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A BROKEN FIX CURRENT EVENTS

Developers are forcing AI on us to fix a problem that does not exist. Existing search for actual information and specific websites works fine. Existing search prompts now slowed down; can tell being fed not into direct data base but through AI agent to generate “âoverviews.” Bots making path decisions affect everyone's algorithm for website, advertising, sales and views. Platform algorithms curated for users may be in conflict with agency bots stripping information or misdirecting actual user activity.

User experience in logging into favorite sites may now need Captcha or security verification and password log ins to stop bots from overrunning the site server. Double security codes also slows down the internet accessibility. Instead of taking a journey on a smooth path, it is increasingly a slog through a growing swamp. As the Telegraph UK lamented: You are trying to log in to a website, and instead of the page crisply rendering, you are presented with an infuriating brainteaser. The puzzle shows you seven small, low-resolution pictures of different animals and instructs you to find the one with similar eating habits to those of the animal in an eighth picture which is is a cow on a red background. You scan over the fuzzy images to guess is that a horse or a lion? What do pelicans eat again? Then settling on the final image, a sheep. Congratulations, you have proved you are a human, if a slightly annoyed one.

At best, you have wasted a few seconds. At worst, a fat finger or momentary brain lapse means you will be forced to start the whole process again. These are you a robot tests, known as captchas, have been a fixture of the web for as long as most people have been online. The now-defunct search engine Altavista introduced a rudimentary bot test in 1997. Earlier ones at least served a purpose: captchas originally asked you to write out a word scanned from a historical text as part of a crowdsourced effort to digitize books. But the rise of cyber-attacking bots and, more recently, advanced AI systems, has accelerated a defensive arms race, making these tests harder.

In the process, it has made the web slower and more irritating to its human users. In 2024, bot traffic to websites surpassed human traffic for the first time, according to cybersecurity company Imperva. The company said the rise of chatbots, which scrape the web for information, and AI that helps bots evade detection, had contributed to this rise. The sheer volume of AI agents harvesting data to train large language models has completely broken the old math, said Bryan Becker, the director of product at Cloudflare, which develops anti-bot systems.

Website owners, on the whole, do not like bots. They can be used to overload victims with traffic, taking them offline. Often, they are used by competitors to scrape pricing data or by opportunistic touts to buy tickets or book driving test slots. And a growing number of âAI agents are using them to carry out tasks on their users' behalf, meaning there is no human to see adverts or be enticed into impulse purchases, and often harvesting data without their consent.

Captchas and other bot tests are now ubiquitous. Cloudflare, which relies on other tests such as the verify you are a human tick boxes, says it now carries out 7.7 billion anti-bot checks a day, up from 2.1 billion in 2023. But bots have become better at evading them. Two years ago, researchers at the University of Zurich found that machine learning systems could solve 100 percent of robot tests provided by reCaptcha, Google's captcha system (the company is responsible for the quizzes asking you to click all the squares containing buses, bridges or fire hydrants out of a grid of 16 squares). In response, companies have made the tests harder. Bot prevention company Arkose Labs, used by many tech companies, asks web visitors to choose which pair of dice adds up to seven, or move a cartoon person to the right plane seat. The company advertises its tests as AI-resistant. Rival company hCaptcha shows people nine pictures of food and drink, asking them to choose which ones are a main course. The company says it needs to constantly update its tests to keep up with automation.

While humans generally do not have difficulty with the tests, disability groups say they often lock out those with eyesight problems. And the time it takes to complete them adds up. Cloudflare said five years ago that it takes an average of 32 seconds to complete a captcha, which means humanity collectively wastes 500 years a day on them. The entire captcha concept is ultimately a losing battle. It may seem like an arms race but we, humans, already lost it, Prof Gene Tsudik, of the University of California, Irvine said. Some sites are taking more drastic measures, such as demanding users sign up for accounts or log in more frequently to prove they are human. Reddit said earlier this year it would require users to be logged in to see old posts, to tighten how automated systems access Reddit. There is little sign that the bots are going away, nor the need to defend against them. “Failing to stop the bots is actually worse, because an unmitigated tidal wave of automated traffic will completely overwhelm origin servers and knock websites offline,” says a Cloudflare executive.

Humans are now a minority on the web. Proving that you are one of them is going to get harder.

cyberbarf

INTERNET ADDICTION LAW

California continues to try to make laws on Internet addiction. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Social media companies might soon be forced to remove the addictive features that keep teenagers online for hours on end including the ubiquitous infinite scroll. Assembly member Josh Lowenthal, a Democrat from Long Beach, initially introduced Assembly Bill 1709 in February as a proposal that would prohibit children under 16 from using social media platforms that are designed to be dangerously addictive. But after deliberations over several hearings in the California Legislature between lawmakers, advocates and a prominent Big Tech lobby, all agreed that age-gating the Internet could ultimately do more harm than good.

Lowenthal amended his bill to instead require the companies, including behemoths like Meta and Reddit, to come up with an alternative, less addictive feed for underage users. If the companies cannot abide, then kids under 16 will be unable to make accounts on their platforms. “We're not banning kids from riding skateboards when we tell them to use a helmet,” Lowenthal told SFGATE. “The bill entails to ban social media from accessing young people if they are using these harmful features. The bill was never intended to block access, but it was to block predatory behavior.”

The bill text defines an “addictive feature” as psychologically exploitative features intended to maximize engagement that foreseeably lead to compulsive use. Under the revised proposal, companies will have until 2028 to adjust their platforms, Lowenthal said in a call with SFGATE. It would also create an oversight group composed of experts who will advise the California Attorney General's Office. But after originally proposing a de facto ban, Lowenthal heard from critics who argued a ban would isolate teenagers, particularly LGBTQ kids, who need resources and community online. Others argued that age verification could violate users' data privacy. There were also questions raised about whether the bill could infringe on free speech rights.

At an June 30 committee hearing, Lowenthal argued that infinite scroll, auto play, recommended algorithms, and push notifications are product features. They are not speech. Still, Lowenthal said he took those recommendations into consideration: How do we maximize children's safety online, while also preserving opportunities for connection and inclusion? He still thinks addictive feeds are disgusting and they should not exist but he hesitated to support the bill if it prohibited teens from using social media. He said that it would only further isolate kids who are already detached from a community.

Lowenthal continued to amend the bill to put the onus on companies instead. He said in a hearing that he thinks the new version preserves opportunities for connection and inclusion while maximizing children's safety on social media platforms. The amended version specifies that teens would only be blocked from using apps if the parent companies do not fix engagement-maximizing features designed to keep users online longer. The new version also narrows the definition of what are addictive feature to include only addictive feeds, autoplay, and any other feature designated by the attorney general as an addictive feature.

If one reads the proposed law as it is made into legislative sausage, it is clear that the vague prohibitions are intentional, and making a hard choice is being passed onto the attorney general to define and enforce. The core problem is that anything can be addictive. Food, soda, sports, TV viewing, reading, games, etc. What the alleged problem is obsession, an unhealthy focus on something that can be harmful to a person's physical and mental well being. But even then, dieting would be a national addictive crisis.

Attempts to control subjective behavior is wrought with constitutional problems including privacy, free speech, free association and access to information. Tech platforms are not the government nanny's intern in shaping and disciplining teenagers who use their services. The ones who should be watching out for any child's well being is their parents. Parental control is fundamental right on how parents want to raise their children. Controlling teen behavior is a parental responsibility. Restricting access to platforms will make teens more likely to find a workaround. Any prohibition creates a black market opportunity for real exploitation.

iToons

cyberbarf

MEDIA CHANGE CYBERFLUSH

Tea Party Republicans' platform was conservative constitutional principles of original intent, states rights and fiscal responsibilities. AM talk radio gave them a daily format of exposing their views across the country, especially in overlooked Middle America. Instead of a win-at-all-cost mentality during the post Bush era, it was win at any cost which lead to populism and control to eliminate founding principles. In the old days, political platforms were solutions to the nation's problems. Those documents have long been abandoned to allow no accountability for politicians.

No more platforms, but personalities. Rush Limbaugh, who died in 2021, helped guide Republicans into the Trump era. Rush Limbaugh was one of the most vocal critics of the Obama presidency, famously declaring just days before the 2009 inauguration that he hoped Obama would fail. Throughout the administration, Limbaugh characterized Obama as an inexperienced, radical ideologue whose policies were designed to fundamentally transform and weaken the United States. He continuously framed Obama's policies such as the Affordable Care Act and economic stimulus packages as massive expansions of government overreach and attacks on American liberty. He used his platform to espouse conspiracy theories to raise fear among fans.

In the second Trump era, the media has fractured into Billionaire Bro vanity properties to outright arms of the White House, using regulatory sanctions and lawsuits to control executives at the expense of journalism. CBS News has been gutted from its radio division to 60 Minutes, all to serve the whims of the President. The proposed Paramount-WB merger would put CNN into the same slop bucket as CBS News, an alarming situation that has several states suing to block the merger on anti-trust grounds.

Newspapers were called the Fourth Branch of Government because the First Amendment protected Free Speech. Journalism was the check and balance on all branches of government, from the federal to the municipal. Truth was the only currency to create a stable democracy. But rhetoric and opinion exploded under the 24-hour cable news cycle to mute actual reporting of news. Then, media consolidation by vulture funds and private equity firms. Boards of community minded directors were replaced with beancounters who were looking to strip assets then execute an exit strategy. Further consolidation destroyed local press.

The rise of social media gave people no reason to read objective news reports. They can go on-line not to seek truth but validation of their own beliefs. The rise of the Internet undercut traditional media advertising revenues. Local advertisers would rather pay Google for SEO than put coupons in the local paper. It has gotten so bad that no matter the size of a scandal, the impact of the press reporting facts is minimal. Most of the electorate is too apathetic to care. It causes both major parties extreme fringe elements to take the podium to drown out any dissenting views. It is the drumbeat of falling into a second world banana republic. And media change is to blame.

cyberbarf

A LETTER FROM THE PUB STATUS

Another cyberbarf milestone has been reached as this month marks the start of the 25th year of publication. Reader, are you even 25 years old?

This digital zine was started to EXAMINE THE NET WAY OF LIFE, meaning to explore technology's impact on society, culture, institutions and relationships. It was the onset of he Wild West where the Internet was young, free and going off in a thousand directions. It was a gold rush to claim domain names, start a website, a blog, a presence before social media platforms took off on smartphones that everyone had to have in order to function at work or at home.

At times, the past 25 years has been a grind. In all the years, his monthly zine was published on the first of the month except for one time (due to computer issues) was a day late. But never a dollar short. Many dollars short. As a simple site, it became an avenue to continue to write, publish cartoons, and express oneself outside of the daily workload of an existing “real job.” I like to write, I like to learn, I like to draw, I like to express my humor, I like to think I am contributing something to someone else.

Will this continue on? There are very few outlets like this one left in the ocean of Internet content. Individualism has been filtered out to become more tribal social media clans of common interests. There are still a few special interest communities like art, crafts, hobbyists and makers on the web, but one cannot say a general publication is the norm anymore. Just as printed news magazines have gone away, there is no guarantees that any zine will continue on. For as long as I still receive value from the effort put into each monthly issue, it will continue (and the old computer willing.)

cyberbarf

FOUND BUT NOT LOST ON THE INTERNET

These types of lists used to be common. What are the most followed sites or people on SNS? I don't follow instagram even though I am on it. Instagram is not a person. I do not want IG to flood by feed with more nonsense than the current sponsored content that take away from my follows. It makes sense that soccer stars have massive followings because it is the word' biggest sport. Of course celebrity cult and culture is still strong (too strong for a sane society). The two oddest is a shoe company and an old traditional educational publication.

Source: IG/thethinkspire

A Japanese company that produces refrigerator units and vending machines decided to combine the two businesses into one product. Human Chiller Boxes. People can pay for a 20-minute chill session where three fans blow cold air on you. There is one in the city hall of Maebashi, Japan. Cost unknown. Usage unknown. Coolness factor: out of this world!

Source: neatorama

From Northwestern University comes a drone that spins so fast that it is nearly invisible. It is an optical illusion that some believe could be the future of stealth warfare technology. Or not . The spin rate alone has to create some obsessive noise. A scaled up military drone would create more wind gusts than a conventional helicopter. At lest the folks at NU are not sitting around spinning just their thumbs.

Source: Daily Mail (UK)

cyberbarf

QUICK BYTES CYBERCULTURE

GRAPES OF WRATH. Not since the Great Depression and COVID has there been so many unemployed people in the US. Though not widely reported, more than 105 million people from age 16 onward are unemployed or have given up job hunting. That is 38 percent of the nation's working population. It is a staggering number. What are these people doing for a living? Is it welfare, crime or a combination of factors? If more than a third of your citizens have given up, that bodes badly for your entire country. People who have no drive to work have little drive to be part of the community and have no interest in public affairs or government actions.

SWIFT GUESTS. The celebrity wedding of Taylor Swift to football player took place at Madison Square Garden. When guests sent back their RSVPs, they also had to a sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). No pictures, no social media posts, no tweets, no post-event interviews... a total media lockdown. Does the bride want to monetize the event in a 4 disc BlueRay set? Was it to keep her fans in a frenzy for information? Perhaps, it was to stop any criticism of it being gaudy, cheesy, or underwhelming. Image is everything, including gagging your family and friends into complete silence.

GUSSY UP THE HOUSE. The Daily Mail (UK) reported that the world's most intact dinosaur, Gus, went up on the auction block and sold for millions to an unknown private collector. Scientists and museum directors were upset that such an historical object would be not seen by the public or studied by science. But why would a private person want such a huge object? Maybe, so their spoiled kid could have it in his room to impress his or her classmates from the prep school. Or the front hallway to the mansion seemed too empty. The poor maid will need a cherry picker to dust old Gus.

cyberbarf

THE WHETHER REPORT

cyberbarf

STATUS

Question: Whether the North American World Cup will increase soccer participation and MLS ratings in the next few years?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

Question: Whether the Iranian War will linger until the next President is elected?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

Question: Whether the illegal tariff refunds to importers and business lead to price reductions for consumers?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

OUR STORE IS STILL UNDER RE-CONSTRUCTION.

THE WAIT IS ALMOST OVER.

APOLOGIES.