Give to My Cute Kitties PAC

 

I get a lot of phone calls wanting me to give to Firefighters-PAC, or CuteDoggyPAC, or StarvingChildrenPAC. Ok, I like Firefighters and Puppies and want to help them.

But, I made the mistake of Googling what the PAC stands for, and it’s not good. It basically means that I have NOT been giving my hard-earned monopoly money to Charities for cute puppies. I have been giving it to Political Action Committees. PACs. [1] What the hell is a PAC you might ask?

Google it. Ask bard.google.com, and it gets worse. One AI told me,

“PACs are less accountable and transparent than charities because they are not subject to the same level of oversight. This means that PACs are more likely to engage in activities that are not in the public interest.”

Great. Not only did I not help any puppies, but my money may have been used against the public interest. A sort of Anti-Charity, disguised as a charity.

But this rabbit hole gets deeper. There are also Scam-PACs [2] that “gather money for a candidate or cause and then pocket the cash instead of giving it to the cause or the candidate.”

I’m fairly sure that is illegal. But if not, maybe I should start a PAC to help all of those stray cats that we keep adopting. I could call it the “Rescue Poor Kitties PAC”.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Mr Smith?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, we are from the Rescue Poor Kitties PAhemmmhemm, and We are collecting money to elect more people who help kitties, not those haters in office now.”

“What? Oh kitties? Well, yes. Great idea! Let’s get you some money then!” …. “So, did you say PAC? What the hell is a PAC anyway?”

 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee

[2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/beware-scam-pacs-and-pacs-scam

 

Where's the Coffee after Zombie Apocalypse?

Every now and then, I get into serious discussions like "Where will we get coffee after Zombie Apocalypse?" 

It's an important question. I live in the US and there are no native coffee plants there. 

So, naturally I’m a bit worried that the coffee will run out fast, and then things would get bad. After all, you are going to have to stay alert in a situation like that.

So I’ve done some research, and it turns out there is a Holly bush that produces caffeine, and was used by Native Americans. It’s called Yaupon. The official name is Ilex Vomitoria if you want to buy it. So you can all relax. There will be coffee after Zombie Apocalypse. Sort of.

 

Let's only leak accurate data?

In response to various organizations losing my data to hackers, so-called “Data Leaks” (Equifax, Teachers Retirement System, Lastpass, etc) I have decided to start giving out fake identification data. I call this “chaffing”. [1]

I am very tired of getting emails saying, “Sorry but we lost your information to those darned hackers. They are ever so much smarter than us. And you should now guard against identity theft. Good luck! So sorry.”

And then I am expected to freeze my credit at 3 different credit reporting agencies and watch for weirdness on my bank statements or bills for things that I never purchased. And I imagine some hackers somewhere rubbing their hands together gleefully saying (evilly and probably in a Nazi accent), “It von’t be long now, and we will haft all the data vee need for this one! Bwah Ha Ha Ha!”

So, I do those safety things. I change my passwords all over the place, I check my credit report, and I have 2-factor security on evvverrrrything now. But, I can’t change my mother’s maiden name, my fingerprint, my signature, my birthdate, my first girlfriend’s name, or many other things that might be in some Darknet database by now.

So I had this thought, “They gather my data, then lose it. Over and Over. And eventually, everything about me that a hacker wants to know will be practically public knowledge or in some big Darknet database of idiots”

Then I had the following revelation: What if I gave them the WRONG DATA? Then when they spill it, and the hackers try to correlate various data leaks to have a great profile of John Bryson…. it will be a total mess.

For example, my fake Internet birthdate, from now on will be Jan 1, 1950. I chose that for various reasons, but it could also have been April 1 1955 which would give an approximate, but not quite correct age, and a random but memorable month and day (April Fools Day).

My thought was that, in non-official places, (you have to give the government the correct data) I could use this fake birthdate, and then when they inevitably leak the data, it will not be as useful for stealing my identity! I imagine the hackers look of surprise when they try to start a credit card in my name, and can’t get my birthday correct. (evil laughter)

Or imagine they try to correlate all of the John Brysons in various data leaks and they all have different birthdates? Messy. Is this 50-year-old John the same person as that 55-year-old John?

Then I thought, why not carry this idea out even further? Some places ask for “Password Hints” so you can recover your account if you forget your password, but what stops a hacker from pretending to be you, having lost the password and attempting to guess your hints from your Facebook and other social media posts?
The answer is “Nothing. If I was a hacker, I would certainly attempt that”

So, why not take this idea further, and have some fake hints as well. I could have some fake First Dog, fake “Town I was Born In”, fake “Favorite Food”, etc when they ask for hints. Of course, I would have to write these down, but it should work fine. So my password hints are now something like a password - I can change them, and they do NOT match what people may discover about me by stalking my social media posts. So they can’t get into my accounts by guessing my hints.

So, I started doing this, and it appeared to be working. Now I get spam calls trying to sell me medicare supplements like they do for all retirees over 65. Guess what - I’m not 65, but some of my data does have years that make me appear over 65. So, they are taking the bait.

I tried to change my Facebook birthdate, and it let me do this a few times and then rejected my change. Now they want proof of my date of birth or they won’t allow me to change it again - they only want to leak accurate data, I suppose.

In any case, I am calling this idea, Data Chaffing, in honor of the winnowing and chaffing encryption idea [1] although really this is just chaffing.

PS. As an added benefit, all of those “legitimate” data collectors, that only want to legitimately sell your information for profit, will also be a bit confused. And that doesn’t bother me at all.

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaffing_and_winnowing

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Intellectual Rubbish 

There is a lot of anger on social media these days. And I am not immune to this either. So I keep asking myself “Why?" 

Is it a creeping Marxist conspiracy to turn American against American? 

Is it just young internet trolls in their mama’s basement enjoying torturing us all, like a budding psychopath with an innocent animal? 

Or a commercial conspiracy to generate clickbait money? 

All of the above maybe? 

Why all of this anger? 

I found this quote by Bertrand Russell, and I’m worried that it is true….   

 

 

“If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. 

If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you should feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. 

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. 

Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.“

 — Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943)