Why Kubrick is a genius

When I watched Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut I left the theater with questions rather than answers. I was puzzled and exhausted. It took the evening and several days after that I managed to come to terms with it and I found an answer that I alone worked out. Kubrick with his film had asked a clever question. Eventually I had managed to find an answer, it may not be the right answer, in fact there may not ever be a right answer, but it was my answer. This sort of engaging art is the most valuable one, the one we should qualify as "masterpiece".

Terry Gilliam makes similar observations and brilliantly uses Spielberg to demonstrate Kubrick's genius.

Writing security applications for Apple App Store

I spent over two decades in the IT industry, significant portion of that was spent building security applications, including encryption software for EFTPOS terminals used in Australia.

For over a decade now I have been playing with the idea of writing a simple password manager for my own personal use. The idea evolved into a range of products, some of them were free in the public domain and some were commercial applications.

Most recently, since July 2011 I have been working on a product called MiniBluebox that allows users to define and keep their private data such as passwords in one or many secure documents stored on Mac, IOS devices or iCloud.

Unfortunately "security apps" category is a hard sell. Most people do not understand what is involved both in terms of risks, and in terms of technology. It is extremely difficult to communicate security in layman terms especially in an era of Internet-induced attention deficit disorder.

There are hundreds of similar password manager apps, and it is possible that some of these applications could have been developed by people with questionable credentials or intentions.

From my experience even though Apple tests your app for general fitness (eg. crash tests), they do not catch or test everything. It is true that IOS apps are sandboxed, and technically it helps, however sandboxing alone may not be sufficient to protect users' data against malware attacks. Ultimately the users' privacy depends on the type, application method and level of encryption used, among other factors.

We should also consider, the sheer volume of Apple App Store domain which is now staggering. At the time of this writing there are nearly or over 1 million apps on the App Store. The consumers are increasingly exposed to a massive online store with very little at their disposal to filter and check credibility of applications other than dubious star system that focuses on commercially motivated usability aspects.

During app submission Apple asks the developer if their app is using Encryption.

If you answer "Yes" then Apple channels you to a U.S. Government website for you to register your app and its encryption algorithm with Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce, Commodity Classification Automated Tracking System (CCATS). Note this is required by U.S. Law.

But my point is not everybody I believe answers this question candidly.

By the nature of my work I interact with other developers at websites such as StackOverflow. I have had the impression that some developers may be hiding the fact that their password management application uses encryption simply to be able to bypass tedious process of registering their apps with CCATS. I also do not think Apple checks whether the question is answered candidly.

So ultimately as a user you should do your homework and investigate thoroughly not only what the app does, but who developed it and how it is being developed.

Personally I try to explain every bit of information that might interest users on product website and in principle I maintain open and honest relationship between myself, Apple, users and everybody else.

The encryption algorithm I use is called Skein which is public domain and how I use it is explained on my website. MiniBluebox is officially registered with Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce, Commodity Classification Automated Tracking System (CCATS). MiniBluebox was given the encryption registration number ERN R103536.

There is absolutely no secret on what I am doing, and I strongly encourage my users to contact me for any questions they may have. But by the same token I can't help to think that Apple should provide users and developers a better, fairer and more transparent store environment for users to make informed decisions especially in the area of security.
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Citizens

In his book "Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution", British historian Simon Schama argues;

"For it is at the top, rather, rather than in any imaginary middle of French society, that the cultural roots of the Revolution should be sought. While any search for a conspicuously disaffected bourgeoisie is going to be fruitless, the presence of a disaffected, or at the very least disappointed, young "patriot" aristocracy is dramatically apparent from the history of French involvement with the American Revolution. That revolution did not, as is sometimes supposed, create French patriotism; rather, it gave that patriotism the opportunity to define itself in terms of "liberty", and to prove itself with spectacular military success."

Schama's analysis focuses on continuum of life stories, rather than discrete events. Personal stories connected to one another, reflecting intimacy and drama; stories that are told without requiring political classifications, deliberately eschewing systematic compartmentalization. 

This sort of brave history telling builds itself in sharp contrast to familiar Marxist line that in a way hijacked French Revolution; put its events under bitter cold dialectical lens, undermined personal stories as much as it could, and locked events and people into precise compartments (eg. class struggle),  perhaps in the aim to retrofit them into Marxist Revolution.

Therefore this book opens rather than closes the story of French Revolution in a novel way. In its origins new avenues emerge such as the role of young patriotic aristocracy whose influence appears to be far greater in shaping the revolution compared to bourgeoisie; a much like fabricated afterthought rather than a genuine power broker.

French Revolution, how it all began

The great river of history has no single event that shapes currents here and now. But some events, seemingly uninteresting with their humble beginnings, may turn into gigantic storms that would shake humanity.

It would not be an overstatement to say Voltaire was the most influential French Enlightenment writer whose radical ideas led to French Revolution.

“In 1726, Voltaire responded to an insult from the young French nobleman Chevalier de Rohan, whose servants beat him a few days later. Since Voltaire was seeking compensation, and was even willing to fight in a duel, the aristocratic Rohan family obtained a royal lettre de cachet, an often arbitrary penal decree signed by the French King (Louis XV, in the time of Voltaire) that was often bought by members of the wealthy nobility to dispose of undesirables. This warrant caused Voltaire to be imprisoned in the Bastille without a trial and without an opportunity to defend himself. Fearing an indefinite prison sentence, Voltaire suggested that he be exiled to England as an alternative punishment, which the French authorities accepted. This incident marked the beginning of Voltaire's attempts to reform the French judicial system.

Voltaire's exile in Great Britain lasted nearly three years, and his experiences there greatly influenced his thinking. He was intrigued by Britain's constitutional monarchy in contrast to the French absolute monarchy, and by the country's greater support of the freedoms of speech and religion."  (from Wikipedia)

On Transhumanism

Two years ago in 2010 for curiosity I immersed myself into a small computing project to study how evolution by natural selection works. As a result of this exercise the attached paper “Eight Queens with Evolutionary Computing” (aka Evocom) emerged. I wrote a program in Python language to solve Eight Queens problem using evolutionary computing. In due process I learned a lot about mechanics of natural selection. I could for instance simulate genetic drift by way of varying certain parameters; similarly I could study the effects of varying mutation probability and so on.

In this article I would like to demonstrate why Transhumanism would fail expectations if the lessons we learn from Nature is disregarded.  I am not going to analyse ethical implications, which is strictly out of my scope. I would like to propose a model in stead for being a precursor of further analysis in the area. I would like to draw our attention to population genetics.

Richard Dawkins makes a compelling argument in his debut, The Selfish Gene, stating we are mere vehicles of gene coalitions that use us as replicators. Genes themselves do not have consciousness but the net effect of them being cooperating in evolutionary scale certainly appears to be as such. So we are already robots, from an earthworm to humans.

Everyday more replicators are being created; the idea is to keep thriving in other bodies, until useful lifespan of the individual inevitably surrenders to entropy; the most fundamental property of our universe that is far grander and dominant than the natural selection.

Entropy (aka disorderedness of information) rises irreversibly and universally. Oddly enough life emerged as if to challenge and work against entropy. Each living being born is packed with densely ordered information. However almost instantly as the first cell division takes place, entropy starts rising until the death of the individual. In the end entropy wins.

So ultimately death is a necessity, or rather for the Selfish Gene a necessary compromise to cope with entropy. The Selfish Gene essentially buys time from irreversible entropy via replication. Consequently genes survive far longer than their carriers, albeit inevitable modifications due to copy errors or mutations of other origin.

Life is as much as about death as it is about life itself. There is a lot to be said in this area. For now it should suffice that extending the human lifespan without useful contribution to population would probably have an effect of pushing your limits against a proven model.

The most remarkable feature of evolution by natural selection comes from the fact that re-combination of genes and mutations occur in random fashion when a pair gives rise to an offspring. Randomness increases robustness of the algorithm and accelerates evolutionary process. However this is not sufficient for a given population to reach to a stable fitness peak. You also need diversity of genes in the gene pool, a sufficient initial population size where pairs are selected to breed, and number of generations participating a given evolutionary process spanned across time. Environmental conditions, distribution of and capabilities of predators and preys do not affect offspring selection, they merely affect survivor selection. This is explained in my attached paper to some extent.

For our purpose I would like you to focus on this simple picture, the model of evolution by natural selection.

I should confess I have not made an exhaustive analysis on theories surrounding Transhumanism, so my knowledge in the area is limited. However I have made some observations to convince me that they and we as humanity are not heading in the right direction.

Evolution by Natural Selection

Here are the fundamental problems I see in the light of what I learned about natural selection.  Please use the diagram I provided in relation to arguments given below.

1- Transhumanism focuses on architecture/charactersitics of a given individual. Whereas evolution acts upon populations not upon individuals. The individual is not selected by itself or for itself, it is selected from a population (see survivor selection branch in the diagram).

Note: strictly speaking for our species survivor selection has a broader meaning than life vs. death. It may mean for instance “become sufficiently successful in business despite GFC”.

2- Transhumanism invariable erases the randomness from recombination and mutation phase. This is problematic in terms of population genetics as it will create a major obstacle for stability. Random recombinations and mutations are essential ingredients for species’ long-term survival.  So far I have not seen anyone grasped this notion. Most Transhumanists seem to be fire dancing for the wrong reason.

3- Due to profit concerns Transhumanism will likely to create a heteregenous gene-scape at the very beginning. Islands of genetic pools will emerge, an island of “creative” genetic pool, and island of “martian” genetic pool (for manufacturing people who can withstand harsh environmental conditions) and so on. This sort of genetic fragmentation shall inevitably promote genetic drift, in other words it may push those islands to loose other genetically essential traits rapidly.  This will likely to happen because a genetic pool in its entirity has NP complexity. Regardless of your computational power there is no mathematical proof so far that NP-complex problems can be solved rapidly compared to the rate of problems emerging in such systems. For instance you may see a relatively sudden rise in Albino in “cerative” pool. Transhumanists may argue, those anomalies can easily be “patched up”.  But I doubt “patch management” will be a sustainable strategy for the long term success.

In summary I see Transhumanism as a failure of some sort if lessons learned from natural selection are not sufficiently factored in. I think the scientific community has an obligation to urge governments that policies must also include proper risk analysis of population genetics and its dire implications, should sufficent emphasis is not given into the matter, in addition to ethical concerns.

There is room for success if we control our indulgence for profit and focus on useful and sensibly limited areas, such as curing certain diseases and solving energy crisis.


References:

Evocom (my paper)
http://members.iinet.net.au/~coruh/evocom/Home.html

NP Complexity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP_(complexity)

The Selfish Gene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene