Sunday, November 18, 2018

The Mysterious and Lonely Death of Joyce Vincent


Skeletal remains lay on the sofa surrounded by a shopping bag and Christmas presents that had recently been wrapped. Both the heater and TV were on, and mail was piled up inside the door. Joyce Vincent had been dead in her studio apartment for three years before law enforcement officials found her. Her body was so badly decomposed at that point, they had to use her dental imprints to identify her. How could a woman who people described as beautiful, intelligent, and “upwardly mobile” have been dead for three years without anyone in the entire world knowing about it?

joyce vincent
A studio photograph of Joyce.

Life of Joyce Vincent

Born in Hammersmith, England in 1965, Joyce Carol Vincent was the youngest of five daughters. Blessed with a beautiful face, winning smile, and a charming personality, everyone thought that Joyce would go far in her life. In the late ’80s she moved to London where she hung out with musicians and producers, some of whom were very famous. Joyce had met many famous people, including Stevie Wonder, Nelson Mandela, and Betty Wright.

joyce vincent
Image Credit: Janessa Leonski, findagrave.com

Was She in an Abusive Relationship?

Joyce’s family told police that she had been engaged, and that she had been in an abusive relationship. The studio apartment Joyce lived in was for women of domestic abuse. Police searched for Joyce’s boyfriend for questioning during the investigation, but they couldn’t find him. Had he disappeared sometime after her death? She had distanced herself from her friends and family little by little. Her acquaintances indicated that she would not return phone calls, she would move from place to place or change boyfriends without telling anyone.

Joyce Dies Mysteriously

Investigators reported that there did not appear to be any foul play in Joyce’s death. In November 2003, she went to the hospital because she had vomited blood, and doctors diagnosed her with a peptic ulcer. She remained in the hospital for two days.
Joyce also suffered from asthma, and officials felt that she probably died of natural causes – either from complication of the ulcer or the asthma. About a month after returning home from the hospital she died on her sofa.
Neighbors did not report anything strange to authorities, although when later questioned, a number of them said they detected a foul odor. Joyce’s next door neighbor, Michael Dobbs said that including the foul smell, “Every time I opened my window I would see strange little black insects crawling through.” The death of Joyce Vincent seemed to go unnoticed.

Found Dead Three Years Later

A benefits agency was paying half her rent, so the Metropolitan Housing Authority continued to accept partial payments on the flat. Finally, after several attempts to collect the remaining balance of the rent that was due, the Housing Authority issued a repossession notice to reclaim the flat. They entered the apartment in 2006 and found Joyce’s remains.
Police contacted her sisters for questioning after they identified her body with dental records. The sisters gave an interview to the police but would not speak to the press. Someone leaked information that they had hired a private detective in the past to look for her. Although the detective had found the place where she lived, he was unable to contact her. It appears her family thought she may have deliberately disappeared, given her history of erratic behavior.

joyce vincent
Image Credit: Lou, findagrave.com
Joyce Carol Vincent was found dead and alone after three years. Her life and death remain a mystery that we may never solve. The details of her situation – why she chose to isolate herself, how she could have died of natural causes at such a young age, who her boyfriend was at the time, and how not a single soul felt determined enough to find her even though they knew where she lived – will be lost with her forever.
References:
The Guardian
Wikipedia
Scotland Herald
BBC News

Dreams of a Life (Documentary Movie)
Dreams of a Life - Official Trailer can be seen on YouTube
IMDB info about the movie can be seen on IMDB

A filmmaker sets out to discover the life of Joyce Vincent, who died in her bedsit in North London in 2003. Her body wasn't discovered for three years, and newspaper reports offered few details of her life - not even a photograph.


 

Alarm over talks to implant UK employees with microchips

Trades Union Congress concerned over tech being used to control and micromanage
 
Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security.
UK firm BioTeq, which offers the implants to businesses and individuals, has already fitted 150 implants in the UK.
The tiny chips, implanted in the flesh between the thumb and forefinger, are similar to those for pets. They enable people to open their front door, access their office or start their car with a wave of their hand, and can also store medical data.
Another company, Biohax of Sweden, also provides human chip implants the size of a grain of rice. It told the Sunday Telegraph (£) that it is in discussions with several British legal and financial firms about fitting their employees with microchips, including one major company with hundreds of thousands of employees.
 
The CBI, which represents 190,000 UK businesses, voiced concerns about the prospect.
A CBI spokesperson said: “While technology is changing the way we work, this makes for distinctly uncomfortable reading. Firms should be concentrating on rather more immediate priorities and focusing on engaging their employees.”
The TUC is worried that staff could be coerced into being microchipped. Its general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “We know workers are already concerned that some employers are using tech to control and micromanage, whittling away their staff’s right to privacy.
“Microchipping would give bosses even more power and control over their workers. There are obvious risks involved, and employers must not brush them aside, or pressure staff into being chipped.”
Steven Northam, the founder and owner of Hampshire-based BioTeq, told the Guardian that most of its 150 implants have been for individuals, while some financial and engineering firms have also had the chips implanted in their staff.
BioTeq has also implanted them in employees of a bank testing the technology, and has shipped them to Spain, France, Germany, Japan and China.
They cost between £70 and £260 per person. Northam himself and all the directors at BioTeq and one of his other companies, IncuHive, have been microchipped.
Jowan Österlund, the founder of Biohax and a former body piercer, told the Telegraph that his microchips, which cost £150 each, could help financial and legal firms improve security. “These companies have sensitive documents they are dealing with. [The chips] would allow them to set restrictions for whoever.”
Österlund said big companies, with 200,000 employees, could offer this as an opt-in. “If you have a 15% uptake that is still a huge number of people that won’t require a physical ID pass.”
Last year Wisconsin-based Three Square Market partnered with Biohax and became the first company in the US to microchip its employees, on a voluntary basis.
KPMG, one of the big four accountancy firms, said it was not planning to microchip its employees and “would under no circumstances consider doing so”.
Fellow accounting firms EY and PwC also said they would not consider microchipping their employees. Deloitte declined to comment.
Biohax has plans to open an office in London, according to its website. It claims 4,000 people have been microchipped, mostly in Sweden. It is working with the state-owned Swedish rail firm Statens Järnvägar, to allow its passengers to travel via chip implants rather than train tickets. Biohax did not respond to requests for comment.

Monday, September 03, 2018

The CIA Used Artificial Intelligence to Interrogate Its Own Agents in the 80s

The CIA Used Artificial Intelligence to Interrogate Its Own Agents in the 80s

Newly declassified documents show that the spy agency had grand plans for computerized interrogation.

Image: Autpilot/Wikimedia Commons
The CIA has notoriously been, well, "innovative" in developing new interrogation techniques (if you consider waterboarding an innovation, at least). Newly declassified documents reveal that willingness to experiment is nothing new: 30 years ago, the spy agency pitted one of its own agents against an artificial intelligence interrogator.
The documents in question, written in 1983 and titled "Interrogation of an Alleged CIA Agent," describe a series of experimental tests conducted in the early 1980s in which the CIA repeatedly interrogated its own agent, referred to in the report as Joe Hardesty, using a primitive AI called Analiza.
The declassified document is both fascinating in its distinct retrofuture flavour and eerily prescient nature, because the US government is now set to use virtual entities to conduct national security interviews. It's also kind of hilarious, because the interrogation transcript reads like a conversation with a really frustrating chatbot. Here's a slice:
AI: You had better straighten out your attitude, Joe, or it will be a long time before you ever leave this country.
Hardesty: What do you mean by that crack?
AI: You know what I mean.
Hardesty: No, I do not.
AI: Think about it.
Hardesty: Why?
AI: Why do you want to know why?
Hardesty: You made a threat and I want an explanation.
AI: I think the message is clear.
Hardesty: What message?
AI: Do you work for the American Central Intelligence Agency?
Hardesty: Hell, no.
AI: Why do you persist in lying to me?
Hardesty: I am not lying. You have no right to treat me like this.
The intelligence on display in the transcript is clearly undeveloped, and seems to contain a mixed bag of predetermined threats made to goad interrogation subjects into spilling their secrets as well as open-ended lines of questioning.
According to the document, Analiza consisted, in part, of a crude machine learning algorithm that stored Hardesty's responses in its memory, along with a pre-set question bank that it could draw from.
"Other aspects of the program are probing Joe's vulnerabilities," the document stated. "AI records 'focus variables,' Joe's tendency to concentrate on various subjects, and 'profile variables' to serve as indicators of Joe's hostility, inquisitiveness, talkativeness, and understandability, and to pose questions about these."
When your captor is a machine, there is no humaneness to be found, and, hence, no one to plead with
Even way back then, the authors had a striking vision for future virtual entities that can learn on their own, adapt, and think abstractly. According to the document, the CIA believed it was possible that computers could "adapt," "pursue goals," "modify themselves or other computers," and "think abstractly."
Potential applications for computer algorithms like Analiza could include training recruits before they head into the field and face the risk of an interrogation with a human opponent, according to the document.
The CIA, like the field of artificial intelligence itself, has come a long way since the 1980s, and algorithms that attempt to mimic brain processes (referred to as Advanced Neural Networks) like those being developed by Google have achieved many of the goals the CIA set decades ago. The agency itself is heavily invested in AI development today by way of its venture firm, In-Q-Tel, which recently gave a funding boost to Narrative Science, a company developing AI that can glean insight from data and turn it into a semi-readable news article.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" may very well take on a new, unsettling meaning if the CIA's technological fever dream of the 80s ever comes to fruition. AI interrogation, while presumably less violent and repugnant than waterboarding, for example, could present its own set of moral transgressions.
When your captor is a machine, there is no humaneness to be found, and, hence, no one to plead with. When even that small avenue of humanity is done away with in the proceedings of state-sponsored barbarism, what is left? Illegal detainments could continue with only slight human involvement.
Even though decades worth of development have passed since the CIA's initial dabbling with AI interrogation techniques, virtual entities that can converse naturally with humans are still far off.
The recent case of chatbot Eugene Goostman, which passed the Turing Test through trickery rather than genuine intelligence, demonstrated this. Even so, with government agencies like the CIA, DARPA, and powerful corporations like Google on the case, the possibility might be closer than we think.

How Much of Your Audience Is Fake? Or Are Your Ads Mostly Being Viewed by Bots?

An article in Bloomberg by By Ben Elgin, Michael Riley, David Kocieniewski, and Joshua Brustein suggests that more and more digital ads are not seen by human eyes. "A study done last year in conjunction with the Association of National Advertisers embedded billions of digital ads with code designed to determine who or what was seeing them," according to the article. "Eleven percent of display ads and almost a quarter of video ads were 'viewed' by software, not people."
Another study suggests that $6.3 billion of ad spend a year is wasted on fake traffic, or clicks that appear to be views but are actually the work of software.
The numbers are staggering.
The article also tells a narrative about ad man Ron Amram, who recently looked at the ROI for his ad spend for Heineken USA. His digital ad spend was only around 2 to 1, "a $2 increase in revenue for every $1 of ad spending, compared with at least 6 to 1 for TV," according to the Bloomberg article. Even worse, "only 20 percent of the campaign's 'ad impressions'-ads that appear on a computer or smartphone screen-were even seen by actual people."
Where does all this fake traffic come from? "Fake traffic has become a commodity. There's malware for generating it and brokers who sell it," reads the Bloomberg article. "Some companies pay for it intentionally, some accidentally, and some prefer not to ask where their traffic comes from. It's given rise to an industry of countermeasures, which inspire counter-countermeasures."
If fake traffic is bad for advertisers, who is good for? In some cases, publishers. A website that has a large viewership can charge more for their ads. And if it is difficult to distinguish between real and fake views, publishers can make money off of their fake audience. Sometimes this is done intentionally and sometimes it is accidental.
A lot of sites buy traffic, especially when they are new or when they are pushing out a new kind of content. There are ways for sites to buy real human traffic through companies like OutBrain that send viewers from one site to another with attractive links.
"The traffic market is unregulated, and sellers range from unimpeachable to adequate to downright sleazy; price is part of the market's code," according to the Bloomberg article. You've seen the ads for the lower end of the market that promised 1,000 views for $1. Other places, like Taboola might change as much as 20 to 90 cents per viewer.
The Bloomberg article investigates several low end traffic sellers and tries to determine what percentage of their traffic is human. Not much, it turns out. Often between 70% and 90% of the "viewers" on low end sites were bots. The article concluded that, "Ad fraud may eventually turn into a manageable nuisance like shoplifting, something that companies learn to control without ever eradicating."
image from shutterstock.com

The United States Is The Largest Prison Camp In The World

The Criminal Criminal Justice (sic) System

Poverty is no mystery

Some Ideas to Think About

Colonel Baldwin Meets Mr. Lincoln

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

New Horizons

New HorizonsClick to go there Web Site
Based in St. Anne’s-on-the-Sea, Lancashire. Uk.


As New Horizons’ regulars know, although our presentations are informative and entertaining, quite a few are also extremely controversial. And that’s deliberate. We like to engage speakers who can stir the “grey matter” a little!... and, as important, challenge the Establishment view of the world.
Rock the boat!
Obviously, we take great care to source speakers who are respected for their knowledge and experience, but nothing should be taken as “gospel”. We do not promote or endorse the views expressed by our speakers. New Horizons’ principal purpose is to encourage debate, personal research and critical thinking about topics of interest to all free-thinking people. Indeed, we sometimes invite different speakers to give differing views about a topic in order to encourage healthy debate.
It goes without saying – well, maybe not in this increasingly “Health & Safety” crazy world! – that on matters of health, finance and the law, it’s important to see the presentations principally as springboards for our own thoughts, research and conclusions.




Be informed: be empowered!

Why would the CIA want to control science?


100% orange juice label contains actually 10%


NASA BLATANT FRAUD – Sea Level Has Been Adjusted


https://youtu.be/C8fFpd-S-D4