Four short links: 30 November 2018
Advents are Coming, Open Source, Restricted Exports, and Misinformation Operations
- QEMU Advent Calendar — An amazing QEMU disk image every day!. It’s that time of year again! See also Advent of Code.
- De Facto Closed Source — You want to download thousands of lines of useful, but random, code from the internet, for free, run it in a production web server, or worse, your user’s machine, trust it with your paying users’ data and reap that sweet dough. We all do. But then you can’t be bothered to check the license, understand the software you are running, and still want to blame the people who make your business a possibility when mistakes happen, while giving them nothing for it? This is both incompetence and entitlement.
- U.S. Government Wonders What to Limit Exports Of — The representative general categories of technology for which Commerce currently seeks to determine whether there are specific emerging technologies that are essential to the national security of the United States include: (1) Biotechnology, such as: (i) Nanobiology; (ii) Synthetic biology; (iv) Genomic and genetic engineering; or (v) Neurotech. (2) Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology, such as: (i) Neural networks and deep learning (e.g., brain modeling, time series prediction, classification); (ii) Evolution and genetic computation (e.g., genetic algorithms, genetic programming); (iii) Reinforcement learning; (iv) Computer vision (e.g., object recognition, image understanding); (v) Expert systems (e.g., decision support systems, teaching systems); (vi) Speech and audio processing (e.g., speech recognition and production); (vii) Natural language processing (e.g., machine translation); (viii) Planning (e.g., scheduling, game playing); (ix) Audio and video manipulation technologies (e.g., voice cloning, deepfakes); (x) AI cloud technologies; or (xi) AI chipsets. (3) Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technology. (4) Microprocessor technology, such as: (i) Systems-on-Chip (SoC); or (ii) Stacked Memory on Chip. (5) Advanced computing technology, such as: (i) Memory-centric logic. (6) Data analytics technology, such as: (i) Visualization; (ii) Automated analysis algorithms; or (iii) Context-aware computing. (7) Quantum information and sensing technology, such as (i) Quantum computing; (ii) Quantum encryption; or (iii) Quantum sensing. (8) Logistics technology, such as: (i) Mobile electric power; (ii) Modeling and simulation; (iii) Total asset visibility; or (iv) Distribution-based Logistics Systems (DBLS). (9) Additive manufacturing (e.g., 3D printing); (10) Robotics such as: (i) Micro-drone and micro-robotic systems; (ii) Swarming technology; (iii) Self-assembling robots; (iv) Molecular robotics; (v) Robot compliers; or (vi) Smart Dust. (11) Brain-computer interfaces, such as (i) Neural-controlled interfaces; (ii) Mind-machine interfaces; (iii) Direct neural interfaces; or (iv) Brain-machine interfaces. (12) Hypersonics, such as: (i) Flight control algorithms; (ii) Propulsion technologies; (iii) Thermal protection systems; or (iv) Specialized materials (for structures, sensors, etc.). (13) Advanced Materials, such as: (i) Adaptive camouflage; (ii) Functional textiles (e.g., advanced fiber and fabric technology); or (iii) Biomaterials. (14) Advanced surveillance technologies, such as: Faceprint and voiceprint technologies. It’s a great list of what’s in the next Gartner Hype Cycle report.
- The Digital Maginot Line (Renee DiResta) — We know this is coming, and yet we’re doing very little to get ahead of it. No one is responsible for getting ahead of it. […] platforms aren’t incentivized to engage in the profoundly complex arms race against the worst actors when they can simply point to transparency reports showing that they caught a fair number of the mediocre actors. […] The regulators, meanwhile, have to avoid the temptation of quick wins on meaningless tactical bills (like the Bot Law) and wrestle instead with the longer-term problems of incentivizing the platforms to take on the worst offenders (oversight), and of developing a modern-day information operations doctrine.
