Tag Archives: international law

Increasing RAM on an Android OS to Limitless Computing Capacity

As I was implying in other posts, it is possible, with a potential infinite capacity to expand the computing power of a Google Android device exponentially without potential limitations.  As I explored why all the devices produced by Android seemed to grow in CPU, but not in RAM it seemed to be implied that the Android model was progressing toward a cloud model, the computations on the device would occur using an Elastic Compute Cloud, Amazon, EC2, and now Google is expanding into that arena. 

The other spectrum, Apple’s iPhone, has a business model, where it was clear that storage was their cloud model, no indications of cloud computations.  In fact, initially, there was no road map for cloud computing, philosophically, as the initial pricing model was indicating, although that might have had to change to compete, but wouldn’t admit it.

There have been several posts which specify how one would be able to hack the Android Operating System, and add RAM using the extendable, on board microSD.  The initial strategy to partition on board memory, such as leveraging the Secure Digital memory is the first step to increase your devices computing capacity.  The secondary evolving step is to use cloud elastic computing, especially in HotSpots, or home WiFi, when accessible, to utilize and expand your devices capacity to run applications at a high performing capacity.

There are opportunities to increase HotSpots through public access points, which will be hard, maybe impossible, for retail to compete with the free expansion of public accessible HotSpots.  Municipalities may decide to allow tax payers of a particular community to enter in a code, and as a result of residency of a local community, have access to the municipalities’ HotSpots.  It justifies the expansion, expenditure, and increase in revenues and local taxes for the municipalities.   Municipalities may even allow the local taxpayer to have a certain number of guest accounts.  Additional accounts may be charged a discounted fee for transient visitors to the towns, such as local shoppers that patronage local shops.  The question is, would expansion of municipality public access WiFi  offset the retail WiFi income potential for shops?  It seems that many shops are offering Free WiFi, or partnering with external national or regional providers of WiFi.  Municipality WiFi may use these 3rd party vendors to build up their infrastructure, and offer this plan.

The ability to scale up your device for both performance and storage is the sweet spot, which may entice retail shoppers to shop in a community, bring in additional revenues to a municipality.  In addition, local municipalities may offer tax breaks to registered WiFi secure HotSpots, which enable local shoppers to go through a municipality portal, and utilize the WiFi access.  The common proxy portal will enable users to register a code, or pay for the local access, just as hotels today perform the same service.  Revenue for the municipality would come both from the WiFi access, and retail revenue, i.e. taxes.

The important part of cloud computing, regardless of storage or real-time computations, must be able to encrypt the storage so the storage company doesn’t have the encryption access to the contents, but also the processing of information (CPU/RAM) in real time, or, Just In Time (JIT) encryption in the cloud.  People need to be able to trust the containment and the processing of their information within the cloud, and this is one way to be able to do so.  If each device has a mechanism, just like the one already in place by Google, and other firms,  they define and pass a Client ID,  and Client Secret to exercise there API for applications.  The one challenge to this is providing the company, which contains your information, the keys to your kingdom, a trusted party.

An alternate approach might be to allow an independent authority to control the keys, just like the original structure of the internet, where a single source controls the maintenance and control of domain (e.g. name.com) allocation.  The authority which manages domain names under a hierarchy is headed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). They manage the top of the tree by administrating the data in the root nameservers.   Many time governments administrate the authority, others delegate the authority, so please read, the Domain Name Registration article.

Memory wall

The “memory wall” is the growing disparity of speed between CPU and memory outside the CPU chip. An important reason for this disparity is the limited communication bandwidth beyond chip boundaries. From 1986 to 2000, CPU speed improved at an annual rate of 55% while memory speed only improved at 10%. Given these trends, it was expected that memory latency would become an overwhelming bottleneck in computer performance.[5]

Currently, CPU speed improvements have slowed significantly partly due to major physical barriers and partly because current CPU designs have already hit the memory wall in some sense. Intel summarized these causes in their Platform 2015 documentation (PDF)

“First of all, as chip geometries shrink and clock frequencies rise, the transistor leakage current increases, leading to excess power consumption and heat… Secondly, the advantages of higher clock speeds are in part negated by memory latency, since memory access times have not been able to keep pace with increasing clock frequencies. Third, for certain applications, traditional serial architectures are becoming less efficient as processors get faster (due to the so-calledVon Neumann bottleneck), further undercutting any gains that frequency increases might otherwise buy. In addition, partly due to limitations in the means of producing inductance within solid state devices, resistance-capacitance (RC) delays in signal transmission are growing as feature sizes shrink, imposing an additional bottleneck that frequency increases don’t address.”

 

China’s Baidu Digital Eyewear Targeted Solely for Government

China’s Baidu developing digital eyewear similar to Google Glass | Reuters.

Three paragraphs are extremely interesting, and imply military applications as well as policing their own people.

Kuo said the device will be mounted on a headset with a small LCD screen and will allow users to make image and voice searches as well as conduct facial recognition matches.

 

“What you are doing with your camera, for example, taking a picture of a celebrity and then checking on our database to see if we have a facial image match, you could do the same thing with a wearable visual device,” Kuo said.

 

We haven’t decided whether it is going to be released in any commercial form right now, but we experiment with every kind of technology that is related to search,” Kuo said. Kuo declined to comment on the other functions of the Baidu Eye or whether Baidu is working on other forms of wearable technology.

It implyies that targeted people who are targeted for ‘crimes’ such as civil disobedience, may be tracked in a database.  The last paragraph implies that the technology may be targeted for the ‘public’ / government sector use.  In addition, all governments may use this technologies at their borders easier recognition of targeted individuals.  I could also visualize other highly policed states, where terrorism is very active, to provide these glasses to transportation gatekeepers, such as bus drivers, or train conductor, where at the point of collecting tickets, they may be able to perform retinal recognition, and allow the collection of fees, depending on the accuracy of the technology, as well as identify them for any outstanding warrents for arrest.  A person may board a bus, and by identifying the person through facial, retinal, and/or voice recognition, if cleared a security check, the bus driver may ask automatically, would you like this fare deducted from your linked checking, or which credit card, ending in the last for digits.

This technology might eventually be mandated by the states within the EU.  That’s a thought, as well as the requirements to connect each border check to cross reference with Interpol, the World Health Organization (WHO) for the spread of possible infectious disease control, as well as local government warrents.

Brave New World.

Press regulation in the U.K.: Royal Charter Applies to Internet

BBC News – Press regulation: How royal charter applies to internet.

In this article, I find it extremely interesting, and I see both sides of the coin.  On one side, we have a regulated press, where approved concepts and ideas are allowed to be expressed, even by the common blogger.  In the U.K. you need a license for a T.V., however, some of the rationale for this may be specifically for news or stories that are accurate comes back from a long history at the Associated Press, where news needed to be confirmed by three sources.  In addition, the history of the Assiociated Press is an interesting one.  If there was a ship from England entering the bay, people would take row boats out, and compete to get the news from the ship, so it was agreed to send one ship and share the news.

In essence, regulated news, maybe for political reasons, maybe to not ensure a panic to maintain a society in case of an emergency, after all, a thought, a single idea, as they say on the Internet can be believed to be true if articulated well, and go ‘virual’ as they say, and pass for believable, and something that was not true, may cause societal breakdown, to the extreme.  One case of this is the broadcast in the United States that caused a mild panic, because people thought it was a plausable story, it was 1938, and it was the War of the Worlds, appropriately coined a few years before world war.

An argument can be made to the contrary, which is one person may report a factual story, but yet, without government sanction, the story would have legal precident to be blocked, recended, and the person may be fined or jailed, depending on the story.  Is this good, is this a removal of such liberties as the United States has the freedom of speech, which this country was founded upon?  Is this now an archaic principle?  Only time will tell.

Microsoft Surface, MacBook Pro, the MagSafe 2 Power Port, & Licensing

I checked out the Microsoft Surface in the Microsoft Store, and the new Microsoft Operating System is leaps and bounds beyond Windows 7, on par with the intuitiveness of Apple.  I recently purchased a MacBook Pro to replace my daughter’s old hand me down MacBook I had from January 2009.  It is awesome, I wanted another white one, but I am ok with the silver one as well.  Still the Apple OS is amazingly intuitive, and in many cases my 12 year old runs rings around me with knowing her Mac OS.  It’s the first time something like that happened.  I’ve been programming since I was 8 in original basic, and had a BBS when I was 12, program in 9+ computer languages, but my 9 year old put me in my place. It was a bit of a humbling experience, but I gave her a computer when she was 3, and she was using it like a champ then, so I should be proud, and am.  For my other daughter, she is a PC girl, nine years old, my little blond, my first is a brunette, and my son now is just over 1 1/2 another blond, my luck.  Tough guy too so far.  Anyway, We went into the Windows store and Eric, the sales representative, was very knowedgable about the OS.  I am a flurry with questions but tried to guide my nine year old, and shut my mouth, after all, it will be her PC/Tablet, with the cute little Keyboard.  I was initially worried about the physical design with respect to the keyboard, popping on and off, thought they were using some kind of classic interlink, cartridge like, locking mechanism, but the sales representative said they were using a magnetic locking mechanism.  So, slowly in my mind I thought about the power of the magnetics, interference with the display, electronics, and the half life of a weak magnetic, and came to the conclusion, if Apple could do it with their powering mechanism, although small, same physics should apply.  Further into the sales presentation, he showed me each of the ports, and wouldn’t you know it, powering the Surface Tablet also uses a similar technology of magnetics, same as the Apple, so after I was completely sold on getting my youngest daughter a Surface Tablet, despite small evolutionary, yet, I am sure, with progression, they would develop the obvious small features I would like to see, I was again, enamored with Microsoft, and that has not happened in a long time.  I’m already trying to pitch to my wife all the angles how to spend the money for the device.  Office is included in the Surface RT Tablet, so that’s a ~300 USD savings right there, I say to the guy, as I am trying out my own pitch to the wife.  Already lowers the price of the device, so I go home, and start thinking, I always knew there was some kind of Gentleman’s agreement between MSFT and Apple, and even saw the presence of that in an article.

Here was the bit, with all the lawsuits, why is Apple not suing Microsoft over the “MagSafe 2 Power Port” magnetic power outlet, from their specification? They must be either licensing the technology from Apple, right?  If not, there must be a major deviation in the specification of the port, although it clearly looks similar.  Anyway, it was just something to think about, because if Apple is not suing Microsoft, they are not officially licensing the port specification, and the magnetic powering specification is similar enough, then that seems to be a huge double standard between Apple and Samsung.  Thoughts?  Interestingly, the Windows Surface RT Specifications don’t even mention the power port as a feature where as Apple does highlight this feature, great feature by the way.

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Sovereignty of Government Laws Supersede Multinational Corporation Processes

Personally, I think it is tantamount to invasion of privacy without probable cause if the countries are allowed to sequestor information on a particular citizen.  Is there privacy any more, or is every word spoken and written word should be assumed to be of public note.  Should citizens then counteract with encryption algorithms which take even the most powerful computers days, if not months to decrypt?  It allows no freedom of speech, but after all we are not a singular society of laws, we are multiple societies of conflictional  laws that do not coalesce into a unilateral or singular personal privacy law.  Therefore, multinational corporate conglomerates, are subject to conflictional personal rights laws, which cannot be easily reconciled. Which laws of what land takes precedence, especially if a specific communication originates in one country with specific laws and the end of the communication ends in a country with opposite laws, which require ring fencing.  Unilateral personal rights laws across the globe are problematic to global conglomerates, and inhibit progress.  There is no precedence to these laws which span communications between countries.  Unfortunately, a global unity such as a legal body of personal privacy protection as well as the protection of sovereignties does not exist.   Maybe an ISO ruling under the U.N, should have teeth to agreed upon and enforce rights that protect both the individual, group, and sovereignty when precedents dictates,  These legal matters inhibit progress, for better or for worse,  Thanks to the New York Times title, which sparked my neurons, Governments Worldwide Asking Google to Hand Over More Data

Amendment (12/04/12):

After thinking this through, the ultimate conclusion is the Google / China effect, whereby to respect the locality rules of the sovereignty, e.g. ring fencing data, content ratings, export of data, a multinational corporation isn’t excused from those rules just because they are the biggest player and can muscle their way into the country forcing their own process upon the local society.  We’ve had too much of that in human history.  Therefore, if, for example Google has a centralized data center for all of Europe based out of the U.K., and the Island of Jersey off the coast has ring fencing rules whereby you must keep the data within the country of origin , so if both sender and receiver reside on the Island of Jersey, the data must remain on the island.  Google, or any other multinational has two choices, figure out how to abide by local laws, and implement them, or make the executive decision to exit the market, just as they did with China.  In China, another major player sprung up in Google’s place in this market, and perhaps even more may spawn in Google’s place.  It is simply the cost of doing business in that country.  In our Island of Jersey example, Google might be required to build a small data center just to house the Island of Jersey specific data, for ring fencing compliance, and man it as well.  The cost, Google might think, outweighs the reward for them.  Basic economics.  Other, perhaps smaller companies, may jump in to seize the opportunity, which the multinational Google, walked away from based on their assessment of doing business.  This creates opportunities for other companies and people.  In fact, the people promoting this advertising campaign of a free internet, such as the multinationals, probably have the most to loose by imposing their process against the government laws of a sovereign land.

Social Networks, Ring Fencing Data, and Regional Data Centers

I worked on a project where if there was communication between two parties within the same country not intended for ‘out of country’ consumption, that data needed to be housed in local DCs (Data Centers) for regulatory purposes. It occurs to me that many social networks have centralized data centers. What if on Twitter two people within the same country DM each other, direct message, regarding confidential financial information and that data is routed cross boarders and stored in a central location, say, in the U.S., would that social network be out of compliance with local statues regardless of if the user agreed to the social networks terms. Couldn’t the social networks at least be charged with aiding these potential criminals of avoiding their local country laws? I think this was bought up before but it reoccurred to me with a tweet I saw, Googles floating data center and virtual data center in North Carolina.