love/ hate letter to stackexchange summer 2017 at ½ decade mark

hi all, have now been on stackexchange over 5 yrs, focusing on CS-related groups, mainly theoretical computer science and the computer science sites. its been a wild ride and full of a lot of color and online adventures. the cyber culture is quite rich. full of dynamic psychology and ripe for a sociological/ anthropological study. when finding this site early on and seeing their rapid growth, thought it could be a like a mini-facebook. but alas, there are really no other mini-facebooks! (lol at someone-or-other who told me in chat not long ago that SE is not a “social networking system”!) its a winner-take-all situation in capitalism and mirrored in cyberspace.

for 4 years focused on building up my online rep. shew, it sure/ really isnt easy! esp if one wants to have a personal style to their posts! the site culture is very “left brained”. analytical. exacting. its that old japanese expr applied to cyberspace:

the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

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cybersecurity/ cybercrime/ social media summer 2017

hi all! its a wild moment in the history of cyberspace. everything is agitated it seems. a list of the highlights of big news for me. russian election cyberhacking is more widespread than previously understood/ considered.[a][d] think that maybe ppl are missing some of the point of espionage operations which are designed to be secret and only successful when cloaked, ie is it like an iceberg with a large part submerged? could it be our own intelligence agencies are witholding devastating information? there are hints of that & it seems increasingly likely at this point.

reality winner leaks a classified document relating to russian election hacking and is likely to go to jail. think shell be lucky with less than 5 yr.[c]

cyber 2017, milo yiannopoulos, pewdiepie, online content, other zeitgeist

hi all, two recent high profile events caught my eye, #1 the meltdown of Milo Yiannopoulos and #2 pewdiepie losing a lucrative contract with Disney for his controversial youtube content. these seem to me to be strongly reflecting current cyber zeitgeist in various ways. so, a release of another/ the latest huge batch/ selection of items/ headlines.

in case #1 its “live by the sword, die by the sword”.[a] yiannopoulos reminds me of british commentator piers morgan who made a big splash years ago with his biting/ acerbic analysis of america, but seemed to burn out from his high profile/ near-trollery. did not track milo much at all but his downfall splattered very heavily across sites regularly browsed. it seems like a case of “troll culture”. theres also connections to the video game area. and of course, intense connections to current politics/ Trumpism which is still impacting cyberspace with roiling waves.[i]

russia election hacking, trump+obama+putin, fake news

hi all, what a blur its been since the last cybersec post here. US obama admin announced sanctions against russia in response to intelligence agency consensus that Russia hacked US election as part of state govt efforts, and intended to get Trump elected. wild info! the repercussions continue to fall out, it looks like congress will be all over this issue for months to come at least, and maybe years.

the trump admin hostility toward the intelligence agency apparatus is remarkable/ extraordinary/ unprecedented. when the mainstream media starts to talk about the “deep state” you know that its a new world we’re living in.

the actual evidence that russian govt was involved in the hacking does not seem all that strong to me, it appears to be more assertion by widespread consensus, which is questionable to say the least.

this stuff hit the Full Trifecta over Obama,[d] Trump,[c] Putin[e] / Russia.[b]

theres a lot of continuing headlines on fake news, and it looks like maybe the concept is not going to go away with the election and is a new concept in the collective consciousness.[f] apparently a permanent gamechanger.

apparently as stated earlier, the age of cybersecurity/ infowarfare is on us in full force. dizzying times we live in at times so to speak.

fake news media firestorm/ bombshells, obama/trump/russia/putin/congress/stein

hi all its only been 3 wks since posting on the fake news and election integrity topic, and its turned into a fast firestorm in a small amt of time, and various bombshells are reverberating. hard to keep up! am unloading this batch of links.

obama is releasing CIA intelligence report to congress/ public[d] which implicates russia/putin[c] as intentionally attempting to push election to Trump.[e]

congress is making loud noises about a bipartisan investigation. that is a rare occurrence. but one wonders if the partisans have some kind of secret agenda. in washington, increasingly the only thing that isnt bipartisan is the actual physical infrastructure, say the statues, and even then one wonders. (oops, even inanimate objects like statues have a bipartisan slant!) which reminds me of that old expr “reality has a liberal bias” and that in turn reminds me of old quote “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”[x]

which leads nicely/ quickly into the next subj of “fake news”.[a] the technical term for this ofc is misinformation, disinformation, or propaganda. not exactly sure why those terms are not being used. guess we need a nice new buzzword in this 21st cyber century eh?

some media is already declaring jill steins recount effort over.[b] it looks like 2/3 states rejected it via judicial review. but probably the litigation will go on for months at least it seems like. conspiracy sites are even calling out outright fraud/ hacking.[b3][b12]

clearly we are right smack dab in the middle of a major cyber/infowar with massive domestic and intl implications.

facebook has done a 180 from zuckerbergs claims “theres nothing to see here folks” and is already agreeing to work on the issue with various near-term and long-term approaches.