Unfinished ideas...

WARNING: SECTION IN PROGRESS...


Hi, Jeff Cobb here. Like all engineers I didn't shut down when diagnosed any more than any other engineer would have. I remain curious about my condition, my state of being. To me it is the final puzzle to solve. To what end I cannot say but what I can say is, it doesn't matter. The chase or pursuit of new and good ideas is always better than the eventual "A-Ha" moment that makes the problem go away. But I digress...

While I didn't shut down cognitively overnight, I did reach a point where certain kinds of thinking got too difficult. That said, some of the ideas were at least interesting thought experiments and maybe a few interesting enough for someone else to carry further. It is with that thought and mindset that I leave behind this miscellany of projects and ideas I have had, some for decades...more will be added over time but be patient as this is the kind of thing that taxes my aphasia the most, expressing abstract ideas from my mind (with nothing similar to base it on). Entries to be turned into links to actual documents as time and ability permit...

First in the series, my idea/software/proof of concept where a simple common method of working can allow flawless, undetectable transmission of sensitive data or the greatest piracy tool ever allowing for totally undetectable (and yet unencrypted) message transmission across a network or across a world full of firewalls.

On the sensitive data sharing, this principle will allow for the sharing of important information in a way that is uncatchable by the most stringent of censors.

Imagine: source pirate on site A has movie X. Operator of Site A runs this software on movie X generating what I call a "recipe" file which is nothing more than a block of data with no discernible parts of movie X in it. Yet a user a world away can download this recipe file and run this software against it. It uses that recipe file to reconstruct the original file from small and sometimes very tiny fragments of movie X located in otherwise innocent places on the web, such as the logo for CNN or even publicly-available ocean data files. Some fragments might be 20-30 bytes long, some as little as 1. Here is the fun part: because it is assembling the original file (in this case a movie) from elements of publicly accessible web sites, the "bad guys" can sit and watch your connection all day long and never see unusual web usage or behavior. Yet right beneath their noses you can run this software on the recipe file and literally "poof", the original file appears on your desktop (or wherever).

Slight digression but I did a kind of proof of concept, using a publicly-available trailer for an episode of a TV show to fully and quickly recreate the full video of that episode. Specifically used a 22 minute episode of South Park to generate a recipe file using the trailer for that episode as my "ocean data". This recipe was then fed to my app that used it to reconstruct the original 22 minute episode in seconds. This to me implies the overall idea works, though I am the first to admit this is pre-alpha stuff. But it works.

Or this same concept could easily be used  for the uncatchable and unstoppable spread of malware. where even with innocent and heavily-firewalled web access, payload files can suddenly just appear on the victims machine like a dreadful kind of viral magic. One minute before you could scan for that and every other virus to find nothing...and suddenly it is there.

Using ocean data for fun and piracy...


My "Worlds" Project: Finally a game that I would consider the perfect game. No two copies the same, no two runs of the game the same. Each run can live through thousands of years of "history". This is almost more sim that game although laying any level of layers of game elements on this would be childs play. Alone however it is still a universe you can explore, defend and more without playing any actual game elements or stories.


MyData: this is a simple proposal for handset and tablet makers to help every single one of their customers. I am surprised someone hasn't done this already. Almost daily I read about this person or that being forced to unlock their phone at the border or elsewhere and allow the PTB to rummage thru their private things and if they resist, well that is actionable to. So what you need is a kind of security system that hides in plain sight. To the agents demanding your pass code, you appear to give it to them, they unlock your phone and copy all of your secrets, browsing history, etc. You get the phone back and leave...with all of your data intact. It was never in danger of being seen, copied or otherwise molested. You could hand this phone immediate back to the agent who could unlock it and still only get spurious data. The cool thing about this is that its pretty uncatchable, can be implemented on any platform, uses only existing technology so nothing needs to be invented so you could get away with a much less experienced development staff if you liked. I still can't believe someone hasn't done this before.

Lockless multitasking system: back in the day there was no multitasking. Then Windows came along and implemented "cooperative" multitasking.

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