Mr. Beaver's advice

"But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."

The passage is from Chapter 8 in C. S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  It has been cited frequently in recent years in relation to the development of artificial intelligence.  I wondered about the original intent in 1950 in a book written for children, and I found this commentary in a literary stackexchange in 2017:

But what does makes sense is that Lewis is foreshadowing the central role that humans play in the history and salvation of Narnia. Remember that there is a prophecy that Jadis' power will be broken when two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve sit on the thrones of Cair Paravel. Only a human being can validly rule Narnia. By stressing that the witch has no human in her, Mr. Beaver is pointing out that she is not the true ruler of Narnia. That which looks human and is not is a pretender to the throne. Only a true human can occupy it.

That idea of the imposter, the thing that looks human and isn't runs through much of Lewis's work. It is there in Men Without Chests (part of The Abolition of Man) and it is there in Out of the Silent Planet where Ransom tries to explain to the Malacandrans what is wrong with Weston. It is there in The Last Battle, where Shift dresses as human and gets Puzzle to dress as Aslan.

From a theological point of view, Satan is the great imposter. Christ is the new man: that which it truly and fully human.

So no, this is not about the uncanny valley, it is about imposters, those things that set themselves up as good and true, as rightful rulers, but are not.

That was then, this is now.  I'm going to apply the rule to AI.

Is this true ?

I screencapped the above claim months ago, intending to research the matter, but have not found time to do so, and have now decided it's easier to ask readers here.  

I have an Echo that reminds me to take out the garbage, but I assumed that any "listening" would be stored on servers in humming datacenters and admixed with others, not stored on some "app" in my home in retrievable fulltext.

So is this typical internet bullshit from Luddites?

AI is the new Photoshop

It wasn't that long ago that Photoshop was the top-of-the-line image-altering program.  The new AI technology has left the crude tools of Photoshop in the dust.  The image above was posted on Facebook with a request: "Could you fabulous and talented artists put my friend's mom doing activities or things she'd never want her mom to do?"  I've embedded below just four of the dozens of clever and skillful images posted on the thread. 

Scribbles on a bookmark - solved with AI

When I read books I use white paper bookmarks so that I can jot down new words to look up. or pithy statements or clever insights worth quoting in TYWKWDBI.  The best bookmarks are cut-up greeting cards, which have white expanses and the proper stiffness.

Embedded above is a scan of the top portion of a bookmark I recently found in a pocket while doing laundry.   And to my dismay I had no idea what book I had been reading at the time, or how long ago.  I can still look up words, but how to retrieve the "advice" from some page 61? (I had already decided to skip the "cure for lesbianism" on page 32).

Does anyone want to try to guess the book, based on the words harvested?  Answer tomorrow.

Addendum:  I could not for the life of me figure out which book I had been reading.  So I asked AI:

I immediately remembered the book, which I had read because it was longlisted for the Booker Prize.  I had returned it to the library many weeks ago.  So I looked at my list of "Books read" and there it was - graded with a "2+" on my personal scale of 0-4.  

That rating meant it wasn't worth a potential future reread and not worth reviewing for TYWKIWDBI, so I won't be recommending the book here.  I may add attercop, inchwell, swingle scutch, becks, and casemate to my huge list of interesting words (sigil is already there).  And I've requested the book from the library again to see whether the "cure for lesbianism" or the "advice" are worth blogging.

I'm posting this now not for the book per se, but to make note of the amazing power of artificial intelligence.  I used the commonly-available and free "AI mode" on Google.  What amazes me is that it appears that 127 pages of this book have been loaded into a database.  So I wondered whether the book could be reproduced by asking the AI to "regurgitate" it passage by passage ("give me a sentence, give me the next sentence etc...).  This morning I asked...

That was followed by links (to New Direcrtions Publishing and to Penguin Books Australia) where I could purchase the book.  Interestingly there was no link to a third-party seller like Amazon, and (to my disappointment and that of John Farrier) no suggestion that "you can get this book from your local public library."

All of this would seem to be within the boundaries of copyright law, but it still amazes me that a book just published this past year has already been scanned into storage into a massive data warehouse that is guzzling cooling water somewhere in a rural agricultural area.

Undersea data cables as wartime leverage

The United States has been learning some unpleasant realities about "asymmetric warfare" in which the country with the most bombers and aircraft carriers is not necessarily a guaranteed winner.

The embed above comes from an article last week in Reuters, which begins by discussing accidental damage during wartime -

"In a situation of active military operations, the risk of unintentional damage increases, and the longer this conflict lasts, the higher the likelihood of unintentional damage," Kotkin said. A similar incident occurred in 2024, when a commercial vessel attacked by Iran-aligned Houthis drifted in the Red Sea and severed cables with its anchor.

- and then the difficulties of repairing during wartime, and the impossibility of switching to satellites:

"It's not as though you could just switch to satellite. That's not an alternative," Mauldin said, noting that ​satellites rely on connections to land-based networks and are better suited for things in motion, like airplanes and ships.  Low-Earth-orbit networks such as Starlink are "a boutique solution, which is not scalable to millions of users, at this time," Kotkin added.

But it's an article in The Eurasian Times that more directly speaks to the possibility of aggressive attacks on undersea cables -

Iran sits on the northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz and controls long stretches of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. These waters host all the major cable routes that link Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. This geography gives Tehran physical access to infrastructure on which the world economy depends.

In fact, disrupting undersea cables is a low-cost, high-impact option that can cause global disruption without a direct missile strike. A damaged cable in the Gulf can slow internet traffic from Mumbai to Frankfurt within minutes, delay international banking settlements, and degrade cloud services used by hospitals, airlines, and power grids.

Significantly, it could also cripple military communications for US CENTCOM, and regional partners would be forced to rely on backup satellites with limited bandwidth.

But the situation in the Middle East is such that people are not even talking about overt operations to damage the undersea cable networks on the seabed. They are apprehensive that Iran will resort to doing so openly, which it has the capacity to do, aided by its geography. This additional maritime disruption will only add to its strategic leverage against not only the Gulf countries but also America.

But for an in-your-face salty appraisal of the potential, read the post in the "I Fucking Love Australia" substack of April 26:

A few days ago, Tasnim, the IRGC’s tame mouthpiece, published what looked like a harmless technical explainer. Maps of undersea internet cables. Locations of cloud infrastructure. Landing stations in UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. A polite little observation that the southern Gulf relies on these routes far more heavily than Iran does. No podium. No death to America chant. No uniformed general doing the finger wag. Just a map. Because when you have already put drones through 3 AWS data centres and an Oracle facility, you do not need to threaten anything out loud. You publish the coordinates. You let the insurance market translate for you. You let the CEOs in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh shit their expensive trousers in private. That is how grown-ups signal escalation, and it is a mode of communication that requires a functional prefrontal cortex to receive, which is why the sunburnt Big Mac wrapper in the Oval Office has completely missed it.

So let me lay out who actually holds the cards in this pissing contest, because if you have been listening to the cable news lizards you could be forgiven for thinking it is the side with the aircraft carriers.

It is not.

Iran’s internet runs overland. Turkey to the north, the Caucasus to the northwest. If every single submarine cable in the Persian Gulf gets severed tomorrow morning, Tehran checks its email over lunch without noticing. The southern Gulf, by contrast, is a data peninsula. UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait. Every banking transaction, every AI cloud workload, every ride-share app, every oil trade settlement, every fucking everything gets to the rest of the world through a handful of fibre bundles running through one of the most contested bodies of water on the planet. 99 percent of international internet traffic travels over submarine cables. The Red Sea corridor is already effectively closed because the Houthis have made it a no-go zone for repair vessels. The Gulf corridor is now being mapped by the people who just put drones into Amazon’s racks. That leaves the entire southern Gulf with precisely 0 safe options for getting their data to Europe, to India, to Africa, to anywhere.

And here is the kicker. The cables do not need to be bombed. They do not need missiles. They do not need a full IRGC naval sortie. They need a fishing trawler dragging an anchor in the wrong place..."

Do not rely on my excerpts from sources.  Do your own research, make your own conclusions.

Fake invitation phishing scam

The invitation was addressed from a high school classmate and sent to me personally and not to a group.  Note that it requires not just a reply, but the downloading and installation of a program in order to validate the invite.

A dangerous scam, which was recently featured in a NYT article about fake invitations:

Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.

Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.

“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”

A longwatch about cybersecurity

A link to this video was sent to me this morning by a reader in response to my post yesterday about an online extortion attempt.  I've only watched part of it so far, but I think it's worth reposting, especially in light of recent information regarding Anthropic and its Mythos AI model.

Over-the-top online extortion

Here's the text of an email I found today in my spam folder:

Call was lost, as usual.

Ok. I don't have much time, so let's get straight to the point.

I want to make you an offer that you can refuse, but only once.

Here's what I have:

Your complete personal information: full name, date of birth, home address.

Your social security number and driver's license details.

All your email account login credentials, including this account.

Other login details and your private messages.

A multitude of files found on your devices.

Access to your bank accounts.

The details of your credit cards: number, expiry date, and cvv.

I have compiled this entire package into a single folder. I can and intend to do two things with it. It is up to you to decide which one:

I will send this entire package to darknet markets, where other criminals will buy it.

It is unknown how they will use this information. They may purchase something illegal in your name, or they may not, but you will definitely not like it.

Or you can buy it from me for a small fee of 600 usd.

Changing the entire package of documents and data is very expensive, very time-consuming, and unsafe.

I already know that you have just read this text. Do not try to ignore this.

I only accept payment in bitcoins at the exchange rate at the time of transfer.

Transfer money here: [redacted for posting]

After payment, I will delete the folder containing your data, and you can continue living as before or, if you don't trust me, take your time changing all your data. It's more profitable for me if you pay me. It's easier and better for everyone.

This is a unique offer. Take advantage of it. I will wait for 1 day.

The "from" address was one of my own email addresses.

Do "oak" and "door" come from the same ancient word?

I saw that assertion in The Overstory, but couldn't find the connection with my usual dictionaries, so I turned to artificial intelligence.  Twice.  Here's the first reply:

Yes, "oak" and "door" share a common, ancient linguistic origin, specifically rooted in the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *𝑑𝑜𝑟𝑢−**𝑜𝑟deru- (meaning "tree," "firm," or "solid") and the Celtic/Gaelic word duir (meaning oak).

$*doru-**or**$

This connection stems from the historic use of durable oak wood for creating sturdy doors.  

Key details regarding this etymological connection: 

• The Connection: The Celtic word for Oak, "duir" or "dair," is believed to be the root for the word "door," reflecting the oak's strength and its role as a solid, protective barrier.
• Tree of Knowledge: In Celtic tradition, the oak was seen as a "doorway" to the spiritual realm, further strengthening the linguistic link between the tree and the concept of an opening or entrance.
• Related Words: The same PIE root (*deru-) is believed to be the ancestor of several related words, including "tree," "true," "trust," and "Druid".
• Alternative View: Some linguists note that "door" (Old English duru) descends from a different PIE root (dʰwer-) and that the connection to "duir" may be partially driven by cultural or folkloric ties rather than strict linguistic derivation.

*Note: While many sources highlight the "duir" (oak) to "door" connection, the exact, direct phonetic evolution from that specific Celtic word is debated by some linguists who prioritize the dʰwer- root, though the cultural association remains strong.

Blogworthy for English major readers, I thought.  But when I double-checked before posting this to the blog, I received a rather different reply:  

The short answer is no, the English words "oak" and "door" do not share the same etymology. While there is a common folkloric connection between them, linguistically they stem from distinct Proto-Indo-European roots. 

Linguistic Origins

The confusion often arises because the Celtic word for oak sounds similar to the English word for door, but they are historically separate:

• Oak: Derived from the Old English āc, which comes from the Proto-Germanic *aiks.
• Door: Derived from the Old English duru, stemming from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *dʰwer-, meaning "doorway" or "gate". 

The Celtic Connection

The perceived link is primarily found in Celtic languages and mythology rather than English etymology: 

• Daur/Duir: The Old Irish and Gaelic word for oak is daur or dair.
• Symbolic Meaning: In Celtic lore, the oak was considered a "doorway" to other worlds. Because the word for oak (duir) and the word for door (doras in Irish) share a phonetic resemblance, they are often linked in spiritual or "folk etymology" contexts.
• Druids: The term "Druid" is widely believed to be a combination of the root for oak (deru-) and the root for "to know" (**weid-), meaning "oak-knower". 

Root Comparison

Word	English Source	Ancestral Root	Meaning
Oak	āc (Old English)	*aiks (Proto-Germanic)	Oak tree
Door	duru (Old English)	*dʰwer- (Proto-Indo-European)	Doorway, gate

While the Irish word for oak (dair) is actually a cognate of the English word "tree" (both from the PIE root *dóru), it is not a cognate of the English word "door".

I think I used the same AI each time (Google), but I may have phrased the question slightly differently.  The information is basically the same in both replies, but the connotations are dissimilar.  Perhaps the first time I just inserted the phrase and the second time used the word "etymology."

Interesting and instructive re the proper use of this new technology.  I'll also note there are formatting glitches up above because I can't write or edit in code, so oddities sometimes spill over that I can't correct.

Apple iPhone upgrade warning

Everyone who has a phone understands about the need for upgrading the system periodically, but I was surprised by the urgency implied in this latest communication:

"Take this seriously. If your iPhone does not have Apple’s new update, you must install it now. We know attacks on iPhones have started. We have been warned the threat will extend well beyond those highly targeted initial attacks. And hundreds of millions of iPhone users are also now facing down an unwelcome surprise.

The last available analyst data says hundreds of millions of iPhone users with devices eligible for Apple’s current iOS 26 firmware have yet to upgrade. Those users had expected to be offered the update to iOS 18.7.3, avoiding iOS 26 for a little longer. But Apple withdrew that update for all but iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR.

It’s now a choice between upgrading to iOS 26.2 or no security update. A quick scan of online forums a week after all this was confirmed is a nasty surprise. Plenty of users say they intend to stick with iOS 18.7.2 and avoid the update altogether. That’s bad news...

Do not run your iPhone without these critical WebKit security fixes. “Users should urgently update all their impacted Apple devices,” James Maude from BeyondTrust told me. “Even though this only appears to be linked to a small number of targeted attacks it will quickly become a must have exploit for a range of threat actors."..

Check your iPhone. If you’re running iOS 18.7.2, you should update to iOS 26.2 assuming iOS 18.7.3 is not available. The period of maximum risk for vulnerabilities is the time between public disclosure and extensive patching. That’s right now."

The embedded text is from Forbes, which is not a fearmongering site, so I presume the threat is in fact serious.  I upgraded to 26.2 last night after receiving this notification.  There is some additional information at the link.  Readers of TYWKIWDBI tend to be well informed and may have insight and comments to offer.