data – Scriptingthewhy.com

Breaching the Great Lakes

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I don’t know what this website is but they’re talking about something on data. Did we have a issue with data?
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We as humans, take many things for granted. Family, friends, pets, and quite often, our personal information. We often share our personal data to make purchases or access services, and we expect it will be protected and used responsibly. But how often is this true?

Many organizations sometimes fail to safeguard or even bravely misuse our information for their own purposes. Then go on record saying that it’s a “you problem” and not a “them problem”, which is kinda correct because you didn’t bother to read the twenty-two-page privacy agreement policy.

Word to the wise, start reading those policies. You’ll start to see how jacked-up companies really are. But outside of the evil corporate overlords being okay with you skimming over the fine print, there is a bigger threat to your information, and it happens more than you would think.

Don’t worry, we have you covered on this one. We’re going to be going over what kind of attack this is, who uses it, the functionality and effects upon release, and what are some of the ways you can keep your information safeguarded better than most companies you’ve done business with.

Yea, I’m about to read another one. Forget work, they’re keep me in the know on threat actors.
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The Attack

So, what is this attack that most companies just can’t seem to stop? Well, let’s get you acquainted with what’s called a data breach. For those who might not know, a data breach is a serious incident that can compromise the security and privacy of individuals or organizations.

It occurs when sensitive, protected, or confidential data is accessed, copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen, altered, or used by someone unauthorized. Data breaches can have various causes, such as hacking, phishing, malware, insider threats, human errors, or physical theft.

What’s that? They just take your information, that’s not a big deal we can hear you say. While true however stay tuned because data breaches can result in, but are not limited to, financial losses, reputational damage, legal consequences, or identity theft for the affected parties.

Dude 1: Bro, catfishing chicks isn’t illegal.
Dude 2: It’s not but phishing is. You might want to change your username, that’s all I’m saying.
Dude 1: Nah, you worry too much. It’ll be fine.
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Who Can It Be Now

In this crazy world, who would use such a dirty tactic to harm people? The real answer is it could be anyone. There are times when individuals or groups are named but for the most part, a data breach could be on anyone’s part.

One possible suspect, which is a popular case and highly likely in this day and age, is an unhappy employee who may be in the running to leave the company. They might have access to sensitive data and could leak it to competitors or seek to harm the organization.

A few things that could lead up to this would be but are not limited to; sharing passwords with others, the downloading of unauthorized software or applications on company device systems, and networks that can be compromised by negligence, ignorance, or malicious intent. In simpler terms, business owners, if you want to keep your business healthy, try keeping your workers happy.

Always follow the notion that it’s cheaper to keep them. Ah, that good old married life.

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I was reading a few scripts on Scriptingthewhy and I think it’s about time we came up with a better place to house the voters’ information.
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That Sinking Feeling

Sometimes, these breaches involve voter information, such as names, addresses, party affiliations, or voting histories. This can pose a serious threat to the privacy and security of voters, as well as the integrity of the electoral process. How does this happen you may wonder.

As mentioned before, data breaches can occur due to various reasons, such as hacking, phishing, insider threats, human error, or natural disasters. Pretty much anything that may be considered critical information that is not authorized access to the individual is a data breach.

So, what could be done with this information? Well, a number of things, none of them good. Your information could be sold, or collected, threat actors could pose as you to others you know in order to trick them into giving sensitive information about you or themselves. The mess of a data breach is limitless, and one should act quickly when compromised.

That’s right voter, if germs can’t have your vote than neither should criminals.
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The Prevention

Not sure if your information was a part of a data breach? Well, we’re here to tell you more than likely it was. As mentioned, all companies are susceptible to their data being leaked.

To prevent or mitigate data breaches, organizations that handle voter information should adopt best practices for data protection because if threat actors have your voter information, then they have your vote. Best practices such as encryption, authentication, backup, and monitoring help to ensure you have a secure connection. you may not always notice the signs of a cyberattack, especially if it targets your social media habits.

For example, you may see a change in the content you view online, such as going from cute animals to political messages. This could be a way of manipulating your opinions or influencing your decisions.

To prevent this, you should regularly check your accounts and settings, and be aware of what you share online. You can also use a website like “HaveIBeenPwned.com” to see if your email or password has been compromised in a data breach.

You can reduce the subconscious effects of these hidden influence strategies by educating yourself. You can watch documentaries like “The Big Hack”, read about how Russia used social media to interfere in Ukraine, the Brexit scandal, and the recent US elections, and learn how social media and voter data are used to manipulate elections.

One way to resist social influence is to be aware of its presence. When you see different people and posts on your Facebook timeline during an election period, don’t assume they are genuine. They might be bots trying to sway your opinion with customized information based on your profile.

So wait, you’re saying that my information was leaked and since it was my voter information, the “threat actors” were able to sway me via social media and advertisement to vote for someone who I didn’t even like in the first place?
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Would like to give sincere thanks to current followers and subscribers, your support and actions mean a lot and has a play in the creation of each script.

Do you feel like there is something I may have missed on data breaches? Script a comment below.

AI, Tech

Is AI Revolutionizing Our Future?

AI-generated image. “Maybe…maybe I’m overthinking again.”

The AI Revolution: Are We Living in the Future We Imagined?

Whoa, buckle up, tech enthusiasts! The pace of innovation these days is absolutely breakneck. Blink and you might just find yourself stuck in the digital dark ages. For ages, we’ve known the mantra: adapt to tech or get left behind. And let’s be real, technology has undeniably made our lives smoother. Remember the agony of typos before autocorrect? The suspense of not knowing who was calling? The manual calculations on a basic calculator? We’ve come light-years, experiencing advancements that genuinely simplify our daily routines.

Now, all eyes are on Artificial Intelligence. We hope it will follow this trend of making life easier. But lately, I’ve been pondering something deeper. It feels like AI is shifting from being a tool we use to get things done, to becoming an integral part of who we are. Are we leaning on AI as instinctively as flipping a light switch? Let’s dive into why this might be the case.

AI-generated image. “Are we truly blurring reality?”

The Content Creation Explosion (and the Blurring Lines of Reality)

One of the most significant impacts of AI has been in the realm of content creation. Suddenly, the age-old adage of “fake it ’til you make it” has taken on a whole new dimension. Generative AI can now churn out images, text, and more at an astonishing rate. It’s like everyone suddenly has access to a ghostwriter, a digital artist on demand.

And honestly, if the content is engaging and enjoyable, do we really care if it was crafted by a human or an algorithm? Maybe not. But with this democratization of content creation, a crucial question arises: Can there be too much of a good thing? What happens when the digital landscape becomes saturated with AI-generated content, making it harder to discern authenticity?

AI-generated image. “Do you think we’ll lose our ability to create?”

The Achilles’ Heel: Data Dependency and the Human Element

As many of us deep in the trenches of machine learning and neural networks know, the dazzling capabilities of AI come with a significant caveat: it’s not infallible. Not even close to 100%, and certainly not consistently. The truth is, AI’s performance is intrinsically linked to the data it’s trained on and the humans who program the models.

The idea of AI programming AI might sound like sci-fi becoming reality, and yes, it’s happening. But is it practical or entirely safe? Not really. There’s no guarantee that an AI tasked with creating more AI won’t simply regurgitate existing patterns and biases. In short, I’m starting to feel like AI is becoming the new Google – a vast repository of information, but one that might lack the nuance, originality, and critical thinking that comes with human insight. And frankly, that’s a little unsettling.

So, where do we go from here? Are we destined to become increasingly reliant on AI, even at the risk of losing a bit of our own ingenuity and critical thinking? Let’s keep this conversation going. I’m eager to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Key Takeaways

Rapid Technological Change: The world is evolving incredibly fast, and keeping up with technology, especially AI, is crucial to avoid being left behind.
AI’s Growing Presence: AI is transitioning from being a tool to becoming a more integrated part of our lives, potentially influencing us as much as basic utilities.
AI in Content Creation: Generative AI has democratized content creation, allowing for easy generation of images, text, etc., but this raises questions about authenticity and potential oversaturation.
Data and Human Influence on AI: AI’s accuracy and reliability are heavily dependent on the data it’s trained on and the humans programming it, meaning it’s not always perfect and can reflect existing biases.
Concerns about Over-Reliance: There’s a worry that we might become overly reliant on AI, potentially at the expense of human ingenuity and critical thinking.
AI as the “New Google”: The author expresses concern that AI is becoming a primary source of information, similar to Google, but potentially lacking in nuance and originality.
Call for Discussion: The post encourages readers to engage in a conversation about the implications of AI’s increasing role in our lives.

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Programming, Tech

Programming in Sushi

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green code coming down from top of screen

A Matrix without Vectors

It’s been many moons since the movie The Matrix was released so I’m going to assume everyone has seen it. If you haven’t then shame on you and go fix that immediately because it’s a great movie.

For those of you who have, this question goes to you. Have you ever looked at any of their monitors when they were coding and wondered to yourself “what kind of language is that?”. While most people have no clue because they do not possess any computing experience, if you are a developer, you may have had a small chuckle because you 1) know The Matrix does not use an actual computer language and 2) that’s not how development with code works.

Ask any developer and they will tell you, most of your time when beginning is spent staring into the void of a black screen before any movement of the cursor. Even with code already existing, most of the time is spent staring at the screen.

They will also tell you, with many lines of code come many errors which if they can’t debug come hours if not days of frustration. Running to sources like Google, Stack Overflow, and GitHub to aid you in debugging only to find the root cause was a typo.

Real developer problems when you capitalize or add space to the wrong letter in your code. All that nonsense aside, let’s talk programming.

Quick thought: I was looking to research the computer language they used for The Matrix and found it they were sushi recipes. So, the link is below, and enjoy.

Link: The iconic green code in The Matrix is just sushi recipes | The Independent | The Independent

the monkeys from see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

The Three Types

There are three main languages used which are machine (language consisting of binary or hexadecimal commands for a computer to respond to directly, easier for the computer to read but difficult for humans), assembly ( a type of low-level language intended to communicate directly with computer’s hardware, it’s not entirely like machine language but is designed to be more readable by humans), and finally high-level (is a more readable and user-friendly language that is away from the computer’s hardware).

I will not be going over those in greater detail now because that could be a post for another time. Leave a comment in the comments section if that’s something you would like me to cover in the days to come.

Also, we are not going to be going over all the possible languages as that would take all eternity and we don’t have that much time. So, we’re going to talk about Python. Why? Because it’s a high-level language, it’s what I started with, currently use, and has the easiest learning curve compared to other languages.

No, Not the Snake

As I previously mentioned, python is a high-level programming language which means it’s easier to read compared to mid and low-level. Python is also frequented for object-oriented programming and general purposes. Everyone from novice to experienced uses python whether it’s to do a simple algebraic expression or to create a crawler for web scraping. Side note: Web scraping (a process of using bots to collect content and data from a website) has a grey area when defining what is legal to scrape and what is not. Python also has a play in data science next to R as with most languages your choice boils down to the task at hand.

To give you an idea of how simple python is:

1) go into your search bar wherever your toolbar is on your monitor

2) type “cmd” in the command prompt and select it

3) type python and hit enter

4) you should see the following symbol “>>>”

5) next to “>>>”, type x = “hello world” and hit enter

6) finally type “print(x)”

Congratulations, if you didn’t know how to program before then you do now and you have proof you can do it. Also, you may have just had your first experience with a variable (which is a container for the data) and data type (currently using a string but there are other types). A little warning, if you are doing this on windows and it’s in S-mode then this will not work since you do not have admin permission to access the command prompt.

Now if you were to try the same thing in a language like Java, it wouldn’t be that simple which is why python edges out a lot of languages. Printing a line out in Java would look like “System.out.println(“Hello World”)” which doesn’t look like much of a problem at first. You would need some other things to added before reaching this line to print out your result.

As you can already see with that little bit of instruction, you gained an understanding of what to do when you saw the word “print” in Java’s line of code. You could look at the printout statement for Java and map what its purpose was without having to read the entire sentence.

Hold on there, before you run out and start applying for junior python developer jobs, anyone with XP (experience) will tell you, it takes a ton more than being able to have the computer spit out “Hello World”.

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Whatever It Takes

Okay so you have made it this far and you may be feeling a little in the groove for learning to program. Programming is going to be an uphill battle. I remember my time trying to write functions only for the computer to return an error statement that had me balling my fist in frustration at the monitor because I couldn’t figure out what it meant. Remember when I mentioned sources from earlier? This is where they come to your aid.

Discussion boards will help a lot because being able to see how other people solved problems and how you could incorporate what they did into what you are doing. Spending time on sites like HackerRank had me gutted at some points because I couldn’t figure out what to do or what was asked of me but going to discussion boards and searching on Google and Stack Overflow kept me together because the key is not to know everything but understand what the code does.

Studying code and trying to commit it to memory is going to be an unnecessary headache. Python library is full of modules, and it would be insane to try and memorize each one and what it does. I’m sure there’s a special someone out there who has done it but for most people, especially people starting, trying to memorize is a dream killer.

Made it this far and found this to be entertaining? Then a big thanks to you and please show your support by cracking a like, sharing this with whomever, scripting a comment, or plug-in to follow.

Think you have what it takes to become a programmer?

Script a comment about what programming language you’re learning or looking to learn.