Photoshop Engineer Unblurs Motion & Restores Focus

Here is a quickie, Wild Ducks. File this one under "Wow!"

This demonstration by an Adobe PhotoShop developer forces me to rethink my understanding of focus and information recovery.

[caption id="attachment_770" align="alignright" width="294"] Deconvolution restores information, but only if captured in original image and obfuscated via a reversible & non-lossy process. The filter proves that motion blur meets the criteria. It is not indicative of missing information![/caption]

Until now, I thought that motion blur (example #1 in the video) and focus (example #2) were evidence of lost information—and therefore, they could not be overcome. That is, if a camera is out of focus or moving in relation to its subject, it is part way along the path to a complete loss of picture information (for example, a camera that is totally unfocussed or moving in a complete circle with the shutter open. In the extreme case, film is exposed to unfocussed light...no useful information). But this video proves that there exist algorithms that can make reasonable measurements and assumptions about the original scene and then recover sharpness and lost information.

Listen to the audience reaction at these times in the video:  1:17 & 3:33. The process is startling because it appears to recover information and not just perceived sharpness. Click for close ups of before-&-after that wow'd the audience  [Plaza]   [Cruise poster]

An existing 3rd party plugin, Focus Magic, may do the same thing. It is pitched to forensic investigators. (Note to Wild Ducks: Thwarting forensics is a noble calling). Focus Magic touts startling before-&-after photos of a blurry license plate which becomes easily readable after processing. Their web site highlights the restoration of actual sharpness through a process of deconvolution* as opposed to simply enhancing perceived sharpness by applying faux features such as unsharp mask or edge acutance. It is not clear if the two projects use the same underlying technique.

Implications for File Compression (e.g. JPEG)

Here’s something for armchair mathematicians to ponder. If we compare two compressed files: An image with sharp focus and an identical image that is unfocused but still recoverable, we see that the file size of the unfocused image is considerably smaller. In the past, we explained this based on the assumption that the unfocused image contains less information, as if we had resampled the original image at a lower resolution.

But if we our compressed file size relates to the information content of the uncompressed image, then how do we explain the smaller file size of an unfocused image? If detail in the unfocused image is recoverable, than we should be able to boost file compression by intentionally unfocusing images and then restoring focus during decompression. For example, suppose that we were to add this transformation to the JPEG compression formula. Could we compress images into significantly smaller files? In theory the same should be true for lossless compression methods such as TIF/CCITT.

* Deconvolution is a field of mathematics & signal processing that refers to the removal of noise or distortion and revealing meaningful information hidden within a polluted file or signal. What is surprising about the PhotoShop demonstration (and perhaps the process used by Focus Magic) is that there exists a deconvolution process for information that I had assumed was never captured during the original recording process.

Big biz & Uncle Sam like Tor, sort of...

Oceans of Data
Try to visualize all the data about you that is recorded, stored or transmitted each day in one form or another. Consider every possible source, both public and private. What if it could all be put together, correlated with data about every other person on earth and sifted by detectives whose only task is to look for subtle patterns of behavior?

Let’s start with phone calls: In addition to the number dialed, the phone company knows your location, the caller of ID of incoming calls, and even has access to the actual conversation. (Believe it or not, your government is listening). Check the phone bill of both parties and we can figure out how often you call each other. If we then learn everything we can about the people that you talk to, we can probably learn a thing or two about you. And speaking about location, did you know that both iPhones and Android phones log your precise location every few seconds and then transmit your location history to Apple or Google several times each hour? An even more ominous program discovered this week is embedded in Android phones. It sends every keystroke to your carrier even if you opt out.

What about your health records, magazine subscriptions, tax filings, legal disputes, mortgage records, banking transactions including charge card purchases? Now add your internet use – not just the sites at which you are registered, but every site you have ever visited. Suppose we add videos from convenience stores, traffic enforcement cameras and every ATM that you pass. Don't forget the snapshot at the toll booth. They have one camera pointed at your face and another at the license plate. Of course, there is also a log entry from the toll payment device on your windshield and the key chain FOB that you use when you buy gas.

What about the relationships that are revealed by your old high school yearbook, old newspaper articles or that 4th grade poetry contest your daughter was in. There was a handout that night and so it counts as information related to you. How about that camera in the elevator at work? Suppose that it could recognize your face immediately and match it up with your fingerprints from your last international flight and your phone calls, web visits, hotel reservations and TV viewing habits.

Whew! That's a lot of information to recognize or sift through in any meaningful way. But for a moment, ask yourself “What If”... What if all that data from every transaction record, GPS device, tax return and historical log could all be accurately attributed, correlated, matched and analyzed. What could be accomplished with all of this? Who wants it and for what purpose? Would their goals align with yours?

Person of Interest
In the CBS Television series, Person of Interest, a government computer looks for clues to the next terrorist event by monitoring virtually everyone and everything. The project doesn’t require its creators to build a new surveillance network. Massive amounts of data are already floating around us every day.

Of course, the data is fragmented. It was gathered for different reasons – mostly for private commerce (banking, medicine, safety). Few people consider it to impact privacy or personal freedoms, because we assume that It is too disparate and unwieldy for analysis by any single entity. Yet, in Person of Interest, the computer taps into all of these sources and mines the data for suspicious patterns.

As patterns emerge from all of this data, the computer finds converging threads based on individual behavior. Taken alone, the data points are meaningless — someone in Oregon signs for a package; someone using a different name in Rhode Island makes a plane reservation; someone in Pakistan fitting both descriptions checks into a motel and visits a convicted arms smuggler. The mobile phone carried by the last person accepts a phone call at a number previously used by one of the other individuals. Normally, no one could have ever fit these pieces together.

Eventually, the computer begins to identify suspicious activity. Depending on the programming and based on past findings, it even predicts events. But wait! Many of the patterns it finds are unrelated to terrorism. It finds clues to likely mob hits, crimes of passion, kidnapping, guns at school, and regional crime. The results are irrelevant to the machine's purpose and in this fictional drama, the government decide that analysis would constitute illegal domestic spying. So they order the programmer to purge "irrelevant data" by adding a software routine to periodically delete extraneous results.

Of course, if the "personal" results were deleted, we wouldn't have a new and exciting television series (my personal favorite). So, the middle-age geek who gave life to the analytics, recasts himself as a vigilante. He teams up with a former special ops agent (in the mold of Harrison Ford) and together, they follow data-mined leads in hope of saving innocent individuals.

In the US, our government has such a program. In fact, there are many Total Information Awareness projects. Unlike the Hollywood version, there was never any intent to purge personal information. In fact, it's collection and analysis is the whole point. Another difference with the television series is that our government is not satisfied to mine public data or even legally obtained data. Instead, The federal government adds new primary data mechanisms every month and builds enormous enterprises to spy on individuals. This results in voluminous information daily, all of it available for future data mining without anyone's knowledge or consent.

Of course, information and videos of individuals are routinely recorded wherever we go. But typically, we assume that this information is not centrally gathered, compared or analyzed. Most people assume that they are "off the radar" if they are not being actively tracked as part of an investigation. But with data mining techniques, no one is really off the radar. Machines make decisions about patterns that should be flagged and escalated for additional scrutiny.

Mixmaster: An Innocent Tool or Antiforensics?
In the 1990's, despite a background in cryptography and computer science, I wasn't aware of these programs. In the fields of political science and sociology, I was a ninnyhammer. It is either coincidence or perhaps prescience that I proposed and then participated in a project called a Mixmaster more than a decade ago...

The idea was simple: As you surf the web or send mail, your digital footprints are randomized so that an interloper or investigator could not piece together the participants in an internet exchange, nor determine the habits of an individual user. Well, they're not really random, but the IP address reported to the email service or web page you visit is substituted by one associated with another participant in the project. That's because each data leaving your PC is relayed through internet services associated with the others. We added a few simple facets to further obscure tracks:

• 
  
  Recognizing that a rogue participant might keep a log on the individuals who hand off data through his own relay (or may be compelled to do so in the future), our code automatically increased the number of 'hops' in relationship to the number of available peers. Anonymity was enhanced, because an unfriendly investigator attempting to trace the source of a web visit or email would need cooperation from a larger pool of participants.


• 
  
  Data between participants ware encrypted and randomized in length and even timing, to thwart possible forensic analysis.


• 
  
  A backward channel was added, but with very tight rules on expiration and purging. This allowed packet acknowledgement, web site navigation, and even two-way dialogue while still preserving anonymity.

Privacy & Politics
For most of us involved in the project, we had no endgame or political agenda. We simply recognized that it is occasionally comforting to send email, browse the web or post to a public forum without leaving a traceable return address. To those who claimed that our work might aid money launderers, terrorists or child molesters, we explained that identification and authentication should be under control of parties involved in a conversation. The internet is a new communications medium. But it was not designed to undermine the privacy of every conversation for the purpose of facilitating future forensic investigation. Investigators – if their purpose is supported by judicial oversight –have many old school methods and tools to aid their detective work. The growth of a new communication medium must not become a key to suppression or compromised privacy.

[caption id="attachment_702" align="alignright" width="254"] Vacuum-cleaner surveillance[/caption]

Anonymous, but authenticated
There is a big difference, between identification and authentication. In a democracy, citizens are authenticated at the polls. But they enter a private booth to cast their vote and they turn in a ballot without a signature. They are identified (or even better, authenticated without identification) for the purpose of verifying eligibility. But their identity is not carried over to their voting decision. The real business is effectively anonymous.

This isn't to say that all authorized entry systems should allow anonymous access. Of course not! Access entry systems typically might asks "Who are you?" (your User ID) and then ask for proof (typically a password). Your identity is not always required, but proof of authorized access can come in 3 forms. Very secure systems (such as banks) require at least 2 of these before allowing access:

• something you know: A password or challenge


• something you have: Evidence that you have a token or card


• something you are:    A fingerprint, recognizable face, or voice match

In each case, it is the person behind the door that needs your identity or authorization and not your government.

Anonymity and encryption go hand in hand. Both technologies are used to ensure that internet communication is private and does not become the affair of your friends, employer, former spouse, or government overseers. So where, exactly, does your government stand on the use of internet encryption or anonymity? In most of the world, the answer is clear. Governments stand for propaganda and crowd control. They are against any technology that enhances privacy. But this is not a universal axiom: In Germany, they stand on the side of citizens. Your data and your identity belong to you. Very little of your affairs are open to the government. But in the United States, the answer is very murky...

[caption id="attachment_707" align="alignleft" width="250"] The NSA conducts vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all data crossing the Internet--email, web surfing… everything!  --Mark Klein[/caption]

Under George W. Bush, every bit of information was Uncle Sam's business. With oversight by Dick Cheney (and hidden from legislative or judicial oversights), the executive branch concocted mechanisms of blatant domestic spying. Of course, the ringleaders realized that each mechanism violated the US constitution protection from unreasonable search, and so it was ordered and implemented covertly until a technician working for AT&T blew the whistle. Suddenly stories were surfacing that Uncle Sam was implementing a Reagan era project that had been shelved during the Clinton era. This launched a scramble to win public support for The Patriot Act, an absurd euphemism which attempts to whitewash illegal snooping as the patriotic duty of each citizen (talk about ‘deceptive’! Our leaders must think that we are sheep. Not just your garden variety grass-eating sheep, but really, really dumb sheep that feed on bull chips!).

       -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-   (writing in progress)

... until  and  (including preemptive data mining with programs like Dick Cheney's "total information awareness"), back doors built into encryption chips, "deep packet" data sniffing installed at  major switching center, satellite interception of phone calls, and national security letters (a euphemism for warrantless snooping).

Before the Obama administration, the answer was clear. These technologies are barely tolerated for banking, medicine and commerce. But they are to be weakened, subterfuged or thwarted when used by private citizens. In each case, the government sought to block the technology or insert a back door into the programming code (and into actual data centers) for use during any future investigation. Of course, in a bold era of predictive behavior modeling, authorized investigations often gives way to fishing expeditions for the sole purpose of information gathering.

But something has changed in the past 2 years. As news spread about Internet censorship in China, the Arab spring, and covert schools for girls in Taliban controlled regions of Afghanistan, the US government began to recognize that uncensored and even untraceable Internet use sometimes coincided with foreign policy objectives. Imagine the conundrum this revelation must have generated within the state department! On the one hand, the Patriot Act sanctions blatant acts of domestic spying (including preemptive data mining with programs like Dick Cheney's "total information awareness"), back doors built into encryption chips, "deep packet" data sniffing installed at  major switching center, satellite interception of phone calls, and national security letters (a euphemism for warrantless snooping). Yet, they also support freedom of speech and privacy for anything that supports US policy amongst our friends.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Today, this model has been widely adopted and greatly enhanced by an open source project called Tor. In this blog, I won't try to justify the need for robust anonymous relays. Better writers and social philosophers than me have explained why free and anonymous communications channels are central to a free and democratic society. Better writers than me have chronicled the abuse of the Patriot Act, Echelon, TIA and numerous other abuses of government forms of overreach. Better writers than me have explained how open and free communication leads to increased safety even if it sometimes facilitates communications among terrorists, digital pirates or pornographers.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Turn of Events: Government as Advocate

• Obama lends support to Tor


• Tor to users: Use Amazon Cloud as bridge to anonymity  (this section under development)

Additional Reading

• Carrier IQ (CIQ): A secret routine is embedded in Android phones sends every user keystroke to the network carrier, even when you opt out of every single connectivity feature. It cannot be uninstalled and cannot be uninstalled nor even shut down!


• Surrounded by Surveillance: Is Everything Spying On You?
  
  [caption id="attachment_784" align="alignright" width="256"] Pigeons aren't the only ones listening. The light pole itself broadcasts conversations.[/caption]
  
  Even municipal light posts send conversations to government agencies, supposedly to aid first responders in an emergency. But wait! The manufacturer “proudly contacted DARPA” to suggest a more sinister use for the data collected from hidden microphones?


• Wikipedia entry: Information Awareness Office (introduction & overview)


• Official DARPA site: Information Awareness Office


• The Smoking Gun: Discovery of Massive "Vacuum Sweep" Domestic Spying
  Leads to Patriot Act (euphemism for act of Profound Anti-Americanism)

Droid RAZR for 1¢? Max time-value compression

Most of the things that we own are more valuable when new — at least in the period before they become antiques or “ collectibles” (a term for anything that brings nostalgia to aging baby boomers). The value drops over time, because potential buyers are interested in the next hot item.

I’m not referring to asset depreciation as with a car or an old pair of jeans. These things lose value because they deteriorate as they are used. (My kids pay big bucks for used jeans, but they claim that they’re not used, but rather, distressed. Go figure! No, I am referring to the cost difference of buying something new today-vs-buying the same model in 6 months or a year. If it has not slipped into the realm of “antique”, then it’s hotness drops rapidly.

Example #1
Yesterday, I was traveling in New England. I purchased a Sunday Boston newspaper for $3.50. (Well, OK—I paid $4 due to a quirk of local geography).* What do you suppose that my paper will be worth after 2 days? That’s easy! Just as with stock quotes, information loses value rapidly. After 1 or 2 days my newspaper will line a bird cage, or get tossed into the recycle bin. It's also pretty useful when dashing into a taxi through the rain.

A few online news outlets reverse this model by making current news available for free and charging for access to archives. This is a transient effect of booming internet growth and the fact that older articles have not yet been digitized. When consumers figure out that anything previously free on the web can always be located for free, this model will fall into the dustbin of history.

Example #2
In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone to throngs of gear heads camped out at stores overnight. Were you surprised at a $200 price drop after two months? Few would be surprised today. Even an iPhone is superseded by other gadgets after a few months. The cost dropped because of a drop in pent up demand and an increase in supply.

Additional examples are all around us. Movies cost $10 when released to theaters. Within 2 months, Netflix pushes them through an all-you-can-eat pipe. Even Avatar was available on DVD and Blu-ray within weeks, and at a fraction of the cost of a night at the movies. (Less, if you have figured out how to use a Torrent).

Enough economics & history. Now, for a WildDuck observation...

[caption id="attachment_652" align="alignleft" width="129"] 9 days = $320.[/caption]

Even with the historical perspective of the iPhone cost plunge, I was dumb struck by an offer from Amazon Wireless, a Verizon reseller. Anyone reading this in 2011 knows that the hottest recent phone is the Motorola Droid RAZR, especially if you choose Android over Apple. I want this phone and if I hadn’t been traveling when it was introduced on 11/11/11 (at 11:11 AM), I would have nabbed one at full price. After all, it certainly won’t drop significantly in price during the first 10 days, right?

Wrong! Despite a phenomenal debut (and ongoing demand), Amazon has dropped the subsidized price by $320. For those of you scratching your heads, it’s below zero, because the deal includes a $100 Amazon gift card.

What’s wrong with this phone? Does it suffer from a glitch worse than the iPhone death grip? No! What’s wrong is that it is 9 days old. Normally, this is well within the courtship window. Heck! Some early buyers haven't even received their RAZR. But in the case of über-hyped gadgets, there is a delicate interplay between advertising, production capacity, retail logistics and lust. In the very hot market for 4G LTE phones, a model introduced last week is a relic of the Jurassic era. Who knew?!

* I picked up a Sunday newspaper at Starbucks in Marlborough Massachusetts. The city sits within a major beltway encircling Boston and within the region that gets a Boston news distributor and Boston-local pricing. But wait!

[caption id="attachment_648" align="alignright" width="300"] Welcome to Marlborough...Oops! You're outside of Rt 495![/caption]

The hotels & shopping mall that cater to visitors like me are situated in a small section of town just outside the beltway. Retailers at the western edge of Marlborough know that the west highway exit is labeled for a town in the next county. They train cashiers to point out the fine print next to the newspaper price. Every time I visit this city, some barista or french fry queen puts on an empathetic face and glibly informs me in a rehearsed voice: "It says: $4 outside of Rt 495".

Well, that may sound reasonable to a first time visitor, Babs—but it just doesn’t wash! News distributors don’t bisect towns into price tiers. The out-of-town delivery premium applies to towns beyond Rt 495—and only if the distributor charges for an outlying region. Retailers know this. After all, the sidewalk paper kiosks are all configured to charge the metro price. But the barista continues her script, shrugs and says, "You’re past the circle. That’s the dividing line."

An unsuspecting visitor doesn’t realize that he is being fleeced. But at least, I can complete the transaction with the inner knowledge that I am being plucked like a holiday turkey. (Yeah, I know...It’s only 50¢. But it's the principle, dear reader! What happened to fair play?!)

Merriam-Webster dictionary banned in California

I was about to begin this post with the words "Every once in a while, politicians and school boards come up with some truly bizarre edicts." Then, I would have gone on to report one really whacked out policy...

But in truth, it's not just ‘once in a while’. In this age of space exploration, cultural pluralism and enlightenment, common sense and fair play have gone out the window like a bat out of — well, you get the idea!

Dispensing with the usual introduction, gaze at an incredulous article:

Dictionaries Banned From Schools – “Not Age Appropriate”

The original story is shorter than this Wild Duck retort. But in case the link no longer works, here's a thumbnail edition: Based of the complaint of one parent, a Southern California school board pulled Merriam-Webster's 10th Edition from fourth and fifth grade classrooms because “it is not age appropriate”. The parent was upset that the dictionary did not censor itself. It defined a sexual term.

[caption id="attachment_617" align="alignleft" width="317" caption="Oh my gawd! An uncensored dictionary!"][/caption]

Note to whacked out parent: It's a dictionary, not a Bible! (speaking of Bibles, a dictionary is certainly less obsessed with sex.)

It is a religious zealot or a narrow-minded fanatic who values ignorance and "innocence" over a comprehensive scholastic dictionary. Dictionaries are a repository of language and culture. Not just your language, but the words and phrases that are a product of the world around you. Dictionaries obviously define terms for many activities and things that you might not wish to visit upon your children. Good Gawd, lady! That's no excuse to keep them under a rock.

Why not ban the definition of "murder", "diarrhea" and "warts". We certainly don't want our kids to be visited by these plagues. Yet, few parents would attempt to shelter them from these definitions.

[caption id="attachment_629" align="alignright" width="265" caption="Don't want your child to experience this? Simply ban it from the dictionary!"][/caption]

Who taught you that information is poisonous? For how long do you want your 5th grader to be ignorant of sex or even its basic terminology? From whom should he or she learn – If not from a dictionary, a school and from family?

Actually, I am more concerned with the response of the school board than with one ignorant parent. To be fair, the board is complaining, but not about the parent! Believe it or not, they are upset at the difficult task ahead. They plan to read the entire dictionary to see if other terms might offend another whacked out parent! Quoting the immortal Homer Simpson, “D’OH!”

Some people fear learning. They believe in the ostrich axiom “ignorance is bliss”. But school boards stand for education – that is, if brains aren't checked at the door. Why would a school board kowtow to ignorance or fanaticism? Perhaps, the fanatic has a louder voice than the silent majority. Hopefully, parents who want educated offspring are still in the majority.

Does “Buy American” expand USA jobs or manufacturing?

Today, I received a chain letter from a relative and very close friend. She rarely forwards mail that ends with an urgent and passionate demand to “pass it along”. That’s just one step above the ones that tell you about the misfortune that will visit those who fail to pass it along.

But this individual is wiser than me and always speaks the truth. She is not given to scams, and so I carefully read the chain letter. You may have seen this one. It has already caught fire...

In a spasm of patriotism and economic self-determination, the letter implores every American to Buy American. It doesn’t go into the reason. After all, it’s self evident that buying goods made in your own country will expand jobs and manufacturing in your country. Right? Instead of justifying the urgent advice, it describes how consumers can find the origin of consumer products by inspecting the UPC code. The author includes a small table. It shows the relationship between the first digit of a UPC code and the country that manufactured the product.

I won’t include the original email in this post. It’s not that I don’t respect my friend. Rather, my decision is based on these things:

• Reposting it here does not help to explain my point of view


• It’s a chain letter! A reliable indicator that it must be wrong


• I don’t want to attract search engines based on the content of a chain letter

__________________________

Hi Ruth. There are two issues here:

1. Do UPC product codes really tell the buyer about the country of origin.


2. Is “Buy USA” a solution to unbalanced trade and a shrinking manufacturing base?

1.  Do UPC codes show origin ?   Answer: "Not at all !"

I own a block of UPC codes to use on computer products (or whatever I choose to sell). Blocks of unused codes, or more precisely, the manufacturer code prefix is sold without asking about the products that I intend to assign or where they are manufactured. Quite simply, no one ever asked me about the things that I make. I only know that when I began selling network gear and software on Amazon, I needed to buy UPC codes and they told me how to do this.

If a manufacturer or bundler does not need thousands of codes, but needs only a few, the unused subsets are sold between previously authorized parties. Although the issuing organization discourages this practice, it is perfectly legal and there is an active market for codes issued to small vendors. Here too, the story is the same. You can by the code from owners in any country and they don't ask for what products you intend to use the code.

This may seem contrary to the UPC purpose. If the product and country are not registered, how can the cash register/lookup mechanism know about the product and its value at the point of sale. The answer is simple. That information exchanged between the wholesaler (or mfg) and the retailer whenever a new stock item is contracted.

One final note: You may have seen some internet sites that tell you what product is associated with a specific UPC code. Yet, there is no international registry of code relationships! This information is compiled after the fact from consumers and from sites that advertise the products. It's easy to do, because many retailers use the UPC code number as their own SKU (the inventory stock number).

2.  Does “Buy American” expand US jobs or manufacturing?

Unbalanced trade and a shrinking US manufacturing base is a very serious threat to our way of life. On this, we agree...

To many, it would seem that the way of re-balancing trade and expanding our own manufacturing base is to persuade consumers to Buy American. Presumably, this argument says that it is more important to be patriotic than to base a purchasing decision on quality, features, value, safety, design, or other aspects.

I am not sure that I agree. While I am very concerned about saving US jobs (including my own!), I see a terrible conflict between this logic and basic economic principles...

In the 70s, the US was caught off guard by expansion in Japan, a strict adherence to quality standards, a very close relationship between vendors and manufacturers, and a just-in-time manufacturing. If Americans had stuck to the principle of buying American, we would have had overpriced cars that fall apart quickly. More importantly, our autos would be rejected by European and emerging nations, because of an artificially inflated demand and very poor quality.  But this didn’t happen. The market turned to Japanese cars (especially new upscale brands, Lexus and Acura. What was the result of the flight from Michigan? In the  80s & 90s, the US rebounded in both quality and cost because of two things: Competition and Free trade.

I am not fully convinced of my own argument, and like many people, I look for products sourced and made in America. But I haven’t found fault with the logic in free and open trade. There are some persuasive argument that claim that we lack a “level playing field” with our trading partners. They pollute, use slave labor, subsidize domestic industries or erect Tariffs to deter our goods from selling into their markets. Some of this reasoning makes sense, but not all of it. It's rare for me to admit that the “jury is still out” on this one, but in fact, I have not yet formed a bull-nosed, WildDuck opinion about these issues. Perhaps this is why I am more carefully buying American.

Dear reader: What do you think? Might the Buy American campaign have unintended consequences that dilute or contradict the economic goal? I invite your comment.

Awash in cash, does Dropbox sense the undertow?

Dropbox CEO, Drew Houston, is about to facilitate a meaningful donation to his favorite cause, but he doesn’t know it yet. More about this in the last paragraph...

Dropbox is in an enviable position. The company is smokin! It’s so hot, that Forbes magazine calls it Tech’s Hottest Startup. So hot, that Steve Jobs tried to acquire it. So hot, that when anointed by the MacMeister with a personal audience, 28-year-old founder Drew Houston snubbed his proverbial nose at the offer. *

Dropbox: Atop it’s game...  But what about Future Shock?

What does Dropbox sell?
Dropbox sells cloud storage services, including backup, synchronization and file distribution. They are arguably king the market leader, but they have plenty of competition: Apple’s new iCloud, SugarSync, SkyDrive (Microsoft), LiveDrive, Google Docs, Box.net, FolderShare and a growing list of wannabees. Without getting into the nitty-gritty, let’s just say that if you’re not using Dropbox or a similar service now, you will do so soon.

What can cloud storage do for me?
You are probably familiar with Carbonite and Mozy. These vendors market clouds as safety nets, constantly backing up your PC over the internet, as you work. On the other hand, Google Docs makes collaboration easier and more efficient because users spread far apart can work on the same document at the same time – and without worrying about who has the latest version. These are all ancillary benefits of cloud computing at best. Since the concept is still in its infancy, they focus on a simple and easily digestible pitch.

But clouds offer much more! With data in the cloud, documents, photos and music are always available, backed up, in sync and safe – no matter where you travel or what gadget is handy. Files don’t depend on equipment that you own or carry, so you can travel light and with constant access to your business, media and memories. Much as predicted by Asimov in The Last Question, using a personal data cloud is like having your brain in ever-present hyperspace.

Dropbox is the convergence leader. What’s wrong with that?
When startups reach a phase that I call investor frenzy, founders and early investors inevitably get the “not invented here” bug, or the “we are obviously doing it right” bug. But smart directors swat away cocky bugs of success until the company reaches the profit phase and, of course, the ROI phase. They also keep a keen eye on competitors and even tiny startups to see if someone has come up with a startling new way to improve service, boost revenue or reduce expenses.

What’s new in cloud technology?
“What’s New” is a tectonic shift in technology from centralized, data center storage to distributed peer storage. It’s a dramatic architectural enhancement that I call Ellery’s Reverse Distributed Data cloud [RDDC]. While I can’t take the credit for all that is about to unfold, I was first to propose it three years ago. This past August, I blogged about the concept at AWildDuck.

RDDC changes dynamics of everything that matters in storage: cost, security and speed and even environmental impact – all in the right direction. As each user adds inexpensive storage to their own home or business network (the same drives that they previously used to store their working data or backups), a central “traffic cop” uses this worldwide, massively redundant, distributed storage network as if it were a “RAID-10,000” drive array. The Result: As long as 33% of users don’t turn off their storage devices at the same time, everyone’s data is available instantly, securely and without risk of errors or hacks.

Incredible? You Bet! Want more? Of course!
Consider the return data throughput. That’s the rate at which downloads from these many different storage drives arrive into your PC when restoring a backup or even when using a global cloud array as your main drive. You might think that spreading your data, bytewise across lots of slow uplinks would result in data recovery at a snail’s pace. You would be wrong. Even the programmers who understand the math are astounded at the RDT. Even if many drives in your personal cloud are heavily fragmented or poke along at the 3rd tier connection speed of a rural carrier, incoming throughput sizzles at blistering, heart-pounding speed. Why? Because inbound data is staged in the cloud as a torrent from a massively parallel cluster – and not as a serial stream from one peer.

There’s more. While all of this is happening the uplink channel is not idle. Your global cloud array dispatches data around the world with predictive caching, based on new research into the distribution of media across disparate platforms.

Should I Care?
While the architecture of remote storage may seem a geeky detail, the fallout is a litany of benefits to users and a massive windfall for the first provider’s to get with the program. They will enjoy a 90% reduction in operational expenses, while customers experience a blistering bump in speed and meaningful intangibles like fault tolerance associated with massive redundancy.

What vendors are rolling out this new technology?
Symform is already offering RDDC. SpaceMonkey has not yet announced, but it’s two founders in Salt Lake City (both from EMC) have an even more compelling model. They’re lining up investors now. They get it and the angels are starting to take notice!

These tiny startups and a few others have a big edge on their well-funded brethren, because they are already on top of RDDC. If the challenge is not rapidly met by Dropbox and SugarSync, the new kids will sweep the market.

What’s the risk to the established players? Will they catch up?
Cloud computing for the masses is rapidly becoming a crowded market. Massive consolidation will come in a year. Only a few companies will be left standing. Most of the names entering the market today, and even some established brands won’t survive nor even be acquired. They’ll just die. A few fortunate startups will cash out, because of their early implementation of RDDC. My bet is with cloud providers that move quickly into massively distributed data clouds. They will be healthy and profitable. If Dropbox gets it and moves quickly to seize the day, they will very likely come out on top.

[caption id="attachment_493" align="alignleft" width="236"] Drew Houston: In the catbird seat, but for how long?[/caption]

Does Drew know about RDDC?
He might. More likely, he considered it briefly and then dismissed it. Even a bright individual can overlook an elegant solution to an unrecognized problem. (i.e. reducing expenses dramatically while boosting data security).

It’s a safe bet that Carbonite and Mozy can’t implement RDDC in time to save their hides. One is too narrowly focused on marketing themselves as a backup service and the other is married to data centers that they own.

Perhaps Dropbox “gets it” and needs no input from their biggest fan. But perhaps – just perhaps mind you – they have yet to design a fully holographic RAID-10K algorithm. Perhaps they have not yet optimized predictive caching for peer distributed networks. Perhaps they are not equipped to quickly build a torrent reacquisition mechanism on the fly and activate it safely across thousands of peers with disparate upload and download speeds, while each user powers down storage media every day without notice.

What’s the ‘R’ stand for in “RDDC”?
It stands for “Reverse”. This teaser lacks an explanation by design. If Drew or his deputies at Dropbox contact me, I wish to give them an edge. It’s one of the few aspects of an ideal architecture model that has not yet been exploited by any startup.

If Dropbox knows about RDDC, what is the purpose of this blog?
Finally an easy question! Drew Houston may or may not be contemplating a Dropbox implementation of RDDC. But even if he is shoe-horning it into his ops plan right now, the purpose of this Blog is to get his attention. Dropbox understands the business of cloud computing. Yours truly understands the seismic benefits of Reverse Distributed Data Clouds and has the business and engineering experience to jump start a rapidly growing market leader. Your humble editor is itching to help a cloud sync startup beat Apple, Google, EMC and Amazon and dominate the market before the average Joe adopts RDDC from your daddy’s generation.

Tech & investment communities know Ellery by another name
I have never kept it a secret that Ellery is a pen name. I use it here at AWildDuck and for articles that I freelance to Google, c|net, Engadget, Yahoo & Amazon. My general vitae is posted to this blog and of course, Drew Houston will get all of my contact info.

Got your ears on, Drew? I get it. Years ago, I created the blueprint. I tested architectural dynamics before your competitors got off the ground. Together, we can dramatically reduce costs while creating the most robust swarm on earth. Together, we can sew up a new paradigm before others learn to tie their shoes. Reach to me, Drew. I’ll give 5 hours to your favorite cause for 5 minutes of your time. Nothing to lose and either way, you gain! Your move.

* To be fair, Drew admits that Jobs is his idol and a scion of high tech entrepreneurship!

Mel Gibson: Roots of social venom revealed

These days, the most exciting projects come from Mountain View, the town that is home to Google. But here and there, the old guard sends up some new trick that resonates with panache. Piper Weiss writes for Shine, one of my favorite Yahoo projects.

This week, Piper looked back at People Magazine's past lists of “Sexiest Men Alive”. She compiled her own subset. She calls it The Unsexiest Men Alive: A Look Back at Regrettable Choices.

[caption id="attachment_440" align="alignleft" width="201"] Mel, during better times[/caption]

Of course, Piper doesn’t really disagree with the original honor. What she is really claiming is less controversial. She is pointing out that these individuals – in her opinion – have disgraced themselves by their behavior sometime after they were crowned. And the more recent behavior is certainly not “sexy”.

At the top of her list is blue-eyed, sexy hunk of 1985, Mel Gibson. To say that he has disgraced himself is an understatement. We all know about his bouts with public drunkenness, racist rants, xenophobia, and abusive behavior toward the women in his life.

Perhaps more interesting than the troubled individual Mel has become are the roots of his antisocial venom. To wit, Piper’s July list of pranks and practical jokes proffered by Gibson on his leading ladies—films in which he was either the director or leading man.

An axiom states that media cannot make a fool of a man. The man makes a fool of himself. But when media reports are consistent, corroborated by many reputable sources, and outrageous, it is likely that the man has made a fool of himself.

Mel Gibson is a very talented actor and director. Unfortunately, he is also a pathetic xenophobe without self-respect, dignity or a conscience. Mel abuses alcohol and women, is excited by hurtful pranks and blames ethnic groups for what ails you. (If you disagree, read Piper's history of Mel’s pranks – independently vetted and acknowledged by Gibson).

Apologists suggest that we separate the professional from his personal hijinks. C’mon! We’re not talking about a minor gaffe in social grace. And we’re not debating a victimless crime. I was ashamed and disgusted at the impeachment of Bill Clinton—a congressional witch hunt for behavior that was disgraceful, but ultimately private.

With the exception of an ill-conceived film on the crucifixion (not worth a link), Gibson has directed or starred in remarkable films, including Braveheart, The Patriot and Conspiracy Theory (a thriller, starring Julia Roberts. In a televised interview, she acknowledged that Gibson is the only person who scares her). His recent film, The Beaver, shows that he can still turn out respectable cinema.

[caption id="attachment_443" align="alignright" width="262"] Blue eyes turned crazy by 2000s[/caption]

The fact that genius is often accom-panied by paranoia, xenophobia, anti-social behavior and outright madness is well documented. Van Gough, Ford, Disney, and Bobby Fischer come to mind. (To be fair, Ford and Disney were not mad, but like Gibson, they were virulent anti-Semites).

In the case of Gibson, a contemporary who excels in film, the schism places film lovers in an unfortunate position. Should you see The Beaver? How can you reconcile contributing to the delinquency of an adult who acts like an irresponsible juvenile? It's not too different from participating in the slashing of your neighbor's tires.

So Sayeth Ellery. Feel free to express a comment or share a different opinion.

Filter a child from online porn? Stop worrying

A columnist in my local newspaper recently lamented about the difficulty in “protecting” her child from online pornography. Her child wasn’t searching for the stuff, she explains. But porn is so pervasive in everyday media, that you needn’t search for it to be saturated with it. Not just the subtle innuendo of marketing & commerce—but the hard core variety and even the illegal variety. It appears in many web searches and it is often marketed in a deceptive manner designed to appear across all venues.

I really don’t want to get into a debate about porn, and so, in the past, I would bite my tongue on the issue. I have an unorthodox ap-proach to the issue of online safety, sexual stereotypes and child rearing.

But today, I was contacted by a porn-filtering organization that seeks my endorsement. Like spam filters (a necessary technology) they offer a technical approach to the problem. Of course, they don’t condemn my approach (it’s called parenting), but they claim that an electronic babysitter (I call it a censor) will block exposure to horrific content: Apparently, the potential exposure of a child or preteen to any image of a naked adult fits their definition of “horrific”.

I say, “Why bother?!” Exactly what is the goal of this shield? Will it protect your child's values, chastity or save her from nightmares? In my opinion, it defeats all of these goals. And so, here is my response to the founder of a porn filtering vendor...
_____________

Hi Martin. On your web page for My Porn Blocker, you say:

“One day while at the dinner table my 7 year old daughter
asked me why some people are naked on the computer.
My wife and I nearly fell out of our chairs.”

Additionally, your marketing video begins with a description of your “horror” in finding a racy web site on your son's PC.

I also have a young daughter and, of course, she occasionally comes across online pornography. After all, it is pervasive – and clearly – it is important to many adults

[caption id="attachment_449" align="alignleft" width="260"] A naked human. I'm ruined for life![/caption]

(either the soft core type used for marketing, or the hard-core material that is a market unto itself). That’s why there is so much of it.

While I respect your desire to shield children from material you find offen-sive or contrary to your values, I am puzzled by parents seeking technical help in filtering what children see on the internet or in media. The answer is parenting. Of course, porn will continue to pop-up, even if you surf the web with your child. But consider a more thoughtful response to her curiosity. Why not answer truthfully and in a manner that is age appropriate?

• Mommy! Why are there so many naked people on the internet?

There are many photos like these, because some adults like to view naked people. The world is filled with all sorts of different people. They have many different preferences – and viewing naked people is something that lots of people seem to enjoy.

• What is this person doing? It looks painful!

No—They are not in pain. In fact, they are either having a lot of fun, or they are actors pretending to do these things. In either case, they are doing things that you are not ready for—both physically: it would hurt, and emotionally: you need to develop other types of relationships before you play the adult games shown in these pictures.

If you find the photos personally offensive, I won't fault you for closing a sexy or violent web page before answering. But make no mistake: It is you who cannot handle the momentary exposure of off-topic content–and not her. As you move on to other web pages, you will be surprised by the maturity with which your child accepts an age-appropriate response.

Will she ask friends at school about the lewd photos? Of course! That's life. Discussion is a healthy response to anything that is unexpected or shocking. But if you are consistent, loving and non-hysterical, your daughter will assess all available information through the lens of a consistent upbringing and shared family values.

We have used this approach with our child since she was 4. Since the age of 8, she has owned her own PC. We allow her to surf the web unattended. Although we don't overtly monitor activity, the computer is in an open location. We have never felt it necessary to log and track the web sites that she visits – and we certainly don’t user filters.

Are we fooling ourselves? I doubt it. By 6 or 7, she was aware that sex is fun for adults and culturally pervasive. She knows that older teens talk about it frequently and she is peripherally aware that adults have individual, unique and sometimes very odd predilections. That is, they engage in a broad & seemingly bizarre array of behavior. Most kids figure this out because they listen to adults and because they are not blind to web sites & films that allude to unusual fetishes.

Should you care? I certainly don't lose any sleep. My daughter will make up her mind about these things when her hormones and values tell her that it is time to explore. And even at 8 and 9, she realized this. As parents, we guide her to make the right decisions with our experience and insight, rather than attempt to censor web sites.

Prior to that time, I am convinced that shielding children from accidental exposure to porn is both futile and counterproductive. Only the parents are shocked. For a young child, porn lacks the prurient stimulus that it has for adults. It may prompt occasional questions or discussion with peers, but this is not a bad thing! Believe it or not, a consistent message at home will trump the input from a few dissenting peers.

I typically end these personal pearls of advice with the glib and über confident tag line: "So sayeth Ellery"...but not today. I realize that, like Martin, many WildDucks want to control their children and reinforce values by blocking content. For what it's worth, you now have another side to this story. That's my 2¢.