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

Mon Jan 8 17:08:11 EST 2024

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 at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard this
>     time! <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht at 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 at 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
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Nnagain at 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
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