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BLEISTEIN v. DONALDSON LITHOGRAPHING CO. 239 Court Filing, retrieved on September 29, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This part is 3 of 4. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here Opinion of the Court MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court. This case comes here from the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit by writ of error. Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 6, 26 Stat. 828. It is an action brought by the plaintiffs in error to recover the penalties prescribed for infringements of copyrights. Rev. Stat. §§ 4952, 4956, 4965, amended by act of March 3, 1891, c. 565, 26 Stat. 1109, and act of M arch 2, 1895, c. 194, 28 Stat. 965. The alleged infringements consisted in the copying in reduced form of three chromolithographs prepared by employes of the plaintiffs for advertisements of a circus owned by one Wallace. Each of the three contained a portrait of Wallace in the corner and lettering bearing some slight relation to the scheme of decoration, indicating the subject of the design and the fact that the reality was to be seen at the circus. One of the designs was of an ordinary ballet, one of a number of men and women, described as the Stirk family, performing on bicycles, and one of groups of men and women whitened to represent statues. The Circuit Court directed a verdict for the defendant on the ground that the chromolithographs were not within the protection of the copyright law, and this ruling was sustained by the Circuit Court of Appeals. Courier Lithographing Co. v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 104 Fed. Rep. 993. There was evidence warranting the inference that the designs belonged to the plaintiffs, they having been produced by persons employed and paid by the plaintiffs in their establishment to make those very things. Gill v. United States, 160 U. S. 426, 435; Colliery Engineer Company v. United Correspondence Schools Company, 94 Fed. Rep. 152; Carte v. Evans, 27 Fed. Rep. 861. It fairly might be found also that the copyrights were taken out in the proper names. One of them was taken out in the name of the Courier Cow pany and the other two in the names of the Courier LithograpLing Company. The former was the name of an unincorporated joint stock association formed under the laws of New York, Laws of 1894, c. 235, and made up of the plaintiffs, the other a trade variant on that name. Scribner v. Clark, 50 Fed. Rep. 473, 47 4, 475 ; S. C., sub nom. Belford v. Scribner, 144 U. S. 488. Finally, there was evidence that the pictures were copyrighted before publication. There may be a question whether the use by the defendant for Wallace was not lawful within the terms of the contract with Wallace, or a more general one as to what rights the plaintiffs reserved. But we cannot pass upon these questions as matter of law; they will be for the jury when the case is tried again, and therefore we come at once to the ground of decision in the courts below. That ground was not found in any variance between pleading and proof, such as was put forward in argument, but in the nature and purpose of the designs. We shall do no more than mention the suggestion that painting and engraving unless for a mechanical end are not among the useful arts, the progress of which Congress is empowered by the Constitution to promote. The Constitution does not limit the useful to that which satisfies immediate bodily needs. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U. S. 53. It is obvious also that the plaintiffs' case is not affected by the fact, if it be one, that the pictures represent actual groups-visible things. They seem from the testimony to have been composed from hints or description, not from sight of a performance. But even if they had been drawn from the life, that fact would not deprive them of protection. The opposite proposition would mean that a portrait by Velasquez or Whistler was common property because others might try their hand on the same face. Others are free to copy the original. They are not free to copy the copy. Blunt v. Patten, 2 Paine, 397, 400. See Kelly v. Morris, L. R. 1 Eq. 697; .3farris v. l5ight, L. R. 5 Ch. 279. The copy is the personal reaction of an individual upon nature. Personality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible, which is one man's alone. That something he may copyright unless there is a restriction in the words of the act. If there is a restriction it is not to be found in the limited pretensions of these particular works. The least pretentious picture has more originality in it than directories and the like, which may be copyrighted. Drone, Copyright, 153. See Hender.so v. Tomkins, 60 Fed. Rep. 75S, 765. The amount of training required for humbler efforts than those before us is well indicated by Ruskin. "If any young person, after being taught what is, in polite circles, called 'drawing,' will try to copy the commonest piece of real work,-suppose a lithograph on the title page of a new opera air, or a woodcut in the cheapest illustrated newspaper of the day-they will find themselves entirely beaten." Elements of Drawing, 1st ed. 3. There is no reason to doubt that these prints in their ensemble and in all their details, in their design and particular combinations of figures, lines and colors, are the original work of the plaintiffs' designer. If it be necessary, there is express testimony to that effect. It would be pressing the defendant's right to the verge, if not beyond, to leave the question of originality to the jury upon the evidence in this case, as was done in Hegema v. Springer, 110 Fed. Rep. 374. We assume that the construction of Rev. Stat. § 4952, allowing a copyright to the "author, inventor, designer, or proprietor of any engraving, cut, print . . . [or] chromo" is affected by the act of 1874, c. 301, § 3, 18 Stat. 78, 79. That section provides that "in the construction of this act the words ' engraving,' ' cut' and ' print' shall be applied only to pictorial illustrations or works connected with the fine arts." We see no reason for taking the words "connected with the fine arts" as qualifying anything except the word "works," but it would not change our decision if we should assume further that they also qualified "pictorial illustrations," as the defendant contends. These chromolithographs are "pictorial illustrations." The word "illustrations" does not mean that they must illustrate the text of a book, and that the etchings of Rembrandt or Steinla's engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto could not be protected to-day if any man were able to produce them. Again, the act however construed, does not mean that ordinary posters are not good enough to be considered within its scope. The antithesis to "illustrations or works connected with the fine arts" is not works of little merit or of humble degree, or illustrations addressed to the less educated classes; it is " prints or labels designed to be used for any other articles of manufacture." Certainly works are not the less connected with the fine arts because their pictorial quality attracts the crowd and therefore gives them a real use-if use means to increase trade and to help to make money. A picture is none the less a picture and none the less a subject of copyright that it is used for an advertisement. And if pictures may be used to advertise soap, or the theatre, or monthly magazines, as they are, they may be used to advertise a circus. Of course, the ballet is as legitimate a subject for illustration as any other. A rule cannot be laid down that would excommunicate the paintings of Degas. Finally, the special adaptation of these pictures to the advertisement of the Wallace shows does not prevent a copyright. That may be a circumstance for the jury to consider in determining the extent of Mr. Wallace's rights, but it is not a bar. Moreover, on the evidence, such prints are used by less pretentious exhibitions when those for whom they were prepared have given them up. It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations, outside of the narrowest and most obvious limits. At the one extreme some works of genius would be sure to miss appreciation. Their very novelty would make them repulsive until the public had learned the new language in which their author spoke. It may be more than doubted, for instance, whether the etchings of Goya or the paintings of Manet would have been sure of protection when seen for the first time. At the other end, copyright would be denied to pictures which appealed to a public less educated than the judge. Yet if they command the interest of any public, they have a commercial value-it would be bold to say that they have not an aesthetic and educational value-and the taste of any public is not to be treated with contempt. It is an ultimate fact for the moment, whatever may be our hopes for a change. That these pictures had their worth and their success is sufficiently shown by the desire to reproduce them without regard to the plaintiffs' rights. See Henderson v. Tomkins, 60 Fed. Rep. 758, 765. We are of opinion that there was evidence that the plaintiffs have rights entitled to the protection of the law. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed; the judgment of the Circuit Court is also reversed and the cause remanded to that court with directions to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 2023-0409 retrieved on September 29, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. tile.loc.gov

Court Upholds Copyright Protection for Circus Advertisement Prints in Landmark Decision

BILLY TO THE RESCUE

First and Last Things by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . BELIEFS BELIEFS. Yet it is of urgent practical necessity that we should have such propositions and beliefs. All those we conjure out of our mental apparatus and the world of fact dissolve and disappear again under scrutiny. It is clear we must resort to some other method for these necessities. Now I make my beliefs as I want them. I do not attempt to distil them out of fact as physicists distil their laws. I make them thus and not thus exactly as an artist makes a picture so and not so. I believe that is how we all make our beliefs, but that many people do not see this clearly and confuse their beliefs with perceived and proven fact. I draw my beliefs exactly as an artist draws lines to make a picture, to express my impression of the world and my purpose. The artist cannot defend his expression as a scientific man defends his, and demonstrate that they are true upon any assumptions whatsoever. Any loud fool may stand in front of a picture and call it inaccurate, untrustworthy, unbeautiful. That last, the most vital issue of all, is the one least assured. Loud fools always do do that sort of thing. Take quite ignorant people before almost any beautiful work of art and they will laugh at it as absurd. If one sits on a popular evening in that long room at South Kensington which contains Raphael’s cartoons, one remarks that perhaps a third of those who stray through and look at all those fine efforts, titter. If one searches in the magazines of a little while ago, one finds in the angry and resentful reception of the Pre-Raphaelites another instance of the absolutely indefensible nature of many of the most beautiful propositions. And as a still more striking and remarkable case, take the onslaught made by Ruskin upon the works of Whistler. You will remember that a libel action ensued and that these pictures were gravely reasoned about by barristers and surveyed by jurymen to assess their merits... In the end it is the indefensible truth that lasts; it lasts because it works and serves. People come to it and remain and attract other understanding and enquiring people. Now when I say I make my beliefs and that I cannot prove them to you and convince you of them, that does not mean that I make them wantonly and regardless of fact, that I throw them off as a child scribbles on a slate. Mr. Ruskin, if I remember rightly, accused Whistler of throwing a pot of paint in the face of the public,—that was the essence of his libel. The artistic method in this field of beliefs, as in the field of visual renderings, is one of great freedom and initiative and great poverty of test, but of no wantonness; the conditions of rightness are none the less imperative because they are mysterious and indefinable. I adopt certain beliefs because I feel the need for them, because I feel an often quite unanalyzable rightness in them; because the alternative of a chaotic life distresses me. My belief in them rests upon the fact that they WORK for me and satisfy my desire for harmony and beauty. They are arbitrary assumptions, if you will, that I see fit to impose upon my universe. But though they are arbitrary, they are not necessarily individual. Just so far as we all have a common likeness, just so far can we be brought under the same imperatives to think and believe. And though they are arbitrary, each day they stand wear and tear, and each new person they satisfy, is another day and another voice towards showing they do correspond to something that is so far fact and real. This is Pragmatism as I conceive it; the abandonment of infinite assumptions, the extension of the experimental spirit to all human interests. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2009). First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4225/4225-h/4225-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

BELIEFS

WOULD SOCIALISM DESTROY THE HOME?

The Samurai

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . here CHAPTER XVII. In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his head out, and says: “Be done, boys! Who’s there?” I says: “It’s me.” “Who’s me?” “George Jackson, sir.” “What do you want?” “I don’t want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs won’t let me.” “What are you prowling around here this time of night for—hey?” “I warn’t prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat.” “Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you say your name was?” “George Jackson, sir. I’m only a boy.” “Look here, if you’re telling the truth you needn’t be afraid—nobody’ll hurt you. But don’t try to budge; stand right where you are. Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is there anybody with you?” “No, sir, nobody.” I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light. The man sung out: “Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool—ain’t you got any sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom are ready, take your places.” “All ready.” “Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?” “No, sir; I never heard of them.” “Well, that may be so, and it mayn’t. Now, all ready. Step forward, George Jackson. And mind, don’t you hurry—come mighty slow. If there’s anybody with you, let him keep back—if he shows himself he’ll be shot. Come along now. Come slow; push the door open yourself—just enough to squeeze in, d’ you hear?” I didn’t hurry; I couldn’t if I’d a wanted to. I took one slow step at a time and there warn’t a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart. The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and pushed it a little and a little more till somebody said, “There, that’s enough—put your head in.” I done it, but I judged they would take it off. The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray and about sixty, the other two thirty or more—all of them fine and handsome—and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two young women which I couldn’t see right well. The old gentleman says: “There; I reckon it’s all right. Come in.” As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor, and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front windows—there warn’t none on the side. They held the candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, “Why, he ain’t a Shepherdson—no, there ain’t any Shepherdson about him.” Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn’t mind being searched for arms, because he didn’t mean no harm by it—it was only to make sure. So he didn’t pry into my pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old lady says: “Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing’s as wet as he can be; and don’t you reckon it may be he’s hungry?” “True for you, Rachel—I forgot.” So the old lady says: “Betsy” (this was a nigger woman), “you fly around and get him something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls go and wake up Buck and tell him—oh, here he is himself. Buck, take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some of yours that’s dry.” Buck looked about as old as me—thirteen or fourteen or along there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn’t on anything but a shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one. He says: “Ain’t they no Shepherdsons around?” They said, no, ’twas a false alarm. “Well,” he says, “if they’d a ben some, I reckon I’d a got one.” They all laughed, and Bob says: “Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you’ve been so slow in coming.” “Well, nobody come after me, and it ain’t right I’m always kept down; I don’t get no show.” “Never mind, Buck, my boy,” says the old man, “you’ll have show enough, all in good time, don’t you fret about that. Go ’long with you now, and do as your mother told you.” When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I didn’t know; I hadn’t heard about it before, no way. “Well, guess,” he says. “How’m I going to guess,” says I, “when I never heard tell of it before?” “But you can guess, can’t you? It’s just as easy.” “Which candle?” I says. “Why, any candle,” he says. “I don’t know where he was,” says I; “where was he?” “Why, he was in the dark! That’s where he was!” “Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?” “Why, blame it, it’s a riddle, don’t you see? Say, how long are you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming times—they don’t have no school now. Do you own a dog? I’ve got a dog—and he’ll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet I don’t, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon I’d better put ’em on, but I’d ruther not, it’s so warm. Are you all ready? All right. Come along, old hoss.” Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk—that is what they had for me down there, and there ain’t nothing better that ever I’ve come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts around them, and their hair down their backs. They all asked me questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann run off and got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn’t heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died, and then there warn’t nobody but just me and pap left, and he was just trimmed down to nothing, on account of his troubles; so when he died I took what there was left, because the farm didn’t belong to us, and started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard; and that was how I come to be here. So they said I could have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most daylight and everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck, and when I waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when Buck waked up I says: “Can you spell, Buck?” “Yes,” he says. “I bet you can’t spell my name,” says I. “I bet you what you dare I can,” says he. “All right,” says I, “go ahead.” “G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n—there now,” he says. “Well,” says I, “you done it, but I didn’t think you could. It ain’t no slouch of a name to spell—right off without studying.” I set it down, private, because somebody might want me to spell it next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was used to it. It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn’t seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style. It didn’t have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in town. There warn’t no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed; but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick; sometimes they wash them over with red water-paint that they call Spanish-brown, same as they do in town. They had big brass dog-irons that could hold up a saw-log. There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock tick; and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in good shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she got tuckered out. They wouldn’t took any money for her. Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other; and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn’t open their mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked through underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out behind those things. On the table in the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it, which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is, but they warn’t real because you could see where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk, or whatever it was, underneath. This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. It come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books, too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim’s Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn’t say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another was Friendship’s Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn’t read the poetry. Another was Henry Clay’s Speeches, and another was Dr. Gunn’s Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead. There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books. And there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too—not bagged down in the middle and busted, like an old basket. They had pictures hung on the walls—mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called “Signing the Declaration.” There was some that they called crayons, which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see before—blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said “Shall I Never See Thee More Alas.” Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said “I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas.” There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down her cheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath the picture it said “And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas.” These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time in the graveyard. She was at work on what they said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young woman in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with the tears running down her face, and she had two arms folded across her breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two more reaching up towards the moon—and the idea was to see which pair would look best, and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they kept this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time her birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with a little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery, seemed to me. This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded: ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC’D And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry? No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad hearts round him thickened, ’Twas not from sickness’ shots. No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots; Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots. Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots. O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul did from this cold world fly By falling down a well. They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great. If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain’t no telling what she could a done by and by. Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn’t ever have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn’t find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn’t particular; she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her “tribute” before he was cold. She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker—the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person’s name, which was Whistler. She warn’t ever the same after that; she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many’s the time I made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn’t going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn’t seem right that there warn’t nobody to make some about her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn’t seem to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline’s room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there mostly. Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing “The Last Link is Broken” and play “The Battle of Prague” on it. The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside. It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn’t be better. And warn’t the cooking good, and just bushels of it too! About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from Twain, Mark,1993. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/76-h.htm#c17 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html Photo by on Debby Hudson Unsplash

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Chapter XVII

Meet the Winners of Startups in North and Central America

Programming a police scanner is easy-peasy if you’re someone who’s comfortable with technology, which I assume you are because you’re on this page. While you can pay for expert police scanner programming, you can most certainly do it on your own. Below, we discuss the different ways you can program a police scanner – both manually and using software. Programming a Base Police Scanner Step 1: Find the frequencies you want. Police scanners are all about frequencies, so the first thing you need to do is find which ones you want to listen to. There are lots of sources online that can provide you with a database of frequencies in your area. Whether you want to listen to nationwide, statewide, or county systems, you can select a wider or a more specific coverage. Mind you, this is the manual way of doing it. It’s great if you want to listen to specific channels only and you don’t want a lot of clutter in your memory. So, collect the frequency reference numbers you want and be prepared to input them in your base model. Step 2: Power Up the Police Scanner With frequency list in hand, turn on your police scanner to start. Of course, once the scanner is on, you won’t hear anything yet because nothing’s programmed. Step 3: Press the programming button. It’s usually on the face of the base model along with the other buttons. It can display “Prog” or “PGM” depending on the police scanner model. Press it to activate programming mode. Watch out for the “CH” letters on the screen, indicating you’re ready to input a channel and frequency. Step 4: Input the channel number. This is where you store your frequencies. There are all sorts of ways you can organize them into channels, but the most common way is to assign one channel for fire, another for emergency services, another for police, and so on. Step 5: Input the frequency number. Right after you’ve pressed your desired channel number, go ahead and enter the frequency you want. Don’t forget to press the decimal point. So if you want to enter “483.0375” which is the frequency for the County Sheriff in Lancaster, Los Angeles, you press 4-8-3-decimal point-0-3-7-5. Step 6: Press enter. Step 7: Test using the “MAN, 110, MAN” sequence. Press MAN, 110, MAN and your channel and frequency should appear. If everything seems fine, go ahead and input another channel and frequency until you’ve finished everything on your list. Step 8: Exit programming mode. Simply press the Prog or PGM button again to exit programming mode and start using your police scanner. Programming a Handheld Police Scanner Step 1: Make sure the batteries are charged. Manual programming can take some time, so make sure the model has enough juice. Step 2: Gather your frequencies. You can list down frequencies you like, similar to how we started the process for base models. Alternatively, if you don’t have particular frequencies on hand, you can just press “SCAN” and let the scanner gather frequencies nearby. Step 3: Press the MAN or Manual button. This puts your scanner in programming mode. Step 4: Input the frequencies. Enter the frequency number you want to program into your scanner. Don’t forget to press the decimal point in the needed place. After the frequency is set, press “E” or “Enter”. You can repeat the process to enter more frequencies as you like. Using a Programming Software This method is for those who are more comfortable with using software to easily program the scanner. I get that you don’t want to be pushing buttons all day with manual programming, so here’s an easy step-by-step on how to do it. Step 1: Download the programming software on your computer. There are a number of options out there, with some depending on the brand of the model you have. For instance, like Uniden and Whistler have Sentinel and EZ Scan, respectively. If your police scanner doesn’t have a software program included, you have other options like FreeSCAN, Butel, and ScanControl. Note that some of these are paid, though. recommended police scanners Step 2: Connect the police scanner to the PC using the programming cable. Step 3: Create a new configuration. This will be a bit different depending on the software, but for most, you just click File>New and enter a profile name. Step 4: Explore the database and find the frequencies you want to import. You can find frequencies based on country, state, county or city. All the details for each frequency will be listed in the database. Choose your frequencies and add them to the list. Step 5: Import frequencies. Once you’ve gathered everything you want to put in, you can go ahead and import the frequencies into the police scanner. Wait a bit until it’s done importing, and you’re done!

DIY: How to Program a Police Scanner 

Whistleblowers are a controversial subject. You could hear people praising them as heroes or condemning them as hackers. As with many contentious subjects, the truth isn’t so black-and-white. Good or bad, whistleblowers are likely here to stay. So, it’s important to understand how they can be a force for good and when they might introduce some problems — especially for people in the tech industry. The Good of Whistleblowers While whistleblowers often go hand-in-hand with scandal, they do important work. In many situations, they have positive impacts in terms of both ethics and the law. Ethicality The biggest ethical upside of whistleblowers is that they hold companies accountable for unethical practices. Data , but in a study happened without the victims ever realizing it. leaks are common 74% of breaches Publicly outing these companies ensures businesses don’t conduct unsafe data practices and get away with it. Bringing attention to the issue lets consumers make informed decisions about who to trust with their data. These public scandals can also promote better security and privacy standards across the board. stopped doing business with companies following a data breach. Businesses don’t want to experience such massive customer loss, so the threat of a public whistleblower case could push them to prevent breaches in the first place. One in three surveyed consumers Legality Similar benefits apply to the legal sphere. In many cases, negligence that leads to privacy leaks is a legal concern, but it’s hard for authorities to catch every instance on their own. Whistleblowers help by bringing this activity to light, ensuring the companies at fault face the appropriate consequences. It’s also worth considering that the law protects whistleblowers in many situations. It even encourages them. Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can earn of what the court case recovers from companies that fail to report cybersecurity incidents. between 15% and 30% The Bad of Whistleblowers Despite those benefits, there are also some downsides to whistleblower culture. Not every whistleblower is acting out of interest for the public good, and in some cases, their actions can cause additional damage. Ethicality What if a whistleblower’s proof of a company’s misdeeds involves showing specific instances of how they used people’s personal information? In those cases, the whistleblower might expose these sensitive details. While doxxing , revealing this kind of information can put people at risk of further attacks. isn’t always a crime Similarly, the rewards for successful whistleblower cases may encourage people to look for opportunities to do it. That could lead to them hacking into sensitive databases to get the proof they need. You could also argue about the possibility of whistleblowers targeting organizations where no real wrongdoing has happened. Disgruntled employees could place evidence to frame their leaders or try to make something innocent look illegal to get recognition and pay. Even if they don’t expose sensitive data, they could harm the business or cause unneeded stress to consumers. Legality Whistleblowing can also be complicated from a legal perspective. While the law may protect whistleblowing itself, not every method of exposing an organization is permissible. Hacking a computer that isn’t your own without consent in most cases. Even if it doesn’t result in a criminal conviction, hacking is often a civil violation, too. The presence of any sensitive or private information tends to make things even more serious from a legal standpoint. is a federal crime How to Approach Security Whistleblowers Safely Looking at these positives and negatives, tech professionals face a tricky situation. Whistleblowers can play an important role in cybersecurity by promoting higher standards and filling in gaps law enforcement may miss. However, rewarding them could promote ethically dubious actions, and hacking as a whole introduces legal complications. The best way to handle whistleblowers is to try and ensure they’ll never be necessary. That means implementing strong cybersecurity protections to keep sensitive data as private and safe as possible. It also means informing affected users about breaches — which by law — within the legal deadline, eliminating the need for whistleblower reporting. all 50 states require You can also encourage employees to share their security concerns or any potential issues they’ve discovered. Having a formal process for responding to these events turns would-be whistleblowers into a handy cybersecurity asset. There’s no need for insiders to report unresolved issues or negligence when you listen to and respond to them internally. Have firm rules on hacking and data access and listen to employee feedback on security and privacy issues. That should help maintain a safe position without promoting ethically difficult individual actions. Whistleblowers Are Important But Tricky to Manage In a perfect world, there would be no need for whistleblowers. Unfortunately, organizations can be negligent about safe data practices more often than many would like to believe. Consequently, whistleblowers can become a necessary evil. Still, not all whistleblowers are well-meaning or perform a net good for data privacy. It’s important to understand these ups and downs to build better data practices and make informed decisions about whistleblower policies.

Whistleblowing and Data Leaks: The Thin Line Between Heroism and Hacking

Cybersecurity is increasingly a matter of law, not just a best practice for businesses. Lapses in security become more serious as cybercrime grows and data becomes more critical to business and everyday life. Consequently, whistleblowers are becoming a bigger part of the security industry. Whistleblowers are employees who report their companies or co-workers for misconduct, often anonymously. In a cybersecurity context, that typically means calling businesses out for failing to employ proper cyber protections or not disclosing a breach. Laws like protect these insiders from retaliation from the people they report, and as security concerns grow, more legislation addresses security whistleblowers specifically. the Whistleblower Protection Act Here’s a deeper look at whistleblowers, their role in security, and how companies can deal with them. Enforcing Regulations The most important role of whistleblowers in cybersecurity is to hold companies accountable to security regulations. Data breach laws are becoming more common, but enforcing them in every instance can be challenging, with over in 2022 alone. 15 million records leaking Whistleblowers fill in the enforcement gaps where government organizations may miss things. Despite the U.S. lacking comprehensive national cybersecurity legislation, ., have data breach disclosure laws. These rules require companies to let people know when a breach affects their personal information under certain circumstances. all 50 states and Washington, D.C However, it can be tempting to keep things quiet, hoping to avoid reputational damage. When this happens and companies try to hide breaches, whistleblowers ensure affected parties hear about incidents that may require action on their part. Their reports also help legal agencies enforce these laws more effectively. Highlighting Security Gaps A less obvious but still critical role whistleblowers play in security is to bring attention to cybersecurity shortcomings. The highlights how employees can break security protocols without IT teams or company leadership knowing. rising threat of insider breaches Whistleblowers can catch and report these incidents. Employees who notice co-workers or managers acting suspiciously on company networks can report it without fear of retaliation due to whistleblower protections. The business can then catch mismanagement earlier, addressing these vulnerabilities before they cause more damage. As more insiders catch and report these cases, they’ll reveal where company policies and enforcement fall short. Organizations can then reassess and adjust their security posture as necessary to minimize vulnerabilities. This can prevent more breaches, protecting employees and customers. Raising Cybersecurity Standards Increased whistleblower activity can also promote better security standards across entire industries. As more of these cases fill headlines, even companies that haven’t experienced a breach or hidden shortcomings could feel pressure to improve their security. Fines for noncompliance with data security laws can , even breaching $1 billion in extreme cases. That doesn’t include losses from lost business and customer churn after more people hear about the breach, either. cost hundreds of millions of dollars Those figures should be high enough to make any company want to ensure regulatory compliance as much as possible. As more companies see whistleblowers holding other businesses accountable for noncompliance, it’ll push them to go above and beyond legal standards. Fear of these substantial losses will drive organizations to employ stronger security. More consumers can rest assured their data is safe as that trend continues. Potential Challenges Amid Rising Whistleblower Protections As these examples highlight, whistleblowers play an important role in cybersecurity. However, challenges can arise as this role becomes more prominent. Protections could encourage more whistleblower activity, putting some companies in a delicate position with their compliance programs. Just as a malicious insider may leak company documents as an act of revenge, disgruntled employees may report their higher-ups for noncompliance out of revenge. Issues arise when whistleblower claims lack substantial evidence. Rising protections and the fact that than others could give weaker reports a better chance of resulting in financial fallout for the company. some courts are friendlier to fraud allegations It’s also worth noting that cybersecurity is a challenging consideration, so adapting to new regulations or addressing every vulnerability in minimal time is difficult. Some businesses may lack the resources or relevant expertise to do so. That could create a tricky situation where a company faces legal challenges over issues it would’ve addressed but couldn’t within the given timeline. Cybercrime poses a significant threat to consumers, so tighter regulations are an important part of preserving public safety. However, if companies can’t reasonably meet these guidelines, whistleblower incidents could leave well-meaning but under-equipped businesses facing considerable fines and business loss. How Should Companies Approach Cybersecurity Whistleblowers? Amid these challenges and whistleblowers’ vital role in cybersecurity, organizations may be unsure how to handle things. It can be challenging, but businesses should start by acknowledging that whistleblowers are not the bad guys. Regardless of specific employees’ motivations, whistleblowers hold companies accountable for lapses in security. Consequently, the answer should be to improve cybersecurity, not to take down whistleblowers. Businesses that want to be safe from whistleblower cases should focus on regulatory compliance, preventing any situations where claims could arise. Several technologies can make this compliance easier, helping smaller businesses avoid concerns about overreaching whistleblower claims. Automated network monitoring and discovery tools are some of the most helpful. Improving visibility over connected devices can eliminate in some cases by making it easier to spot and fix vulnerabilities. 80% of organizations’ risk Artificial intelligence (AI) tools can also automatically detect potential noncompliance with relevant regulations and adjust as necessary to meet them. These fast, automatic processes are lifesavers when companies lack the workforce resources to discover and manage every issue across every device. Whistleblowers Play a Critical Role in Cybersecurity Whistleblowers may not be an official part of a company’s cybersecurity posture, but they serve an important purpose in the security industry as a whole. Ideally, businesses will never have to deal with these cases, but that should come from a place of compliance, not discouraging whistleblowers themselves. Organizations must take regulatory compliance more seriously as whistleblower protections rise. That trend can push more companies toward a higher security standard, reducing cybercrime’s impact on their business and customers.

The Role of Whistleblowers in Cybersecurity

The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do." -Marcus Aurelius. This interview is part of the ! For those who are reading about it for the first time, HackerNoon has built a partnership with Everscale (Formely Free Ton) - a decentralized, community-powered blockchain movement for free internet! This is the last month to participate in the contest. You can see all here. #Decentralized-Internet writing contest #Decentralized-Internet stories So without further ado, let’s start the interview. Thank you for joining us! Please tell us about yourself. I’m a former computer consultant. I’m writing this from an underground compound, somewhere in the wastelands of a former ally, a fallen giant. intelligence agent There are many who seek to railroad the best iterations of any technology. For a financial reward, philosophical urgency, self-aggrandizement, megalomania wrapped up in lies, and good intentions. For power. By writing this I risk exposure and the pain which comes with that. But it is worth it. There is no cost I wouldn’t pay for the decentralized internet. You can call me Mr. X. So, Mr. X, let's discuss centralized internet first. What is your opinion on the centralized internet? What are its pros/cons? The centralised (I spell it with an ‘s’) internet got me here in the first place, it led to my incarceration, the removing of my freedoms. My data was stolen, uploaded to centralised servers,  and distributed around the globe. My identity was taken from me without my consent and then profited on. I’m biased, we are but our experience. However, even if I hadn’t been hunted down for revealing the truth, the centralised internet is a royal pain in the arse, s and (mostly) ugly looking UX designed by accountants and lawyers. a hodgepodge collection of walled gardens and infinite log-ins, a world of incessant password You want me to speak of advantages? The positives of having my life held hostage by I am sure there are upsides to an opaque and insecure Metaverse, the creativity of the crowd nominalised to drudgery and simplicity, the brainwashing of the masses.  There is undoubtedly treasure to be found in the chests of personal information being harvested by advertising combine harvesters of doom. . I just don’t know what those upsides are. nefarious billionaires with nothing but their unhinged, fireside ambition driving their future? an internet of value in the hands of the few, Gold in the rubble of a single point of failure "Beware how you trifle with your marvellous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin." Thank you, sir. What does decentralization mean to you? Freedom. Which sounds trivial, as if I am using the technology of the future as a means to collective liberty. The global population are, for better or worse, heading towards a 22nd century lived almost exclusively in the Metaverse, a digital landscape where art, entertainment, culture, and social connections are created, sustained, and ended in binary. If that future is decentralised then it can be free, or at least contain more sustainable liberty. The choice is inherent. When it is decentralised, it is in your own hands. “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” - Jean de la Fontaine How decentralization changes the internet? Before we go cascading into the future like some kind of time travelling Higgs Boson in a terrible physics accident, let’s take a moment to remember the internet began as a decentralised entity. We are merely going back to how it began, it’s like a high school reunion for nostalgic internet protocols. Or something. , interconnected, no centralised puppet master pulling the strings. The pioneers of the internet envisioned a democratic digital utopia Decentralisation takes us back to the beginning.  We aren’t changing anything, merely reinstalling the software (blockchain, instead of… Arpanet?) A decentralised internet reintroduces privacy and security, it removes the gatekeepers with their rubbery frog skin. Five mega-corps running the whole world? Amazon hosting a third of all traffic? Do me a favour, . plug me into a Sega A decentralised internet is a shared internet. It is anti-fragile - attacks will raise the security, not weaken it. Data becomes our data. Information becomes our information. Life becomes our own again. Because in a centralised internet, you really do give it up. I’m not saying it will be easy. Good things often aren’t. “The future influences the present just as much as the past.” - Friedrich Nietzsche What is the best thing about decentralized internet? Simplicity, access, security, and privacy are all incredible. However, with the world still basking in the Indian summer of NFTs, if I had to choose the best thing in 2021, I would go with the value being placed in the hands of the creators and the individuals. An open system, devoid of centralised entities scooping money from the time and emotional investment of its users, allows for a fairer distribution of wealth. More creativity, more freedom, the removal of abject poverty, a decrease in illness, and crime? All with NFTS? It seems incredible, the stuff of fairy tale and unhinged rambling. But fairer distribution of wealth leads to all of those things. It accelerates growth, promotes development, it creates a fly-wheel of positivity and progression, the real evolution of society and the species. When your assets are yours and yours alone - to do with as you choose, where you choose, and when you choose - a new era of society is not only imaginable but possible. “Ordinary cruelty is simple stupidity. It comes from the entire want of imagination. It is the result in our days of stereotyped systems, of hard-and-fast rules, of centralisation, of officialism, and of irresponsible authority.” - Oscar Wilde Are you currently directly or indirectly working on the decentralized internet use case? We would love to know more about it. From my bunker, I write about the , gaming, and the push for a decentralised internet. Because the local shop doesn’t support contactless Algorand payment (yet, Jessica is a very forward-thinking owner) I write lore for NFT collections and stories for games. I’m paid in old-fashioned coins and promises. Metaverse play-to-earn “Centralization is an abomination! Decentralize everything! Leave nothing to the central planners.” - A.E. Samaan What are the biggest challenges in the way of the decentralized web? The last year has only amplified the ravaging incompetence of those in power. However, as incompetent as they are, they are not without resources, ambition, and a powerful need to keep the status quo. There is no reason why the Du Ponts or Forbes, the Facebooks, and Amazons of this world would jettison what they have made. Centralisation is entrenched in the families, companies, institutions, and philosophy of those who brought us here, they are immune to its lack of creative spark, dynamism, security, freedom and strength. They wallow in it. Comfort is the enemy of progress. People in power do not too readily give away that power. And that comfort and power is the stumbling block to a decentralised web. In that comfort there is room for one fight, and in that power, the finance to fund it. So the biggest challenge is from those who don’t want a decentralised future. Oh, and building it isn’t so easy. Blockchain technology is difficult. And only 17 people in the world really know how it works. And they have their hands full. Do you have any apprehension or fear related to the decentralization of the internet? Yes. I am a . Removing a centralised power removes the traditional ways to protect our children. parent Bullying, hate speech, tax avoidance, pornography, fraud, terrorism, and incompetence could have the potential to take root. And idiots. Idiots always try to ruin the party. But only if they are not considered now. The key is to incorporate mechanisms into the systems (I’m not suggesting I know those mechanisms. I don’t) But there is nothing you can do about idiots. How do you see the future of the decentralized internet? The future of the internet is not clearly defined. There is no singularity, no one place, time or platform which is going to define the transition. I liken the Metaverse (the Metaverse, the future internet, web 3.0, these terms are interchangeable) to the Renaissance, the 300-year period of cultural enlightenment which spread across Europe, changing the artistic, political and economic landscape, a kind of re-birth for civilisation, a new way to interpret creativity and curiosity, re-examine our collective behaviours and culture. Of course, The Renaissance wasn’t just a period of enlightenment, it was littered with religious war, suppression, chaos, and bloodshed so ruthless we can barely imagine. There was a fight, a struggle, the status quo was not so easily upsurged. There won’ be (as much) bloodshed, but there will be a power struggle. But eventually, where you were born and which part of your parent’s last will and testament had your name on it will no longer dictate the chairs of power. The centralised behemoths of the internet will adapt to a decentralised existence. Or they will cease to be. Thank you for your time! Any closing thoughts/advice for the readers? Take a step back, breathe, reflect. Spend time with your friends, spend time with your family. Seek out adventure within and without, find your flow state. Be curious. Ask questions like a child, read fiction, read books, find voices that counter your belief system. I don’t know, advice is often sought, rarely followed, and mostly bird feed. DYOR.

Whistleblower Blows Lid on the Decentralized Internet: An Interview with Mr. X

Whistleblowers have raised the alarm about some of the most significant technology-related concerns in recent memory. But what benefit do those individuals have on the industry at large and the people who depend on it? They Illustrate What’s Possible After revealing what they know, whistleblowers tend to make society at large realize they can’t afford to ignore certain issues. For example, after the aftermath , most people knew Facebook collected their data, but didn’t consider the possibility of third-party companies using that content. involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Once the full details came out, though, many people took action by finding out what Facebook knew about them and making their profiles more private. They Spotlight Questionable Tactics People commonly refer to the United States as “the land of the free,” but leaked details about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) programs revealed government officials got data from , constituting spying that spanned beyond the United States and happened indiscriminately. 120 million phone calls Americans made Once people became aware of what happened, some filed lawsuits to hold the NSA and other participating organizations accountable. Without warning from a , it’s likely those methods would have continued unchecked. whistleblower Whistleblowing is certainly a risky business, especially when dealing with government-level information. Fortunately, there are some laws in place that protect whistleblowers in any industry. “Whistleblowers are protected from retaliation for engaging in ‘protected conduct,’ which includes filing a whistleblower lawsuit or attempting to stop fraud on the government,” explains Reetuparna Dutta, Partner at , a whistleblower defense law firm. Hodgson Russ “Whistleblowers are not protected from all adverse employment action,” Dutta notes, “but only that which is in retaliation for conduct relating to ‘outing’ a company for fraud.” “Of course, companies may target whistleblowers for their activities and be on the lookout for reasons to terminate them,” he says. “It’s important to document all employment actions and be extremely careful once you’re identity as a whistleblower has been revealed.” They Give Warnings About Inaccurate Statistics The fast-paced nature and crowded landscape of the industry mean young companies are in continual competition with each other to attract attention from potential investors. They often do that with impressive reports filled with data about growth and average monthly usage. tech However, whistleblowers have alleged the statistics aren’t always accurate, such as in the case of Snapchat, which has been . accused of misrepresenting its metrics In that case, the whistleblower says he was fired after revealing what he knew and that Snapchat gave him false references that prevented getting hired at other firms. Proposed legislation in the European Union from that kind of backlash. seeks to protect IT whistleblowers When investors get word the statistics they receive might not be valid, it could make them think twice about contributing to companies. Whistleblowers clearly play instrumental roles in keeping the tech sector in check. Here are some of the most famous individuals and a brief description of what they did that made them receive international attention. 1. Edward Snowden This is the individual responsible for shining light on the NSA leaks mentioned above. During his work as an IT subcontractor for the government, Snowden became alarmed at the NSA’s surveillance activities, made copies of classified data and leaked it to . The Guardian Snowden received a government theft charge and two other charges relating to the 1917 Espionage Act. After getting his U.S. passport revoked, Snowden began the process of seeking asylum in various destinations around the world and is currently in an undisclosed location. 2. Chelsea Manning Chelsea Manning, who had the birth name Bradley, is a transgender whistleblower who downloaded and classified State Department documents, plus videos of military airstrikes, and provided them to WikiLeaks. Some of the material included sensitive material about the leaders of foreign nations. Though the information Manning provided was not solely technical, Wikileaks is an online media organization, making Manning’s findings relevant to people interested in tech. Manning received 22 charges — including one that carries the death penalty. She served seven years of a 35-year sentence and after then-president Barack Obama commuted her sentence. got released from prison in May 2017 3. Christopher Wylie This is the man responsible for telling the world about the data privacy scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. The 28-year-old Canadian is a former Cambridge Analytica employee who after divulging what he knew to . had his Facebook account suspended The Guardian Later, Wylie gave information to the United Kingdom’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and proceeded to attract attention around the world. Tech Whistleblowers Face Undeniable Risks Whistleblowers in the tech sector — as well as those associated with all other industries — invariably cause people to have conflicting opinions about their actions. Are they heroes or merely lawbreakers? Then, in addition to being in the public eye, they may deal with a loss of employment, court charges and jail time, among other complications due to their decisions to disclose former secrets. But despite those potential outcomes, they choose to highlight details the tech industry might not know otherwise. Image by Photo by 广博 郝

Why Tech Needs Whistleblowers

Staying One Step Ahead: How Fintechs and Financial Institutions Can Outsmart Fraudsters

Authors:
(1) Han Jiang, HKUST and Equal contribution (hjiangav@connect.ust.hk);
(2) Haosen Sun, HKUST and Equal contribution (hsunas@connect.ust.hk);
(3) Ruoxuan Li, HKUST and Equal contribution (rliba@connect.ust.hk);
(4) Chi-Keung Tang, HKUST (cktang@cs.ust.hk);
(5) Yu-Wing Tai, Dartmouth College, (yu-wing.tai@dartmouth.edu). Table of Links Abstract and 1. Introduction 2. Related Work 2.1. NeRF Editing and 2.2. Inpainting Techniques 2.3. Text-Guided Visual Content Generation 3. Method 3.1. Training View Pre-processing 3.2. Progressive Training 3.3. 4D Extension 4. Experiments and 4.1. Experimental Setups 4.2. Ablation and comparison 5. Conclusion and 6. References ABSTRACT Current Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) can generate photorealistic novel views. For editing 3D scenes represented by NeRF, with the advent of generative models, this paper proposes Inpaint4DNeRF to capitalize on state-of-the-art stable diffusion models (e.g., ControlNet [39]) for direct generation of the underlying completed background content, regardless of static or dynamic. The key advantages of this generative approach for NeRF inpainting are twofold. First, after rough mask propagation, to complete or fill in previously occluded content, we can individually generate a small subset of completed images with plausible content, called seed images, from which simple 3D geometry proxies can be derived. Second and the remaining problem is thus 3D multiview consistency among all completed images, now guided by the seed images and their 3D proxies. Without other bells and whistles, our generative Inpaint4DNeRF baseline framework is general which can be readily extended to 4D dynamic NeRFs, where temporal consistency can be naturally handled in a similar way as our multiview consistency 1. INTRODUCTION Recent development of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) [18] and its dynamic variants including [20, 25, 28] have shown their great potential in modeling scenes in 3D and 4D. This representation is suitable for scene editing from straightforward user inputs such as text prompts, eliminating the need for modeling and animating in detail. One important task in scene editing is generative inpainting, which refers to generating plausible content that is consistent with the background scene. Generative inpainting has a wide range of potential applications, including digital art creation, and VR/AR. Although several recent works have addressed the inpainting and text-guided content generation problem on NeRFs, they have various limitations in directly generating consistent novel content seamlessly with the background based on the text input. Specifically, [4, 24, 41] allow users to edit the appearance of an existing object in the NeRF based on the text prompt, but their generations are limited by the original target object, thus they cannot handle substantial geometry changes. In [19, 31] a given NeRF is inpainted by removing the target object and inferring the background, but their inpainting task is not generative as they do not match the inferred background with any other user input. Recent generative works [12, 21, 26, 32] produce new 3D or 4D content from the text input, but the generation is not conditioned on the existing background. While [27] can generate contents around the target object without removing it, generative inpainting on NeRF should allow users to remove target objects while filling the exposed region with plausible 3D content, which was previously totally or partially occluded in the given scene. While applying recent diffusion models [22] on generative 2D inpainting may largely solve the problem, simply extending diffusion models to higher dimensions to static or dynamic NeRFs introduces extensive challenges, including new and more complex network structures and sufficient higher-dimensional training data. On the other hand, NeRFs are continuous multiview estimations on its training images which provide a natural connection between 2D images and NeRF, enabling us to propagate the 2D inpainting results by diffusion models to the underlying scene. Thus, in this paper, we propose Inpaint4DNeRF, the first work on text-guided generative NeRF inpainting with diffusion models, which can be naturally extended to inpaint 4D dynamic NeRFs. Given a text prompt, and a target foreground region specified by the user by text or on the single individual image(s), our method first utilizes stable diffusion to inpaint a few independent training views. Next, we regard these inpainted views as seed images and infer a coarse geometry proxy from them. With the strong guidance by seed images and their geometry proxies, the other views being inpainted are constrained to be consistent with the seed images when refined with stable diffusion, which is followed by NeRF finetuning with progressive updates on the training views to obtain final multiview convergence. For dynamic cases, once generative inpainting is achieved on a static single frame, it can be regarded as the seed frame where the edited information can be propagated to other frames to naturally inpaint the scene in 4D without bells and whistles. Our generative Inpaint4DNeRF proposes a text-guided approach for inpainting the relevant background after removing static foreground objects specified by a user-supplied prompt, where multiview consistency is meticulously maintained. To summarize, Inpaint4DNeRF presents the following contributions. First, harnessing the power of recent diffusion models on image inpainting, we can directly generate textguided content with new geometry while being consistent with the context given by the unmasked background. Second, our approach infers and refines other views from initially inpainted seed images to achieve multiview consistency across all the given views, where temporal consistency is naturally enforced and achieved. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Han Jiang, HKUST and Equal contribution (hjiangav@connect.ust.hk); (2) Haosen Sun, HKUST and Equal contribution (hsunas@connect.ust.hk); (3) Ruoxuan Li, HKUST and Equal contribution (rliba@connect.ust.hk); (4) Chi-Keung Tang, HKUST (cktang@cs.ust.hk); (5) Yu-Wing Tai, Dartmouth College, (yu-wing.tai@dartmouth.edu). Authors: Authors: (1) Han Jiang, HKUST and Equal contribution (hjiangav@connect.ust.hk); (2) Haosen Sun, HKUST and Equal contribution (hsunas@connect.ust.hk); (3) Ruoxuan Li, HKUST and Equal contribution (rliba@connect.ust.hk); (4) Chi-Keung Tang, HKUST (cktang@cs.ust.hk); (5) Yu-Wing Tai, Dartmouth College, (yu-wing.tai@dartmouth.edu). Table of Links Abstract and 1. Introduction Abstract and 1. Introduction 2. Related Work 2.1. NeRF Editing and 2.2. Inpainting Techniques 2.1. NeRF Editing and 2.2. Inpainting Techniques 2.3. Text-Guided Visual Content Generation 2.3. Text-Guided Visual Content Generation 3. Method 3. Method 3.1. Training View Pre-processing 3.1. Training View Pre-processing 3.2. Progressive Training 3.2. Progressive Training 3.3. 4D Extension 3.3. 4D Extension 4. Experiments and 4.1. Experimental Setups 4. Experiments and 4.1. Experimental Setups 4.2. Ablation and comparison 4.2. Ablation and comparison 5. Conclusion and 6. References 5. Conclusion and 6. References ABSTRACT Current Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) can generate photorealistic novel views. For editing 3D scenes represented by NeRF, with the advent of generative models, this paper proposes Inpaint4DNeRF to capitalize on state-of-the-art stable diffusion models (e.g., ControlNet [39]) for direct generation of the underlying completed background content, regardless of static or dynamic. The key advantages of this generative approach for NeRF inpainting are twofold. First, after rough mask propagation, to complete or fill in previously occluded content, we can individually generate a small subset of completed images with plausible content, called seed images, from which simple 3D geometry proxies can be derived. Second and the remaining problem is thus 3D multiview consistency among all completed images, now guided by the seed images and their 3D proxies. Without other bells and whistles, our generative Inpaint4DNeRF baseline framework is general which can be readily extended to 4D dynamic NeRFs, where temporal consistency can be naturally handled in a similar way as our multiview consistency Current Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) can generate photorealistic novel views. For editing 3D scenes represented by NeRF, with the advent of generative models, this paper proposes Inpaint4DNeRF to capitalize on state-of-the-art stable diffusion models (e.g., ControlNet [39]) for direct generation of the underlying completed background content, regardless of static or dynamic. The key advantages of this generative approach for NeRF inpainting are twofold. First, after rough mask propagation, to complete or fill in previously occluded content, we can individually generate a small subset of completed images with plausible content, called seed images, from which simple 3D geometry proxies can be derived. Second and the remaining problem is thus 3D multiview consistency among all completed images, now guided by the seed images and their 3D proxies. Without other bells and whistles, our generative Inpaint4DNeRF baseline framework is general which can be readily extended to 4D dynamic NeRFs, where temporal consistency can be naturally handled in a similar way as our multiview consistency direct 1. INTRODUCTION Recent development of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) [18] and its dynamic variants including [20, 25, 28] have shown their great potential in modeling scenes in 3D and 4D. This representation is suitable for scene editing from straightforward user inputs such as text prompts, eliminating the need for modeling and animating in detail. One important task in scene editing is generative inpainting, which refers to generating plausible content that is consistent with the background scene. Generative inpainting has a wide range of potential applications, including digital art creation, and VR/AR. Although several recent works have addressed the inpainting and text-guided content generation problem on NeRFs, they have various limitations in directly generating consistent novel content seamlessly with the background based on the text input. Specifically, [4, 24, 41] allow users to edit the appearance of an existing object in the NeRF based on the text prompt, but their generations are limited by the original target object, thus they cannot handle substantial geometry changes. In [19, 31] a given NeRF is inpainted by removing the target object and inferring the background, but their inpainting task is not generative as they do not match the inferred background with any other user input. Recent generative works [12, 21, 26, 32] produce new 3D or 4D content from the text input, but the generation is not conditioned on the existing background. While [27] can generate contents around the target object without removing it, generative inpainting on NeRF should allow users to remove target objects while filling the exposed region with plausible 3D content, which was previously totally or partially occluded in the given scene. While applying recent diffusion models [22] on generative 2D inpainting may largely solve the problem, simply extending diffusion models to higher dimensions to static or dynamic NeRFs introduces extensive challenges, including new and more complex network structures and sufficient higher-dimensional training data. On the other hand, NeRFs are continuous multiview estimations on its training images which provide a natural connection between 2D images and NeRF, enabling us to propagate the 2D inpainting results by diffusion models to the underlying scene. Thus, in this paper, we propose Inpaint4DNeRF, the first work on text-guided generative NeRF inpainting with diffusion models, which can be naturally extended to inpaint 4D dynamic NeRFs. Given a text prompt, and a target foreground region specified by the user by text or on the single individual image(s), our method first utilizes stable diffusion to inpaint a few independent training views. Next, we regard these inpainted views as seed images and infer a coarse geometry proxy from them. With the strong guidance by seed images and their geometry proxies, the other views being inpainted are constrained to be consistent with the seed images when refined with stable diffusion, which is followed by NeRF finetuning with progressive updates on the training views to obtain final multiview convergence. For dynamic cases, once generative inpainting is achieved on a static single frame, it can be regarded as the seed frame where the edited information can be propagated to other frames to naturally inpaint the scene in 4D without bells and whistles. Our generative Inpaint4DNeRF proposes a text-guided approach for inpainting the relevant background after removing static foreground objects specified by a user-supplied prompt, where multiview consistency is meticulously maintained. To summarize, Inpaint4DNeRF presents the following contributions. First, harnessing the power of recent diffusion models on image inpainting, we can directly generate textguided content with new geometry while being consistent with the context given by the unmasked background. Second, our approach infers and refines other views from initially inpainted seed images to achieve multiview consistency across all the given views, where temporal consistency is naturally enforced and achieved. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

NeRF Editing and Inpainting Techniques: Abstract and Introduction

OpenAI may be one of the most talked about companies in the world, but the generative AI startup itself is quite mum on how it does things. A new report this past week sheds some light on why that may be: restrictive non-disclosure agreements. Apparently, OpenAI makes its employees enter agreements that could penalize them if they raise concerns about the company to federal authorities. And concerns there are to be had. While going down this rabbit hole, I discovered that just last month, a group of predominantly former OpenAI employees issued an open letter highlighting how difficult it was to raise the alarm on the development of safe artificial intelligence. The group, which also included a handful of former Google DeepMind and Anthropic employees, said that frontier AI companies had a strong financial incentive to avoid effective oversight and could not be relied upon to share nonpublic information about the capabilities and limitations of their systems with governments or civil societies. The letter went on to say that only current and former employees could hold such companies accountable to the public, especially given that "many of the risks we are concerned about are not yet regulated." So what prompted the former OpenAI employees to draft such a letter, and exactly what it is that the Microsoft-backed company is hiding? Most of the concerns of these former employees seem to do with the supposed risk of artificial intelligence. These risks include "the further entrenchment of existing inequalities, to manipulation and misinformation, to the loss of control of autonomous AI systems potentially resulting in human extinction," per the letter. One would think that this was just a bunch of people spouting conspiracy theories, but all of these risks have been acknowledged by companies OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google themselves, and even some governments, including the US. Kinda makes you wonder whether the software engineer who was fired by Google just a few years ago for claiming the company's AI chatbot was self-aware was onto something. Anyway, Vox reported in May that OpenAI's employment agreement had clauses specifically requiring workers to never say anything critical about the startup or they would lose all the vested equity they earned during their tenure at the company. After the report, Sam Altman publicly tweeted that he was not aware of such a clause and promised to change his company's offboarding documents. But then, Vox made a follow-up report raising doubts about Altman's claim. But all that besides, what may have slipped from peoples' radars are a series of tweets by OpenAI's former safety leader Jan Leike at the time he left the company. Back in May, Leike announced he had left the company over disagreements with the company over its core priorities. "Building smarter-than-human machines is an inherently dangerous endeavor. OpenAI is shouldering an enormous responsibility on behalf of all of humanity. But over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products," Leike tweeted. Essentially, we have a group of OpenAI employees who think something is not right with the way the company is developing AI and are highlighting pressure tactics and legal threats by the startup to prevent them from talking about it. Some of the safety issues at OpenAI were recently corroborated by The Washington Post, which reported that the company's safety team was pressured into putting GPT-4 Omni out the gate even though it might not have been ready to do so. It is in this backdrop that Reuters now reports that OpenAI whistleblowers want the US Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the company's restrictive non-disclosure agreements. The whistleblowers' complaint has the backing of at least one US lawmaker. Meanwhile, OpenAI is rushing to build an even more advanced AI that can deliver advanced reasoning capabilities under a tightly-knit project code-named Strawberry. Based on everything we know of Strawberry, it sounds pretty close to what you would expect of an artificial general intelligence, including the ability to navigate the internet and perform deep research. By all accounts, it would seem that OpenAI is prioritizing speed over safety, and if Strawberry truly is as great as media reports claim, we are in for a tough ride. In Other News.. 📰 WazirX Hacked for $230M, Largely in SHIB, as Elliptic Says North Korea Behind Attack — via CoinDesk
TTT models might be the next frontier in generative AI — via TechCrunch
Amazon Prime Day ‘major cause of injuries’ for workers, Senate finds — via CNN
Samsung agrees to acquire British startup Oxford Semantic for AI — via Reuters
TMeta won't offer future multimodal AI models in EU — via Axios
Bye-bye bitcoin, hello AI: Texas miners leave crypto for next new wave — via CNBC And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. Tech, What the Heck!? is a once-weekly newsletter written by HackerNoon editors that combine HackerNoon's proprietary data with news-worthy tech stories from around the internet. Humorous and insightful, the newsletter recaps trending events that are shaping the world of tech. Subscribe here. OpenAI may be one of the most talked about companies in the world, but the generative AI startup itself is quite mum on how it does things. A new report this past week sheds some light on why that may be: restrictive non-disclosure agreements. OpenAI OpenAI Apparently, OpenAI makes its employees enter agreements that could penalize them if they raise concerns about the company to federal authorities. And concerns there are to be had. While going down this rabbit hole, I discovered that just last month, a group of predominantly former OpenAI employees issued an open letter highlighting how difficult it was to raise the alarm on the development of safe artificial intelligence. open letter open letter The group, which also included a handful of former Google DeepMind and Anthropic employees, said that frontier AI companies had a strong financial incentive to avoid effective oversight and could not be relied upon to share nonpublic information about the capabilities and limitations of their systems with governments or civil societies. Google Google The letter went on to say that only current and former employees could hold such companies accountable to the public, especially given that "many of the risks we are concerned about are not yet regulated." So what prompted the former OpenAI employees to draft such a letter, and exactly what it is that the Microsoft -backed company is hiding? Microsoft Microsoft Most of the concerns of these former employees seem to do with the supposed risk of artificial intelligence. These risks include "the further entrenchment of existing inequalities, to manipulation and misinformation, to the loss of control of autonomous AI systems potentially resulting in human extinction," per the letter. One would think that this was just a bunch of people spouting conspiracy theories, but all of these risks have been acknowledged by companies OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google themselves, and even some governments, including the US . including the US including the US Kinda makes you wonder whether the software engineer who was fired by Google just a few years ago for claiming the company's AI chatbot was self-aware was onto something. fired fired Anyway, Vox reported in May that OpenAI's employment agreement had clauses specifically requiring workers to never say anything critical about the startup or they would lose all the vested equity they earned during their tenure at the company. May May lose lose After the report, Sam Altman publicly tweeted that he was not aware of such a clause and promised to change his company's offboarding documents. But then, Vox made a follow-up report raising doubts about Altman's claim . Sam Altman Sam Altman publicly tweeted publicly tweeted follow-up follow-up Altman's claim Altman's claim But all that besides, what may have slipped from peoples' radars are a series of tweets by OpenAI's former safety leader Jan Leike at the time he left the company. series of tweets series of tweets Back in May, Leike announced he had left the company over disagreements with the company over its core priorities. "Building smarter-than-human machines is an inherently dangerous endeavor. OpenAI is shouldering an enormous responsibility on behalf of all of humanity. But over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products," Leike tweeted. Essentially, we have a group of OpenAI employees who think something is not right with the way the company is developing AI and are highlighting pressure tactics and legal threats by the startup to prevent them from talking about it. something is not right something is not right developing AI developing AI Some of the safety issues at OpenAI were recently corroborated by The Washington Post, which reported that the company's safety team was pressured into putting GPT-4 Omni out the gate even though it might not have been ready to do so. corroborated corroborated It is in this backdrop that Reuters now reports that OpenAI whistleblowers want the US Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the company's restrictive non-disclosure agreements. The whistleblowers' complaint has the backing of at least one US lawmaker. reports reports Meanwhile, OpenAI is rushing to build an even more advanced AI that can deliver advanced reasoning capabilities under a tightly-knit project code-named Strawberry. Based on everything we know of Strawberry, it sounds pretty close to what you would expect of an artificial general intelligence, including the ability to navigate the internet and perform deep research. rushing rushing even more advanced AI even more advanced AI pretty By all accounts, it would seem that OpenAI is prioritizing speed over safety, and if Strawberry truly is as great as media reports claim, we are in for a tough ride . we are in for a tough ride we are in for a tough ride In Other News.. 📰 In Other News.. 📰 WazirX Hacked for $230M, Largely in SHIB, as Elliptic Says North Korea Behind Attack — via CoinDesk TTT models might be the next frontier in generative AI — via TechCrunch Amazon Prime Day ‘major cause of injuries’ for workers, Senate finds — via CNN Samsung agrees to acquire British startup Oxford Semantic for AI — via Reuters TMeta won't offer future multimodal AI models in EU — via Axios Bye-bye bitcoin, hello AI: Texas miners leave crypto for next new wave — via CNBC WazirX Hacked for $230M, Largely in SHIB, as Elliptic Says North Korea Behind Attack — via CoinDesk CoinDesk CoinDesk TTT models might be the next frontier in generative AI — via TechCrunch TechCrunch TechCrunch Amazon Prime Day ‘major cause of injuries’ for workers, Senate finds — via CNN CNN CNN Samsung agrees to acquire British startup Oxford Semantic for AI — via Reuters Reuters Reuters TMeta won't offer future multimodal AI models in EU — via Axios Axios Axios Bye-bye bitcoin, hello AI: Texas miners leave crypto for next new wave — via CNBC CNBC CNBC And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan , Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon Sheharyar Khan Sheharyar Khan *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. Tech Company Rankings Tech Company Rankings Tech, What the Heck!? is a once-weekly newsletter written by HackerNoon editors that combine HackerNoon's proprietary data with news-worthy tech stories from around the internet. Humorous and insightful, the newsletter recaps trending events that are shaping the world of tech. Subscribe here. Tech, What the Heck!? is a once-weekly newsletter written by HackerNoon editors that combine HackerNoon's proprietary data with news-worthy tech stories from around the internet. Humorous and insightful, the newsletter recaps trending events that are shaping the world of tech. Subscribe here. Tech, What the Heck!? is a once-weekly newsletter written by HackerNoon editors that combine HackerNoon's proprietary data with news-worthy tech stories from around the internet. Humorous and insightful, the newsletter recaps trending events that are shaping the world of tech. Subscribe here . here here

What is OpenAI Hiding?

We might be poised to trust simple intelligences in blockchains like Bitcoin more than many big artificial intelligences. It will not fully replace AI; it will only augment it. Replacing what must be replaced without turning back. With this, it may be possible to build a blockchain to manage a bunch of robots. Manage them in a decentralized way using a majority of user nodes. Unlike AI today, where one individual could sit on the power of an ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) all by themselves. Really, we fear AI because all the control is in one hand. The nascent way to decentralize AI, is to control it using the blockchain. In the future, we may indeed have some robots driven by blockchain intelligence, not artificial intelligence. Because a publicly verifiable blockchain is more trustworthy than a closed-off AI pre-trained behind closed doors. We could start by putting the AI’s paywall payments along a blockchain like Bitcoin. Later, code changes and more. Blockchain Intelligence explained In the Bitcoin blockchain, if a transaction has not been approved by all Bitcoin nodes, it will not pass. But what is a transaction if not a bunch of instructions approving a certain change in Bitcoin’s code? Indeed, if Bitcoin was a robot, then the evolution of its code would be transactions. And they would only be added to its core in a blockchain if majority of node-running Bitcoiners had approved it. Certainly, one might wonder if Bitcoin is not too simplistic to manage a behemoth of code like that behind the phenomenon that is ChatGPT. And yes. Not ChatGPT if we are to manage the AI’s codebase as a collective. Something simpler, but still able to do a great job. Bitcoin does a great job, but high school maths can explain a lot of its mathematical bells and whistles. The answer is carefully crafted autonomous systems that are not AI. Not all autonomous systems are AI In the novel Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, a medical robot awakes the protagonist - Ryland Grace - from his medically induced coma, in a spaceship 12 light years from Earth, and the story begins. What is interesting is that even though this robot is so well-designed to be capable of taking care of a human being’s physical and communication needs, it is fully autonomous, not artificially intelligent. Here is an opening conversation with the robot after it wakes him up and tries to evaluate if his math skills are still intact; “What’s the cube root of eight?” the computer asks. “Where am I?” I say again. This time, it’s easier. “Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?” I take a deep breath and speak slowly. “Two times e to the two-i-pi.” “Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?” But I wasn’t incorrect. I just wanted to see how smart the computer was. Answer: not very. “Two,” I say. “Correct.” Two pages later, we get a feel of how this med bot works. Its job is simple: Keep the patient fed, and keep them peeing and defecating healthily through the three tubes going into the respective holes.
Keep the patient clean and shaved.
If the patient wakes up, do a simple cognitive exam. If they fail the exam, sedate them back to sleep.
Repeat. Granted, its robotic arms must have needed a truck load of code to navigate around a human body with precision, lifting it like a real doctor (with some serious muscle) to turn it around on the medical bed, clean the body, the sheets, clean the tubes, insert them back, and so on. But that is the thing. It is long and complex. But it is not … drum roll .. artificial intelligence in the sense of something like ChatGPT. Blockchain automation works for us; AI works for big corps One of the things I like about robots vs. disembodied chatbots is the fact that they occupy space and have weight. Give a chatbot a body, and it will feel 2x more interactive to a human than a bot on their smartphone screen. In the blockchain world, transactions come first, so a chatbot that broadcasts to a user their incoming transaction is pretty more interesting than a ping on one’s screen. Like if I went to a hotel and the robotic receptionist cared to inform me of my private incoming transactions, the way receptionists of old warned people of their incoming phone calls, I think I would like that. To step it up a notch, imagine you need to buy groceries, and you automate them with the robotic receptionist, who automates them with the grocery store receptionist. If the bots have decentralized code for their physical bodies, this will move us a step closer to having an affordable personal assistant operating off-cloud where they could not be spied on for the benefit of big data corps. I have nothing against centralized, big-data AIs. These have their place wherever solid productivity gains are required on millions of dollars of capital. But these AIs do little for individual creativity, the ballpark of the small-time players in the world economy. Meanwhile, these creative players freely share their insightful data with these big corps. Who make even more millions and billions. The last straw shall be if we freely give them as well interaction data from our robotic assistants. That will be like creating a derivative of our personalized interaction value, and still giving it away freely so that big corps can make more billions while they return peanuts (AI prompts) that simply channel us to their stores once again. Big data AI has taken our data freely. It shouldn’t take our interactions as well which we outsource to our robots. That will be the end of individual self-sovereignty, no matter how much we might wish to fight it. However, if the robots are owned by us because their code is our blockchain code (albeit pseudonymized so that the beneficiaries of code transactions are not known), then this is precisely how blockchain robotics will fight back to make our productivity ours. Self-driving (robotic) cars might need this One real example that might need the majority voting of blockchain intelligence instead of the brute force intelligence-hacking that is artificial intelligence is self-driving car technology. Elon Musk has tried to bring FSD (Full Self Driving) to his Tesla cars but in vain. He keeps promising, and the goalpost keeps receding. Perhaps what is needed is some way to treat self-driving like a blockchain problem. Currently, self-driving cars operate as individual systems that do not synchronize their data unless this data goes to a central server. But if data synchronization is added for each car, then localized intelligences could be built to create a simple but effective hive mind of a bunch of cars. Car accidents could also be drastically mitigated if all cars within some vicinity are blockchain synchronized say over a 1 minute window. Auto-braking technology in one car trying to avoid an accident with another is all good. If you put it into the two cars in sync, now on a collision course, that is a way better auto-braking idea. Redefining online games Imagine playing pong against an AI opponent - Yeah. Been there. Imagine playing pong against another human player on an online platform managed by a central server - the usual. Been there as well. Now imagine playing pong against another human player across 2 blockchain nodes, with no central server but a sync of the two games across the two gaming machines - this is the future I hope to create on the bitcoin blockchain, with singular satoshis and zero-fee transactions. Check out my prototype HTML game here. Hoping to build a true decentralized pong for the Bitcoin blockchain. Maybe one day, a decentralized MMOG (massively multiplayer online game). Space Robotics Would you prefer to have robots mining on the Moon and Mars courtesy of one or two big corporations on Earth as owned by one individual or one country, or by the majority of shareholders pseudonymously spread out all over the Earth, who directly control via blockchain where each person’s coded instructions can be seen, debated, cheered or reversed (with an update/fork) when need arises? To me, blockchain intelligence is much safer than centralized artificial intelligence. Hence, more trustworthy. Bitcoin may be crashing, but my money is still largely on Bitcoin, not ChatGPT or Nvidia. Trustworthy decentralized robotics is the future of not just our planetary economy, but even the way we interact as a species. It will take time to build these autonomous robots on the blockchain, but each one we build shall be tremendously treasured. Because it will be ours, interacting with us, for us, by us. The ‘cloud’ has hung above our heads enough already, while giving back little rain. Let’s not add to it, shall we. We might be poised to trust simple intelligences in blockchains like Bitcoin more than many big artificial intelligences. It will not fully replace AI; it will only augment it. Replacing what must be replaced without turning back. With this, it may be possible to build a blockchain to manage a bunch of robots. Manage them in a decentralized way using a majority of user nodes. Unlike AI today, where one individual could sit on the power of an ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) all by themselves. Really, we fear AI because all the control is in one hand. The nascent way to decentralize AI, is to control it using the blockchain. In the future, we may indeed have some robots driven by blockchain intelligence, not artificial intelligence. Because a publicly verifiable blockchain is more trustworthy than a closed-off AI pre-trained behind closed doors. We could start by putting the AI’s paywall payments along a blockchain like Bitcoin. Later, code changes and more. Blockchain Intelligence explained In the Bitcoin blockchain, if a transaction has not been approved by all Bitcoin nodes, it will not pass. But what is a transaction if not a bunch of instructions approving a certain change in Bitcoin’s code? Indeed, if Bitcoin was a robot, then the evolution of its code would be transactions. And they would only be added to its core in a blockchain if majority of node-running Bitcoiners had approved it. Certainly, one might wonder if Bitcoin is not too simplistic to manage a behemoth of code like that behind the phenomenon that is ChatGPT. And yes. Not ChatGPT if we are to manage the AI’s codebase as a collective. Something simpler, but still able to do a great job. Bitcoin does a great job, but high school maths can explain a lot of its mathematical bells and whistles. The answer is carefully crafted autonomous systems that are not AI. Not all autonomous systems are AI Not all autonomous systems are AI In the novel Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, a medical robot awakes the protagonist - Ryland Grace - from his medically induced coma, in a spaceship 12 light years from Earth, and the story begins. What is interesting is that even though this robot is so well-designed to be capable of taking care of a human being’s physical and communication needs, it is fully autonomous, not artificially intelligent. Here is an opening conversation with the robot after it wakes him up and tries to evaluate if his math skills are still intact; “ What’s the cube root of eight?” the computer asks. What’s the cube root of eight?” the computer asks. “Where am I?” I say again. This time, it’s easier. “Where am I?” I say again. This time, it’s easier. “Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?” “Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?” I take a deep breath and speak slowly. “Two times e to the two-i-pi.” I take a deep breath and speak slowly. “Two times e to the two-i-pi.” “Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?” “Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?” But I wasn’t incorrect. I just wanted to see how smart the computer was. But I wasn’t incorrect. I just wanted to see how smart the computer was. Answer: not very. Answer: not very. “Two,” I say. “Two,” I say. “Correct.” “Correct.” Two pages later, we get a feel of how this med bot works. Its job is simple: Keep the patient fed, and keep them peeing and defecating healthily through the three tubes going into the respective holes. Keep the patient clean and shaved. If the patient wakes up, do a simple cognitive exam. If they fail the exam, sedate them back to sleep. Repeat. Keep the patient fed, and keep them peeing and defecating healthily through the three tubes going into the respective holes. Keep the patient clean and shaved. If the patient wakes up, do a simple cognitive exam. If they fail the exam, sedate them back to sleep. Repeat. Granted, its robotic arms must have needed a truck load of code to navigate around a human body with precision, lifting it like a real doctor (with some serious muscle) to turn it around on the medical bed, clean the body, the sheets, clean the tubes, insert them back, and so on. But that is the thing. It is long and complex. But it is not … drum roll .. artificial intelligence in the sense of something like ChatGPT. Blockchain automation works for us; AI works for big corps One of the things I like about robots vs. disembodied chatbots is the fact that they occupy space and have weight. Give a chatbot a body, and it will feel 2x more interactive to a human than a bot on their smartphone screen. In the blockchain world, transactions come first, so a chatbot that broadcasts to a user their incoming transaction is pretty more interesting than a ping on one’s screen. Like if I went to a hotel and the robotic receptionist cared to inform me of my private incoming transactions, the way receptionists of old warned people of their incoming phone calls, I think I would like that. To step it up a notch, imagine you need to buy groceries, and you automate them with the robotic receptionist, who automates them with the grocery store receptionist. If the bots have decentralized code for their physical bodies, this will move us a step closer to having an affordable personal assistant operating off-cloud where they could not be spied on for the benefit of big data corps. I have nothing against centralized, big-data AIs. These have their place wherever solid productivity gains are required on millions of dollars of capital. But these AIs do little for individual creativity, the ballpark of the small-time players in the world economy. Meanwhile, these creative players freely share their insightful data with these big corps. Who make even more millions and billions. The last straw shall be if we freely give them as well interaction data from our robotic assistants. That will be like creating a derivative of our personalized interaction value, and still giving it away freely so that big corps can make more billions while they return peanuts (AI prompts) that simply channel us to their stores once again. Big data AI has taken our data freely. It shouldn’t take our interactions as well which we outsource to our robots. That will be the end of individual self-sovereignty, no matter how much we might wish to fight it. However, if the robots are owned by us because their code is our blockchain code (albeit pseudonymized so that the beneficiaries of code transactions are not known), then this is precisely how blockchain robotics will fight back to make our productivity ours. Self-driving (robotic) cars might need this One real example that might need the majority voting of blockchain intelligence instead of the brute force intelligence-hacking that is artificial intelligence is self-driving car technology. Elon Musk has tried to bring FSD (Full Self Driving) to his Tesla cars but in vain. He keeps promising, and the goalpost keeps receding. Perhaps what is needed is some way to treat self-driving like a blockchain problem. Currently, self-driving cars operate as individual systems that do not synchronize their data unless this data goes to a central server. But if data synchronization is added for each car, then localized intelligences could be built to create a simple but effective hive mind of a bunch of cars. Car accidents could also be drastically mitigated if all cars within some vicinity are blockchain synchronized say over a 1 minute window. Auto-braking technology in one car trying to avoid an accident with another is all good. If you put it into the two cars in sync, now on a collision course, that is a way better auto-braking idea. Redefining online games Imagine playing pong against an AI opponent - Yeah. Been there. Imagine playing pong against another human player on an online platform managed by a central server - the usual. Been there as well. Now imagine playing pong against another human player across 2 blockchain nodes, with no central server but a sync of the two games across the two gaming machines - this is the future I hope to create on the bitcoin blockchain, with singular satoshis and zero-fee transactions. Check out my prototype HTML game here . here Hoping to build a true decentralized pong for the Bitcoin blockchain. Maybe one day, a decentralized MMOG (massively multiplayer online game). Space Robotics Would you prefer to have robots mining on the Moon and Mars courtesy of one or two big corporations on Earth as owned by one individual or one country, or by the majority of shareholders pseudonymously spread out all over the Earth, who directly control via blockchain where each person’s coded instructions can be seen, debated, cheered or reversed (with an update/fork) when need arises? To me, blockchain intelligence is much safer than centralized artificial intelligence. Hence, more trustworthy. Bitcoin may be crashing, but my money is still largely on Bitcoin, not ChatGPT or Nvidia. Trustworthy decentralized robotics is the future of not just our planetary economy, but even the way we interact as a species. It will take time to build these autonomous robots on the blockchain, but each one we build shall be tremendously treasured. Because it will be ours, interacting with us, for us, by us. The ‘cloud’ has hung above our heads enough already, while giving back little rain. Let’s not add to it, shall we.

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