[NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Bray, PhD]

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Dear NNAgain’ers,

Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense will
be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize this is
not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in advance.
However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical folks
at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving problem
space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:

Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where inauthenticity
vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that involves multiple
forms of content including biometrics and more.

In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however it’s
going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the U.S. where
any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in
verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had public
trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both politics
and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when they’re
often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of
beliefs).

Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field”
advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone
who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering, censorship,
and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or
not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their population.
Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years will
pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by
both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.

Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM data
with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the
CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they
claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger concerns
that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways not
intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they
were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent
actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by them as
a company.

2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see, hear,
sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.

Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation, triangulation,
triangulation from different perspective to discern authenticity vs.
inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard. Perhaps we need to consider
standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like entities for identity and
other important adjudicatory functions - however that doesn’t immediately
solve the issue of how to help the public in a would experiencing a flood
of questionable content, information, and identities? And who “watches” the
adjudicators?

*David Bray, PhD *Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
<https://www.leaddoadapt.com/>
Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair
<https://napawash.org/fellow/305629> & Distinguished
Fellow
<https://www.cxotalk.com/bio/dr-david-bray-distinguished-fellow-stimson-center>Henry
S. Stimson Center <https://www.stimson.org/ppl/david-bray/>, Business
Executives for National Security <https://bens.org/people/dr-david-bray/>

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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[rjmcmahon]

Hmm, this seems non trivial. The epistemology that I try to use is based 
on the scientific method but I also use a lot of belief that others 
follow this method too.

Also, with the current trends in AI, it seems to me we're mostly 
creating ant mills vs knowledge and discovery.

https://youtu.be/LEKwQxO4EZU?feature=shared

I asked ChatGPT if it behaved like an ant mill. It responded no. I then 
asked it to compare itself with and ant mill and basically said it 
behaved exactly like an ant mill.

Then I asked it some questions about Elon Musk and it always prefaced 
everything with, "Elon is a God."

I stopped using it after that. No knowledge to be found.

Bob
> Dear NNAgain’ers,
> 
> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize
> this is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize
> in advance. However as most of us have technology background here, my
> sense is we generally have a better sense of the looming issue than
> non-technical folks at the moment. Below I outline some of the
> contours of the evolving problem space, and invite each of you to
> share your thoughts as I sense the diversity of perspectives here
> might help with brainstorming potential solutions necessary for civil
> societies to continue:
> 
> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that
> that involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
> 
> 
> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however
> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the
> U.S. where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to
> play in verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something
> have had public trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t
> help that both politics and advertisement rely on presenting things as
> 100% authentic when they’re often only somewhat so (or, to be more
> generous, mix facts with lots of beliefs).
> 
> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home
> field” advantage here because there is only one singular narrative -
> and anyone who questions it can be fired/isolated,
> imprisoned/disappeared, or killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to
> include filtering, censorship, and repression - will be used to ensure
> only one narrative (authentic or not, mostly likely the latter) is
> seen by a majority of their population. Pluralistic societies will
> have it much harder, and the last ten years will pale in comparison to
> the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by both media and
> mediums of questionable authenticity.
> 
> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM
> data with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part
> of the CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some
> sort of additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was
> who they claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by
> larger concerns that SF’s software, give some of its features, could
> be misused in ways not intended by them (think about ways akin to
> Cambridge Analytica) and they were trying to figure out how they could
> incorporate features to prevent actors from misusing/abusing their
> software in ways not intended by them as a company.
> 
> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
> 
> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard.
> Perhaps we need to consider standing up private sector Dun &
> Bradstreet-like entities for identity and other important adjudicatory
> functions - however that doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how
> to help the public in a would experiencing a flood of questionable
> content, information, and identities? And who “watches” the
> adjudicators?
> 
> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc. [1]
> 
> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair [2] & Distinguished Fellow
> Henry S. Stimson Center [3], Business Executives for National Security
> [4]
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] https://www.leaddoadapt.com/
> [2] https://napawash.org/fellow/305629
> [3] https://www.stimson.org/ppl/david-bray/
> [4] https://bens.org/people/dr-david-bray/
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain

Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[Spencer Sevilla]

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Yes I agree, the epistemological challenges here are… incredibly non-trivial. When we start talking about arbiting truth vs misinformation, and building systems around this, it immediately turns to philosophical questions around what types of knowledge are subjective vs objective, and what it even means to “know" something. I often worry that the builders of these types of systems aren’t thinking about these types of things.

Also, when it comes to chatgpt, it’s always best to keep in mind the goal was to emulate a human conversation, with no guarantees (or even explicit design goals towards) useful or truthful information. See also one of my longtime favorite xkcds: https://xkcd.com/810/

> On Jan 4, 2024, at 16:18, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> Hmm, this seems non trivial. The epistemology that I try to use is based on the scientific method but I also use a lot of belief that others follow this method too.
> 
> Also, with the current trends in AI, it seems to me we're mostly creating ant mills vs knowledge and discovery.
> 
> https://youtu.be/LEKwQxO4EZU?feature=shared
> 
> I asked ChatGPT if it behaved like an ant mill. It responded no. I then asked it to compare itself with and ant mill and basically said it behaved exactly like an ant mill.
> 
> Then I asked it some questions about Elon Musk and it always prefaced everything with, "Elon is a God."
> 
> I stopped using it after that. No knowledge to be found.
> 
> Bob
>> Dear NNAgain’ers,
>> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
>> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize
>> this is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize
>> in advance. However as most of us have technology background here, my
>> sense is we generally have a better sense of the looming issue than
>> non-technical folks at the moment. Below I outline some of the
>> contours of the evolving problem space, and invite each of you to
>> share your thoughts as I sense the diversity of perspectives here
>> might help with brainstorming potential solutions necessary for civil
>> societies to continue:
>> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
>> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that
>> that involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
>> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however
>> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the
>> U.S. where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to
>> play in verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something
>> have had public trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t
>> help that both politics and advertisement rely on presenting things as
>> 100% authentic when they’re often only somewhat so (or, to be more
>> generous, mix facts with lots of beliefs).
>> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home
>> field” advantage here because there is only one singular narrative -
>> and anyone who questions it can be fired/isolated,
>> imprisoned/disappeared, or killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to
>> include filtering, censorship, and repression - will be used to ensure
>> only one narrative (authentic or not, mostly likely the latter) is
>> seen by a majority of their population. Pluralistic societies will
>> have it much harder, and the last ten years will pale in comparison to
>> the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by both media and
>> mediums of questionable authenticity.
>> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
>> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM
>> data with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part
>> of the CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some
>> sort of additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was
>> who they claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by
>> larger concerns that SF’s software, give some of its features, could
>> be misused in ways not intended by them (think about ways akin to
>> Cambridge Analytica) and they were trying to figure out how they could
>> incorporate features to prevent actors from misusing/abusing their
>> software in ways not intended by them as a company.
>> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
>> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
>> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
>> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
>> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard.
>> Perhaps we need to consider standing up private sector Dun &
>> Bradstreet-like entities for identity and other important adjudicatory
>> functions - however that doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how
>> to help the public in a would experiencing a flood of questionable
>> content, information, and identities? And who “watches” the
>> adjudicators?
>> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc. [1]
>> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair [2] & Distinguished Fellow
>> Henry S. Stimson Center [3], Business Executives for National Security
>> [4]
>> Links:
>> ------
>> [1] https://www.leaddoadapt.com/
>> [2] https://napawash.org/fellow/305629
>> [3] https://www.stimson.org/ppl/david-bray/
>> [4] https://bens.org/people/dr-david-bray/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nnagain mailing list
>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain


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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[Dave Taht]

Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and the
internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.

In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
-  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407

When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media begin
to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
is down 70% this year...

I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the real
world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.

Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial. Too
few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
me, take a lisinopril.

Life's just a ride, tho, you know?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom

On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
<nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Dear NNAgain’ers,
>
> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize this is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in advance. However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical folks at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving problem space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
>
> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
>
> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the U.S. where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had public trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both politics and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when they’re often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of beliefs).
>
> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field” advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering, censorship, and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their population. Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years will pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
>
> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM data with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger concerns that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways not intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by them as a company.
>
> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see, hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
>
> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation, triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard. Perhaps we need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like entities for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a would experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and identities? And who “watches” the adjudicators?
>
> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain



-- 
40 years of net history, a couple songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Lang]

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signatures work, but how do you know what signatures to trust? the current 
approach of 'trust signatures where they have paid one of a few companies' is 
not going to work. There will need to be some sort of decentralized reputation 
system where you can pick who you trust

Yes, some people will chose to trust people who feed them fakes. That is better 
than giving any one entity the ability to declare anything as "true, don't you 
dare question it" (as we have seen over the last few years)

David Lang


On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:

> Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2024 15:17:12 -0500
> From: Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard this
>     time! <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs.
>     inauthentic information and identity
> 
> Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and the
> internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
> issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.
>
> In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
> terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
> cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
> -  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407
>
> When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
> my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
> everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media begin
> to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
> it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
> hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
> technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
> crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
> is down 70% this year...
>
> I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the real
> world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
> notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
> the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
> learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.
>
> Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
> trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
> example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial. Too
> few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
> blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
> me, take a lisinopril.
>
> Life's just a ride, tho, you know?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
>
> On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
> <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>> Dear NNAgain’ers,
>>
>> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize this is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in advance. However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical folks at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving problem space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
>>
>> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
>>
>> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the U.S. where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had public trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both politics and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when they’re often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of beliefs).
>>
>> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field” advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering, censorship, and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their population. Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years will pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
>>
>> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM data with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger concerns that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways not intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by them as a company.
>>
>> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see, hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
>>
>> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation, triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard. Perhaps we need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like entities for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a would experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and identities? And who “watches” the adjudicators?
>>
>> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
>> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
>> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nnagain mailing list
>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>
>
>
> -- 
> 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain

Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Bray, PhD]

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Also signatures and the like only work for things where you actively
attest.

What if it's a supposed photo, video, or other claims that a person did (or
did not do) something. Sadly we know eyewitness testimony actually is
replete with errors... which is why heretofore "roll the video tape"
(you're at least a Gen X'er or older if you recall video tapes) has been
what courts relied upon:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/

What do we do if that's now questioned? Watermarking of photos, audio, and
videos can be overcome - and, sadly, may actually super-empower either
surveillance states or authoritarian states to "control" media. So free and
pluralistic societies will be especially challenged here?


On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 5:08 PM David Lang via Nnagain <
nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> signatures work, but how do you know what signatures to trust? the current
> approach of 'trust signatures where they have paid one of a few companies'
> is
> not going to work. There will need to be some sort of decentralized
> reputation
> system where you can pick who you trust
>
> Yes, some people will chose to trust people who feed them fakes. That is
> better
> than giving any one entity the ability to declare anything as "true, don't
> you
> dare question it" (as we have seen over the last few years)
>
> David Lang
>
>
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
>
> > Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2024 15:17:12 -0500
> > From: Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> > To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard
> this
> >     time! <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> > Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs.
> >     inauthentic information and identity
> >
> > Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and the
> > internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
> > issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.
> >
> > In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
> > terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
> > cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
> > -  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407
> >
> > When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
> > my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
> > everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media begin
> > to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
> > it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
> > hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
> > technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
> > crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
> > is down 70% this year...
> >
> > I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the real
> > world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
> > notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
> > the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
> > learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.
> >
> > Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
> > trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
> > example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial. Too
> > few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
> > blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
> > me, take a lisinopril.
> >
> > Life's just a ride, tho, you know?
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
> > <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear NNAgain’ers,
> >>
> >> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize this
> is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in advance.
> However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
> generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical folks
> at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving problem
> space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
> diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
> solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
> >>
> >> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that
> involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
> >>
> >> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however
> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the U.S.
> where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in
> verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had public
> trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both politics
> and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when they’re
> often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of
> beliefs).
> >>
> >> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field”
> advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone
> who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
> killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering, censorship,
> and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or
> not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their population.
> Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years will
> pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by
> both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
> >>
> >> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM data
> with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the
> CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
> additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they
> claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger concerns
> that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways not
> intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they
> were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent
> actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by them as
> a company.
> >>
> >> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
> >>
> >> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard. Perhaps we
> need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like entities
> for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that
> doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a would
> experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and identities?
> And who “watches” the adjudicators?
> >>
> >> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
> >> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
> >> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Nnagain mailing list
> >> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
> > Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nnagain mailing list
> > Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>

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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Lang]

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On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, David Bray, PhD wrote:

> Also signatures and the like only work for things where you actively
> attest.
>
> What if it's a supposed photo, video, or other claims that a person did (or
> did not do) something. Sadly we know eyewitness testimony actually is
> replete with errors... which is why heretofore "roll the video tape"
> (you're at least a Gen X'er or older if you recall video tapes) has been
> what courts relied upon:
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/
>
> What do we do if that's now questioned? Watermarking of photos, audio, and
> videos can be overcome - and, sadly, may actually super-empower either
> surveillance states or authoritarian states to "control" media. So free and
> pluralistic societies will be especially challenged here?

signing the images and then the reputation of the person doing the signing.

now, this doesn't solve the court problem, but there I would say there needs to 
be multiple sources in any case.

David Lang

>
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 5:08 PM David Lang via Nnagain <
> nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>> signatures work, but how do you know what signatures to trust? the current
>> approach of 'trust signatures where they have paid one of a few companies'
>> is
>> not going to work. There will need to be some sort of decentralized
>> reputation
>> system where you can pick who you trust
>>
>> Yes, some people will chose to trust people who feed them fakes. That is
>> better
>> than giving any one entity the ability to declare anything as "true, don't
>> you
>> dare question it" (as we have seen over the last few years)
>>
>> David Lang
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
>>
>>> Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2024 15:17:12 -0500
>>> From: Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>> To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard
>> this
>>>     time! <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs.
>>>     inauthentic information and identity
>>>
>>> Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and the
>>> internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
>>> issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.
>>>
>>> In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
>>> terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
>>> cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
>>> -  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407
>>>
>>> When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
>>> my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
>>> everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media begin
>>> to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
>>> it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
>>> hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
>>> technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
>>> crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
>>> is down 70% this year...
>>>
>>> I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the real
>>> world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
>>> notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
>>> the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
>>> learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.
>>>
>>> Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
>>> trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
>>> example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial. Too
>>> few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
>>> blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
>>> me, take a lisinopril.
>>>
>>> Life's just a ride, tho, you know?
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
>>> <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear NNAgain’ers,
>>>>
>>>> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
>> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize this
>> is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in advance.
>> However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
>> generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical folks
>> at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving problem
>> space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
>> diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
>> solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
>>>>
>>>> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
>> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that
>> involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
>>>>
>>>> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however
>> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the U.S.
>> where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in
>> verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had public
>> trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both politics
>> and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when they’re
>> often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of
>> beliefs).
>>>>
>>>> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field”
>> advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone
>> who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
>> killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering, censorship,
>> and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or
>> not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their population.
>> Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years will
>> pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by
>> both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
>>>>
>>>> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
>> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM data
>> with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the
>> CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
>> additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they
>> claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger concerns
>> that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways not
>> intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they
>> were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent
>> actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by them as
>> a company.
>>>>
>>>> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
>> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
>>>>
>>>> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
>> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
>> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard. Perhaps we
>> need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like entities
>> for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that
>> doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a would
>> experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and identities?
>> And who “watches” the adjudicators?
>>>>
>>>> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
>>>> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
>>>> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Nnagain mailing list
>>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
>>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Nnagain mailing list
>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nnagain mailing list
>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>>
>

Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Bray, PhD]

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Yes - however folks who do bad things rarely sign that they did bad
things... so how do we tackle bad actors?


On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 9:30 PM David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, David Bray, PhD wrote:
>
> > Also signatures and the like only work for things where you actively
> > attest.
> >
> > What if it's a supposed photo, video, or other claims that a person did
> (or
> > did not do) something. Sadly we know eyewitness testimony actually is
> > replete with errors... which is why heretofore "roll the video tape"
> > (you're at least a Gen X'er or older if you recall video tapes) has been
> > what courts relied upon:
> > https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/
> >
> > What do we do if that's now questioned? Watermarking of photos, audio,
> and
> > videos can be overcome - and, sadly, may actually super-empower either
> > surveillance states or authoritarian states to "control" media. So free
> and
> > pluralistic societies will be especially challenged here?
>
> signing the images and then the reputation of the person doing the signing.
>
> now, this doesn't solve the court problem, but there I would say there
> needs to
> be multiple sources in any case.
>
> David Lang
>
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 5:08 PM David Lang via Nnagain <
> > nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >
> >> signatures work, but how do you know what signatures to trust? the
> current
> >> approach of 'trust signatures where they have paid one of a few
> companies'
> >> is
> >> not going to work. There will need to be some sort of decentralized
> >> reputation
> >> system where you can pick who you trust
> >>
> >> Yes, some people will chose to trust people who feed them fakes. That is
> >> better
> >> than giving any one entity the ability to declare anything as "true,
> don't
> >> you
> >> dare question it" (as we have seen over the last few years)
> >>
> >> David Lang
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
> >>
> >>> Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2024 15:17:12 -0500
> >>> From: Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> >>> To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard
> >> this
> >>>     time! <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> >>> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
> >>> Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic
> vs.
> >>>     inauthentic information and identity
> >>>
> >>> Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and the
> >>> internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
> >>> issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.
> >>>
> >>> In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
> >>> terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
> >>> cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
> >>> -  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407
> >>>
> >>> When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
> >>> my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
> >>> everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media begin
> >>> to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
> >>> it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
> >>> hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
> >>> technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
> >>> crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
> >>> is down 70% this year...
> >>>
> >>> I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the real
> >>> world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
> >>> notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
> >>> the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
> >>> learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.
> >>>
> >>> Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
> >>> trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
> >>> example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial. Too
> >>> few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
> >>> blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
> >>> me, take a lisinopril.
> >>>
> >>> Life's just a ride, tho, you know?
> >>>
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
> >>> <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Dear NNAgain’ers,
> >>>>
> >>>> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
> >> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize
> this
> >> is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in
> advance.
> >> However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
> >> generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical
> folks
> >> at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving
> problem
> >> space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
> >> diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
> >> solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
> >>>>
> >>>> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
> >> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that
> >> involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
> >>>>
> >>>> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however
> >> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the
> U.S.
> >> where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in
> >> verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had
> public
> >> trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both
> politics
> >> and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when
> they’re
> >> often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of
> >> beliefs).
> >>>>
> >>>> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field”
> >> advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone
> >> who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
> >> killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering,
> censorship,
> >> and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or
> >> not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their
> population.
> >> Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years
> will
> >> pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded
> by
> >> both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
> >>>>
> >>>> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
> >> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM
> data
> >> with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the
> >> CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
> >> additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they
> >> claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger
> concerns
> >> that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways
> not
> >> intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they
> >> were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent
> >> actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by
> them as
> >> a company.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
> >> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
> >>>>
> >>>> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
> >> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
> >> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard.
> Perhaps we
> >> need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like
> entities
> >> for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that
> >> doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a would
> >> experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and
> identities?
> >> And who “watches” the adjudicators?
> >>>>
> >>>> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
> >>>> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
> >>>> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
> >>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Nnagain mailing list
> >> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>
> >

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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Lang]

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that's where the reputation comes into play, if they are willing to burn a 
trusted reputation to lie, you can't stop them, but trusted reputations take 
time to build, so are not free.

this will take time for people to learn, so it's not a short-term win (short 
term, I expect that there will be telltales that will show up through analysis, 
although it make take inspection of the camera that supposedly took the picture 
to find them all), but there is a need for trust, anonymity, and independence 
from a centralized authority (needed for anonymity)

the novel Earthweb ( https://www.baen.com/earthweb-second-edition.html 
https://www.amazon.com/Earthweb-Second-Mark-Stiegler-ebook/dp/B079BKBHJ2/ ) 
shows how such a reputation based system could work (for both legal and illegal 
activities)

How do 'darkweb' type folks establish trust and avoid being burned? they have to 
have some sort of reputation based system (even if informal)

David Lang

On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, David Bray, PhD wrote:

> Yes - however folks who do bad things rarely sign that they did bad
> things... so how do we tackle bad actors?
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 9:30 PM David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, David Bray, PhD wrote:
>>
>>> Also signatures and the like only work for things where you actively
>>> attest.
>>>
>>> What if it's a supposed photo, video, or other claims that a person did
>> (or
>>> did not do) something. Sadly we know eyewitness testimony actually is
>>> replete with errors... which is why heretofore "roll the video tape"
>>> (you're at least a Gen X'er or older if you recall video tapes) has been
>>> what courts relied upon:
>>> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/
>>>
>>> What do we do if that's now questioned? Watermarking of photos, audio,
>> and
>>> videos can be overcome - and, sadly, may actually super-empower either
>>> surveillance states or authoritarian states to "control" media. So free
>> and
>>> pluralistic societies will be especially challenged here?
>>
>> signing the images and then the reputation of the person doing the signing.
>>
>> now, this doesn't solve the court problem, but there I would say there
>> needs to
>> be multiple sources in any case.
>>
>> David Lang
>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 5:08 PM David Lang via Nnagain <
>>> nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> signatures work, but how do you know what signatures to trust? the
>> current
>>>> approach of 'trust signatures where they have paid one of a few
>> companies'
>>>> is
>>>> not going to work. There will need to be some sort of decentralized
>>>> reputation
>>>> system where you can pick who you trust
>>>>
>>>> Yes, some people will chose to trust people who feed them fakes. That is
>>>> better
>>>> than giving any one entity the ability to declare anything as "true,
>> don't
>>>> you
>>>> dare question it" (as we have seen over the last few years)
>>>>
>>>> David Lang
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2024 15:17:12 -0500
>>>>> From: Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>> To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard
>>>> this
>>>>>     time! <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic
>> vs.
>>>>>     inauthentic information and identity
>>>>>
>>>>> Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and the
>>>>> internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
>>>>> issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.
>>>>>
>>>>> In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
>>>>> terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
>>>>> cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
>>>>> -  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407
>>>>>
>>>>> When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
>>>>> my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
>>>>> everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media begin
>>>>> to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
>>>>> it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
>>>>> hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
>>>>> technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
>>>>> crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
>>>>> is down 70% this year...
>>>>>
>>>>> I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the real
>>>>> world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
>>>>> notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
>>>>> the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
>>>>> learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.
>>>>>
>>>>> Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
>>>>> trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
>>>>> example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial. Too
>>>>> few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
>>>>> blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
>>>>> me, take a lisinopril.
>>>>>
>>>>> Life's just a ride, tho, you know?
>>>>>
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
>>>>> <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear NNAgain’ers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
>>>> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize
>> this
>>>> is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in
>> advance.
>>>> However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
>>>> generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical
>> folks
>>>> at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving
>> problem
>>>> space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
>>>> diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
>>>> solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
>>>> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that
>>>> involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however
>>>> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the
>> U.S.
>>>> where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in
>>>> verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had
>> public
>>>> trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both
>> politics
>>>> and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when
>> they’re
>>>> often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of
>>>> beliefs).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field”
>>>> advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone
>>>> who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
>>>> killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering,
>> censorship,
>>>> and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or
>>>> not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their
>> population.
>>>> Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years
>> will
>>>> pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded
>> by
>>>> both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
>>>> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM
>> data
>>>> with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the
>>>> CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
>>>> additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they
>>>> claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger
>> concerns
>>>> that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways
>> not
>>>> intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they
>>>> were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent
>>>> actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by
>> them as
>>>> a company.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
>>>> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
>>>> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
>>>> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard.
>> Perhaps we
>>>> need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like
>> entities
>>>> for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that
>>>> doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a would
>>>> experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and
>> identities?
>>>> And who “watches” the adjudicators?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
>>>>>> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
>>>>>> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Nnagain mailing list
>>>>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
>>>>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Nnagain mailing list
>>>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Nnagain mailing list
>>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>>>>
>>>
>

Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Bray, PhD]

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However there’s the asymmetry of power and voice - where folks can use
repetition and cognitive easing around lies and just repeat, repeat, repeat
and drown out the voice of others who lack the same access to digital
megaphones.

Remember courts ask people to tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. What manipulators of the inauthentic do is usually something
where 2 of the 3 “truth asks” are done and the 3 is stretched. You might
get the truth but not the whole truth - or the truth with
disinformation/inauthenticness inserted too.

On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 20:12 David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:

> that's where the reputation comes into play, if they are willing to burn a
> trusted reputation to lie, you can't stop them, but trusted reputations
> take
> time to build, so are not free.
>
> this will take time for people to learn, so it's not a short-term win
> (short
> term, I expect that there will be telltales that will show up through
> analysis,
> although it make take inspection of the camera that supposedly took the
> picture
> to find them all), but there is a need for trust, anonymity, and
> independence
> from a centralized authority (needed for anonymity)
>
> the novel Earthweb ( https://www.baen.com/earthweb-second-edition.html
> https://www.amazon.com/Earthweb-Second-Mark-Stiegler-ebook/dp/B079BKBHJ2/
> )
> shows how such a reputation based system could work (for both legal and
> illegal
> activities)
>
> How do 'darkweb' type folks establish trust and avoid being burned? they
> have to
> have some sort of reputation based system (even if informal)
>
> David Lang
>
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, David Bray, PhD wrote:
>
> > Yes - however folks who do bad things rarely sign that they did bad
> > things... so how do we tackle bad actors?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 9:30 PM David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, David Bray, PhD wrote:
> >>
> >>> Also signatures and the like only work for things where you actively
> >>> attest.
> >>>
> >>> What if it's a supposed photo, video, or other claims that a person did
> >> (or
> >>> did not do) something. Sadly we know eyewitness testimony actually is
> >>> replete with errors... which is why heretofore "roll the video tape"
> >>> (you're at least a Gen X'er or older if you recall video tapes) has
> been
> >>> what courts relied upon:
> >>> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/
> >>>
> >>> What do we do if that's now questioned? Watermarking of photos, audio,
> >> and
> >>> videos can be overcome - and, sadly, may actually super-empower either
> >>> surveillance states or authoritarian states to "control" media. So free
> >> and
> >>> pluralistic societies will be especially challenged here?
> >>
> >> signing the images and then the reputation of the person doing the
> signing.
> >>
> >> now, this doesn't solve the court problem, but there I would say there
> >> needs to
> >> be multiple sources in any case.
> >>
> >> David Lang
> >>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 5:08 PM David Lang via Nnagain <
> >>> nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> signatures work, but how do you know what signatures to trust? the
> >> current
> >>>> approach of 'trust signatures where they have paid one of a few
> >> companies'
> >>>> is
> >>>> not going to work. There will need to be some sort of decentralized
> >>>> reputation
> >>>> system where you can pick who you trust
> >>>>
> >>>> Yes, some people will chose to trust people who feed them fakes. That
> is
> >>>> better
> >>>> than giving any one entity the ability to declare anything as "true,
> >> don't
> >>>> you
> >>>> dare question it" (as we have seen over the last few years)
> >>>>
> >>>> David Lang
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Mon, 8 Jan 2024, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2024 15:17:12 -0500
> >>>>> From: Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> >>>>> To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects
> heard
> >>>> this
> >>>>>     time! <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> >>>>> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic
> >> vs.
> >>>>>     inauthentic information and identity
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Basically I am interested in the intersection between politics and
> the
> >>>>> internet in the context of this list, which is broader than the NN
> >>>>> issue. So I appreciate monday conversation starters like these.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In my case, I often have to revert to thinking about the present in
> >>>>> terms of what used to be science fiction. "Interface" - upon
> >>>>> cogitating about what the coming election will look like came to mind
> >>>>> -  https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Stephen-Bury/dp/0553572407
> >>>>>
> >>>>> When I first saw the deepfakes Pr0n phenomenon a few years ago, I had
> >>>>> my oh-ghu moment, as I realized once tools like that got into
> >>>>> everyone's hands the truth and authenticity of any form of media
> begin
> >>>>> to vanish, and the recent rise of the LLMs *almost* put the finish to
> >>>>> it. Thankfully the LLMs (so far) have a terrible tendency to
> >>>>> hallucinate which is often easily detectable, and overall, the
> >>>>> technoliterati have managed to expel really bad ideas like
> >>>>> crypto-grift, web3, and so on in the last few years. Web3 investment
> >>>>> is down 70% this year...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I now wish very much that the concept of "whuffie" existed in the
> real
> >>>>> world, but the flight to mastodon, twitter's addition of community
> >>>>> notes, most of newspapers moving to a for-pay model, and in general,
> >>>>> the innoculation of the populace at large to distrust everything they
> >>>>> learn on line is well underway which I find some comfort in.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Promoting widespread skepticism and disbelief are powerful tools, but
> >>>>> trying to find guidelines to what is actually truthful harder. For
> >>>>> example, I read wikipedia's talk page on everything controversial.
> Too
> >>>>> few do that. I recently sat through fox news with my mom, because her
> >>>>> blood pressure was too low, and it served well to "improve" that, and
> >>>>> me, take a lisinopril.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Life's just a ride, tho, you know?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM David Bray, PhD via Nnagain
> >>>>> <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Dear NNAgain’ers,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense
> >>>> will be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize
> >> this
> >>>> is not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in
> >> advance.
> >>>> However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
> >>>> generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical
> >> folks
> >>>> at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving
> >> problem
> >>>> space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
> >>>> diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
> >>>> solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where
> >>>> inauthenticity vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that
> that
> >>>> involves multiple forms of content including biometrics and more.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this -
> however
> >>>> it’s going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the
> >> U.S.
> >>>> where any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play
> in
> >>>> verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had
> >> public
> >>>> trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both
> >> politics
> >>>> and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when
> >> they’re
> >>>> often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots
> of
> >>>> beliefs).
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home
> field”
> >>>> advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and
> anyone
> >>>> who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
> >>>> killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering,
> >> censorship,
> >>>> and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic
> or
> >>>> not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their
> >> population.
> >>>> Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years
> >> will
> >>>> pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded
> >> by
> >>>> both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an
> additional
> >>>> People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM
> >> data
> >>>> with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of
> the
> >>>> CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
> >>>> additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who
> they
> >>>> claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger
> >> concerns
> >>>> that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in
> ways
> >> not
> >>>> intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and
> they
> >>>> were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to
> prevent
> >>>> actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by
> >> them as
> >>>> a company.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see,
> >>>> hear, sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation,
> >>>> triangulation, triangulation from different perspective to discern
> >>>> authenticity vs. inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard.
> >> Perhaps we
> >>>> need to consider standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like
> >> entities
> >>>> for identity and other important adjudicatory functions - however that
> >>>> doesn’t immediately solve the issue of how to help the public in a
> would
> >>>> experiencing a flood of questionable content, information, and
> >> identities?
> >>>> And who “watches” the adjudicators?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> David Bray, PhD Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
> >>>>>> Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair & Distinguished Fellow
> >>>>>> Henry S. Stimson Center, Business Executives for National Security
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>>>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
> >>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
> >>>>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>>>
> >>>
> >

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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[Jack Haverty]

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IMHO, similar issues of judgement and trust have come up in the past, 
and it might be worth researching the history.

In the context of the Web, during the 90s there was a similar concern 
about categorizing content available on the Internet.   The issue at the 
time was providing mechanisms to protect children from pornography.  But 
today's issues of truth and misinformation are very similar -- e.g., you 
might categorize an inaccurate news post as "pornographic".

I suggest looking at some work from the 90s.  At the time, I was working 
at Oracle as "Internet Architect", and served as corporate 
representative to W3C (see https://www.w3.org/ ).  Thw W3C group, led by 
Tim Berners-Lee, was intensely involved in setting technical standards 
for the Web.

A project was formed call PICS - Platform for Internet Content 
Selection.  Essentially it created mechanisms to add metadata to 
existing content on the Web, and use it to filter content for end users.

See https://www.w3.org/PICS/ for the history.  PICS is now obsolete and 
was replaced by something called POWDER - see 
https://www.w3.org/2007/powder/

I wasn't involved in POWDER, which occurred after my involvement with 
W3C ended.  But I was very involved in the creation of PICS.

The main idea of PICS was to enable the creation of "rating schemes" to 
categorize content.  Since the focus was on pornography, one likely 
rating scheme was the classical G/R/X ratings popular at the time for 
characterizing movies.   But anyone, or any group, could define a rating 
scheme to suit their views.

Having selected a rating scheme they liked, any group, or individual, 
could assign ratings to specific content.  Perhaps you think that movie 
is "R", but I think it's "X".   As a judge once noted - "I can't define 
it, but I know it when I see it".   Opinions can of course differ.

Ratings were to be kept in one or more databases, accessible on the 
Internet to anyone.  Content could be identified by a URL, or perhaps a 
unique cryptographic "hash" of the content itself, in case it was 
moved.  Each record would contain 4 items - the identity of the content, 
the identity of the rating scheme used, the identity of the person or 
group making the rating, and the rating which they assigned.  Such 
technology was easily within the capabilities of databases even then.

On the "consumer" side, applications (e.g., browsers) would have 
settings that could be applied to indicate which rating system was to be 
used, which groups or persons making ratings were to be trusted, and 
what ratings of content would be actually viewable by the human end user.

The idea was that various groups (content creators, reviewers, religious 
groups, community activists, etc.) would define their preferred rating 
scheme and then assign ratings, at least to content they deemed 
objectionable.

End users, e.g., parents, could then set up their children's web 
browsers to use the rating scheme of whichever group(s) they trusted to 
make "correct" ratings, and set their children's browsers appropriately 
to restrict the content they could see.   A content consumer simply 
selects the rating service they trust.

It seems straightforward how a similar mechanism might be applied to 
instead rate accuracy of Internet content, and allow consumers to choose 
which, if any, ratings are applied to filter the information they see, 
based on who they trust to make such judgements.

PICS was actually implemented in popular browser software.   But, as far 
as I know, no group ever designed their preferred rating scheme, or 
actually assigned ratings to any content then available on the 
Internet.   The mechanisms were there.   But apparently no one used 
them.   The loud voices of "Something has to be done!" didn't actually 
themselves do anything.

Even if PICS/POWDER isn't appropriate for handling misinformation, an 
analysis of why it failed to be used might be revealing.

Jack Haverty



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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[Dick Roy]

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Thank you Jack!  Awesome history lesson.  Somehow Churchill’s quote, “Those
that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.!”, comes to mind!
:-)

 

Happy New Year!

 

RR

 

  _____  

From: Nnagain [mailto:nnagain-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net] On Behalf Of
Jack Haverty via Nnagain
Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2024 12:00 PM
To: nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
Cc: Jack Haverty
Subject: Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs.
inauthentic information and identity

 

IMHO, similar issues of judgement and trust have come up in the past, and it
might be worth researching the history.

In the context of the Web, during the 90s there was a similar concern about
categorizing content available on the Internet.   The issue at the time was
providing mechanisms to protect children from pornography.  But today's
issues of truth and misinformation are very similar -- e.g., you might
categorize an inaccurate news post as "pornographic".

I suggest looking at some work from the 90s.  At the time, I was working at
Oracle as "Internet Architect", and served as corporate representative to
W3C (see https://www.w3.org/ ).  Thw W3C group, led by Tim Berners-Lee, was
intensely involved in setting technical standards for the Web. 

A project was formed call PICS - Platform for Internet Content Selection.
Essentially it created mechanisms to add metadata to existing content on the
Web, and use it to filter content for end users.   

See https://www.w3.org/PICS/ for the history.  PICS is now obsolete and was
replaced by something called POWDER - see https://www.w3.org/2007/powder/

I wasn't involved in POWDER, which occurred after my involvement with W3C
ended.  But I was very involved in the creation of PICS.

The main idea of PICS was to enable the creation of "rating schemes" to
categorize content.  Since the focus was on pornography, one likely rating
scheme was the classical G/R/X ratings popular at the time for
characterizing movies.   But anyone, or any group, could define a rating
scheme to suit their views.

Having selected a rating scheme they liked, any group, or individual, could
assign ratings to specific content.  Perhaps you think that movie is "R",
but I think it's "X".   As a judge once noted - "I can't define it, but I
know it when I see it".   Opinions can of course differ.

Ratings were to be kept in one or more databases, accessible on the Internet
to anyone.  Content could be identified by a URL, or perhaps a unique
cryptographic "hash" of the content itself, in case it was moved.  Each
record would contain 4 items - the identity of the content, the identity of
the rating scheme used, the identity of the person or group making the
rating, and the rating which they assigned.  Such technology was easily
within the capabilities of databases even then.

On the "consumer" side, applications (e.g., browsers) would have settings
that could be applied to indicate which rating system was to be used, which
groups or persons making ratings were to be trusted, and what ratings of
content would be actually viewable by the human end user.

The idea was that various groups (content creators, reviewers, religious
groups, community activists, etc.) would define their preferred rating
scheme and then assign ratings, at least to content they deemed
objectionable.

End users, e.g., parents, could then set up their children's web browsers to
use the rating scheme of whichever group(s) they trusted to make "correct"
ratings, and set their children's browsers appropriately to restrict the
content they could see.   A content consumer simply selects the rating
service they trust.

It seems straightforward how a similar mechanism might be applied to instead
rate accuracy of Internet content, and allow consumers to choose which, if
any, ratings are applied to filter the information they see, based on who
they trust to make such judgements.

PICS was actually implemented in popular browser software.   But, as far as
I know, no group ever designed their preferred rating scheme, or actually
assigned ratings to any content then available on the Internet.   The
mechanisms were there.   But apparently no one used them.   The loud voices
of "Something has to be done!" didn't actually themselves do anything.

Even if PICS/POWDER isn't appropriate for handling misinformation, an
analysis of why it failed to be used might be revealing.

Jack Haverty




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Re: [NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

[David Bray, PhD]

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Also on history let’s consider the 1890’s and how both Pulitzer and Hearst
made their money with sensationalist headlines that may not have matched
the actual facts of the scenario. The U.S. ended up going to war with Spain
over a disinformation event - Remember the Maine!

The Congress was also slightly more polarized at the time than it is now.
What if we’re seeing a Second Gilded Age?


On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 13:00 Jack Haverty via Nnagain <
nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> IMHO, similar issues of judgement and trust have come up in the past, and
> it might be worth researching the history.
>
> In the context of the Web, during the 90s there was a similar concern
> about categorizing content available on the Internet.   The issue at the
> time was providing mechanisms to protect children from pornography.  But
> today's issues of truth and misinformation are very similar -- e.g., you
> might categorize an inaccurate news post as "pornographic".
>
> I suggest looking at some work from the 90s.  At the time, I was working
> at Oracle as "Internet Architect", and served as corporate representative
> to W3C (see https://www.w3.org/ ).  Thw W3C group, led by Tim
> Berners-Lee, was intensely involved in setting technical standards for the
> Web.
>
> A project was formed call PICS - Platform for Internet Content Selection.
> Essentially it created mechanisms to add metadata to existing content on
> the Web, and use it to filter content for end users.
>
> See https://www.w3.org/PICS/ for the history.  PICS is now obsolete and
> was replaced by something called POWDER - see
> https://www.w3.org/2007/powder/
>
> I wasn't involved in POWDER, which occurred after my involvement with W3C
> ended.  But I was very involved in the creation of PICS.
>
> The main idea of PICS was to enable the creation of "rating schemes" to
> categorize content.  Since the focus was on pornography, one likely rating
> scheme was the classical G/R/X ratings popular at the time for
> characterizing movies.   But anyone, or any group, could define a rating
> scheme to suit their views.
>
> Having selected a rating scheme they liked, any group, or individual,
> could assign ratings to specific content.  Perhaps you think that movie is
> "R", but I think it's "X".   As a judge once noted - "I can't define it,
> but I know it when I see it".   Opinions can of course differ.
>
> Ratings were to be kept in one or more databases, accessible on the
> Internet to anyone.  Content could be identified by a URL, or perhaps a
> unique cryptographic "hash" of the content itself, in case it was moved.
> Each record would contain 4 items - the identity of the content, the
> identity of the rating scheme used, the identity of the person or group
> making the rating, and the rating which they assigned.  Such technology was
> easily within the capabilities of databases even then.
>
> On the "consumer" side, applications (e.g., browsers) would have settings
> that could be applied to indicate which rating system was to be used, which
> groups or persons making ratings were to be trusted, and what ratings of
> content would be actually viewable by the human end user.
>
> The idea was that various groups (content creators, reviewers, religious
> groups, community activists, etc.) would define their preferred rating
> scheme and then assign ratings, at least to content they deemed
> objectionable.
>
> End users, e.g., parents, could then set up their children's web browsers
> to use the rating scheme of whichever group(s) they trusted to make
> "correct" ratings, and set their children's browsers appropriately to
> restrict the content they could see.   A content consumer simply selects
> the rating service they trust.
>
> It seems straightforward how a similar mechanism might be applied to
> instead rate accuracy of Internet content, and allow consumers to choose
> which, if any, ratings are applied to filter the information they see,
> based on who they trust to make such judgements.
>
> PICS was actually implemented in popular browser software.   But, as far
> as I know, no group ever designed their preferred rating scheme, or
> actually assigned ratings to any content then available on the Internet.
> The mechanisms were there.   But apparently no one used them.   The loud
> voices of "Something has to be done!" didn't actually themselves do
> anything.
>
> Even if PICS/POWDER isn't appropriate for handling misinformation, an
> analysis of why it failed to be used might be revealing.
>
>
> Jack Haverty
>
>
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