Wow, That Sure is … inCONVENIENT…

In the late 1990s, the US Government was setting up a case to argue that hacking equated to terrorism. Because, while it was mostly being used for illicit state-craft, it could potentially be used by terrorists. In 1997, at a keynote for Black Hat Briefings, I warned the hacker community what was coming but – at that time – there was a great deal of “community outreach” being done by NSA – they were hiring hackers (whose work we now see leaking on a regular basis) and it was all very hip and friendly.

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Hop On the Upgrade Train!

As computers and AI recognizers get better and faster, recognition techniques will continue to get better and faster; I think that’s a given. But it’s also a given that as procurement managers keep throwing more money at a system that doesn’t quite work, they will …  Well, they’ll have spent more money! It doesn’t necessarily mean that the system will work better.

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Specifically How It Should Not Be Done

Back in 2009 I did some strategy consulting for a company that was building a cop-cam system; they wanted to know if having the data in “the cloud” would be acceptable, and what protections would need to be in place for the customers to trust it. My job was to look for perverse incentives in the design, and to suggest ways to make the storage option more palatable.

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Who Knew They Were So Cheap

You can buy a cop’s soul for a measly $3,000-$6,000. I hope every one of them realizes how their bosses and unions have just debased them. They probably don’t care – if they were the kind of people who care, they wouldn’t be cops. If you recall, I believe that being a cop is one of the handful of inherently immoral jobs [stderr].

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