The Year In Review: 2023
Curiouser and curioser, all in all.
I used to take the time between each U.S. biannual election and New Years to ponder the prior two years and set a new direction. The best public example of this is the Neal Rauhauser Wordpress site from 2013-2014, when I dug into food and water security in what evolved into covering the maximal extent of the Ottoman empire.
When I declared my job to be Principal Investigator for The Internet after the 2012 election I wasn’t kidding. I was all set to do just about anything else. The fact that I have continued to locate, then fold, spindle, and mutilate the toys of America’s ridiculous right wing fringe has at least as much to do with their inability to leave me alone as it does my own nature. I was just sure after the 2020 election it would be done. Then came 2021. And 2022. And 2023. Sadly, it appears that 2024 is all but inevitable at this point. We’ll just have to make the best of it.
Recounting Results:
What got done in 2023 that matters for the long haul?
Proxmox cloud computing replaced my hinky VirtualBox muddle.
Open Semantic Search is still orphanware, but at least it’s manageable now.
Disinfodrome is on Proxmox serving documents with OSS.
The Online Operation Kill Chain was explored here in detail.
Tool Time with IIB is a growing hardware & software reference.
Qubes has became a reality after ten years of occasional forays.
And a couple good things happened to me on a personal and professional level. First, the Lyme disease related brain fog that dominated much of 2007 through mid-2022 seems to have permanently cleared as of June of 2023. I still have to be careful with what I eat and when, but down periods are shorter, shallower, and I know exactly what to do.
My radically improved health was followed almost immediately by cutting long term ties with everyone connected to the “online activist” world. Over a period of two weeks a business development effort, a day job, and a professional association membership were all terminated. If I am to focus, that requires peace and quiet. The constant drama in that ‘hood is the antithesis of that. There are some funny, friendly voices I miss, but I’m splitting my newfound free time between R&D/business development and working on my relationship with my office manager.
The Year Ahead:
Given that 2024 is nearly upon us despite our best efforts, what’s next? I have a few things in mind already, some of which please me. And there are options that do not, but they may well be unavoidable.
The 800 pound gorilla of Artificial Intelligence is here, making me want to declare 2024 to be the year of Organic Stupidity. That’s catchy enough that I already floated the first article, albeit focused on a not-AI problem.
What about a weekly hunt covering influence things like that Organic Stupidity piece, or the sort of hard cyber stuff that was seen in Status Labs Piñata Party
Picking a set of documents from a FOIA and going hard on Disinfodro.me
Tool Time focusing on Adversary Resistant Computing and Networking using Qubes, TAILS, and VirtualBox.
Tool Time focusing on a mobile solution involving GrapheneOS on a Pixel 8 and Qubes 4.2 on a Dell Precision 7520. (I’ve sought funding for this.)
Tool Time focusing on more collection and analysis tools? I have not written about Zed Attack Proxy or Mayan EDMS but both are getting some attention.
Something I have not even thought of that one of you will point out to me.
That’s a proffer - what do YOU think the first quarter of 2024 should cover?