John Rowan, Author at copypasteearth

What is Information Warfare?

Information warfare has become the latest strategy in the never-ending war machine. It is using non-lethal attacks with information to disrupt their enemies’ information systems. The anatomy of information warfare is quite interesting as its main attacks are on electronic transmission, cyber attacks, and psychological operations. The Russians are notorious for the use of information warfare to cripple their neighboring countries. One way that information warfare is used to cripple electronic transmission systems is by jamming military communications or weapon guidance systems. This can have a very disastrous effect and the military should spare no expense in preventing such attacks. It can also target civilian uses like air traffic control, which prevents two planes from crashing into each other. Another example is to attack the Rail Traffic Management system which trains are fully controlled by.

Cyber attacks are a common place for information warfare also as disrupting computers for business can have a disastrous effect on a country. Say that the stock market was victim to a cyber attack rendering the stock market useless, which would put a big dent in the financial market. A socialist country could use that kind of an attack to try to cripple capitalism to push an agenda of some sort. I am sure that the government has many teams in place to work at preventing these types of cyber attacks. In the future maybe a mind reading apparatus that flies around in the sky marking areas where deception is taking place while alerting authorities who will sweep in and subdue the criminals could prevent a cyber attack. Another thing of great concern that a cyber attack could potentially target is a nuclear power plant. That could be catastrophic if the attack could trigger some sort of melt down and render a whole area of a country useless.

Lastly, there are the psychological operations that could degrade a nation’s morale by flooding social media with fake news. I read a substantial amount of fake news on social media and the President of the United States is always warning us about fake news. Psychological operations in information warfare are a big concern in today’s world. Being that the information on the internet is available to anyone in the world these days, I am sure that people would like to assure the validity of that information. Otherwise, the world will have misinformed people with malicious views due to misinformation, which could cripple a society.

source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/what-is-information-warfare

Information Warfare: Information Warriors

In 2016, President Obama created the Global Engagement Center to battle terrorist propaganda. The Global Engagement Center has also dealt with meddling from Russia in elections. The problem is fake news because in some countries they can make false news stories illegal but in America doing something like that would collide with the first amendment. President Trump is always talking about fake news and it is a real problem. The Global Engagement Center works with social media and FBI in an effort to prevent the spreading of foreign propaganda. They have to keep up with technology and their adversaries methods to prevent terrorist propaganda. Terrorist organizations used to use videos on social media to lure in potential recruits but now they have turned to advertisements and encrypted messaging applications. There is a never-ending amount of information that these information warriors in the global engagement center have to deal with.

Russian meddling in the election process is not a new thing. They have probably been doing it for decades with spies and a whole variety of platforms. The Russians have spread false information in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries to try to persuade the people to be against the American soldiers that are stationed over there. There are a number of different strategies that information warriors can use against each other. Spreading fake news or false information seems to be a big part of what information warriors are doing. To prevent this kind of propaganda or threats from other countries in the future there would have to be a technological breakthrough that could actually read peoples’ minds or something of that sort. The future of information warfare is yet to be decided. With the technological breakthroughs, there are more warfare types and methods.

I have learned that there is a number of information warfare based institutions in the world and that multiple Presidents of the United States are trying to address the different, very complex issues with information warfare. Information Warriors being employed by the United States is a very in demand profession that needs to expand faster than the evolution of technology to be able to prevent the evolution of information warfare. Whether it is our allies or our adversaries, one of these days there will be a perfection of the use of information warfare and it will hopefully be the good people.

source : https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/13/global-engagement-center-russia-meddling/333015002/

Information Warfare Mimetic Warfare

Memes are pieces of information within a culture that are passed around. I have studies memes in psychology and they are a very powerful tool especially when utilized for warfare. There are probably strategies in the department of defense to utilize memes. If you use any of the social networks these days you will see that they are jammed packed with memes. Many people do not know the significance of a meme or the power that one can have over a society or culture. Is the military working on a meme warfare division? The truth is after seeing the power of memes on society and cultures that they probably have many strategies that consist of using memes to persuade the people one way or the other.

One way to stay clear of the Mimetic Warfare is to use your common sense. Many memes out there should be considered jokes. However, some of society will be offended or more gullible to feed into the information that the meme represents. In one ear and out the other is the perfect strategy for viewing memes on the internet. By the time a meme may actually get to you, it could have been altered hundreds of different ways. There is really no credibility in memes if you think of them that way even though many of them are very funny. If a meme is a crack on an issue that is very important to you then you might feel offended or start to state your views and opinions more strongly over social media which could actually be a strategy of using memes in actual warfare.

Many people have much to say about memes but the majority of them do not take the time to sit back and think of the implications of some of the memes that they are spreading. Not everyone sees everything as a joke, even though I personally thing that memes are the best going brand of jokes out there. People need to lighten up and really start to appreciate the humorous qualities of memes instead of getting bitter when the implication of the meme touches a sensitive part of your views. Memes will always be used for a certain kind of information warfare and always have been. People have been complaining about memes since papers in print first came out a long time ago.

source : https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xyvwdk/meme-warfare

Politics and information warfare

Information warfare is no doubted a strategy that a weaker adversary would use to manipulate a stronger adversary. In the case of the politics in America, there is always the threat of Russian interference. There have been claims that Russia is using information warfare against the United States to interfere in the elections. Information warfare is a wide-open playing field consisting of anything to do with information. No one is safe from information warfare, you might think that a meme is funny when you read it, and it is, but that same meme could be a piece of information warfare targeted at a more gullible person. Information warfare is used heavily in social networks so being alert while reading things that are spreading around is very important.

Things with respect to the issue of social network manipulation with information warfare could evolve in a number of ways. One might someday see penalties for posting manipulating data on a social network site like community service. A policy to address this kind of issue is difficult to address because people are entitled to free speech and that is the main ingredient of information warfare. The public can get educated on this issue by following this one guideline, common sense. The far left and the far right of political parties are first in line to revolt on certain issues which makes great entertainment for the rest of us, but they lack common sense when it comes to social networking aspects. For example, lately there was a picture of President Trump coloring the American flag wrong. Now some people are saying that he does not even know what the flag looks like. However, the truth about that meme was that he was copying off the little girl next to him. It is not a big issue; it was just something funny that we can all appreciate the humor in.

My reaction to this news story was that it was interesting to read. It was an interview of a professor at a university who is suggesting that Russia meddling with the election is really a form of information warfare. He suggests that Russia floods social media with manipulating information leading to misinformed voters. I agree with him, there are many people misinformed about politics because of this kind of information warfare and like I said it all boils down to common sense.

source: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/21/631164914/meddling-vs-information-warfare

Information warfare the heartbreaker

The heartbreaker was an information warfare attack made against the Israeli military where Hamas hackers would set up profiles on social media and entice Israeli military personnel with sex. It started out with enticing them with sex, then the hackers would try to get the soldiers to download applications on their smart phones that were really spyware, and then they would use that spyware to extract sensitive data from the soldiers phones. When Google was informed of this spyware, they removed the applications from the store. This is interesting because now I know that some applications on the Google store could potentially be spyware for military operations. There are also so many hackers in Pakistan that they have made a law for preventing hacking. If a person is killed because of this hacking, the hacker is punished by execution.

I have learned that you cannot trust any old application on the market these days. A solution to not falling victim to spyware that is on the market is to wait a while until you download the app. If you wait a while before downloading the app there is a chance that Google or the app store will remove the app before you even decide to download it. Another thing that I learned is that there are some very skilled hackers in Pakistan. According to the article that I read Pakistan has one of the largest hacker communities in the world. If you are trying to make some hacking software, you might want to hire a pakistanian.

The evolution of this kind of information warfare can result in almost anything known to humankind. They were using social engineering and the solicitation of sex to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap. The future of that can be something like actually spoofing soldiers friends whole social network profiles and luring them in while the soldier thinks that it is their friend. To prevent this kind of attack the first thing to take into account is that you should never respond to the solicitation of sex. When someone is soliciting sex to you that is a red flag right there, unless you are in Las Vegas. Computer professionals have already addressed this kind of issue by figuring out about it and reporting it to Google and the app store in which the spyware apps have been removed.

source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20180721.aspx

Excalibur 3D Model

Here is the Excalibur Sword. All Hail Excalibur!!!!!

Quitting Cigarettes with Vaping

I have smoked cigarettes for 25 years. For the past about 4 years I have been saying i’m going to quit but I could never really do it. I smoked about a pack to a pack and a half a day. About 10 years ago I was at a kiosk in the mall and there were electronic cigarettes there and my brother and I both purchased them. We used them and then when they were done we went right back to cigarettes. So about a 2 months ago i seen that they had something called Vuse Vibe so i bought one. It kept me from smoking the whole time that i was vaping with it. It was rather expensive so i decided to go out to a vaping store and get a vaping unit and e-juices to go along with it.

It has been almost 2 months and I have smoked about 5 packs of cigarettes in that 2 months (usually when i’m out drinking beer). Vaping has really made it possible for me to quit smoking. I have read a report that people who vape have all most no cancer causing carcinogens in their system compared to people that smoke. I’m getting old so taking care of my health is becoming more and more of a priority. Just wanted to put it out there that vaping is a reasonable route to quit smoking. Not just for me, i’ve seen other people who have quit smoking by vaping. Right now I have a kangertech toptank evod system and 1 coil costs 1.50 and i spend about 14 dollars on juice a week. I could probably get those numbers down a bit more but i don’t plan on vaping for the rest of my life. Eventually when I get enough time without smoking and only vaping then i’m going to cut down on vaping.

So I just wanted to put that out there that vaping IS an alternative to smoking and it has worked very well for me and plenty of other people. It is way cheaper than smoking and a lot healthier for you as well. If you vape to stop smoking I say keep up the good work. A lot of people joke about people who vape but it is really a good way to quit cigarettes. Thank you for reading I hope that this article may help another smoker who is really addicted to nicotine and is helpless over the addiction how I once was.

Having a Smartphone in Class

Whether you think it is a good idea or a bad idea students are going to have cell phones in class for as long as cell phones exist. To be honest every time I go to class I put my cell phones sound settings on silent and I don’t use my cellphone unless instructed by the professor to do so. I think having a smart phone in class is a good idea for those occasions where the professor tells the class to “Google” something. Also, smart phones are an important device for emergency use so I personally cannot see any type of rule to abolish use of smart phones in class. But there are the occasions where students have their ringers on and interrupt class in the middle of a lecture with a very loud ringing of their smart phone. I have seen a teacher get really mad at a student for his phone ringing in class when it was even past the end of class time.

All in all I think that having a smart phone in class is a good idea. At the end of class you can get contacts of classmates and make new friends, use the smart phone to “Google” something if the teacher permits it, and most importantly in the case of an emergency you have your smart phone. All that I can really come up with are positive reasons to having a smart phone in class compared to the very minor negative effects of smart phones in class which are usually only committed by people who aren’t serious about being a student in the first place.

Everyone has a smart phone these days and they are a very usefull source of information. Students need information more than anyone these days to stay on top of their game. Whether it be reviewing classwork over the net to getting a new contact, to even emergency use, smart phones are going to be a part of our everyday lives for a very long time. Thank you for reading 🙂

Naked Man Space Suit

So, I have always wondered how people will be able to expand into space and colonize other planets. It occurred to me that we will need to be able to enter outer space without space suits. Yep that’s it!! We will have to find some way to shield our skin and all our holes(nostrils, mouth, etc….) so that if we were in outer space, or some other planets surface we will survive without almost dying instantly.

Lately I have heard of “water bears” or (tardigrades) and supposedly they can withstand temperatures ranging from -272 deg C to +150 deg C, they can be without water for a period of 10 years, and they are extremely resistant to radiation. Now if you ask me the scientists should have jumped on that discovery since they first made it and figured out some way to blend that organisms homeostatic properties with that of the human being. Its always been a dream of mine to be able to live in space without a spacesuit and maybe these water bears are the key.

Not only does copypasteearth think that eventually there will be an actual earth for each and every person, they love to think about floating through space naked haha. We have come a long way into exploration of space and personally I think that if we have any chance at all of colonizing Mars we will definitely need a Naked Man Space Suit. There would maybe have to be some biological engineering going on between the tardigrades and the humans so that we can have the same resistance in space that they do. Our nostrils, mouth, anus, and other openings would have to have some sort of transparency to the genetic mutation so we can still use them. If NASA or SpaceX is working on something like this my hats off to them. Probably not in my life time but I forsee the naked man spacesuit in the future of mankind. Thank you for reading 😉

How to work with JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

In this article I will write about working with JSON. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation. It is a great way to send objects back and forth through client-server and also to create API’s that return JSON when information is requested. Lets look at an object in javascript.


var object = {
self : {name:"customer1",job:"cashier"},
todo :"jsonobject",
names : [{employ:"work",happy:true,work:"program"},
{employ:"job",happy:false,work:"intro"}]
};

This object, called object has a couple variables and an array names. Now lets see this object in JSON format.


{"self":{"name":"customer1","job":"cashier"},
"todo":"jsonobject",
"names":[{"employ":"work","happy":true,"work":"program"},
{"employ":"job","happy":false,"work":"intro"}]}

in javascript to turn an object into JSON you use the JSON.Stringify method

JSON.stringify(object);

And to turn JSON into and Object you use JSON.Parse method


var object = JSON.parse(json);

Now to work with JSON in php you can make objects in php and then use json_encode to turn the object into JSON like this


<?php $myObj = new \stdClass();
$myObj->name = "John";
$myObj->age = 30;
$myObj->city = "New York";
$myArray = array();
for($i = 0;$i < 10;$i++){
$myArray[$i] ="hello world".$i;
}
$myObj->hello = $myArray;
$myJSON = json_encode($myObj);
echo $myJSON;
?>

Now the variable $myJSON will look like this after you encode it


{"name":"John",
"age":30,
"city":"New York",
"hello":["hello world0","hello world1",
"hello world2","hello world3","hello world4",
"hello world5","hello world6","hello world7",
"hello world8","hello world9"]}

and if you are sending a JSON object to a php script using JSON.stringify you can grab the object in php with something like this using json-decode

$obj = json_decode($_POST["x"], false);

And that is pretty much the basics for using JSON in javascript and php. One note i was looking around and it appears that you are not supposed to send functions through JSON but there is a way that is not consistent so it shouldnt actually be done, as far as i know. I hope you enjoyed this article. Untill next time 🙂