My Life as a William Gibson Novel
My Job: I work for a large Japanese mega-corporation, tracking down evil doers in cyberspace who would harm my employer's network.
My Entertainment: A massive, virtual-reality game, which I share with 11 million other people.
A Quixotic Quest of Mine: Recreating a nearly lost technology of the previous century.
Back in the 1980's when "cyberpunk" first started showing up, I read it, of course, but thought "This is just too weird". William Gibson's "Count Zero" with it's voodoo priests worshiping AI gods they summoned from cyberspace... But toward the start of this century, I encountered the mail administrator of a small Papua New Guinea ISP. Known only as Posopis Menaga (sound it out), he worked for Bigpela Bosman (again, phonetics people), at Wewak Intanet, and spoke only tok-pigin. Understanding him through the pastiche of mangled english and german words, which is now the OFFICIAL language of his country was a fun activity. But it was then that I realized just how close to reality Bill Gibson was.
Of course, we have no god-like AIs, but here was a Papua New Guinean, barely removed from real-life headhunters, with both the technology, and the skills to enter and move around in this "shared hallucination". He was participating in the vast electronic conversation, making a useful contribution.
Our chief adversary in those days was typified by one Alan Ralsky, a former two-bit con-man who'd learned like the rest of us to trip the vast network, and discovered the tools to set himself up a new scam. Ralsky, his Russian programmers, and his Chinese business partners... Let's just say he set the stage for things as they are now. Ralsky's been indicted. His Chinese partner has plead guilty and will turn evidence against him. The Russians? Never caught. Still out there, making tools for the new generation of cyber crooks.
As the economy crumbles around us, a woman in Maine embezzles $32,000 from her employer (a national donut-shop franchise) to send to a group of shadowy Nigerians.... In Nigeria, these guys are heros. They set up computer centers in remote villages and bring technology and jobs to some of the poorest people on Earth. The locals defend the con-men with thier lives against police raids. Are they evil? How do you explain that to a poor Nigerian farmer, who because of them, can rest easy that his children will have enough food and warm clothing?
The Nigerians are at the forefront of efforts to break technologies like CAPTCHA, meant to keep them from automating signups to free email accounts they need to perpetuate their scams. At first, they used a human-wave approach, hire locals to surf the signup pages and pass the limited "Turing Test" that the CAPTCHA represents. Now, there are AI tools that can break CAPTCHA (It was always too simple). Think about this. Advanced AI in the service of Nigerian crimelords. DAMN YOU BILL GIBSON!
PEBKAC "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair" Russian "virus writers" haven't actually written "viruses" in ages. Even Microsoft Windows is now secure enough that traditional paths of infection don't work. Instead they focus on an old old trick pioneered by the ancient Greeks. The Trojan Horse. The typical end user is naive. When the computer says "click here", they click there. All the "virus" writer has to do is present a suitably appealing "click here", and the end user will gleefully subvert his own computer's security, and install the software turning it into the tool of the bad guys, part of a vast zombie network, churning out ads for all sorts of nefarious services.
Yes, my life is a William Gibson novel... At least on good days.
On bad days? Let me introduce you to Mr. Cyril Kornbluth...
My Entertainment: A massive, virtual-reality game, which I share with 11 million other people.
A Quixotic Quest of Mine: Recreating a nearly lost technology of the previous century.
Back in the 1980's when "cyberpunk" first started showing up, I read it, of course, but thought "This is just too weird". William Gibson's "Count Zero" with it's voodoo priests worshiping AI gods they summoned from cyberspace... But toward the start of this century, I encountered the mail administrator of a small Papua New Guinea ISP. Known only as Posopis Menaga (sound it out), he worked for Bigpela Bosman (again, phonetics people), at Wewak Intanet, and spoke only tok-pigin. Understanding him through the pastiche of mangled english and german words, which is now the OFFICIAL language of his country was a fun activity. But it was then that I realized just how close to reality Bill Gibson was.
Of course, we have no god-like AIs, but here was a Papua New Guinean, barely removed from real-life headhunters, with both the technology, and the skills to enter and move around in this "shared hallucination". He was participating in the vast electronic conversation, making a useful contribution.
Our chief adversary in those days was typified by one Alan Ralsky, a former two-bit con-man who'd learned like the rest of us to trip the vast network, and discovered the tools to set himself up a new scam. Ralsky, his Russian programmers, and his Chinese business partners... Let's just say he set the stage for things as they are now. Ralsky's been indicted. His Chinese partner has plead guilty and will turn evidence against him. The Russians? Never caught. Still out there, making tools for the new generation of cyber crooks.
As the economy crumbles around us, a woman in Maine embezzles $32,000 from her employer (a national donut-shop franchise) to send to a group of shadowy Nigerians.... In Nigeria, these guys are heros. They set up computer centers in remote villages and bring technology and jobs to some of the poorest people on Earth. The locals defend the con-men with thier lives against police raids. Are they evil? How do you explain that to a poor Nigerian farmer, who because of them, can rest easy that his children will have enough food and warm clothing?
The Nigerians are at the forefront of efforts to break technologies like CAPTCHA, meant to keep them from automating signups to free email accounts they need to perpetuate their scams. At first, they used a human-wave approach, hire locals to surf the signup pages and pass the limited "Turing Test" that the CAPTCHA represents. Now, there are AI tools that can break CAPTCHA (It was always too simple). Think about this. Advanced AI in the service of Nigerian crimelords. DAMN YOU BILL GIBSON!
PEBKAC "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair" Russian "virus writers" haven't actually written "viruses" in ages. Even Microsoft Windows is now secure enough that traditional paths of infection don't work. Instead they focus on an old old trick pioneered by the ancient Greeks. The Trojan Horse. The typical end user is naive. When the computer says "click here", they click there. All the "virus" writer has to do is present a suitably appealing "click here", and the end user will gleefully subvert his own computer's security, and install the software turning it into the tool of the bad guys, part of a vast zombie network, churning out ads for all sorts of nefarious services.
Yes, my life is a William Gibson novel... At least on good days.
On bad days? Let me introduce you to Mr. Cyril Kornbluth...