Protecting Your Neural Network in the Age of Hack and Blame

A few years ago, I found myself in the horrible position of having to tell a mother that her 12 y.o. daughter was posting pictures of herself in only a thong on Instagram. I knew this because I saw them, even though I wasn’t a follower of said child. The mother’s response was to accuse me of hacking her daughter’s account because there was no way the child would have set it to public.

Seriously?

The news of the past few weeks about the Russians hacking our election sounds eerily similar. From the left calling for the Electoral College to postpone their voting until an investigation is done to the right claiming Obama was the one who hacked the DNC server, few are talking about the real issues here — that few Americans truly understand how their behaviors on the network really function and that individuals are the ones responsible for their personal online content.

Thus there are two networks that need securing here. First are the computer networks, which requires an understanding of the technology in order to take the measures appropriate to secure the machines as well as the messages, and second your own neural network, living inside of your head, that needs to actually think first before it posts, sends that email, or communicates in any way on the internet.

“But hacking is illegal…” Of course it is, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Speeding is illegal too and until every message sent over the network is capable of being monitored by an AI of vast computational magnitude, one should assume that hacking will happen. There’s tons of information out there about how to secure your networks, and both Hillary Clinton and the DNC are perfect examples of how not to do it. The SOS should NOT use a personal email server to send work related emails and honestly, neither should you. Work emails should be done on your work computer that ideally resides on a highly secured network behind a firewall. Personal emails can rely on the security of Google, Yahoo, etc. if you wish, but trust me, everyone is watching you there, from the service provider to the NSA (who can ask for your data without a subpoena) to the bored high school hacker who’s out to have a good time proving how stupid you are, to yes, other governments. The internet is global, so anyone can tap in. Listen, unless you’re encrypting everything on your computer using Tor, (for those of you who are inclined see: https://www.torproject.org/) you should assume that what you put out there and store on your devices is for all to see.

So yes, the SOS and the DNC should have protected their servers to the max, and they didn’t. Other servers that need the highest of security in the political process are all computers that count votes and store voter registration information. Conducting an investigation to see if any of those nodes were hacked is important, but I don’t see that being called for.

Hmm, I wonder why not?

Conspiracies aside, I suggest that everyone pick up a copy of, “Networking for Dummies” and read up on it. NOW. Basically your computer/smartphone sends and receives packets of information. This packet has a header that identifies who you are, and some data, like an email message or a picture, as well as something to identify who the message should go to. Hackers do two key things to mess with the process; they intercept that message and read/copy it, or they insert data into messages, like viruses, and send it to you, often to gain access to what is stored on the device, like your nude photos or plans to take over the world. Regardless, they can crack most encryption, thus read your data, and they can also mess with the addressing mechanisms to hide their identity.

Sometimes you just can’t play online. For example, many famous authors aren’t allowed to write their manuscripts on networked computers. No wireless cards are even installed. They print off the final copy and hand deliver it to their editors who then scan it in to edit on a non-networked computer. Their printing computers are on a closed network. This is all necessary because hacking the next J.K. Rowling screenplay is a great coup if you can pull it off.

Thus, hackers are jerks and yet like STD’s, you need to protect your computer networks if you want to play online and if you don’t, it’s your own damn fault.

Which leads me to the second network that needs securing: YOUR BRAIN! This remarkable organ, just like a device on the network, both sends and receives data. You don’t have to put anything on the internet, nor do you have to believe anything you read, but you are responsible for both what you offer up and what you do with the information you absorb. This is your responsibility and yours alone. Complaining that Russia was responsible for the way voters reacted to the revelations from the DNC servers is like complaining that a college admissions officer had no right to revoke his/her offer to you after seeing your racial Tweets or a picture of you peeing on an unconscious person in your public Instagram feed.

Did Russia hack the poorly protected DNC servers? Perhaps. Did they force DNC staffers to email each other about their plans to use media outlets friendly to HRC to publish articles to discredit Bernie Sanders, another Democratic candidate, in order to manipulate the thoughts of the primary voters? No. Did the hackers write the emails that suggested they use those same contacts in the media to prop up “pied piper” candidates like Trump and Cruz in order to influence the Republican primary voters to select a weaker candidate? No. The hackers sent those emails to WikiLeaks who made them public. From there it was up to the public to decide whether or not to let this revelation determine their vote.

Thus, in this age of hacking as well as blaming others for any fallout that you might have caused online, I think we all need to take a step back and protect the most important neural network — our minds. We can do this in two important ways. First, we can protect what we send out onto the internet by thinking first and behaving well. Not sure what that is anymore? Check out the 10 Commandments, or the 8 Fold Path, or even the Golden Rule. If you post unto others what you’d like done to you, then you’re already in a good place. If you write an email about how weak your boss is at his job and he finds out, well, then, I told you so.

Second, we can protect our neural network from the data it receives on the internet by sharpening our logic and discernment. If what we read scares us or incites anger, lust or other such passionate responses, then we should be wary and set the article, email, or post aside. Take a breath. Take a bath. Then read it with a critical mind. Doubt it even more if it resonates strongly with those negative emotions. Research it further before you accept it as valid information for you to use to make a decision. 

For example, perhaps the revelations that the DNC effectively manipulated both the Democratic and Republican primaries via their friendly media contacts leads you to vote for someone other than the Democratic candidate. That’s your choice. You might think this is just how the game is played and they played to win and not be bothered at all. That’s also your choice. Perhaps you read on Reddit that the Podesta emails are the smoking gun proof of a Hillary Clinton child-abuse ring and you’re going to arm yourself and take matters into your own hands and investigate it. Or maybe you read that and decide it's crap. It’s your choice on how to act and no censorship law will protect you from your own behavior.

You’re the one responsible for what you do with all the data you send and receive online and it’s up to you to protect your brain, the original neural network, from being hacked.

Mindfulness and Shamelessness: Developing a Personal Program for the Future

I’ve been thinking a lot about connectivity lately. On many levels. From the fact that Comcast really is just a horrible ISP, to the connection between the ecosystems on Earth, I think it’s safe to say we’re not separate entities. We are intimately connected within webs, both virtually (which is why when we all want to stream Netflix in the neighborhood, our internet slows around here) and materially (which is there is a link between an increase of flesh eating bacteria on our beaches after a major oil spill—those little guys just love a good tarball.)

But this is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to connectivity. The Robot Apocalypse has been in the news a lot lately, and this new race of beings represents just one potential future. While I do believe robots will come and take most of our jobs, I don’t think they’re the new race we need to focus on.

We are.

The new human race will be one that has blended biology with machine.  What exactly that will look like is uncertain. Personally I think there will be many different types of machine enhancements that humans pursue. Race, sexual orientation and religious xenophobia will disappear. Instead, the xenophobia of the future will be between those who adopt technologies to enhance their biology, and those who don’t.

One thing I think can’t be avoided: The networking of the human mind. I don’t mean mind uploading, though anything is possible, but an internet connection via thought. Whether through a headset, implant or neurological brain surgery, humans will end up in a place where your mind and mine are only a thought apart.

This of course opens up a Pandora’s box. My first novel, eHuman Dawn, focuses on what could possibly go wrong in such a scenario, especially if the technology is owned by one group with its own agenda. I would call this a traditional hierarchical scenario and it’s entirely possible, given we’ve been abusing each other for centuries, why stop when we’ve finally got control of one another's minds?

Yet the opposite scenario is also just as possible--An open sourced network of human minds working cooperatively. My new novel, eHuman Deception, attempts to envision such an agreement. A cooperative network, where everything is shared, is honestly the only way to avoid being controlled by special interests. If we have things to hide, whether it be some big idea, or some terrible act we’ve committed, then we’re vulnerable to control. This is because when we have to protect, we have to be secret, and thus build the systems to enable secrecy, which are used by those with less than noble motives to manipulate us. It’s the cycle of fear and we’ve been living in it for millennia. However our technology is about to bring it to a whole new level.

If we are afraid, we will be controlled by those who have the means. If we are fearless, then the future is ours to inherit.

How then, can we become fearless in our minds? It’s impossible to cover that in one blog. Philosophy has spent ages skirting around the idea. In the end, it’s a personal thing, to choose between fear and courage. No one can fix our minds for us, we have to do the work to prepare ourselves for a networked future.

Think of it this way, your brain is the hardware of human existence. We will most likely change that hardware platform dramatically, using technological enhancements, over the next 50 years. Many of us will be alive to see it. So it’s up to us to design and download the new software program within us to work with the hardware upgrade. That software is our self, our emotions, our thoughts and our desires. The software we need to design is one of an esoteric nature—covering all the intangible aspects that make up our personality. The more open sourced this software of the mind is, the freer we shall be as a race.

How? By implementing two key practices that can help us upgrade ourselves from fear to courage: Mindfulness and Shamelessness.

Mindfulness is the ancient practice of watching your thoughts and being aware of the world around you. It’s really nothing more than that. Observing who you are, what you like, what you do, and how you feel, without judgement!!! There are a million ways to get to the point where you’re the observer of your life, rather than the helpless victim. Mindfulness must be a part of the program of humanity if we’re to take the next technological leap collaboratively. We must understand ourselves, our motives and if necessary, bring our action into alignment with our highest principals. It’s a huge thing to ask, but if we’re going to network our very dreams together, then we owe it to ourselves, and one another, to come into the experiment with a true understanding of ourselves and the lives we live.

Shamelessness is the non-judgment part. There are many things we do as a species that are terrible. We also do many beautiful things. And then there are the things we do because society says we’re supposed to, but perhaps aren’t in alignment with our truest selves. We can’t force others to stop judging us, but we can stop judging others, including ourselves! I think we’re beginning to break down many of these issues, mostly in the realm of sexuality, and that’s a good thing. If you’ve practiced mindfulness, and have understood your motives to be pure and true and come from a place of courage, then don’t be ashamed of who you are. Too often we hide ourselves in fear that no one will like us, or approve of us, and then we must be secretive. We keep ourselves protected from that rejection and thus become ever more fearful. This is the greatest vulnerability we have, and the sooner we learn to accept ourselves, the more beautiful our new world will be.

There’s a major hardware upgrade coming for humanity. It’s up to us to prepare ourselves to live the most honest and open lives we can, in clear conscience and action, without shame.

Otherwise, the sheep will become slaves. I personally want no part of that world.

Connection, Connection, Connection

I’ve done something horrible—I’ve started reading the news. Actually, I’ve joined a Facebook group where we discuss the news on many levels. In one day I’ll see things about advancements in technologies, the destruction of the ecosystem, the wars in Iran, Syria, and Gaza, the crazy fundamentalism taking over American politics and the rising number of women in college entering the sex trade in order to pay their tuition.
   
Often, I feel overwhelmed, as if things are speeding into oblivion and I’m just here on the sidelines, watching the ship go down. In my own life, I’m faced with the California drought, and find myself doing rain dances and crossing my fingers that my well won’t run dry. I’m not afraid, but I do wonder, where is this all going?

Why is there strife? Why are we so divided as people? Why is it so hard to understand that we are one race, and the fate of the world affects each of us the same? Right now it seems our xenophobia is about religion and race, and for the most part that’s true. But as I wrote a few weeks ago about artificial intelligence, I think as a people our division is really between those who operate out of scarcity, threat assessment and fear and those who see the connections between the biosphere and our health, between war and endless hate crimes, and between the broken economy and the strife of the poor. Some of us just want to make life harder, and some want to stop the nonsense of killing one another in the name of God, and get down to the business of creating a technologically advanced society alongside the reasonable management of the Earth’s resources.

We’re all part of human history. Our choices matter. Here’s but one example. In the 1950s and 60’s, aboveground testing of nuclear weapons produced large amounts of radioactive carbon that filled our skies. Most of these tests were done on Pacific islands, but we all share the same atmosphere. Thus our air was filled with this radioactive carbon, called C14. So it’s not surprising that one of the places this toxic carbon now shows up is in our teeth! A study in 2005 showed that,

“C14 acts just like regular carbon and can react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Plants incorporate the radioactive carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. By eating plants and the animals that feed on plants, the C14 concentration in the human body closely parallels that in the atmosphere at any given time.”

Why do I bring this up? Because I believe that at this moment in history, the most important thing we need to understand is that we’re all connected. Our Earth is everyone’s home, and it isn’t right that our governments have been using it as a testing ground for centuries, without any concern for human health.

I fear that it will only get worse as our leaders give more and more of their power to those who simply don’t understand, or don’t care, that we’re all connected. We’re all one. What happens to you, happens to me. If another man kills you, then part of me is also killed.

There’s a name for killing oneself—we call it suicide.

Philosophically, I sense we’re on the path of suicide as a species, and we seem comfortable taking the rest of the world with us. Never mind that perhaps the other species on Earth don’t want to go down in a ball of flames. Some think technology will save us. I’m no longer sure that it can. It would take an invention so amazing that we not only begin to see one another in a new light, we also feel prompted on a mass scale to do something about it.

In the words of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, “It would take a miracle.”

Modern philosopher, Charles Eisenstein, says that a miracle is something that would be impossible in the old story, but possible in a new one. The old story is the one we’re watching destroy the Earth right now. One of separation, dominance and competition. The new story is one of connection, care and concern. It’s the More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, which happens to be the title of Charles’ latest book. If this is the case, if the solution really is a miracle, then perhaps we will make it. Perhaps there is hope.

It’s a vulnerable place to be, waiting for a miracle. In the meantime, I’m going to keep doing those rain dances…

Thoughts on Intelligence—Artificial and Human

This past weekend, I had the honor of presenting at a conference hosted by the Brighter Brains Institute and AGI Innovations, in Piedmont, California. The topic was Artificial Intelligence and the Singularity. There were many great speakers, and of course the panel discussions were lively and intelligent. The focus of my part in the day was to discuss how we might influence the morality of Artificial Intelligence.

The answer here seems very clear to me. The only way to influence the morality of anything is to be very clear about your own morality as a creator.

There are many ways to think, but all decisions, programs, and intelligence seem to come down to two very basic algorithms: Threat assessment and connection.

In the case of threat assessment, the thinker sees others in the world as a threat. What constitutes a threat varies from person to person, as it will also vary in computer applications. If you see the need to kill others in order to maintain the life you think you deserve, then kill you will. You’ll also probably invest in or create artificial intelligence to do the deed for you.

Needing to control others also falls in this algorithm of threat assessment. The other is seen as something to be manipulated for various reasons—perhaps to buy something, to believe something, or to vote for something. Again, why you need to control the other may vary, but you can be sure if you think in terms of control and manipulation, you’ll also invest in and create technologies to do it for you.

Regardless of how logically the machine thinks, it will be up to the designers, engineers and customers to give it a morality, which in this case is simply the way it’s used. Will you set it to help find the cure for cancer, or will you set it in a drone and have it hunt out your enemies?

The artificial intelligence, or technology, isn’t destructive. It’s the humans who design it use it that are destructive.

And what about connection? This is also an algorithm of thinking. In this paradigm, we seek to share resources and connect with others in order to be greater. Here’s where the AI in the cancer research lab joins forces sifting through data to help us find the solution. In this sphere AI can help a homemaker run his/her household, or organize data when planning a big event. It could even help guard against fraud in elections. It’s in the realm of connection that the Internet was born, bringing us closer than ever before in ways that were unimaginable just decades ago.

Let's hope that artificial intelligence is also born within the algorithm of connection, because I’m not sure humanity can withstand the technologies of threat assessment for much longer.