them...).

While reviewing the Old Testament laws, I hit upon something I hadn't noticed before. Beginning with law 41:

41.Not to reap the entire field (Lev. 19:9; Lev. 23:22)

42.To leave the unreaped corners of the field or orchard for the poor (Lev.
19:9)

43.Not to gather gleanings (the ears that have fallen to the ground while
reaping)
(Lev. 19:9)

44.To leave the gleanings for the poor (Lev. 19:9)

45.Not to gather ol'loth (the imperfect clusters) of the vineyard (Lev.
19:10)

46.To leave ol'loth (the imperfect clusters) of the vineyard for the
poor (Lev. 19:10; Deut. 24:21)

47.Not to gather the single grapes that have fallen to the ground (Lev.
19:10)

48.To leave the single grapes of the vineyard for the poor (Lev. 19:10)

49.Not to return to take a forgotten sheaf (Deut. 24:19) This applies to
all fruit trees (Deut. 24:20)

50.To leave the forgotten sheaves for the poor (Deut. 24:19-20)



Don't harvest the corners of the field. Don't pick up what you drop while harvesting. Don't go back and gather anything you forgot.
Are these laws suggesting it is a sin to be too efficient?


Now, in the context of these laws as presented, there is a clear purpose. Leave some behind so the poor can collect it. You could argue the above laws are summed up in the fifty-second law.

 

52.To give charity according to one's means (Deut. 15:11)

Give of your abundance to the needy.



But what then of the modern business culture of ultra-efficiency? of "just-in-time" manufacturing?

This all-consuming drive to eliminate every last bit of waste. Is it a sin? Does it violate this law?

If, for instance, I were a potato farmer, and I only grew precisely the number of potatoes I could sell for maximum profit, there would be nothing left for the poor. Would I be in violation of the law?

The obvious counter argument is, since I have maximized my profit through my efficiency, I would now have more money with which to help the poor.

But would I? Or would  I simply grow my business? Diversify? Invest in further efficiencies? I might even justify this, noting that further growth and efficiency will mean I will be better able to help even more poor in the future.

Meanwhile the poor in the present are starving, and perhaps some who just above the threshold are becoming poor as well.

Now, that is clearly a choice. I could just as easily, willfully ignore the original law as stated to the same end. Perhaps this is simply a straw-man argument.

What are the other effects of hyper-efficiency?

Perhaps 2020 is a good case to consider. As businesses shut down due to the pandemic, supplies of many products dwindled. Many shelves in stores were bare.

Some people were left without the ability to care for themselves. Some were left impoverished.

Natural disasters are a part of living on this big ball of dirt and rock, hurling through space. Earthquakes, floods, famine, disease...

I believe the primary function of Godly law is to facilitate greater freedom for us, by protecting us from that which would enslave us (addiction, debt...), or at the very least, protect of from that which would restrict our freedom.

Always, there are things we can't control for, things we can't predict or prevent. If you are always living at the very edge of your capacity, then if anything goes wrong, you have nothing to fall back on. You - or someone else - suffers.

When there is abundance - some waste - then when something terrible happens, the abundance can fill the gap.

So, is it therefore a sin to be efficient? Or at least, to be too efficient?

Olympic Womens boxing: The real victim

 The events surrounding the Olympic Womens Boxing have certainly been a travesty.

But Angela Carini is not the victim. Neither is Imane Khelif the victim.

Rather the real victim is reason.

It began with images of Carini in tears, defeated. by "a man".

This understandably raised the indignation of some. There had, after all, been a number of incidents in recent years, of young women robbed of scholarships, of accolades, of opportunities, by biological men masquerading as women. There were incidents of serious harm being wrought on young women by considerably stronger, biological men.

And here were images, of Carini woman in tears, broken. What kind of person would not feel the protective instinct kick in?

And so they flooded social media with their outrage.

But the story, as presented wasn't entirely honest. The "Man" in question, was born with female genitalia, was raised as a female.

And so it wasn't long before the "other side" launched their own campaign. They attacked the first group, labeling them as transphobes, and mocking them for attacking the very person they were supposedly intent to protect, a "cis-woman".

But this wasn't entirely honest either, as it appears the individual in question has xy chromosomes.

And finally a third group entered the fray. Offering their sincere apology for leveling false accusations, for being insensitive and cruel to poor Khelif.

Except, I haven't noticed that any of those in this third group were part of the first group. And they, like the others willfully glossing over the complexity of the situation.

In reality all three of these messages are strategically identical:

1) They are built on a falsehood, wrapped around a small kernel of truth.

2) They are designed appeal to emotion.

3) They are designed to signal one's own position of moral superiority.

4) They are designed to shame "others" for their morally reprehensible behavior.

5) They are developed to garner clicks and likes (no doubt providing fiscal benefit to some few).

6) They are utterly devoid of reason.

Certainly, there are questions which need to be answered:

1. Was Carini actually at risk of serious harm? Or did she just have a bad day, get inside her own head, and fall apart?

2. Does Khelif have an unfair biologic/genetic advantage to the extent that others lives and safety are at risk?

3. Does the classification of "female" for purposes of sport need to be re-evaluated? (Sorry Matt Walsh, it appears you didn't manage to solve that conundrum entirely - or maybe you did, I have't actually watched it yet so...) There are a few obvious options: by genetic classification (XX vs XY), by hormone levels at time of contest enrollment, or by birth genitalia, for instance. 

4. In each of the above cases there are outliers, anomalies. Any classification system we make has outliers (a tomato is a fruit in a vegetable salad. A platypus is a mammal, but lays eggs) How do these outliers need to be treated? Arbitrarily pick one group, recognizing somebody will have an unfair (dis)advantage? Create one or more "other" groups? (Perhaps this is a valid case for a "non-binary" distinction.)

But those questions are unlikely to be answered. Because emotion is so  much more interesting (and profitable) than civil, reasoned, discourse.

Because pithy, mindless memes and pithy op-eds are so much more convenient to read (and produce) than thoughtful, well researched reports.

Because we would rather be "right" than correct.

And so we sacrifice reason, and the pursuit of truth on the alter of ego and pride.

May they rest in peace.

Leaving Microsoft: A quick dip in the deep end

 I had a chance to do my first trial run "without the training wheels" (in a manner of speaking). I had a two-week trip to the UK, and I took the Linux laptop, instead of my Windows laptop. (I was going to post something before I left, but for reasons I may rant about later, I didn't).

It went well, no hiccups during the trip.

But then, another glitch when I ran updates after returning home.

Most Linux systems use one or more repositories - which are essentially the same as the Apple Store, or Google Play, or Microsoft Store - as the primary means to obtain, install and update applications.

Arch has primarily two repositories. They have a reasonably large set of applications in their main  repository, managed by a command called "pacman".  To update any and all software you have installed form this repository, you simply run the command "pacman -Syu". It then takes care of everything. It does a pretty good job too.

For everything else they have a repository known as AUR. AUR is a user generated repository. The stuff in there isn't quite so simple to maintain. For each individual application, you have to check for an update, pull the update, run a command to rebuild a new install package, then apply the new package. Of course, someone built an application (called "YAY") which attempts to handle AUR packages with the same ease as pacman does for the main packages. I decided to give it a go to simplify managing the half-dozen AUR-based applications I installed. 

But, it (YAY) has its own list of dependencies, and it installs a bunch of other stuff in the background.

One of these appears to be broken, preventing YAY from updating the system. It looks to be something similar to the prior issue - a library listed as a dependency, which is a different version than the one installed.

Now, I don't doubt I could spend some time in their forums and sort it out. However, as I noted in my first post. I don't want to have to spend a bunch of time under the hood of the operating system. And this is twice in as many months.

The best way to clean it up will be to do a fresh install and stay away from YAY. I might still be able to simplify management of the AUR packages using either a script, or better still, something like ansible.

That is going to take time to sort out, however, and I don't want to drag out my migration of my main system.

So, I believe I will press forward using Debian on my main system for now. I will continue to experiment with Arch on the test laptop. But for the present, Debian's build philosophy focusing on stability and security will be the safe route forward.

I may take the plunge before this weekend, we'll see.

I did prepare for that possibility this evening. I copied all of the data from my main computer to external hard drives, in preparing to erase windows.

 Most of my data, I keep on a separate drive (D:), which I copied that whole drive.

The C: drive is the operating system, most of which is pointless to copy. I did copy the following folders from my user folder (C:\users\<whatever your login name is usually, or some derivative thereof>):

Documents - Any files I don't have in one drive.

Desktop - I usually keep this pretty bare, just a couple files on here.

Downloads - Probably not much I really need to keep in here, but... just to be safe.

Favorites - A few useful bookmarks.

Music - I didn't actually grab this one as it is empty. I keep my music files on a network share. I am mentioning it, in case others use this as a reference.

Pictures - Not much in here either as most are in One drive.

Videos - Same story as Music.

Oh, and one more (which is hidden):

AppData - Mostly this is garbage, but there are a few applications which store data in here, which I will want to recover. The one I can think of right off is Thunderbird. My Archived email, and contacts are in AppData. There may be others, so I grabbed the whole thing (some files failed to copy, as Windows has them locked, but they were all executables or libraries, nothing I need bad enough to go to the trouble to circumvent windows and copy.)

I believe that is everything of importance.

I will need to take care to copy anything I change between now and when I pull the trigger on the Debian install, so the sooner I get to it now, the better.

A story about fear, power, privacy, and my life as a "terrorist"

 Many years ago, I subscribed to a magazine dedicated to the Linux operating system.  They ran a range of articles from beginner introductions to various applications, to in-depth reports on kernel development.

There was typically a social commentary or op-ed article in each issue, discussing some political or philosophical idea relating to open source.  Nothing subversive or nefarious, mind you. They were typically discussion of the potential positive impacts open-source philosophy had or can have on democracy, personal freedom etc..., and though there were certainly differing opinions from one writer to the next, I don't recall any being anti-establishment, nor was there a particularly noticeable overall political leaning. A variety of usually well-reasoned, thoughtful articles.

At some point a few years after the events of 9/11, and the resulting rise of the surveillance state, one or more fearful voices in positions of some degree of power sounded the alarm that Linux was a threat to security, that Linux users were extremists, a danger to democracy and order.  

And so, the powers that be implemented surveillance mechanisms targeting various parts of the Linux community, focusing on proponents of privacy.

It was around this time (unaware of the above events, personally), that I became aware of a curious trend. Whenever I traveled for work, I could count on being "randomly" selected for additional security searches or questions at the airport. It happened on every trip, both on outbound and return flights, with very few exceptions. At that time, I had a colleague who had dealt

A couple years later, I received an email from staff members of the Linux magazine I subscribed to informing me their office had been raided by officials from a government intelligence agency, and their subscribers list collected. They claimed to be sending the notice in violation of a gag order, to warn their subscribers that their names had most likely been added to a security watch list.

I really should have preserved that email. Unfortunately, I didn't copy it out of outlook and the outlook data became corrupted. I lost several years of emails (backups- you don't need them until you need them...).

I didn't really give it much thought at that time, in all fairness. The frequency of "random searches" suddenly made more sense, and while it is an inconvenience, as a law-abiding citizen, I have nothing to hide, so... not a big deal, right?

I went for about a decade with no travel for work, and had thus mostly forgotten about it, until a trip to Costa Rica last year with my son, for his Spanish class (we were both "randomly selected."). A few weeks ago, I had a business trip to the UK. I was pulled aside at security for an additional search of my luggage, then I was called to the desk at the gate for additional questioning. I was randomly selected for additional scrutiny a third time on my return flight.

Again, an annoyance, an inconvenience, but nothing world-ending.

However, I was recently asked about making a trip to one or more of our facilities in China. Given the unusual relationship between China and the US, I expressed concern about this, and suggested the company might want to use their resources to explore the potential implication for me.

I don't know if they have done anything yet, but my own research suggests I could be detained, and possibly imprisoned for up to 40 days, without formal charges, on suspicion of criminal activity.

So, while I may have nothing to hide, I do have something to fear.

A sweeping decision by some unknown, fearful person in a position of political power nearly two decades ago is carrying potential, lasting consequences for me - for my career.

Next time you hear some fringe lunatic ranting about the erosion of privacy and government overreach, and you are inclined to think "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear," remember this little anecdote of mine.

Leaving Microsoft: A minor setback

 I've encountered my first issue.

I was updating my Arch test system, and it failed with an error that one of my installed packages was incompatible with the new packages.

The offending package was electron25.

You will note electron is not in my list of applications. It isn't an application I use, specifically. Rather it is a framework for developing applications which will run on multiple operating systems. I was fortunate enough to have been vaguely aware that Obsidian (which is one of my applications) is built on electron. A web search might give you that answer (it did me, but search isn't entirely trustworthy nowadays - dark forest and all...).

I did do some searching in Arch for an answer. I found a few similar issues, but not the same, and no applicable solutions.

Since this is a test system, I decided to try uninstalling electron. I would then run the updates, and then see if I could figure out how to get electron back on.

The uninstall and update went smoothly, no issues. Then for giggles, I decided to try launching Obsidian. It worked.

Puzzling.

I used a command to query my system for electron and discovered that, unbeknownst to me, there was a new version of electron which was installed.

My initial thought was why didn't the older version of electron uninstall when the newer version was installed. Of course the answer is, there are some frameworks which you can have multiple versions installed, to satisfy compatibility issues with different applications. You see this same behavior on windows, with .Net, and a variety of Visual C++ libraries (And I have had to deal with issues on the Microsoft side, though usually not with typical consumer applications).

This did give me pause to consider my decision to go with Arch, One of my criteria is that I don't want to have to spend time fiddling with the guts of the Operating system. I expect it to largely "Just work". 

Interestingly, as I was pondering going back to Debian, there was news of excitement there, involving KeepassXC - one of the applications I depend on.

One of the quirks of the Linux ecosystem is, you don't typically get your applications directly from the original developers.

You can get the source code. And then build it yourself. But that can be a major headache. You have to work out what dependencies are required, tweak compiler options and settings, then compile the source code into the application. It can be a time-consuming and fiddly process.

And then you have to watch for new releases of the source code and repeat the process to keep your applications up-to-date. Not a user-friendly process.

Fortunately, most Linux distributions have a package management system. This system works similar to an app store. You select the application you want to install, and the package management system handles deploying the the program and any dependencies for you. It typically has a mechanism to check for an apply updates as well.

But where does this compiled program for your distribution come from? And how does it know about the dependencies?

Somebody else does all of that for you. These individuals, called package maintainers do the heavy lifting, so you don't have to.

There are a few catches.

1. They are usually volunteers, which means your important package may not be their number one priority.

2. They make decisions about how the application gets packaged, which you may not agree with. And you might not get much of a say in the matter.

That is essentially what happened to KeepassXC for Debian. The person maintaining the package for Debian decided several features were a security issue, and arbitrarily removed them. The ramification was many people suddenly lost access to features they relied on after updating to the latest version.

Now, this wasn't really as dreadful as the news articles made it out to be. The maintainer released a separate version under the name "KeePassXC-full" with all the features available. So, all you really had to do was select a different package and all is well.

But it does point out one challenge when working with Linux.

You are often entirely dependent on individuals, over whom you hold zero influence. What if they decide to configure the program in a way that doesn't meet your needs? What if they do't feel like building necessary documentation, leaving you to "figure it out"? What if they decide to slip malware in? (yes, the benefit of open source is anyone can look at the code, and report if this happens, but can you really be certain that capable people are looking at the code for the programs you use?). What they have a falling out with the developers of the program, or the Linux Distribution you use, and decide to abandon it?

The reality is many of those same issues exist in the Windows/Apple worlds as well. Companies abandon applications, or make poor financial decisions, or poor technical decisions, which can impact your experience as a user. That is in fact one of the primary reasons I started this endeavor - Microsoft was caught reading customers' email - not just reading, but also breaking into password protected zip files, ostensibly "for your safety". Apple of course claims they "would never". But then, they just implemented a backdoor into their iPhone OS giving them the ability to do so. If they "would never", why then did they do that?

And that is, I suppose the bright side of the Linux "mess".

Yes, you have to deal with this mass of independent, often arrogant, free thinkers, often driven by their own whims, which leads to a cacophonous array of distributions, disjointed systems, inconvenience and general chaos. 

But, that inconvenience and chaos can disrupt conspiracies of wealth and power, and it does produce some brilliant innovations as well.

Not the ideal, perhaps, but, until we humans can ascend to our better natures, it is better than the alternative.

Pragmatically pressing on....