While there is no app that will tell you that you have a stalker, Facebook"s algorithm makes it as easy as going to your own profile pages and scrolling down until you see your friends" photos.
The post How to Find Out if Someone’s Been ‘Stalking’ You on Facebook and Then Stop It appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(ANTIMEDIA) — Following the Las Vegas shooting, in which 59 people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured, YouTube is altering its search algorithms in order to suppress conspiracy theories about the event. From the Wall Street Journal:
“YouTube this week surfaced videos peddling misinformation, hateful messages and conspiracy theories to users tracking major news events — prompting the site to change its search results to promote more authoritative sources.
“For example, the fifth result when searching ‘Las Vegas shooting’ on YouTube late Tuesday yielded a video titled ‘Proof Las Vegas Shooting Was a FALSE FLAG attack—Shooter on 4th Floor.’ The video said there were multiple shooters in Sunday’s mass shooting, a claim dismissed by law enforcement. Posted by a channel called the End Times News Report, it amassed more than 1.1 million views in about 27 hours.”
According to The Independent, which reportedly spoke to an unnamed source close to YouTube, the company is aiming to “promote more reputable news,” and the effort is already underway.
“By Friday, the top ten results for ‘Las Vegas shooting’ all came from news outlets, or contained direct uploads of footage from the event,” the Independent wrote.
Facebook and YouTube’s parent company, Google, have also been under fire for allowing “conspiratorial” content to be published on their platforms, as NPR highlighted on October 3:
“In the hours just after the massacre in Las Vegas, some fake news started showing up on Google and Facebook. A man was falsely accused of being the shooter. His name bubbled up on Facebook emergency sites and when you searched his name on Google, links of sites connecting him with the shooting topped the first page.
“It appears to be another case of automation working so fast that humans can’t keep pace. Unfortunately, these powerful tech companies continue to be a main destination for news and it’s not clear how they can solve the problem.”
Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo
Sunday morning brings us the traditional Weekend Notes from One River CIO, Eric Peters, whose panoply of topics under discussion today include systematic investing, economic forecasts, Fed reaction functions, Twitter algorithms, bond yields for the new abnormal, fear and greed, and of course "Rocket Man."
Below are several excerpts from his latest weekly note:
Anecdote
“Whatever investment style you adopt will blow up someday,” said the CIO. “When that day comes, will you fold or double down?” he continued.
We were discussing systematic investing. I see its future dominance and am building my firm accordingly.
“If you’ve surrendered control to a machine, how will you make that decision?” he asked. Before I could answer, he supplied his own. “I’d rather practice making decisions along the way so that I’ll either avoid the blow up or at least understand my strategy in the crisis.”
That’s a credible position to take on the matter; for years I took it myself. But time changes most things, ourselves in particular. Day by day, month by month, we’re different people. Humble, hubristic, stubborn, objective, greedy, fearful, certain, confused, euphoric, depressed, and every imaginable combination thereof.
The two greatest advantages of developing decision-making algorithms are that they allow us to consistently be our finest selves, and they can apply our process across more markets than a single human ever could. But the difficulty of distilling profound complexity into a set of robust rules leads many practitioners to cut corners - which takes the form of choosing rules that worked in the recent past for seemingly arbitrary reasons, and building algorithms without sensible risk-mitigation to avoid its corresponding costs.
Such strategies put their investors at risk of catastrophic loss in exchange for a pile of pennies, and/or tend to make money in every time period except for the future.
But such pitfalls are not machine error, they reflect human weakness, and are thus common to both poorly designed discretionary and systematic strategies.
Because ultimately, every conceivable form of successful money management requires the experience to identify rules that tend to make money over time, and the introspection necessary to come to know our finest selves.
Bonus #1: Peters on bond issuance in the "illiquidstan" market:
Tajikistan issued 10yr bonds this month. Less than 1bp of mankind can locate Tajikistan on a map. Nearly all are Tajiks.
But the bonds paid 7.125% which is roughly what pensions need to prevent insolvency. Bahrain issued $3bln of 12yr paper at 6.75% ($15bln of bids). Iraq issued $1bln at 5yrs at 6.75%. Belarus issued 10yr paper at 7.63%. And Ukraine issued $3bln of 15yrs. $1.6bln rolled existing paper that nearly defaulted 2yrs ago when investors wrote off $3.6bln in debt and delayed payments for 4yrs.
This new issue yielded 7.37%.
Bonus #2: Rocket Man
“Did he really call me Rocket Man?” cried the chubby Korean kid. “Yes he did Rocket Man,” said some nervous sycophant in a cheap suit, saluting his Dear Leader.
“Did he call me a scared, barking dog?” barked earth’s most powerful man, typing a tweet. “Woof!” answered the President’s pack. “He called me a suicidal madman on Twitter!” stammered shorty, combing his black bouffant. “He said he’d tame Trump with fire?” asked The Donald, incredulous, swirling his sweep.
“He tweeted North Korea would be tested like never before!” screeched Kim, pounding the table, knuckles mere dimples, baby fat.
“He said he’ll detonate a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific?” asked our entertainer in chief, excited, knowing a sensational season opener when he sees one.
“Shall I go thermonuclear?” asked the itsy bitsy dictator. And his generals glanced left, right, unsure. “Shall I do it?” he screamed. The garden gnomes stood motionless. “Tell me, shall I mention Trump’s little hands?” asked Kim Jong Un, dead serious. They shook their heads in perfect unison; such a devastating insult would surely end 3.5mm years of human evolution. “Dear Leader, such an insult must be saved, savored,” pleaded his generals. “Very well, I’ll call him a dotard!” cried the child.
“Kim called me a dotard! A dotard! What the hell does that even mean?” whispered the steward of earth’s largest nuclear arsenal. An Ivy League intern explained, “Mr. President, it’s actually pronounced DOE-turd, and it’s a middle English word used by Shakespeare that means an ageing imbecile…” The Donald cut him off, “You’re fired!”
The room fell silent, the enormity of this unexpected crisis sinking in. You see, dotard is the kind of nickname that just might stick.
But at least the risk of nuclear Armageddon had receded. Because of course, it’s simply not possible to end civilization amidst such buffoonery.
Why Do Silver and Gold Get Spoofed Lower? Because That"s Where the Stops Are.
via Soren K. Group for Marketslant.com
If you really want to root out manipulation, you must find intent. Intent is encoded in the algorithms themselves. The algos embody the conditions, tactics, and goals of the trader who designed them. They are his intent downloaded into a program. Do you really want to stop manipulation by predatory Algos? Then subpoena the programmers.
VBL EDIT- The interview below with Daniela Cambone is merely one person"s opinion. But in a world where facts are the final arbiter of truth yet those facts are impossible to obtain, one must survive on his wits. That means using inductive means to asses a trading situation. We traders can only see the market"s behavior, not the intent behind it. Thus we trader types must decide to oppose, surf, or get out of the way of the market behavior we see. Professionals generally accept that and adapt. But the public is punished and taxed daily because of it.
When someone asks me WHY the market does what it does, that puts me in the position of guessing at intent of "Them". Markets are manipulated constantly. That does not mean that the Bullion dealers were "repressing Gold" or on a bearish mission. It just means that they, and the algorithms that succeeded them were finding the lower lying fruit in stops below the market, as opposed to above. Manipulation is agnostic directionally. And in a market like Silver where the shorts are better capitalized than the longs, then the stops closest are on the downside. The problem is as it always has been, poor market structure is exploited by those with the means to do so.
If you really want to root out manipulation, you must find intent. In the past INTENT was almost impossible to prove as it resided in the head of the trader spoofing the market. But now intent is very easy to prove.
Intent is encoded in the algorithms themselves. The algos embody the conditions, tactics, and goals of the trader who designed them. They are his intent downloaded into a program. Do you really want to stop manipulation by predatory Algos? Then subpoena the programmers. That is how they got Mike Coscia. Why would they not go after the bigger violators using this clear approach? You know why..
Subpoena the programmers and you lawyer types will get the 3rd leg of that "legal stool" you need to convict. But you have to want to first. Do you want to? I do not think so. And so the pricing mechanisms of our markets will shrink in importance. But that is just my opinion.
My first post on manipulation covering Warren Buffet"s 1997 Silver Squeeze was anonymous posted on zerohedge for fear of retribution by "them". How messed up is that? Maybe justice will be done someday
Here are some choice quotes from the interview:
When markets quickly move lower or experience a flash crash, the media is quick to point to a ‘fat finger.’ But, to veteran trader Vince Lanci, the problem is rooted in the technology running markets. ‘Manipulation does happen but what’s happening now is not a fat finger; that’s just a good headline,’ he told Kitco News. ‘It’s a combination of algorithm trading, institutional money and stop losses.’ To Lanci, algorithms are the real issue. ‘It’s an algorithm. It’s not bullish or bearish, it’s just looking for the stops,’ he said. ‘The silver and gold markets have the majority of their stops lower, not higher – and that’s why the market goes lower.’ Lanci, who tracks big market moves often as a contributor on Marketslant.com, said this type of price action can happen in any market. ‘I’m going to come down firmly on the side that it is manipulation, it is unethical and it should stop,’ he said. ‘But here’s the problem -- the algorithms are now faster than an exchange’s ability to freshen up where its bids are.’
About Vince:
Vince Lanci has 27 years’ experience trading Commodity Derivatives. Retired from active trading in 2008, Vince now manages personal investments through his Echobay entity. He advises natural resource firms on market risk. Over the years, his expertise and testimony have been requested in energy, precious metals, and derivative fraud cases. Lanci is known for his passion in identifying unfairness in market structure and uneven playing fields. He is a frequent contributor to Zerohedge and Marketslant on such topics. Vince contributes to Bloomberg and Reuters finance articles as well. He continues to lead the Soren K. Group of writers on Marketslant.
Mobile: (212) 223-1000
Read more by Soren K.Group
Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University recently made a scientific breakthrough using machine algorithms to accurately guess what people are thinking. In other words, as the university referred to it, they have “harness[ed] ‘mind reading’ technology to decode complex thoughts.”
The researchers report that they can “now use brain activation patterns to identify complex thoughts, such as, ‘The witness shouted during the trial.’”
Though the technology does not identify the actual words, lead researcher Marcel Just, D.O. Hebb University Professor of Psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has made enough progress that “machine learning algorithms with brain imaging technology” can effectively ‘read minds.’
As the researchers’ press release explains:
“The new study demonstrates that the brain’s coding of 240 complex events, sentences like the shouting during the trial scenario uses an alphabet of 42 meaning components, or neurally plausible semantic features, consisting of features, like person, setting, size, social interaction and physical action.”
According to the study, published in Human Brain Mapping:
“Regression models were trained to determine the mapping between 42 neurally plausible semantic features (NPSFs) and thematic roles of the concepts of a proposition and the fMRI activation patterns of various cortical regions that process different types of information. Given a semantic characterization of the content of a sentence that is new to the model, the model can reliably predict the resulting neural signature, or, given an observed neural signature of a new sentence, the model can predict its semantic content.”
Digital Trends explained for the less scientifically inclined:
“Using the smart algorithm, the team could discern what was being thought about at any given time — and even the order of a particular sentence. After training the algorithm on 239 of the 240 sentences and their corresponding brain scans, the researchers were able to predict the final sentence based only on the brain data.”
They were able to make predictions with 87% accuracy and, in a reverse exercise, accurately predicted brain activity based on sentence information.
The research has concerning implications for the future of the criminal justice system. In 2013, Marcel Just shared his earlier findings — which, at that time, were less advanced — with Alan Alda of PBS. He said he saw “brain research playing a role in courtrooms because the judicial process often includes not only what an accused person did, but also what he or she was thinking when they did it.”
This is cause for concern as the technology progresses, but even more unsettling is who is funding the research and, evidently, has a stake in it: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) via the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), an organization within ODNI.
According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s own website, the government organization’s roots can be traced back to the early years of the CIA:
“The idea of a Director of National Intelligence dates to 1955 when a blue-ribbon study commissioned by Congress recommended that the Director of Central Intelligence employ a deputy to run the CIA so that the director could focus on coordinating the overall intelligence effort.”
They claim this idea persisted, and following the 2001 terrorist attacks, George W. Bush codified the agency. In 2005, the ODNI was officially launched:
“In February 2005, the President nominated John D. Negroponte, ambassador to Iraq, as the first director of national intelligence and U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden as the first principal deputy DNI, promoting him to General. On April 21, 2005, in the Oval Office, Amb. Negroponte and Gen. Hayden were sworn in, and the ODNI began operations at 7 a.m. on April 22, 2005.”
John D. Negroponte is a British-born “diplomat” with questionable ties to authoritarian regimes. As Esquire reported after he endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election:
“In the 1980s, he served as the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. In addition to (at best) covering for that country’s murderous autocrats, he also served the Reagan Administration by helping to turn Honduras into a staging area for American-trained death squads in places like El Salvador and Guatemala.”
Michael Hayden, who has also served as head of both the NSA and CIA, is known largely for lying to Congress and the American people about the CIA’s use of brutal torture techniques against detainees. He also insisted the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping was legal long before whistleblower Edward Snowden ever exposed the extent of the agency’s surveillance.
These are the founding leaders of the agency currently financing research into reading people’s minds via its research wing, IARPA. They reported directly to President Bush, as the Director of ODNI is a chief adviser to the commander-in-chief.
The current Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, has a record similar to Hayden when it comes to protecting Americans’ privacy. He was appointed by President Trump, and during his confirmation hearing, he “said there need to be continued conversations about legal authorities to undermine encryption and called reauthorizing an authority that the government uses to spy on Americans’ Internet activities without a warrant his ‘top legislative priority,’” the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported.
He enthusiastically supports Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has allowed for widespread mass spying on American citizens. “In answers to written questions prior to the hearing as well as during the hearing,” EFF noted, “Coats repeatedly praised the surveillance authority, calling it ‘a critical tool’ and agreed when Sen. John Cornyn quoted FBI Director James Comey’s description of the authority as the ‘crown jewels of the intelligence community.’”
In 2015, while he was a senator, he voted against the USA Freedom Act, which provided minor reforms while keeping bulk data collection intact. He refused to get behind the overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan legislation, which ultimately became law.
Further, while Coats was a senator, he voted in favor of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which is now infamous for codifying the U.S. military’s right to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without trial. Coats also voted for the 2013 version of the Act, which allowed the same violations.
He also dismissed the Senate’s 2014 CIA torture report, which revealed gruesome torture techniques against detainees, as “partisan.”
Coats’ current deputy director, Dawn Eilenberger, spent 22 years working for the CIA as an attorney, chief legal adviser on the agency’s operations, and finance official.
Though the Trump Administration has indicated its intention to abolish the ODNI, currently, it remains in power under Coats direction. Its research arm, IARPA, touts its pursuit of “high-risk” research and is directly responsible for funding Carnegie Mellon’s mind-reading research. According to a post on its public Medium page, IARPA, founded in 2007, serves all 17 agencies of the intelligence community and “has a singular goal —generating revolutionary capabilities for the U.S. Intelligence Community.”
Anti-Media has reached out to IARPA for comment on how they intend to apply the developing mind-reading technology and will update this article if they respond.
Though Coats is obviously not in charge of funding Just’s research directly, his positions on civil liberties and privacy inevitably color the attitude of the agency he controls. Should the American people trust this agency and its research wing with technology crafted to read their minds?
