Cypherpunk Bitstream 0x06: Security II

Cypherpunk Bitstream

English - February 17, 2020 09:10 - 134 MB - ★★★★★ - 7 ratings
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Previous Episode: Cypherpunk Bitstream 0x05: Security I

Next Episode: Cypherpunk Bitstream 0x07: Pandemic I

We talk about major threats to security, mainly focussed on future threats and the reaction from security services. Some keywords are: Nuclear proliferation, robotic warfare, technology regulation, surveillance state, bioterrorism, and omniviolence.

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Show Notes
Section I Future of Security
Introduction: Emotional Reach, Classifying the Population, Keeping the Legitimacy

00:02:16 Crimes that really matter: How do security forces select
the crimes they battle against, which ones are ignored.
00:02:33 Limitations of Crimefighting: War on drugs is ongoing,
street robberies, etc.
00:03:30 State is focussing on crimes that risk itself, and on high
public image.
00:04:30 Public percerption is high when public can identify and
empathize with the victim (child abuse, burglary).
00:05:45 Germany: First case of predictive policing was burglary.
00:07:40 The victim matters / vulnerability: People do react less
with assault of a 20-30 year old man, than with the elderly, women,
or children.
00:09:13 Child porn is the universal crime where everybody gets
behind the police, …and that is used for higher surveillance.
Child pornography is the abdomination of the 21st century.
00:10:15 A lot of murder, a lot of kidnapping, a lot of burglaries
etc, undermindes the belief in the state. Other crimes do not affect
the trust so much, i.e. insurance fraud. Nobody’s sorry about big
corporations being scammed.

Systemic Risk Categories: Crimes That Matter
First Example

00:11:34 First Example: Proliferation. Atomic weapon possession
divide Good states from Bad States.
00:12:05 BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and Proliferation.
00:12:30 Enemy States cooperated at the fall of Soviet Block and
UdSSR, because of Proliferation.
00:15:20 Blind field of Proliferation: Smuggling of Nuclear
Material, Technology, Warheads. Sensor Networks to detect nuclear
material (isotope scanners).
00:17:40 Rumors: Unofficial and missing warhead counts (former
Soviet, US, Plane incidents over Mediterrean Sea).
00:20:04 Rumors: Cold War Soviet Union Sleeper Agents with Suitcase
Bombs (not all recovered).
00:22:00 Small States profit from deterrent threat of Warheads, less
likely to actually use them (cannot be retrieved).
00:22:50 Terrorist Organizations and Warheads: rely on secure
territory (hollowed out state): Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico.
00:24:07 Example: Afghanistan tolerating Al-Qaeda and 9/11.
00:25:15 Just having the device doesn’t mean you’re able to trigger
it: where is it from, maintenance, deploy (actors who follow
through, reliable remote triggers), maybe a lot of the old warheads
are not usable (physical trigger method is lost).

Second Example

00:30:35 Second Example: Transnational Organized Crime (Narco
Cartels, MS-13, Triads, etc).
00:32:00 Safe Havens (no-go-areas) by MS-13 and Al-Qaeda: low level
of immunity and souvereignity.
00:35:35 Narco-Terrorism: Cooperations between terrorist
organizations and pure criminal organizations.
00:36:50 Iran-Contra (Freedom Fighter VS Terrorist).
00:37:47 A scared population is more likely to use drugs.
00:38:25 Big criminal organizations undermine the state
institutions: corruption, blackmail, threats.
00:39:35 Loyalty and Trust within Institutions is undermined, and
thus the political head becomes just an illusion of power (Mexico,
Miami in the 80s, etc).

Third Example

00:37:47 Third Example: Bioterrorism.
00:43:12 CRISPR sequencing, “build your own smallpox”.
00:44:00 Non-state actors: Aum Shinrikyo (Aleph) and Tokyo Subway
Attacks (Sarin Gas).
00:46:19 2001 Anthrax Attacks in the US.
00:47:16 Rumor: Wuhan might be a targeted virus attack, but it’s
hard and too early to tell.
00:48:14 For states: bioweapons would also attack own citizens,
unlimited transmission, contagion risks high (better: easy to
contain, infectious chain are short and unstable).
00:49:30 Terrorists: cannot attach threats or demands, since viruses
are non-attributable. Exceptions: doomsday sects, radical
environmentalists.

Wrap-Up Section I

00:50:47 Wrap-Up first Part: Crimes That Matter. All are technology
supported crimes.
00:51:33 Transnational organized crime is a late development (cheap
travels, cheap organization and management technologies, cheap
communication), also a part of globalization.
00:52:49 Technological developments are supporting two classes of
criminals: random criminals, child pornography.
00:53:05 Random Criminal: uses technology to amplyfy his effect.
00:53:25 Child Pornography: digital cameras and internet made it
really problematic, because it became cheap and easy (all you need
is a mobile phone).

Section II Dystopian Side
Cybercrime, Robotic Warfare, Omniviolence

00:56:38 Skimming: copying credit cards, via cheap tech from the
darknet and Aliexpress.
00:58:35 Issue of non-attribution in Cybercrime: you don’t have to
be very smart, you randomly target victims, plus degree of
seperation (=every idiot can become a phisher).
00:59:34 High IQ cyber-criminals plus tech: bigger and much more
efficient organizations are possible (Paul LeRoux).
01:01:10 Strategic thinking criminals: do no make random mistakes,
access to cheap and easy components (Shenzhen), low morals,
power-hungry individuals.
01:03:00 Omniviolence: Killer to killed persons ratio increases,
systemic risks to countries, maybe entire planet (Example: nuclear
and bio weapons).
01:04:22 Robotic warfare: Drones plus biometrics.
01:06:00 The State and Omniviolence: Intelligence services already
working on it. Threat becomes increasingly realistic, while not
being trivial to deal with, or understand. Thing that is most likely
to shape the future.
01:07:19 Realistic scenario by now: Quadrocopter drones, single shot
explosive inside, plus facial recognition (ESP32 development kit).
01:08:55 Ground based autonomous vehicles is in the future of next
generation: DJi RoboMaster-s1, educational toy for children,
available today. Already has face and object recognition, autonomy
features.
01:10:21 Next 5-10 years: First autonomous robot school killing is
realistic.
01:10:38 There happen to be people out there, who are relatively
smart, and there happens to be a huge technological toolbox to
select from. Given it enough intelligence, and enough energy, drive,
and goals, you can be really dangerous these days.
01:11:10 Book: “Gefährliche Menschen (Dangerous Humans)” near-future
dystopian world where the whole system is focussed on preventing
omniviolence.
01:12:47 State tries to counteract omniviolence and others by
regulating technology.

Drugs and Butterflies

01:13:07 How can you control potentially dangerous people?
01:13:50 The tech industry and self-medicating with legal and
illegal drugs, and an unrealistic dream.
01:15:38 Advertisement of drugs as “rebellious”. Drugs being
marketed as rebellion,… (they) don’t help you to become an actual
rebel, and actually being effective.
01:16:24 Academia: The clever people trap, researching butterflies
(you are being seen and heard, aurelians and lepidopterists, and
your work matters).

Preventive detention

01:17:47 Preventive detention. “If I lock this person up, I can
prevent crime in the future.”
01:19:05 Psychiatric detention, used to silence people and put them
away (Gustl Mollath).
01:20:40 New preventive detention laws: limiting personal liberty to
prevent crimes? Social and economic consequences.

Surveillance, Cryptography, and Regulations

01:21:50 Surveillance is everywhere.
01:22:33 Growth of surveillance: Commercial interest, collecting
data, nudging.
01:22:50 Using surveillance data for AI training, run through neural
networks (health: predict illnesses), can also be used to predict
behavior.
01:24:05 Nation-States surveil the shit out of everything to
increase their security status (international trend).
01:24:17 New proposals for regulation, or ban, of face-recognition
(EU, some US states).
01:25:00 Limitations of face-recognition: black people with dark
skin. AI training sets are mostly light-skinned.
01:26:25 Why states might be open to proposals: Accusations of
racial bias, easy thing to give up (it’s commercialized already, see
ClearView AI).
01:27:17 Face Recognition Apps (Russia: FindFace App), Face
Recognition Spiders (原谅宝官方 yuanliang bao guanfang,
https://pornstarbyface.com/, https://deepmindy.com/)
01:28:13 Navigate the tech landscape through regulations: example
drone sector.
01:31:00 Regulating cryptography: access to good cryptography for
average joe is hard.
01:31:22 Even for relatively smart and motivated people, …
implementing cryptographic systems by people who are not specialized
in that, usually goes wrong. It’s really hard to build secure
cryptographic software, even with libraries out there, etc.
01:33:20 Regulations of sales controls: example chemicals,
pharmarcies.
01:34:00 State will increase security in the future by regulating
technology (regulating both components and knowledge).
01:34:50 Dystopian Vision, “black ball events”: Omniviolence will be
prevented by total surveillance combined with AI. (Bostrom:
Vulnerable World Paper)
01:36:04 Anomaly detection: preventing anyone from building
potentially threatening tech, without actually understanding or
knowing what this tech is.
01:36:59 Securocrat’s decisions are based on body-count and not on
life quality.
01:37:20 Some cattle farmer talk: Consume, pay taxes, and put your
VR goggles on.
01:40:10 Preventing people who are too intelligent, too creative,
from getting anywhere in life.
01:41:00 Cambridge Analytics for the Masses, Psychography: limit
access, social scoring systems (today mostly reactive).
01:42:20 Predictive Technologies: sentencing rules in US.
01:43:20 Creativity problem: detect outliers, categorize in good or
bad, adjust access to technology. (Ender’s Game pilots)
01:44:44 Already using licensing by personality: bank accounts, gun
licenses. Where does the reliability score come from? Future might
be more automated.
01:46:50 Future: Same thing, but advanced by modern technology.
01:47:08 Reactive scores, predicitive regulation: lawyers, MDs,
pilot and weapon licenses. If you have a lot of points, they won’t
give you the license.
01:47:32 e-Government: maybe no human judgement in the future
needed.
01:49:00 Looking at the Chinese petri dish: since Wuhan epidemic,
deploying surveillance is cranked up.
01:50:37 Data Analysis, Laboratory for Surveillance: Locking down
neighborhoods, limit travel within city, using drones, using CCTV
cameras to check masks and temperature, booking details, location
tracking, etc.
01:55:00 Wuhan as a dystopian prison: at least as frightening as the
pandemic.
01:56:03 Control ratio: the amount of people you need to control a
huge population is going down.
01:56:20 Conflict Turkey-Syria, Idlib region: areal control by
grenade launchers, automatically engaged.
01:58:48 South Korea Border Patrol Bots: automated targeting (Sentry
SGR-A1, Hankook Mirae Method-2?)
01:59:33 UAV Drones: autonomous suicide drones, waiting for target
or flying into target.
02:00:09 Germany declared AI a “critical defense technology” =
weapon technology for killing people.

Section III Less Dystopian Side

02:01:44 Donation Report
02:04:25 Forum/ BBS: Async.pre

Frank and Smuggler answering your questions!

02:05:49 Question Section
02:05:57 Forum: How would the average aspiring second-realmer get
their nym used in legal documents or at their work place? Is that a
realistic goal?
02:14:00 Forum: I’d really like to see you guys cover the art of
clandestine purchasing. For example, do 3D printers have hidden
tracking codes like paper printers? Discussing details on aquiring
something like this with a pre-paid credit card and how to ship it
to a non-attributate address would be cool.
02:15:35 Forum: One Issue that I always find very hard is receiving
shipments by mail. Not necessarily very illegal items, but maybe
items you just don’t want to receive at an attributable adress and
that are larger than what fits in a standard letterbox. How to
receive things in another name and where with the least amount of
trouble and risk?
02:20:25 Forum: How to beat facial recognition during
drop-operations and otherwise? What methods are effective? How often
worn outside the TAZ?
02:23:25 Twitter: How to go into darknet? Virtual box and TOR? Which
OS?
02:25:27 Twitter: In terms of cyber-warfare, which state (or state
proxy) has the most tactical technical capacity for attacks and
defense?
02:33:55 Thoughts on accelerationism?
02:37:14 Mail: I find howtovanish.com very helpful, even though it
is outdated and US-centric. Are there more current and EU-centric
versions of the topic, how can I make my life as anonymous as
possible?