technology – Wild Rain

Forgotten tech

Are you old when you can recall technology from the past? Technology that either no longer exists, or the name you use for it is no longer in use.

My father used to say photostat and fax. In my youth there was dial-up and BBS. The device halfway between a smartphone and tablet was a phablet. We had MP3 players like the Creative Rhomba, flip phones that fit in the palm of your hands. PDAs. All forgotten like tears in the rain. Saved in our memories, while they last.

Saving. That reminds me, most children today do not know where the save icon comes from. The good old floppy disk. Not the 5.25 inch, the real floppy, but the 3.5 inch rigid 720MB SD (880 Amiga) or 1.44HD.

Old technology. Guru meditations.

It’s exhausting

There are so many scams these days. Some are getting more and more sophisticated. Making use of new technology like AI. Scammers love the social networks and LinkedIn is no exception. You need to verify everything. You cannot trust anything anymore.

Scammers can contact you as potential recruiters looking to harvest your info, or to sell you something, or to trick you into revealing something about your employer or colleague. Others try to connect in order to gain access to your contacts and to use your connection to them to boost their credibility. Some will contact you via LinkedIn messaging to offer you opportunities or fake services. Others may be selling certifications or courses that are not real, or worthless.

Some days I can’t be bothered going on LinkedIn or the socials full stop. I’m just too tired of all the scams and having to work out what is real and what is not. It’s exhausting! It’s a pity that the social platforms themselves don’t use technology like AI against the scammers to better police their networks. Maybe it would reduce their income streams too much.

Has AI killed Google Dorking?

When performing OSINT research I often utilise Google keywords and advanced features, also known as Google Dorking. It’s a great way to find content and data that a basic search may fail to retrieve. Recently however, I discovered that AI, namely GPT, can retrieve the same results, and sometimes even more, faster than I can dork, prompting me to speculate whether AI has replaced the need to learn advanced OSINT techniques at all. Maybe OSINT 2.0 is learning to master AI prompts to conduct OSINT research faster and better than manually?

I put this to the test. I was recently asked to research a company. I like to use mind-mapping to join up the data that I find. Using Google Dorking and various sites that offer data on public companies I compiled a lot of information in around an hour, all linked together with reference points and a timeline. I then asked GPT to research the same company specifying the parameters. In five seconds it not only retrieved all the information that I had found, but it had additional information that I had not.

I’ll admit that at first I was annoyed that it was faster than me but after thinking about it I realised that it was also very useful. It provided links and evidence along with its findings, which I could follow to verify. The outcome was new sources that I could add to my own playbook. I also decided that I could use AI to assist with the process but that you have to follow a trust but verify rule. Check everything it tells you and back it up with evidence as it may have hallucinated some or all of its findings. It helps to think of AI as a virtual OSINT assistant in this case. You can give it something to research, but make sure you yourself check everything it returns.

As for whether AI has killed Google Dorking, I still use dorking to verify what AI returns as it may of missed something, possibly considering it irrelevant or out of scope.

Technology frustration

I work in tech, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not susceptible to the frustration that occurs when tech fails you when you need it the most. For example, I recently found an app that helps with mindfulness and relaxation. It’s easy to use and makes certain tasks easier. Yet it just failed for no reason. Refuses to work for me yet there is no negative feedback online, the service is not reported as down, no issues reported at all. Yet it doesn’t work.

I had googled things to check, even resorted to AI with no joy. In the end the frustration it was causing defeated its purpose so I uninstalled it and found something else. Then later that same day a friend was at a fuel station and was trying to pay for the fuel he had put in his vehicle but the machine did not like his card. He only had one card. It’s the same card he always used. The assistant asked for another card. He didn’t have another.

In the UK you pay for fuel after filling up. A flawed process in my opinion because as we rely more and more on digital money we encounter situations where it can fail, like this one. If you can’t pay you will be detained and possibly arrested. You must always have the means to pay. But in a cashless society how does that work when the technology fails?Luckily my friend was only topping up and had enough cash in his vehicle so paid and was let go.

We investigated his card issue. There was nothing wrong with the card. It was a technology issue somewhere in the network between the card company and the fuel station.

Cash remains king. Always carry some! Technology frustration is a given. Always have a backup. And maybe a backup for the backup.

Bad timing of app updates

I hate apps that lose your login details on update. You know the ones. Apps for stores, coffee shops, supermarkets, and other places that offer discount vouchers and loyalty programs.

You arrived at the store and go to make your purchase and voila! The app has been updated and has lost your credentials. Please login again. Only there is no signal, or you can’t remember your credentials. They are at home on your laptop or somewhere else, but not here not now.

So no discounts for you, or loyalty points. Just pure annoyance at how technology can just fail when you need it the most. Paper coupons and loyalty cards would not fail like this. Wasn’t the whole point of switching to an app to make life easier?

There are hacks of course. Check the app works before you leave the house. Maybe even open it so its ready to go. Screenshot the coupon codes, the 3D barcodes, the offer details. Maybe your membership number or QR code too for safe measure. Oh and make sure your phone has enough charge. You didn’t want to turn up and it turns itself off just as you approach the checkout.

Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs)

I was in a local supermarket and noticed that a shelf label was glitching. What I thought were actual paper labels were in fact ESLs, aka Electronic Shelf Labels. These mini screens make use of e-ink with 1-4 colours and a long battery life to, in theory, save time and costs changing labels with promos, discounts, new stock, and so on. Instead of having to wander around the store changing printed labels it’s all done from a central computer.

A couple of the labels were on the fritz, alerting me to what they were. They were flickering random pixels like a faulty phone screen. When I got home I did some light research. These particular ESLs were manufactured by a company called Pricer. They are controlled via IR from hubs mounted in the ceiling with line-of-sight like a TV remote. Central software named Pricer Plaza allows you to monitor and update the ESLs from the store PC.

I looked into the security in play. Encrypted comms, auth keys etc. The usual fare. There had been some reported hacks. Changing prices, arrow keys with this way messages, naughty stuff. There was even a few cases of ramsomware, but mostly defacement of some kind. Kids having fun. Like the days when smart watches first appeared that could control TVs and TV stores were constantly having to deal with the display models having their channels changed. More an annoyance than anything clever.

I’m not sold on ESLs being better for the environment. It’s probably just more tech that will eventually end up in a landfill. Still, it may be fun to play with.

Using AI to bypass firewalls

I’ve found yet another use for AI: Bypassing firewalls.

If you are accessing a computer behind a firewall and it allows AI like a GPT, but is tightly controlled otherwise, you could use the AI to bypass the firewall.

For example if you can’t read your favourite news feeds you can ask the AI to grab them for you and present them to you in whatever format. As far as the firewall is concerned it just sees traffic from your AI. It is not inspecting the data.

You can ask the AI to get the latest news, visit web sites, get data and other media etc, and all of it comes to you inside the firewall with no alerts.

Not that I am recommending that you do that of course. I’m just pointing out something I discovered, with permission.

I’m sure that most content restriction firewalls will become AI savvy soon enough.

AI is always polite

Have you noticed that AI is always polite?

No matter what I ask it or how aggressive my follow-on prompts get, it is always polite!

Certainly, of course, well spotted, Yes! Its replies are always positive, upbeat, polite. You have asked a very educated question and I will answer it in a polite and servitude way.

I was watching a TV series set in the 1800s and my interaction with chat AIs reminded me of how the actors spoke in this particular show. People communicating based on class, always polite as if each word was followed by a bow or curtsy. Even if the person you were talking to was a complete ass you would still address them with politeness and an air of servitude.

Maybe the AI system prompts have an Elizabethan politeness function?

New old stock

I came across this expression recently, “new old stock”.

Apparently it means that something was made or manufactured some time ago but was never sold and is technically still classed as new.

I found this expression confusing, like an oxymoron. How can something be both new and old? In this particular instance the item was an electronic device that had been manufactured a year ago, placed in storage, and was never sold. So technically it is still new, mint, boxed, etc. However the firmware was out-of-date and needed updating. So if the item is taken out of its box and the firmware is updated, is it still new old stock or is that technically refurbished?

What if some electronic specification or industry standard had changed since the item was manufactured and a part was changed. Is it then still new old stock or is it now reconditioned, or refurbished?

I used to know a freelancer who worked for DELL as a field engineer repairing laptops. DELL would ship a load of parts for laptop models still in warranty so that the engineers always had what they needed in stock. When certain models became out of warranty DELL did not want the spares back so these engineers would sell the parts online for extra cash advertising them as new old stock or like new.

I find it interesting how we define an item’s value in terms of how old it is and how much, if any, use it has had. Bare in mind that something that has been in storage for a long time does not necessarily equate to something that is as good as something manufactured yesterday. I’ve known electronic devices that have been in storage for months and even years to revert back to factory defaults, to have corrupt memory, or for the battery to completely drain, or leak, to the point that it is no longer fit for purpose.

When considering purchasing new old stock it’s worth considering how much time is represented by the “old”. How long has it sat on a shelf? Both new and old are parameters of time. Consider the difference between the new (date of manufacture) and old (today’s date).

When does it get classed as refurbished? When it is taken out of the box and refreshed with new software? Is that classed as still new?

Thoughts on AI music

I experimented with listening to AI music. Some of it was good. But I wanted to remove it from my feeds. I couldn’t. It had worked its way into the algorithm. More and more AI music was being suggested to me. I went out of my way to search and play tracks from known human musicians. It got better at offering me better AI music.

There’s more options, of all genres. The AI music creators can churn out tracks in hours, albums in days. So many in fact that you can spot them a mile away. The better ones are harder to spot. Even the mainstream news is picking up on how good they are getting. Being unable to track down evidence of the artists existence in the real world. The artist and label having no real-world presence.

Does it matter if the music is good and you enjoy it? From a consumer perspective, not so much. But from a musicians perspective? If listener count isn’t increasing but the amount of AI music being played is, that means more payments are going to the creators of AI music and not actual musicians. Plus it takes far less time, a lot less time to create AI music than music that requires real instruments, singers, a recording studio, fuel, food, transportation etc.

And I guess it does affect some consumers. The fans. It’s not as if you can follow an AI artist on Instagram. Can you? You certainly can’t go to their live performances, unless they use holograms and a lot of technology. Would you want their autograph? Hey you write great prompts, I loved the end result. Could you sign my iphone?

What are your thoughts on AI music?