Category Archives: Feature

No, the FCC Didn’t make the Internet a Public Utility – So what actually happened?

The internet buzzed with celebration at the FCC 3–2 vote to approve of the new Title II-backed “net neutrality” regulations last week. You can read about it in the press release dated February 26, 2015. Despite how the story’s been spun, it isn’t exactly the win it appears to be.

Don’t get me wrong; this decision is important and this is a historic, significant win for the internet as we know it. After the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of Verizon in the case of Verizon v. FCC, it looked like the concept of net neutrality was in very real peril. Last week’s win is crucial to the war, but there are likely going to be many more battles before an outcome arrives. Still, there are a ton of heroes in here: advocacy groups, small businesses, progressive big businesses and a host of supporters comprising one of the largest online movements ever.

While it’s a big win, it’s frustrating to research and discover that the internet wasn’t exactly made into a “public utility”, as reported, like, everywhere. Internet providers are now going to be reclassified as “telecommunications services” under Title II, what we currently refer to as Internet Service Providers/ISPs aka Comcast & Verizon. Most people don’t immediately grasp that the classifying ISP’s as service providers doesn’t make them the legal equivalent of a utility.

It’s a subtle enough distinction that almost no one online reported this important detail. In fact it was most commonly misreported.

You can brush up on the history of the net neutrality fight by following the links and reading quotes gathered at The Verge.

The Hill

The above examples are only a sample of the long list of unintentionally yet blatantly wrong headlines. Nilay Patel wrote perhaps one of the most convincing arguments for making the internet a utility, written last winter(2014, Verge).

The Title II decision allows the FCC to reclassify all ISP’s as “common carriers,” which sounds like a public utility – but it isn’t. As John Bergmayer from Public Knowledge put it like this:

This misapprehension comes about because the most prominent telecommunications common carriage service of the past—telephone service—also was regulated as a utility. But utility regulation typically carries with it a number of features not present in any current proposals for broadband—most notably, thorough price regulation and detailed local regulation of service quality, customer service responsiveness, and so forth.

What’s being described sounds almost exactly like a public utility.

As Bergmayer wrote, “even full common carrier regulation is not identical to utility regulation.”

Aspects of Title II seem like utility-style regulations. The FCC is able to use a concept called forbearance to make Title II-backed net neutrality different from “utility-style regulation.” The differences are all in favor of the ISP’s, rather than the consumers. There’s going to be no kind of rate regulation under this change. ISPs won’t pay tariffs or be subject to monitoring that could slow business, if not internet speeds. ISP’s can continue to bundle and lease their competitor’s access to their networks they control. The ISPs are not obligated to contribute to the Universal Services Fund, or collect the associated taxes and fees a utility would.

If you are for net neutrality(you should be), you need to recognize that last weeks victory was real and it was a valid win for the cause. If you want to argue or advocate for that cause you need to abandon the misinfo that the internet is now a utility. Saying the FCC’s decision gave service providers utility status benefits the very companies who would love to destroy net neutrality, effectively making the internet shitty for everyone you know~!

/end rant

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Simultaneous Observation Might Change Our Understanding of Quantum Mechanics

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New data could shed light on a decades old gap in understanding quantum mechanics – but how?

There is no shame in struggling to conceptualize quantum mechanics, considering some of the best minds on the planet struggle as well. In fact, the field of study has been confusing for even the most forward-thinking, capable scientists. The new piece of data can be gleaned from a complicated but relatively easy to grasp experiment, published March second, 2015, entitled Simultaneous observation of the quantization and the interference pattern of a plasmonic near-field.

This new event was possible through a collaboration of the Laboratory for Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering of EPFL, the Department of Physics of Trinity College (US) and the Physical and Life Sciences Directorate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The image was rendered by EPFL’s ultrafast energy-filtered transmission electron microscope. There are currently only 2 such microscopes in the world.

Before now, traditional understanding of quantum mechanics has not been able to explain why some subatomic features can behave as a simultaneous particle or a wave. The often-referenced experiments demonstrating the effect of observation always left me asking why you can’t try both at the same time. No experiment was able to capture both states of light simultaneously. Science has only been able to record evidence of a light as waves or particles; this new photograph captures an image of both from the exact same moment in time. Finally, an novel experiment was devised, developed and executed, simultaneous observation.

Traditional particle/wave observation works like this: ultraviolet light hits a metal surface causing the metal to emit electrons in a predictable, observable time-frame. Until Albert Einstein wrote about what he called the photoelectric effect, light was thought to be a wave. Once the logic is understood this photoelectric effect is hard proof of light behaving as a particle, able to knock into other particles.

Researcher Fabrizio Carbone lead his team at EPFL as they performed a modified version of : using electrons to image light. The researchers have captured, for the first time ever, a single snapshot of light behaving simultaneously as both a wave and a stream of particles particle.

Carbone’s team was able to use nanotechnology to exploit the wave aspect of light to create a standing wave. They used a laser to direct a short pulse of light at a nano-thin metal wire. The light travels along the wire’s surface to create a standing wave on the other side. By running electricity through the wire and measuring the speed of that electron flow they were able to create an image of the wave aspect of the light during the pulse. The same electron-flow that was used to create the image of the wave traveled so close to the standing light-wave it actually had a measurable exchange of energy, as only a particle can do.

Fabrizio Carbone explains the significance: “This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics – and its paradoxical nature – directly.”

I wonder what this new way of observing the same exact quantity of light in both states will mean in the developing applications which involve quantum theory. Carbone gives a great example, “Being able to image and control quantum phenomena at the nanometer scale like this opens up a new route towards quantum computing.”

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Lost City in Honduras Uncovered

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A recent trek through the rainforests of Honduras uncovered a strange old secret: an entire city hidden beneath the lush canopy, forgotten and unexplored. The expedition arose from rumors of a White City, Ciudad Blanca, known by ancient legends as the “City of the Monkey God.”

A team of archaeologists returned Wednesday from a site they heavily surveyed – an area of jungle that was once an extensive urban plan – a series of earthworks, mounds, and even an earthen burial pyramid – all remnants of an ancient culture that managed to thrive in the region over a thousand years ago before disappearing. They also uncovered a number of ancient stone sculptures.

They were led to the location in the Mosquitia rain forest by Honduran military troops.

While people have known for ages that sophisticated civilizations once thrived throughout Central and South America, such as the Mayans and Aztecs, so obscure is this vanished culture that archaeologists have not even given their civilization a name.

Christopher Fisher, a archaeologist specializing in Mesoamerican history at Colorado State University was astounded by the pristine conditions of preservation, rare in the rainforest due to high levels of moisture, and also the fact that it was largely unlooted, something he said was “incredibly rare.” Fisher believes that the cache of stone sculptures they found near the bottom of the pyramid was likely an offering to their gods.

“The undisturbed context is unique,” said Fisher. “This is a powerful ritual display, to take wealth objects like this out of circulation.”

The archaeologists spotted 52 artifacts lying beneath the earth, and suspect many more remain hidden underground, where they believe there are burials. Among them were metates, ceremonial stone seats as well as snake-like figurines. As though it doesn’t sound enough like something out of a turn of the century adventure pulp, what grasped the most attention was a strange head peering from the ground – a figurine that Fisher believes represents
“a were-jaguar,” a shaman transformed in a spirit state. The artifact might also represent an ancient athlete, playing a type of ball game popular throughout Mesoamerica similar to soccer.

“The figure seems to be wearing a helmet,” said Fisher. Oscar Neil Cruz, another team member and the head archaeologist at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, has dated the artifacts between A.D. 1000 to 1400, before the arrival of European conquistadors.

Archaeologists have not yet excavated anything and the site’s location remains undisclosed in order to avert potential looting.

They discovered the location by stream, one which goes through an unexplored valley deep within Mosquitia of eastern Honduras, where the City of the Monkey God was long said to exist. Doing an aerial survey of the valley, archaeologists first found the site in May 2012, hidden beneath the swamps and rivers of a land that is one of the few unexplored realms on the planet.

For centuries, explorers and prospectors who came to Central America had heard stories from the indigenous people of a white city within the jungle, where their ancestors had taken shelter from Spanish conquistadors – a sort of paradise not unlike Avalon or the Garden of Eden.

There had been efforts by archaeologists to determine whether the City of the Monkey God ever really existed since the 1920s. Theodore Morde of the Museum of the American Indian (which is currently part of the Smithsonian Institution,) led the most famous of these expeditions back in 1940. Morde even claimed to have discovered the city and brought many artifacts with him back to the United States, although he refused to reveal the location and never fulfilled his promise to return with a fully planned excavation.

It was Morde who first referred to it as the City of the Monkey God, based on stories he heard from the natives who claimed a large statue of a simian like god was buried somewhere in the sediments. Monde committed suicide in 1954, and never revisited the site.

Filmmakers Steve Elkins and Bill Benenson took up the search in 2012, flying over the region and discovering a crater-shaped valley, surrounded by steep mountains with the help of the Center for Airborne Laser Mapping at the University of Houston. They used a Cessna Skymaster, which explored the canopy with laser light radar technology. Processed images of the flight revealed that much of the terrain along this river had been reshaped for irrigation by human hands. Yet, over the centuries, life has found a way to take over. Many of the tropical primates and birds found there had likely never seen a human.

An exploration team of archaeologists from both the United States and Honduras visited the site, joined by a lidar engineer, an anthropologist, an ethnobotanist, some documentary filmmakers, and support personnel. Security was provided by 16 Honduran Special Forces soldiers provided security. A writer and photographer were sent on assignment by the National Geographic Society. While they did in fact confirm the features of a city, archaeologists since Morde have begun to expect that the Mosquitia valley may be concealing a number of lost ports, implying that there is an entire civilization beneath it waiting to be discovered.

James Sullivan
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and a contributor to Truth Is Cool and OMNI Reboot. He can usually be found on TVTropes or RationalWiki when not exploiting life and science stories for another blog article.

Kasperspy vs. Equation Group: Private Corporate Security Links Malware to NSA

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In a story that is abstract, hard to grasp and comprised of details and names science fiction writers might be jealous of, Kasperspy is finally able to point an indirect but definite finger at the NSA.

Last Monday, February 16th, at Kasperspy’s Security Analyst Summit, Kaspersky security researchers were finally prepared to present their findings linking the 15 year old NSA handle, “Equation Group”, to hundreds of files including plug-ins and upgraded variations going back fifteen years. Kasperspy operatives were initially able to identify the nls_933w.dll module by correlating a list of hard drive vendors in part of the code with a list of hardware commonly infected by a piece of code identified five years ago, dubbed the nls_933w.dll module.

The nls_933w.dll module was very likely written by the same people who worked on the equally ubiquitous malware of initially baffling origin, Stuxnet. If you follow this sort of security news you may have read about stuxnet before. In both cases, this type of malware remains dormant unless called upon by an autonomous piece of code to stop hibernating and perform an unknown set of actions. It’s notoriously difficult to reverse engineer these complex pieces of code.

Vitaly Kamluk is the voicebox for Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team. He gave the now week-old-but-already-infamous talk, offering several long-coming answers to questions anyone interested in high-level cyber security have been otherwise fruitlessly asking for years. Kamluk explained that the module is in many ways the “ultimate cyberattack tool”. It’s possibly the crowning achievement of the so-called Equation Group. He explained how the available evidence implies Equation group is about 15-years-old and gave detailed reasons why the malware is evidence that the same group responsible for the nls_933w.dll module must have had confident and confidential knowledge of Stuxnet and Flame.Personally, I have trouble vetting the information to verify Kasperspy’s accusation, and it is difficult to link Equation Group to the NSA. This is the nature of information warfare, though; the people who are great at concealing intentions and information are going to be shrouded in mystery even after someone is able to accuse them. What makes Kasperspy vs. Equation Group so noteworthy is that a private security firm seems to have the clearest understanding of cyberwarfare, out of everyone who has the guts to openly discuss such a formidable potential enemy. Equation Group is known to be behind several security operations of dubious benefit to anyone other than the United States, with targets including the most-feared zero-day exploits that can literally ruin computers, including systems that are running critical military or utility functions for states. Equation Group has been accused without concrete proof of espionage against increasingly sensitive targets. The current list of victims includes governments, energy companies, embassies, telecoms and many other entities, mostly based in Russia, Syria, Iran and Pakistan.

The targets imply Equation Group is acting on behalf of US interests but until people know the endgame of such security violations or the true identity of Equation, there are more questions than answers – probably by design.

World Cyberwar: Six Internet News Stories in 2015 Blur the Line Between Sci Fi and Reality

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

How could Lenovo have Missed Preloaded Superfish Adware’s Obvious Security Risk?

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Superfish is probably the most annoying kind of invasive malware so why did Lenovo think it was going to go unnoticed? It’s actually worse than that. Lenovo claims they thought the Superfish software would be welcome and useful. If you aren’t a programmer or a web marketer you might not even understand what Superfish does at first glance. Basically, it can interject third party, paid advertising onto webpages that are otherwise encrypted. For example, you could have pop up ads or banner ads that weren’t sanctioned by your private bank show up on your online banking homepage. Adware of this nature breaks the usual http connections and can easily be exploited by anyone, not just advertisers who have a deal with Lenovo. Since Lenovo denied including the software on computers sold after December 2014, only to have indy security research personnel find Superfish on computers shipped after 2015, the scandal is going to creep among hackers, nerds and programmers while the rest of the world becomes that much less secure.

We have temporarily removed Superfish from our consumer systems until such time as Superfish is able to provide a software build that addresses these issues. As for units already in market, we have requested that Superfish auto-update a fix that addresses these issues.

Uh, yeah, temporarily removed, but does anyone even really want superfish on their Lenovo?

At first glance, Lenovo handled this issue in a professional manner as if it was all a big mistake. The further the software is discussed, dissected and examined, the less plausible the claim of an accidental security risk has become. Naturally, assurances from the dealer are not going to assuage fears completely, and rightly so, considering reports of computers having the software uninstalled, leaving elements of the code present to affect pop up ads and potentially leave the machine at risk. Serious damage to Lenovo’s rep aside, this is actually a big-picture win for consumers, who are seeing a hardware manufacturer backpedal out of a terrible move, hopefully setting precedent.

So what the heck was Superfish intended to actually DO?

Superfish is a “Visual Discovery browser add-on”, available on Lenovo consumer products excliusively. Superfish is uses an image search engine to supposedly help the user find products based on the appearance of said product. It does this by analyzing online images an markets identical and similar products in real time. The advantage is supposed to be that the user can search images while also being offered lower priced goods.

The software is cutting edge, searching 100% algorithmically without relying on text tags or human expeditors. If you show an interest in a product, superfish will already be hunting down a better deal. Lenovo insists:

Superfish technology is purely based on contextual/image and not behavioral. It does not profile nor monitor user behavior. It does not record user information. It does not know who the user is. Users are not tracked nor re-targeted. Every session is independent. When using Superfish for the first time, the user is presented the Terms of User and Privacy Policy, and has option not to accept these terms, i.e., Superfish is then disabled.

Yet, the visual search aspect of the program isn’t really dependant on Superfish’s disturbing ability to falsely sign security certificates. If it is a great search method and helps people find deals they didn’t ask for, that sounds cool yet annoying but is there any reason why it needs to see or interact with pages attempting to remain secure? Nope.

Because Lenovo has computers shipped to distributors with multiple methods of uninstalling the software, and some computers that were shipped before the uninstallation attempt, some machines still come with Superfish pre-installed. Lenovo had a rep post in a forum that Superfish has been uninstalled but had a shady excuse that there were “some issues (browser pop up behavior for example)” as the reason. Lenovo twitter account reiterated that the machines should be safe now. Regardless of their official stance via social media, it’s clearly still possible to buy Lenovo PCs that have superfish pre-installed. There has yet to be an update download from Lenovo or otherwise that can help get rid of the adware. Do PCs from other manufacturers pre-install Superfish or other invasive security risks, inadvertently or otherwise? Regardless, if you uninstall Superfish adware from your machines, a Superfish root certificate will remain, leaving your computer at risk to third party hacking.

World Cyberwar: Six Internet News Stories in 2015 Blur the Line Between Sci Fi and Reality

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Building a Better Anxiety Drug Through a Deeper Understanding of Protein Structure

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MSU’s Center for Mitochondrial Science and Medicine funded modest research into TSPO, which recently turned out to be an important brain protein. The National Institutes of Health has now taken on much of the funding. So what’s this hot new discovery? A protein that has lead the psychiatric, medical and neuroscience communities to a new understanding of some of the most common brain disorders. Fei Li, MSU postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the university study, explains why a deeper understanding of this one protein is such a big breakthrough:

“One reason that TSPO’s function has been so hard to pin down is that many studies have been done in the complex and diverse environments of whole cells and tissues, where a clear-cut interpretation of the results is difficult,” said Fei Li, “We were able to obtain a pure protein that was still functional, but isolated from these complications.”

The team of researchers extracted TSPO proteins from bacteria instead of humans, but the protein is nearly identical. The scientists hope to be able to gather enough of TSPO from humans to take this research to the next level with increased funding.

“When we compared the two forms of TSPO, normal and mutated, we were able to see substantial differences in structure,” Shelagh Ferguson-Miller, University Distinguished Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, said. “This could be a clue as to why the human mutant form has an association with anxiety disorders.”

This is a noteworthy occurrence in the world of physiology and neurobiology because of the many implications. For instance: one of the protein samples identified contained a mutant TSPO formation, important because bipolar disease is often associated with a higher probability this particular mutation. The mutant structure is too ridged to bind as successfully with cholesterol, leading to statistically poor cholesterol functionality.

Cholesterol problems of this nature can lead to a problem with steroid hormones. Without a regulated amount of cholesterol, steroids hormones in turn aren’t created as reliably. TSPO plays a part in delivering cholesterol into it’s appropriate place in the mitochondria where it would normally be broken down and reassembled into hormones that deeply affect regular body function.

Ferguson-Miller and her team were able gain a closer look at the crystal structure of the protein by creating an x-ray image of TSPO able to zoom in to the molecular level. This new microscopic imaging technology gave the researchers an far superior understanding of the role TSPO plays in the creation of steroid hormones.

TSPO is also found in higher concentrations near regions of the body that have sustained heavy tissue damage. So, you may have seen some science headlines about a big breakthrough in treating anxiety and depression which could lead to treatments which treat the root cause, inflammation of key areas in the brain. Doctors without access to this equipment can still use the findings to better identify damaged areas of the brain now because they can look for TSPO concentrations in a lower resolution(and lower cost~!) image, like a PET scan.

These next-generation treatments could be years away, she added. This is partly due to TSPO was actually discovered in 1977 when scientists were studying the anxiety-controlling quality of Valium. The TSPO protein was deemed “a peripheral binding site” by most studies and never pursued by big pharmaceutical companies as an economically viable way to sell new medications.

“Many other scientists have studied this protein, but what exactly it is doing has been very difficult to determine,” said Ferguson-Miller. “Drugs and other compounds bind to TSPO, but without knowing the structure, their effects are hard to interpret. Now that we’ve obtained the structure, it could provide important clues regarding anxiety disorders and the basis for a new generation of anti-anxiety drugs.”

So, Michigan State University published a great study about the crystal structure of, TSPO, a protein long associated with several kinds of anxiety problems without ever having been fully understood before now. It will be vastly less difficult to design drugs that bind to the protein in various ways now that we can see close enough to identify the shape of the complicated molecule.

Currently popular anti-anxiety, or anti-depressant drugs are taken by one in ten Americans and often have dangerous side-effects including, suicide, addiction and overdose.

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Mess with your Mind: The Frontier Science of Electric Brain Interfaces

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Neuroscience is an exciting young field where the emerging applications are going through a unique experimental phase that show commercial promise but also render it susceptible to pseudoscientific claims. Cosmoso attempts to sort the facts from wishful thinking by examining a few aspects of BCI(Brain Computer Interface), including prototypes and outrageous claims.

EEG

Billions of polarized neurons maintain waves of electrical charges inside your head, stimulating each other with electrical impulses. Over a hundred years ago began a storied history of the EEG machine, able to monitor and prove the existence of electric brain waves. EEG machines were used to further many aspects of brain science from the significance of REM sleep to screening WWII pilots for dangerous brain seizures. Honda has been working on using the brains recordable brainwave output to control robotics and eventually vehicles.

EEG machines have been around in their present form for a few decades. EEG measures the oscillation of electrical activity in the brain and those measurements can be controlled by the owner of that brain & thus used to operate machinery.

The general idea: residual electrical activity caused by your brain can be measured on the surface of your scalp, neck and face. That data can change based on what the brain is consciously thinking. By controlling your thoughts in a certain way you can change the way the brainwaves show up in an EEG reading, and that info can be used as an input method to control various machines. A variety of commercial enterprises attempt to exploit the concept, to varying degrees of success or usefulness.

tDCS: Transcranial direct current stimulation.

Neuroscientist Jared Horvath, at the University of Melbourne, in Australia, recently debunked pseudoscience that has spawned a popular youtube trend: transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Proponents of tDCS claim cognitive and behavioral benefits that enhance the brain’s ability to problem solve, learn, do arithmetic, utilize visual ability, and complete memory-based tasks. Much of the research he found was not able to be replicated by other researchers, or not attempted to be fact checked or peer reviewed. He also discovered a lot of experiments did not run a “sham condition” control group — wherein test subjects were attached to the device that had no live current. In fact, despite the legions of DIY supporters hoping they found a new way to manipulate their own brains, Horvath said, “When I pulled out the 20 studies looking at tDCS and working memory, for example, they all found something, but they all found something different.” http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/ethics/brain-hackers-beware-scientist-says-tdcs-has-no-effect

Roi Cohen Kadosh, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, is quick to point out that tDCS might not be nonsense, because: “This is still a young field of research so we still need to be really careful when we interpret the results from tDCS. The real results will come when we have enough data to make meaningful conclusions.”

If there turns out to be legit, predictable aspects of tDCS, it opens the possibility of a brain-computer interface being a 2-way street. The current tech allows EEG to measure brainwaves as user output but the input back into the user still has to be audio or visual. If there is really something to find in tDCS studies, we might eventually be able to have our brains communicate directly with a computer via electric impulses.

Youtube DIY brain hackers and commercially available snake oil:

The science behind brain manipulation is not developed enough for these products and experiments to work as claimed. Youtube has provided a ton of anecdotal evidence, though, and you can have fun going down that rabbit hole if you want. It’s basically not possible at the time I’m writing this, in early 2015, to know where to place electrodes or how much current to use. http://www.foc.us/ provides a device that claims all types of unscientific benefits.

Commercially available products exploiting EEG readings are mostly toys and games.

From game controllers to helicopters you can control a variety of toys and games with your thoughts. It’s a fast-growing field but when the interface becomes 2-way, there will likely be a major leap forward.

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Ukrainian Shell Attack Causes Massive Explosion, Rumors, Misinformation

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Rumors of tactical nuclear weapon detonation and related misinformation have plagued reports of Last Monday’s explosion in Donetsk, Ukraine. The incident had no casualties, unless you count 2 people killed during the shell fire that hit the city and started the fire at the chemical plant where the explosion later took place. Every report coming from the ground in Donetsk, including a bevy of independently uploaded eyewitness video, supports the official story being reported by CNN and other 24hour news media, that the explosion was the result of a chemical plant being hit with artillery fire from the Ukrainian Army.

False reports of a tactical nuclear weapon detonation complicate political discussions in the short run and desensitize the public to the idea of nuclear war in the long run. Misinformation often abounds from war-torn parts of the world which is exactly why a skeptical, eye toward the data should be used. It’s especially important to rule out false conclusions if the conclusions imply the world somehow taking a nuclear assault with a grain of salt, which would be the case if all the major news outlets slept on the first nuclear bomb explosion in a combat situation in decades. As with any disaster, there was an opportunity for rumors and misinformation to take hold last after Monday’s independant reports, including video, began to surface.

Three video examples below, combined with Ukrainian Army and Russia official responses, do not support a nuclear bomb explosion as correct interpretation of this disaster.

So here is what actually happened:

CNN reported the explosion as a fire at a chemical plant, a claim apparently originating from the local media in Donetsk. Pro-Russian Rebel spokesman Eduard Basurin was the official source claiming the chemical plant was hit by Ukrainian Army shelling. Ukraine is has yet to deny responsibility. The plant was not hit during hours of operation but the surrounding area was also hit with Ukrainian Army shell fire, killing 2 civilians.

Pres. Obama’s statement on the matter: “Russia has violated every commitment in Ukraine” he said at the press event supporting this week’s visit from German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House. The public is debating whether or not the U.S. should arm the Ukrainian government to deter further Russian manipulation. President Obama has gone on record saying he wants to avoid that but implied it is not yet off the table. The EU member states are not all in favor of U.S. involvement. The volatile nature of the current talks are accented in a macabre way by the rumor of nuclear war.

The EU has decided to delay sanctions against Russia to give ceasefire negotiations more time. If negotiations don’t achieve a ceasefire, economic sanctions against key Russian citizens as well as Russian corporations could worsen the already dangerous decline in Russia’s economy.

2 great reasons why it can’t be a tactical nuclear weapon:

1. The upload timeline is too tight. Regardless of the size or nature of the tactical nuke, a nuclear attack would be chaos. It would be very difficult if not impossible to get any form of media recorded within a reasonable distance of the explosion. Local media covered the chemical plant fire within hours. Most of the videos published appear to be undoctored, eyewitness and posted within hours, sometimes minutes of being created. For the footage to be planned and released from so many sources, the timeline is too tight to be believable. If an actual nuke went off, there would be footage emerging from the area gradually for the next few days but electromagnetic disturbances and physical damage would stop anyone near the bomb site from getting internet access. The Ukraine revolution has been accompanied by a steady stream of media coverage at a grassroots level since it began. That would be put on complete blackout in the wake of a nuclear explosion.

The story fell into speculation and misinformation mostly because there was a lack of data yet, that lack of data is the evidence that there wasn’t a “tactical nuclear weapon”, as versions of the conspiracy theory claim. A nuclear bomb would have spread data in various forms far and wide with an intensity that would enable scientists from around the globe to examine it. It would be virtually impossible to set off a nuclear weapon without various scientists around the world being able to verify it almost instantly; it’s been 2-3 days at the time of this piece being published.

2. Neither side of the Crimean conflict wants the area to undergo the aftermath of a tactical nuke. Seriously, the city and surrounding areas would not be livable. The internet isn’t the only thing that would not be reliable in a nuclear attack. The death toll would not be small news that leaked into the mainstream gradually over a few days. It would be thousands of human deaths and widespread environmental damage. he fact that people are still in the city of Donetsk, Ukraine shows that a nuclear bomb was not detonated in the uploaded videos. There wouldn’t be anyone close enough to video the incident who would then be alive to upload the kind of close-up video we’ve been seeing. Most of the people taking video and uploading it to youtube would already be succumbing to radiation poisoning if not destroyed entirely before they even had a chance to upload, even if they could get online.

So, no, there wasn’t a tactical nuclear attack in Donetsk, Ukraine last Monday. It was an exploding chemical plant.

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Can Information be Weaponized? Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part Two

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What role would optical illusions, graffiti and QR code technology play in weaponizing an image, sound, video or string of words to influence or control the human mind? Jonathan Howard takes a look at technology and the theoretical future of psychological warfare with the second part of an ongoing series. This installment of Can Information be Weaponized? is Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part Two in which Jonathan Howard continues the train of thought about a possible delivery system for harmful memes by exploiting common mental weaknesses, including optical illusions, graffiti, and QR Code Technology. If you haven’t read it yet, you should start with Can Information be Weaponized? is Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part One.

It’s an aspect of human psychology most readers will already be aware of: optical illusions. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson once pointed out, “an optical illusion is just brain failure”.

People like to trust their perception of what is happening in the world around them but there are circumstances where our perception of an image or set of images can’t be relied on as accurate. An illusion doesn’t have to be optical; we’ve all experienced an earworm, a piece of music, a movie quote or other form of recorded audio, which, once heard, seems to play with vivid realism. An earworm can make a sound seem to play on infinite repeat, often leaving the victim feel plagued by a sound that is not truly there.

Being fooled is a novelty and it can be fun but the video clip below demonstrates how illusions don’t just mess with your eyes(or ears). In certain, often common, circumstances illusory effects can actually modify the way your brain works. In January, 2014, vlogger Tom Scott created a recent video to explain the nature of the McCullough Effect, an optical illusion that can change the way your brain interprets colors in relation to striped patterns.

The video mentions the McCullough Effect can have lasting effects – potentially 3 months. In the interest of remaining unbiased I have not yet experimented but some Reddit users went ahead and tried it with believable results. Try it at your own risk~!

“You couldn’t rub out even half the ‘Fuck You’ signs in the world” ~ Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye

It would be difficult to weaponize the principle behind The McCullough Effect because the worm takes several minutes of intentional concentration to take effect. It’s a far cry from Medusa’s statue-creating gaze. Aspects of media can work much faster though. An offensive or upsetting image encountered via social media is often dubbed “cannot be unseen”. In J.D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye, main character Holden Caulfield laments the human tendency to exploit written language with malice whenever he sees school kids exposed to vulgarity whenever a, “fuck you”, scrawled on a public wall. The illustration below illustrates this point by putting a gratuitous swearword in your head but has another possible harmful-meme delivery system: QR Code

Much in the way you can’t unsee a curse word written in a public space, a day may come when a more complicated curse-like state might be induced via QR code.

In February, 2014, Dr. Nik Thompson of Murdoch University pointed out QR codes can easily be exploited by cybercriminals because they can’t readily be interpreted by humans without the aid of a machine adding, “There have already been cases of QR codes used maliciously to install malware on devices, or direct them to questionable websites.”

Technically, by exploring the idea of exploited QR code, I’m making the same mistake as Diggins and Arizmendi, regarding compromised computer-assisted operating systems as a form of sixth domain warfare, when that would actually count as the fifth domain, cyber warfare. A compromised operating system on a phone or other smart device might seem like your brain is being attacked but the device is the only thing you’d be losing control of.

A truly weaponized piece of media might combine various elements of what I’ve described. Weaponized information would have to be:

immediately absorbed like graffiti
difficult or impossible to unsee like an offensive or disgusting image on the web
able to induce or catalyze lasting changes in the mind like the McCullough Effect
able to exploit the theoretical, bicameral firmware of the human mind as described in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind(nonfiction) possibly in the manner of Snow Crash(fiction)
possibly able to exploit the Fifth Domain of Warfare(Cyberspace) to reach the Sixth(The Mind) examples include human reliance on Brain-Computer Interface(BCI) is a major weakness in the modern human psyche, as described by Chloe Diggins and Clint Arizmendi or QR code Malware.

Thanks for reading Can Information be Weaponized? Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part Two~! You can go back and read Part One here. Any suggestions, contradictions, likes, shares or comments are welcome.

Jonathan Howard posted this on Monday, February 9th, 2015

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Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Can Information be Weaponized? Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part One

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Can an image, sound, video or string of words influence the human mind so strongly the mind is actually harmed or controlled? Cosmoso takes a look at technology and the theoretical future of psychological warfare with Part One of an ongoing series. This installment of Can Information be Weaponized? Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part One is about a possible delivery system for harmful memes. You can click here to jump to Part Two.

Chloe Diggins and Clint Arizmendi wrote an article for Wired Magazine back in Dec., 2012 entitled, Hacking the Human Brain: The Next Domain of Warfare. The piece began:

It’s been fashionable in military circles to talk about cyberspace as a “fifth domain” for warfare, along with land, space, air and sea. But there’s a sixth and arguably more important warfighting domain emerging: the human brain. ~Hacking the Human Brain by Chloe Diggins and Clint Arizmendi, 2012, Wired Magazine

Hacking the Human Brain concentrated on the vulnerabilities of Brain-Computer Interface or BCI, giving some examples about how ever-increasing human reliance of computer-aided decision making in modern warfare opens users to security risks from weaponized hacking attempts. It’s a great article but the article is not actually discussing that sixth domain it claimed to in that opening paragraph I quoted above. The attacks described by Diggins and Arizmendi are in the nature of exosuits and mind-controlled drones being overridden by hackers, exhibiting the fifth domain of warfare of the given paradigm. What kind of attack would truly compromise, subjugate the sixth domain, the domain of the mind?

“Wait a minute, Juanita. Make up your mind. This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?”
Juanita shrugs. “What’s the difference?” ~ From Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash, 1992

In Neil Stephenson‘s 1992 novel, Snow Crash, the hero unravels a complicated conspiracy to control minds using a complicated image file which taps into the innate, hardwired firmware language the human brain uses as an operating system. By simply viewing an image, any human could be susceptible to a contagious, self-replicating idea. The novel was ahead of its time in describing the power of media and the potential dangers posed by creating immersive, interactive virtual worlds and memes with harmful messages or ideas that can spread virally via social media. In the world of Snow Crash, a simple 2d image was the only technology needed to infect the human mind, forcing the victim to comply. The word and much of the concept of a meme had yet to be developed in 1992 but as the above quote points out, there are several, well tested mind control systems in existence already, including viruses, drugs and religions(Check out Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson at Amazon.com).

Stephenson waxed academic about language, history and the idea that ancient Sumerians had already uncovered this ability to hack the human mind. He later credited a 1976 book by Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind as an influence and inspiration for Snow Crash. In Origin of Consciousness, Jaynes coined the term bicameralism, hypothetical psychological supposition that the human mind used to be divided into 2 main language functions. One part of the human mind was for speaking and the other was for listening, aka bicameralism. Jaynes claimed this state was normal in primates until a relatively recent change in language and cognition happened to humanity, supposedly about 3000 years ago. Stephenson’s fictional technology attacks modern man’s anthropologically latent compulsion to automatically accept orders when the orders are presented in the correct language.

Is a mind-control meme only the stuff of science fiction? In real life, how susceptible are humans to this kind of attack? Check out Can Information be Weaponized? Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain Part Two.

Thanks for reading Can Information be Weaponized? Memetic Warfare and the Sixth Domain: Part One~! Any suggestions, contradictions, likes, shares or comments are welcome.

Jonathan Howard posted this on Monday, February 9th, 2015

[email protected]

Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY