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I have no experience with neural networks, but I found this fascinating:

Neural networks could be the next frontier for malware campaigns as they become more widely used, according to a new study.

According to the study, which was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Monday, malware can be embedded directly into the artificial neurons that make up machine learning models in a way that keeps them from being detected. The neural network would even be able to continue performing its set tasks normally.

“As neural networks become more widely used, this method will be universal in delivering malware in the future,” the authors, from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, write.

Using real malware samples, their experiments found that replacing up to around 50 percent of the neurons in the AlexNet model⁠—a benchmark-setting classic in the AI field⁠—with malware still kept the model’s accuracy rate above 93.1 percent. The authors concluded that a 178MB AlexNet model can have up to 36.9MB of malware embedded into its structure without being detected using a technique called steganography. Some of the models were tested against 58 common antivirus systems and the malware was not detected. [Vice]

There’s a lot of questions that could be asked here, but one I don’t see in the article is this: just how efficient are neural networks if you can replace half the ‘neurons’ and still have it work?

Are there ‘pruning algorithms’ to recover those neurons that are presumably doing little to nothing to advance toward the goal?

Long time readers will have noticed my entrancement with Professor Peter Turchin’s Secular Cycles^[1], a description of social demographic trends over the centuries. Very briefly, he and his coauthor, Sergey A. Nefedov, describe how and why empty farmlands fill and empty of human inhabitants as the years pass, and empires disintegrate. A key concept is that of asabiya, the “capacity of a social group for concerted collective action,” and a key motivator of asabiya is existential threat, a threat, usually human, that can destroy a society. For example, for centuries the great Roman Empire was under grave threat from the Gauls, and it was during this time the Empire was built and wisely managed. Eventually, the Gauls were defeated and destroyed, and that roughly marks the time the Roman Empire began descending into decay, deadly infighting within the elite, even madness, and eventual destruction.

I’ve come to recognize that the United States, having lost the existential threat of the Soviet Union some thirty years ago, and with no country openly threatening us with destruction, is almost certainly in a disintegrative phase. The supposed conservatives have retreated into an extremist position of refusing to compromise, a reluctance to accept the advice of experts, and religious fanaticism of various sorts, such as pastors proclaiming that a belief in God will prohibit infection by Covid, followed by the infection and, sometimes, deaths of both congregants and their leaders. They are but one part of an anti-vaccination, or anti-vaxx, movement that rejects the vaccination campaign for reasons ranging from concerns about adequate testing to reasons so fantastic that their adherents might be considered delusional, if not for their religious motivations. Our political elites are not compromising with each other as they should, despite the efforts of the moderate left. Land prices are rising as the growing population makes it more and more valuable, and has become the target for acquisition by wealthy entities. And fertility is down, for reasons that I expect have to do with the cost of raising children and their prospects at adulthood. These are all congruent with the observations set forth in Secular Cycles. These observations correlate an abeyance of asabiya with societies disintegrating from infighting, from an inability to work together, as Turchin and Nefedov suggest.

But does the growth of asabiya require existential threats from human entities? The United States is facing two such threats at the moment.

First is the aforementioned Covid-19 pandemic. The early Republican response to the growing numbers of ill people was denial, and, for some on the right, primarily in the evangelical sects, this continues. The requirements of isolation devastated many sectors of the economy. We’ve impatiently “reopened” the economy, and now reports of the delta variant ripping through the ranks of the unvaccinated is not matched by advances in therapeutic response – people are dying because of their refusal to take a simple vaccination shot or two.

Second is anthropogenic climate change. The United States and Canada are enduring abnormally high heat and extreme drought, while a portion of China was recently hit by floods from a typhoon – as were other parts of the world:

¹ Secular, in this context, means Greater than 100 years. Turchin and Nefedov’s work is based on agrarian societies, a fact that I’ve conveniently ignored, except to wonder if technological urban societies have shorter social demographic cycles. And, yes, you should buy and read Secular Cycles. War and Peace and War is also very good.

Here in drought-stricken Minnesota we picked up about .25″ of rain in a five minute downpour at 3am . Here’s some pictures of the garden afterwards.

A happy little monster, yes!

Gamera vs. Barugon (1966), second in the Gamera franchise, is a clumsy, cautionary tale against the societal philosophy of individualism. In World War II, soldier Ichiro, stationed on a New Guinea island, discovered a giant opal and secreted it in a cave. It’s twenty years later, and Ichiro, now crippled, has arranged to send his younger brother, Keisuke, and Kawajiri and Onodera to fetch it. Only Onodera returns, carrying a tale of the deaths of the others from misfortune.

The real misfortune comes when Onodera permits the exposure of the opal to an ultraviolet ray meant to heal one of his wounds. Why?

It’s an egg, and it hates being sunny side up.

Meanwhile, supposedly dead Keisuke has allied with the island tribe, who sends him with a tribal woman and opal expert, Karen, to retrieve the opal. Making it back to Japan just in time to observe the birth of Barugon, they witness the first battle of Gamera vs Barugon, and how the latter’s mysterious rainbow ray drains whatever it hits of life – like Gamera. Taking advantage of Karen’t knowledge of myth, humanity uses an island diamond to attempt to lure Barugon to a watery grave, but Barugon, while tempted, fails to splash his way to his demise; a second attempt fails when Onodera, frantic for wealth, interferes. Indeed, Barugon makes a tasty lunch of Onodera and the diamond, leaving humanity despondent.

Special Guest Appearance in this Review: Medusa! She’s a trifle crabby today.

However, Keisuke has noted that mirrors reflects the rainbow ray, so they arrange to use a mirror to reflect the rainbow ray back upon Barugon; it’s almost Medusa-like. The ploy is partially successful, and Gamera reappears to finish the job.

It’s the excessive greed of Ichiro and his cohorts which leads to the disastrous birth of Barugon, and greed is the mark of individualism; only through the inadvertent teamwork of Gamera with humanity is Barugon persuaded to stop stomping Japanese cities.

And, yeah, it’s all fairly awful. Sure, we have a plot, and characters who are at least halfway drawn, but the special effects are rather awful. Barugon’s tongue, which shoots out some sort of deadly mist, might attract a cult following, but, unless you’re a fan of Gamera, “friend to all children,” this may not be for you.

I had never heard of mango leather:

Like a fish on the hook….

More here (NewScientist, paywall) or here (if you like reading science papers).

A night or two ago I did some photo shooting.

And just a few more.

I fear the focus was not as good on the second batch.

In general, I detest the concept of the one-issue voter. Hiding behind that issue are voters – all of them – too lazy to do the real work of voting, which is evaluating past performance and the candidates’ stands on various issues.

But there is one issue that would make me a single issue voter if it ever came up, and Jennifer Rubin touches on it:

I find this report in NewScientist (3 July 2021) disturbing:

But last week, on 19 June, an international vessel-tracking system appeared to show HMS Defender and the Royal Netherlands Navy’s HNLMS Evertsen travel across the Black Sea to sail within a few kilometres of a Russian naval base at Sevastopol.

This would have been a provocative act, but the voyage never actually happened – both ships remained docked at Odessa, Ukraine, as confirmed by a live web cam feed. The tracking readings seem to have been faked, in a possible cyberattack.

The readings in question come from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which is required on all ships by international law. It transmits position data from the vessels’ GPS along with an ID and other details at regular intervals. But GPS can be fooled by a transmitter imitating a GPS satellite and sending false information, which would in turn result in incorrect AIS tracks.

Sure, the title of the post is a bit of black humor, since military forces are forever looking for a step up on adversaries. But, at least in this article, the perpetrator – or bug – has not been identified, so we don’t really know if this is a military intrusion, or some agent of chaos trying to mess with the world for their own purposes.

All of which leaves us … where? To some extent, I’m in a black mood because of this Andrew Sullivan podcast, which basically suggests that we’re finished. Sullivan does tend to be emotional and forgets that not everyone has the information he has, so when psyops are deployed by the far-right, some folks will be mislead. And the podcast is from last December; how he reacted to the January 6 insurrection should be interesting.

But right at the moment, it seems like reality, like truth itself, is cracking up in the face of forces malicious.

Back when I first learned about vaccines, umpteen decades ago, we were taught that a vaccine immunized one from infection by a pathogen, and that was more or less full-stop, at least for us non-medical types.

Now we’re talking about breakthrough infections, which are the occurrence of an infection in a person fully vaccinated against Covid-19, and, well, this:

“When you hear about a breakthrough infection, that doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is failing,” [Dr. Anthony] Fauci said. “It’s still holding true [i.e., working], particularly with regard to protection against severe disease leading to hospitalization and deaths.” [WaPo]

That led me to muse on to how there are three domains to think about here:

1. Infection, where your cells are successfully invested by the pathogen.
2. Infectiousness, in which the pathogen is successfully using your cells to reproduce, mutate, and spread to its next victim.
3. Disease, which is the symptoms, from sniffle to death, that is experienced by the victim as a consequence of infection. [My thanks to Dr. Harriett Hall for the difference between infection and disease; I’ve lost the relevant link.]

Success is a spectrum word here, where success can range from just a little bit of success penetrating the cells targeted by the pathogen, all the way to optimal penetration and subversion of their function to the pathogen’s purposes. The ability to reproduce and infect another host seems to correlate, at least in Covid, with the success of the infection; so, it appears, does disease.

All of this leads to this useless bit of word play:

Vaccines lead to sickly infections.

Sure, go ahead. Wrap your mind around that one.

I hope it’s comfortable.

A headline from CNN/Politics:

Ex-Army Ranger weaponized military training to aid Capitol rioters, judge says

Which really makes one wonder.

Just a few pics from the last couple of weeks.

In case you were wondering, NBC News has a useful tidbit of news:

As of Tuesday, more than 560 people had been charged in connection with the [January 6th] riot [or insurrection].

That’s a lot of regretful people is my thought. The above article is in connection with the arrest of a probationary DEA “official,” who is the first Federal law enforcement member arrested.

Suspiration:

1. To breathe: “And from that one intake of fire / All creatures still warmly suspire” (Robert Frost).
2. To sigh. [The Free Dictionary]

Noted in this 9 Chickweed Lane cartoon.

Or at least Covid anti-vaxxers would like to believe. Brian Broome talks about them in WaPo:

I recently had the opportunity to hear a 95-year-old man speak on the subject of covid-19. When asked if he’d gotten the vaccine, he responded that he received it as soon as it was available. He went on to say that, in his long life, he has seen this behavior over and over again with regard to vaccines. He has lived through the people who were smarter than the measles vaccine and the mumps vaccine, smallpox, polio; there has always been a percentage of the population that refused them.

I am following the lead of the man who lived to be 95 years old. Not some dude from Daytona Beach with an Internet connection who believes that his immune system alone will storm the castle should covid’s time come. Daytona Beach dude does not want to be told what to do. None of us do.

There are those who refuse the vaccine simply because they do not like the current administration. This, I believe, to be little more than pouting, a child holding his breath in the grocery store as a protest for not getting a cookie before checkout.

Last week I had the pleasure of talking with a gentleman in Michigan in his eighties, presumably embedded in the Evangelical community (I didn’t ask, but context suggests it). He’d been fully vaccinated for Covid, he and his wife had spent time in the hospital recovering from Covid before the vaccination, and he had no time, no patience, for the anti-vaxxers. I don’t think he considers them to be adults.

And while Broome may be right about this:

I do not understand the unvaccinated. Is their fear that medical science is trying to poison half of the United States? Half the world? I guess it all comes down to trust. And yes, in the end, you can do with your own body whatever you please. But I cannot ignore how few cases of measles, smallpox, mumps and polio we deal with these days. I based my choice on that.

I have to wonder how much of this has to do with postmodernity, how much it’s people certain that they can yell or pray the virus into submission.

I mean, if you’re convinced that you have a personal relationship with God, well, how can you need a vaccine to survive.

This guy is taking a whack at explaining the 4th dimension. I’m not sure if he’s hitting it out of the park, or if he’s just whacked.

Jackson Lahmeyer (R-OK) is going to challenge Senator James Lankford (R-OK) in the Republican primary because Lankford, who was about to vote to challenge certain Electoral votes on January 6th, was interrupted by the January 6th insurrection, and upon return to the Senate chambers, chose not to continue his challenge, instead voting to accept.

Lahmeyer, as one might expect in today’s GOP, has vowed to chase delusions:

“Lahmeyer has made attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election a centerpiece of his campaign, repeatedly vowing that if he is elected to Congress, he will make it his mission to hold those who supposedly stole the election from former President Donald Trump accountable for treason,” Right Wing Watch reports.

The conspiracy theory that Trump won the election is not the only delusion Lahmeyer has embraced.

“Lahmeyer has focused heavily on winning support from right-wing QAnon conspiracy theorists like Lin Wood and Michael Flynn, both of whom have endorsed his campaign. Lahmeyer has also been a regular participant at the ‘Restore America’ rallies organized by right-wing conspiracy theorist Clay Clark, where he has been proudly posting photos of himself hanging out with the various election, COVID-19, and QAnon conspiracy theorist speakers at such events.  [Raw Story]

This should make him popular with the GOP base and the QAnon crowd … right?

Republican Jackson Lahmeyer is denying some QAnon believers’ claims that he’s involved in “Child Sex Trafficking, pedophilia or devil worship” as he runs for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma. …

“Interestingly, Lahmeyer’s flirtations with QAnon have not prevented him from becoming the target of smears from QAnon conspiracy theorists who have reportedly accused him of pedophilia and child sex trafficking after he posted a photo of his young daughter wearing red shoes,” Right Wing Watch explained. “As QAnon conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin once explained, many QAnon believers are convinced that ‘there is symbolism for red shoes in the occult and it’s also tied to satanic ritualistic abuse and the trafficking of children.'”

While it’s amusing that a fantasist is becoming the victim of other fantasists, the important point is that this sort of attack pushes to the fore the real problem with postmodernists such as, well, the far-right in this example.

First, a moment to get a sense of the definition of postmodernity:

Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical ideas regarding culture, identity, history, or language that were developed during the 18th-century Enlightenment. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like difference, repetition, trace, and hyperreality to subvert “grand narratives“, univocity of being, and epistemic certainty. Postmodern philosophy questions the importance of power relationships, personalization, and discourse in the “construction” of truth and world views. Many postmodernists appear to deny that an objective reality exists, and appear to deny that there are objective moral values. [Wikipedia]

The key? The denial that an objective reality exists, or, more loosely, the denial that there is a truth to a matter that exists independent of the collective desires of some group. The frantic chanting of Stop the Steal! and related group slogans qualifies, even in the face of the difficulties of group epistemology, as postmodernism, the belief that if they yell it loud enough, it becomes true. This has ties to former President Trump’s prosperity church beginnings, as well as some descriptions I’ve seen of the woke political culture, and, well, the culture of five year olds.

Yes, five year olds.

The consequences? In previous decades, before postmodernism had taken over the GOP, Lahmeyer could have used some logic to turn back the baseless accusations, or required that proof be forthcoming, and pointed at lack of same as proof that he’s not a pedophiliac and trafficker. The accuser would have suffered reputational loss. But now, Lahmeyer’s as much the victim of baseless accusations as those he accuses of stealing the election from Trump, despite the utter lack of evidence and the best efforts of former President Trump and his band of desperate lawyers.

Thus the GOP will continue its descent into chaos. Even prominent elected officials, such as Senators Cruz, McConnell, Hawley, and Representatives McCarthy, Gaetz, and many more may find themselves smeared and then facing primary challenges, because at some point, some power-hungry extremist will consider them to be compromisers, weak, or even apostates for failing to join in some ridiculous stunt.

The question will then become: how much more will the independents, the holders of real political power, tolerate before they stop helping to elect Republicans to office? The only real brakes will come from failing to be elected. As an example, right-wing extremist Kris Kobach’s loss to Democrat Laura Kelly for the position of Governor of Kansas in 2018 marked him as an extremist failure; he did not make it out of the primary for the 2020 Senate race in Kansas, and in fact faced opposition from the Kansas Republican Party chairman. Kobach may be finished in politics.

The moral future of the GOP continues to look bleak, doesn’t it?

“Uh, I was teaching third grade last week.” Oh, good, then you’ll not need any training for this mission.

The Tomorrow War (2021) follows the travails of Dan Forester, former Army Special Forces member, husband, father, teacher – and draftee for a war happening thirty years in the future. A wormhole has been opened by the future humanity, a wormhole that permits limited time travel, as our descendants find themselves in a sudden death struggle with … well, did you ever see Alien (1979)? Yeah, basically mouths on wheels. With the addition of limbs that spit deadly darts, and absurdly reminded me of Pierson’s Puppeteers.

Present day draftees serve seven day terms, returning to present day Earth at the end of those seven days – if the monitors on their arms indicate they’re still living. Forester’s group is scheduled for a couple of weeks of training, and then the jump, but they get virtually no training as an emergency in the future calls them to early duty.

Or an early death. Does that make sense in the future? In any case, someone with a grudge against Miami Beach must have made this movie, because the latest group of draftees are dropped – literally – into a Miami Beach that’s a flaming wreck.

And still contains the seeds of an effective defense.

And who is waiting for Forester? Who is leading the research on the big, bad guys?

Who still loves Daddy?

As far as it goes, it’s a mundane little story – a trifle arbitrary, a bit awkward, and only compelling because of its pell-mell pace and the buddies Forester makes along the way. They have good chemistry.

But, back home with a solution but no delivery system, the future looks dark. Until a series of questions without answers, which I should have liked so much and didn’t, leads to a familial reconcilation. I mean, a ride out to an obscure landing spot.

I mean –

It seemed tacked on, to be honest. We need a happy ending! cried the movie executives, and one was cooked up. Oh, it has its cute aspects, and, technically, I suppose it makes some sense. But at some point, there are enough arbitrary fact drops and plot twists that it no longer feels organic.

If you like action, this is full of it. If you like a protagonist who is full of humility and understated humor, this is also not bad. But if you’re sensitive to manipulation, well, you’ll be manipulated by this one. It’s fun and exciting and you’ll forget about it soon after finishing it.

Long gone now, here are the front yard Virginia Bluebells:

From a Skeptical Inquirer obituary of former NewScientist editor Bernard Dixon:

In 2000, Dixon was appointed to the Order of the British Empire (OBE). He expressed delight but later told the British Library’s Oral History of British Science that he made it clear he would not accept the award from Prince Charles because of his ill-informed statements about the genetic modification of crops. Dixon opted instead to have the medal sent to him from the lord lieutenant of Greater London—through the post in a Jiffy bag.

I’ve said, a few times, that humans are adders, while computers are multipliers. But it appears that computer networks are mega-multipliers:

Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

“The ‘Disinformation Dozen’ produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts. …

These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote “natural health.” Some even sell supplements and books.

Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what’s been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation. [NPR]

I suppose I shouldn’t be astounded, having been around social media networks since the 1980s, but I am. The reach of these twelve individuals is amazing, and speaks to the uneven understanding of the importance of public health procedures vs the desire of certain people to become wealthy, no matter what the cost might be for the public.

Not that all of these individuals are looking to become wealthy. The only one named in the article, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of the late Attorney General, appears to simply wish to help the public, but his poor understanding of vaccinology, combined with an astounding arrogance, results in abuse of social media.

This general urge has always been present, which may be a symptom of being a drama queen.

But my point remains: a very small number of people are endangering a relatively large number of people simply through the distribution of false information. And that’s made easy by the power of computer networks that do not accentuate provenance nor history nor, for that matter, credentials.

It’s just someone jawboning.

Nicholas Wallace, recent Stanford Law graduate, condemns The Federalist Society in Slate via a satiric flier celebrating their role in the January 6th insurrection:

My flyer itself emphasized the events immediately preceding the Jan. 6 attack: Hawley famously raised his fist in support of the mob that stormed the Capitol, while Paxton (along with John Eastman, who was at the time the head of a Federalist Society practice group) spoke with President Donald Trump at the now-infamous “Save America Rally.” But the Federalist Society’s connections to the insurrection stretch well beyond the day of the attack. Consider the October 2020 speaking tour of Hans von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky was a member of the Trump administration’s “voter fraud” panel, from which he controversially suggested excluding Democrats and “mainstream” Republicans. For more than two decades, von Spakovsky has been at the forefront of the right wing’s “voter-suppression effort in disguise,” pushing unfounded claims of voter fraud as a justification for restrictions on the franchise. And in the month before the 2020 election he participated in at least nine Federalist Society events, delivering talks with names like “Consequences of Mail-In Ballots” and “Election Fraud 2020: Fact or Fiction?” At one of his talks, von Spakovsky warned: “If it’s a close election, we may have a lot of chaos in a lot of different places, and a lot of litigation contesting the outcome.” …

This farcical streak of court losses for Federalist Society officers did not deter other Federalist Society members from continuing to spread election misinformation. In late December, Hawley promised to object to the election results during the Electoral College certification process on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz, another member of the senate’s unofficial Federalist Society Caucus, followed suit.

All of which is to say that while “The Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection” was indeed supposed to be funny, the Federalist Society’s connections to the attack on the Capitol are no joke. The collective efforts of the Federalist Society’s membership provided a veneer of legal legitimacy to the falsehoods that fueled the insurrectionist mob. Meanwhile, the Federalist Society itself has resolutely refused to disavow those members who played a role in inciting the insurrection.

So I’m a little puzzled by their behavior. Assuming they really are professional lawyers and not just autocratic wannabes, The Federalist Society is in a lose-lose situation.

If the Democrats continue in power, the role of the Society, supposing it continues to fail to condemn the insurrection and its Society-based progenitors, its reputation will become severely tainted. It’s even possible that those SCOTUS Justices who are members of the Society will resign their memberships.

And if the Republicans come into power again? They are tied to Trump through actions, aka the insurrection, and service, which would be the lists of judicial nominees they provided to the Trump Administration. And, if we do transition to an autocracy, this is the same as transitioning from the Rule of Law to the Rule of Man, as philosophers of government will put it.

That is, the position of lawyer will lose its utility and prestige.

Worse yet, in autocracies loyalty rarely runs in both directions, and Trump is no exception. The moment he or his heirs find the Society to be useless or worse, it’ll be consigned to the dustbin of history, both institutionally and for most of the individual members.

Disaster for all.

Homeoprophylaxis:

A system for treating disease based on the administration of minute doses of a drug that in massive amounts produces symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the disease itself. [The Free Dictionary]

Noted in “Napa doctor arrested for selling fake COVID-19 vaccines, immunization cards, DOJ says,” Liz Kreutz, Amanda del Castillo and Kayla Galloway, ABC7 News:

Juli A. Mazi, a licensed homeopathic doctor, allegedly sold homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets that she said contained COVID-19. She allegedly told the victims that the immunization would create an antibody reaction in the immune system.

Or just call it quackery and be done with it.