Why Doing Good, Isn't Enough To Keep Hive Safe.

On the recent CTT Podcast episodes @theycallmedan has stated projects like the Ghana Borehole Project and the Street Workout Project will, with enough of them, have the power to prevent the system from tarnishing the Hive blockchain. This will make the chain survive above the riffraff of the war on blockchains.

This vision of a happy future, will not and can not come to pass. If we don't prepare for the actual threats that are looming on the horizon. Here are the issues I see. These will plague us in the near to midterm future. A failure to deal with one or more of them will result in the Hive Blockchain ultimate failure.

Media Blockade

The first issue is the fact that the media refuses to give any time or coverage to our favorite blockchain. The news companies have ignored the Hive blockchain. Especially, when the results would potentially make the other entries look bad. A good example is Splinterlands a game with high number of users and transactions. Regardless of that they are often left out of any talks in the GameFI world.

These same news sources will include the Steem blockchain that we forked out of, but no mention that the vast majority of users moved to our chain at the same time. This lack of knowledge provided seems to intentional. How could they not know what has happened even if they are only tracking users and transactions. Maybe they have just never heard about the change but given the numbers are easily findable.

What is even worse when we start talking about social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Some of this is the result of Google's and Facebook's move to prevent ads for blockchain projects. Where we know that our reach has been reduced by shadowbans and other restrictions that we will never know.

Another thing that is easy for search engines to do is not allow certain types of information to become available on the first page of a search result. They have to stay on the good side of those in power. How often do you read the second page of results let alone the sixth?

All of this is compounded by the fact that all media outlets have direct ties to many powerful organizations in any country. These ties allow them to have their views skewed closer to that organization's preferred view points. It's not necessarily their fault since people/organizations are the average of the people/organizations they send their time around. This is a subtle kind of pressure until it is not.

Fear Mongering

Fearmongering uses the public's emotions against us. Emotions play a crucial role in decision-making. When we are faced with a decision, our brains process information based on the emotional significance of the situation rather than just the logical facts. Emotions can influence how we perceive and interpret information, as well as our motivation to take action.
This is second issue is the coming assault on the Hive blockchain's standing.

There are many different techniques that organizations may use to engage in fearmongering. Some common examples include:

1. Scare tactics: Using language or images that are intended to frighten or intimidate people in order to influence their behavior. For example, an organization might send out a warning about the dangers of a particular situation or event, or use graphic images to illustrate the potential consequences of not taking action.
2. Exaggeration: Inflating the potential consequences of an event or situation in order to create a sense of urgency and gain support for a particular agenda or product. For example, an organization might claim that a particular problem is much more widespread or severe than it actually is in order to generate fear and interest.
3. Urgency: Creating a sense of urgency in order to push a particular agenda or product. This can involve using language like "now" or "last chance" to try to create a sense of urgency and pressure people into taking action.
4. Bandwagon appeal: Appealing to people's fears by suggesting that many other people are already taking action or supporting a particular cause. For example, an organization might claim that many other people are already buying a particular product or supporting a particular political candidate in order to try to convince others to do the same.
5. Appeal to emotion: Rather than using logical arguments or evidence to support their position, organizations may try to appeal to people's emotions in order to generate fear and influence their behavior. For example, an organization might use images of suffering or tragedy to try to evoke a sense of pity or sympathy in order to gain support for a particular cause.

This fearmongering takes the form of "Keep our children safe", "Terrorist will use it.", and "That's immoral.". Combine with downplaying the good HIVE as done compared to the potential evil that is being done with our blockchain. The good we have done would be an effective play against their smear campaign if those stories were allowed to be seen let's talk about how easy it to prevent our voices from being in the future.

It's important for consumers to be aware of these tactics so that they can better evaluate the information being presented to them and make informed decisions about their activities and actions.

Emotions can also influence how we remember information. When the public is experiencing strong emotions, our brains can focus on specific details and filter out others, which can impact our ability to make informed decisions.

It's important for us to be aware of the role that emotions play in decision-making and to try to balance their emotional responses with logical analysis when evaluating options and making choices. This can help to ensure that they are making decisions that are based on a well-rounded evaluation of the situation rather than just their emotional reactions.

The Great Firewall Of Everywhere

Large Language Models (LLMs) are a type of recurrent neural network that can be used to analyze long-term patterns in data, such as the behavior of users on a network over time.

Deep packet inspection (DPI), on the other
hand, involves examining the payload of network packets in order to identify and classify their contents.

By combining LLM and DPI, network administrators can gain a more comprehensive understanding of network traffic, including both short-term patterns and long-term trends.

However, there are some potential risks associated with their use together.

• If an organization is able to manipulate the language used in network traffic, they could potentially use LLMs to conceal their activities or evade detection by network defenses.
• LLM could be used to identify anomalies in the behavior of individual users or groups of users over time, while DPI could be used to identify specific applications or types of traffic that are causing congestion on the network.
• Similarly, if an organization is able to manipulate the content of network traffic you and I will not be effective in detecting and mitigating the threat.
• Another potential risk associated with using LLMs and DPI together is that they could potentially be used to violate user privacy.
• For example, if an organization uses LLMs to analyze network traffic and identifies a particular user as a security threat, they may use DPI to inspect the user’s traffic in more detail in order to determine the cause of the threat. Which will potentially reveal sensitive information about the user’s activities that should be protected by privacy laws.

Overall, LLMs and DPI can be powerful tools for network traffic analysis. They will be used by the powers that be to protect their interests. If we trust the world to play nice with us when they are going to want us in their control you are being naive.

It's hard to learn from history, if it's washed away.

• @theycallmedan CTT EP 72

P.S. - If you are asking yourself: Are you protected by using secure websites that use SSL/TLS, the short anwser is NO. DPI can still be used to inspect those packets and LLM will still be able to find connections and patterns from that dataset.