SNS: SNS: Breaking Through on a Century Scale

SNS: Breaking Through on a Century Scale

SNS Subscriber Edition • Volume 22, Issue 36 • Week of October 2, 2017

THE STRATEGIC NEWS SERVICE ©
GLOBAL REPORT ON
TECHNOLOGY AND
THE ECONOMY ™

Breaking
Through on a
Century Scale

SNS: FiRe XV: Breaking Through on a Century Scale

_______

"Breaking Through
on a Century Scale"

The 15th Annual
Future in Review Conference

At the Five-Diamond
Stein Eriksen Lodge Deer Valley
Park City, Utah

In This Issue
Week of 10/2/2017 Vol. 22 Issue 36

FEATURE:

Breaking Through on a Century Scale

o FiRe 2017 Conference Agenda

Quotes of the Week

Takeout Window

o CRINK Alliance in Cyber

Members' Special Alert: We've posted essentially all of our speakers for FiRe XV, exploring Century-Scale Breakthroughs in AI, Brain-Inspired Chips, Xi Jinping's China Dream for Global Domination, The Amazing Dual Roles of Flow and Interaction, Discoveries in Systems Biology and Medicine, New Computing Paradigms, Elon's World, Renewable Energy, The Next Grid, Ukraine Under Russian Info-Attack, China's Crash, Information Warfare and Computational Propaganda, plus FiReFilms events and new FiReBooks, with authors and filmmakers

and much more.

Take a look:

www.futureinreview.com/participants

And then sign on here, to make sure you have a spot reserved
for what the Economist calls "The best technology conference in the world"

www.futureinreview.com/register

And ---

Recommended Reading

The First Book on the World's First Principles,
just published in its first edition:

"You have achieved what Leonardo aspired to." Curtis Wong, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Redmond Research Lab; and Trusted Expert, Bill Gates' Codex Leicester

To get your copy now, just click here for a special offer for SNS members only ---

https://store.stratnews.com/shop/universal-powers-flow-interaction/

"FiRe XV: Breaking Through on a Century Scale"

Every year at this time, we share the complete agenda for our FiRe Conference with our members. The purpose of this is to share our thinking about what's important in the worlds we track over the next 3- to 5-year period although, in this case, we're looking a bit further as well.

Here's the letter that participants will see in their books as they arrive at FiRe:

To Our FiRe 2017 Friends:

The term "Century-Scale Breakthroughs" most likely brings to mind long-term changes, things that only shift over the course of 100 years. But in today's high-rate-of-change, technology-driven society, this term means something even more important and direct: scale. And by scale, I don't mean the quick ramp-up of the relatively mindless and science-lite Twitter or Facebook frame, but rather the scale of change initiated by a complete reboot of society's most critical technologies.

Rebuilding the grid is such a change: hard to do, laden with new innovations, driving change and improvement in all of the related technologies and ecosystems around it, and enabling even larger systemic change in energy production and consumption, transport, building design, lifestyle, societal income levels, and let's say it clearly stopping destruction of the planet.

We call this "Elon's World," in honor of the first recipient of our FiRe Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and of Elon Musk's ongoing contribution to this level of change, in many of these fields.

At FiRe this week, you will have the opportunity to be part of our evolving idea of what this truly creative event has become. Sure, we'll be talking about commercializing space, using business and technology advances to halt global warming, the nature of AI and its risks, new chips, new medical solution sets, and a full week of discussions with leaders about ideas that are both useful and bleeding-edge.

And, as in recent years past, your involvement may lead you into new directions, joining new initiatives or partnerships, even creating new companies onstage or in the hallway. Whatever the word is for what FiRe has become in this fifteenth year, it's clearly more than a conference perhaps an event, crossed with a realtime incubator, added to an institute, combined with increasingly strong academic interests and connections, and finished off with angel and venture investors to make it go.

This year no surprise, I hope we have some new surprises for you and your fellow participants. Not just "new" as in, things you might have picked up recently at some other meeting, but "new" as in, things no one has ever heard of before. This year's FiRe finds us almost finished with a major effort to redesign the whole concept of what it means to compute in an environment overwhelmed by data flows and analytic requirements.

Even more exciting, we'll add the final step in designing how to do it.

From "Beyond AI" and our "UnDx" efforts to deep dives on Xi Jinping's secret dreams and plans for global domination, you'll have heard it at FiRe XV for the very first time.

I hope the result is not just the most exciting week of your year or perhaps even of your life but also the start of new paths in thinking and doing.

Welcome to FiRe XV.

Sincerely,

2016-0915-MARKS SIG-cropped

Mark Anderson

______

And here is the current agenda:

FiRe 2017 CONFERENCE AGENDA

Updated 10/03/17. Speaking assignments and agenda items are subject to change.

Tuesday, October 10
5:00pm - 6:15pm	Registration and Cocktail Reception with finger food and live entertainment (Adult partners welcome) Flagstaff Mountain Deck Featuring the cello performance of Nicole Pinnell
6:15pm - 6:45pm	Welcome and Introduction to FiReFellows and Staff: Sharon Anderson Morris, SNS Programs Director and SNS FiReFilms Managing Director Flagstaff Mountain Deck
7:00pm - 7:10pm 7:10pm - 7:30pm	Welcoming Remarks Olympic Ballroom Introductions and Appreciations: Sharon Anderson Morris "Breaking Through on a Century Scale": Mark Anderson
7:30pm - 8:15pm	Dinner Olympic Ballroom
8:15pm - 9:00pm 9:00pm - - -	Dinner Presentation: "The End of Disease: Solving the Healthcare Crisis": Leroy Hood, President and Co-Founder, Institute for Systems Biology; and SVP and Chief Science Officer, Providence Health & Services Followed by: Q&A and Discussion

Wednesday, October 11
6:45am - 7:50am	Buffet Breakfast Olympic Ballroom
7:50am - 8:00am	Welcome and Opening Remarks: "Picturing Breakthrough Discoveries": Mark Anderson, FiRe Chair; and Author, The Pattern Future Stein Eriksen Ballroom
8:00am - 8:30am	"Visualizing Visualizations: When Does the Picture Become the Analysis?" I. "Pictorial Processing in Nature I": Chris Johnson, Director, Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI), and Distinguished Professor, School of Computing, University of Utah II. "Pictorial Processing in Nature II": Valerio Pascucci, Endowed Chair Professor of Computing and Founding Director, CEDMAV, University of Utah Hosted by Mark Anderson
8:30am - 9:00am	"Century-Scale Breakthroughs: Biology Driving Pictorial Supercomputing": Larry Smarr, Founding Director, Calit2 (a UC San Diego / UC Irvine partnership), and SNS Ambassador for Pure Science; hosted by Mark Anderson
9:00am - 9:30am	"The EyeBrain Machine: Computing's Next Model?" Bryan William Jones, Retinal Neuroscientist and Principal Investigator / Director, Marclab for Connectomics, University of Utah; hosted by Mark Anderson
9:30am - 10:00am	"What I Learned at Yahoo": Ken Goldman, past CFO, Yahoo, and President, Hillspire; hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC
10:00am - 10:30am	Break Directly outside the Stein Eriksen Ballroom
10:30am - 11:00am	"The Next Wave of Venture Investing": Yanev Suissa, General Partner, SineWave Ventures; Dafina Toncheva, Partner, US Venture Partners; and Mark Gorenberg, Managing Director, Zetta Venture Partners; hosted by Ray Rothrock, CEO, RedSeal, and Partner, Venrock
11:00am - 11:30am	FiReStarters I: Five Companies Improving the World Hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC: 24-Hour Solar Roof: Will Perego, CEO Aptage: John Heintz, CEO lpisremo Inc.: James Ryan, President and CEO Exro Technologies: Mark Godsy, CEO HALE.life: Doug Jamison, Chairman and CEO
11:30am - 12:00	Centerpiece Conversation: "Pictorial Processing: Metadata Analysis for the World's Most Powerful Telescope": Andrew Connolly, Director, DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington; hosted by Mark Anderson
12:00 - 1:00pm	Lunch Flagstaff Mountain Deck [Weather alternate: Odin Valhalla]
1:00pm - 1:30pm	"The New China: Xi Jinping and His Dream of Global Dominance": Evan Anderson, CEO, INVNT/IP; and Richard H.L. Marshall Esq., CEO, X-SES, and past Dir. of Global Cyber Security Management, Department of Homeland Security; hosted by Berit Anderson, CEO, Scout.ai
1:30pm - 2:00pm	"Ukraine: On the Front Lines of Russia's Infowar Machine": Bob Flores, Partner, Cognitio, and past Enterprise CTO, CIA; Phillip Lohaus, Research Fellow, Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies, American Enterprise Institute; and Dmytro Shymkiv, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, Secretary of the National Reforms Council; hosted by Greg Ness, VP Marketing, Vidder
2:00pm - 2:30pm	The FiRe CTO Design Challenge: "Comparative Image Computing: Creating the First Pictorial Processing System" Judges Charging the CTO Panel: Mark Anderson; Larry Smarr, Founding Director of Calit2 (a UC San Diego / UC Irvine partnership), and SNS Ambassador for Pure Science; and Ty Carlson, Founding Member and CTO, Coventry Computer The Challenge Team: Greg Brandeau, Managing Director, Paradox Strategies; Murray Cantor, Author, past IBM Distinguished Engineer, and CTO, Aptage; Andrew Connolly, Director, DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington; Brad Holtz, Chief Nexus Officer, Coventry Computer; Jeff Hudson, CEO, Venafi; Bryan William Jones, Retinal Neuroscientist and Principal Investigator / Director, Marclab for Connectomics, University of Utah; Edy Liongosari, Chief Research Scientist and Managing Director, Accenture Labs; Nathanael Miller, Technical Lead, Earth Energy Monitoring System (E2MS), and Aerospace Engineer, NASA Langley Research Center; Valerio Pascucci, Endowed Chair Professor of Computing and Founding Director, CEDMAV, University of Utah; Rob Shearer, Senior Director of Architecture, Microsoft; and others tbd
2:30pm - 2:45pm	"Coventry Computer: Stealth Team Update": Pilar Ackerman, Sr. Program Manager; Ty Carlson, Founding Member and CTO; Denyse Davis, EA to Mark Anderson; Michael Dushkoff, Sr. Software Engineer; Eric Greenwade, Technical Fellow; Brad Holtz, Founding Member and Chief Nexus Officer; Marc Jaffrey, Sr. Mathematician; Matt Keener, Lead Hardware Designer; Bill Mannion, Chief Marketing Officer; Irshad Mohammed, Software Development Engineer; James Reinders, Systems Architect; and Michael Riddle, Founding Member and Chief Systems Architect; hosted by Mark Anderson, CEO
2:45pm - 3:00pm 3:00pm - 3:15pm	"Evolving the Two Elemental Actions: Flow and Interaction": Mark Anderson; and Paul Sallomi, Vice Chairman and US & Global Technology Sector Leader, and Global TMT Leader, Deloitte LLP; hosted by Denyse Davis, Director of Research, SNS Flow and Interaction Initiative Group Conversation: "Applications and Potential for F&I"
3:15pm - 3:30pm	"Cloud Security": tbd
3:30pm - 4:00pm	FiReStarters II: Five Companies Improving the World Hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC: Haydale Technologies Inc.: Trevor Rudderham, President and CEO LINK3D: Shane Fox, Co-Founder and CEO ParentSquare: Anupama Vaid, Founder and President RedSeal: Ray Rothrock, Chairman and CEO TruTag Technologies: Hank C.K. Wuh, Chairman
4:00pm - 5:00pm	Breakouts: I. FiRe CTO Design Challenge: Working Session: "Comparative Image Computing: Creating the First Pictorial Processing System" The Challenge Team: Greg Brandeau, Managing Director, Paradox Strategies; Murray Cantor, Author, past IBM Distinguished Engineer, and CTO, Aptage; Andrew Connolly, Director, DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington; Brad Holtz, Chief Nexus Officer, Coventry Computer; Jeff Hudson, CEO, Venafi; Bryan William Jones, Retinal Neuroscientist and Principal Investigator / Director, Marclab for Connectomics, University of Utah; Edy Liongosari, Chief Research Scientist and Managing Director, Accenture Labs; Nathanael Miller, Technical Lead, Earth Energy Monitoring System (E2MS), and Aerospace Engineer, NASA Langley Research Center; Valerio Pascucci, Endowed Chair Professor of Computing and Founding Director, CEDMAV, University of Utah; Rob Shearer, Senior Director of Architecture, Microsoft; and others tbd Flagstaff Room II. "Pairing Technology and Community for Education Success": Moderated by Anupama Vaid, Founder and President, ParentSquare; and David Engle, US Coordinator, SNS Project Inkwell, and Founder, Treehouse Education Consulting Silver Room III. INVNT/IP Open Session: Moderated by Evan Anderson, CEO, INVNT/IP Bronze Room IV. SNS FiReFilms: "Meet the Filmmakers": Moderated by Sharon Anderson Morris, SNS FiReFilms Managing Director and SNS Programs Director Featured films: Dying in Vein: Jorden Saxton Hackney, Co-Producer The Perfect Donor: Diane Tober, Director Toxic Puzzle: Bo Landin, Director and Producer Diego's Dream: Peter C. Davidson, Director Viking Room, in the Mountain Lodge Building (the "other" building)
5:00pm - 7:00pm	Meet the FiReStarters: Exhibition and Reception with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, with FiReStarter companies and Special Exhibitor USTAR: 24-Hour Solar Roof: Will Perego, CEO Aptage: John Heintz, Co-Founder and CEO lpisremo Inc.: James Ryan, President and CEO Exro Technologies: Mark Godsy, CEO HALE.life: Doug Jamison, Chairman and CEO Haydale Technologies Inc.: Trevor Rudderham, President and CEO LINK3D: Shane Fox, Co-Founder and CEO ParentSquare: Anupama Vaid, Founder and President RedSeal: Ray Rothrock, Chairman and CEO TruTag Technologies: Hank C.K. Wuh, Chairman Hosted by Special Exhibitor USTAR Utah Science, Technology and Research Agency Led by Ivy Estabrooke, Executive Director Stein Eriksen Ballroom Gallery
7:00pm - 7:05pm 7:05pm - 8:35pm 8:35pm - 9:00pm	FiRe Film Night Stein Eriksen Ballroom Sponsored by Zions Bank and Oracle Opening Comments: Sharon Anderson Morris, SNS Programs Director and SNS FiReFilms Managing Director *Screening of Chasing Coral, FiReFilms' "Featured Film of the Year"* A Discussion with Sharon and Mark Eakin, NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research Coordinator, Coral Reef Watch, NOAA; with closing remarks by Sharon

Thursday, October 12
6:45am - 7:50am	Buffet Breakfast Olympic Ballroom
7:55am - 8:00am	Welcome and Announcements: Sharon Anderson Morris
8:00am - 8:30am	SNS FiReFilms "Documentaries That Change the World: Meet the Directors": Peter C. Davidson, Senior Media Consultant, Happy Fox Media; Jorden Saxton Hackney, Outreach Coordinator, Jenny Mackenzie Films; Bo Landin, Director & Producer and CEO, Scandinature Films USA Inc.; and Diane Tober, Asst. Professor, University of California San Francisco, Institute for Health and Aging, and Documentary Filmmaker / Founder, Moonchaser Productions LLC; hosted by Sharon Anderson Morris, SNS FiReFilms Managing Director and SNS Programs Director. Featured films: Dying in Vein: Jorden Saxton Hackney, Co-Producer The Perfect Donor: Diane Tober, Director Toxic Puzzle: Bo Landin, Director & Producer Diego's Dream: Peter C. Davidson, Director
8:30am - 9:00am	AI I: "What Is AI Telling Us? The Future of Work for Humans and Machines": Joseph Smarr, Senior Staff Software Engineer, Google; and David Brin, Physicist, Author, and Chief Visionary, Future Unlimited' Hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC
9:00am - 9:30am	AI II: "The Chips That Drive it All": Robert Patti, VP Hardware, KnuEdge; and Nick Pandher, Director of Market Development Professional Graphics, AMD; hosted by James Reinders, Systems Architect, Coventry Computer
9:30am - 10:00am	The UnDx (Undiagnosed) Initiative Introduction by Sharon Anderson Morris, SNS Programs Director and SNS FiReFilms Managing Director; and Co-Founder, UnDx "Undiagnosed, The Documentary": Katia Moritz, Filmmaker (Undiagnosed: Medical Refugees) "The UnDx Initiative, Year 2: Moving from Silos Toward Systems in Precision Medicine": Doug Jamison, Founder and CEO, HALE.life; Andreas Kogelnik, Director, Open Medicine Institute; DeAunne Denmark, Precision Medicine & Research, Open Medicine Institute; and Michael Kurisu, Clinical Director, Center for Integrative Medicine, UCSD Hosted by Larry Smarr, Founding Director, Calit2 (a UC San Diego / UC Irvine partnership)
10:00am - 10:30am	Break Directly outside the Stein Eriksen Ballroom
10:30am - 11:00am	"Computer Modeling Synchronicity of Whole Body Systems: A New Path in Preventative Medicine" and "Who Are Scientists' Customers? How Reshaping Publicly Funded Research Could Lead to Rapid Evolution in Personal Predictive Medicine": Benjamin Smarr, NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley Hosted by Rep. Mike Winder, Utah House of Representatives, and Executive Director, Friends of Traditional Banking
11:00am - 11:30am	"Tomorrow's Pictorial Processing and Tomorrow's Healthcare": Michael Kurisu, Clinical Director, Center for Integrative Medicine, UCSD; and James Ryan, President and CEO, lpisremo Inc.; hosted by Larry Smarr, Director, Calit2 (a UC San Diego / UC Irvine partnership)
11:30am - 12:00	"Investors Redefine Value: Impact on Public Policy and Education Content": Bill Ribaudo, Managing Partner, Digital Risk Venture Portfolio, Deloitte & Touche LLP; hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC
12:00 - 1:00pm	Lunch Flagstaff Mountain Deck [Weather alternate: Odin Valhalla]
1:00pm -1:30pm	"Supporting the Carbon Trifecta: Building Elon's World": Will Perego, Founder and CEO, 24-Hour Solar Roof; Mark Godsy, CEO, Exro Technologies; and Ray Gibbs, CEO, Haydale Plc; hosted by Cynthia Figge, CEO and Co-Founder, CSRHub
1:30pm -2:00pm	"Supporting the Carbon Trifecta: Advances in 3D Printing": Trevor Rudderham, President and CEO, Haydale Technologies Inc.: Shane Fox, Co-Founder and CEO, LINK3D; and Philip Vafiadis, Executive Chairman, Innovyz and Innovyz Institute; hosted by Steve Waite, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Graphene Stakeholders Association
2:00pm - 2:30pm	"Fighting Back: Solving Nation-State IP Theft from Security to Policy": Evan Anderson, CEO, INVNT/IP; and Jeff Hudson, CEO, Venafi; hosted by Richard Marshall, CEO, X-SES, and Chairman of the Board, Cinturion Group Inc.
2:30pm - 3:00pm	"Winner Takes All (of Us): Tech Giants and the Future of Competition": Jeff Loucks, Executive Director, Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) Center, Deloitte; hosted by Rick LeFaivre, Director, Ketchum Innovation Center
3:00pm - 3:30pm	"Hotspots: Five Views of the Future" Hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC Caitlin Cameron, Chair and CEO, OtoNexus Medical Technologies Kristin Bedard, Chief Scientific Officer, Kineta Immuno-Oncology Jim Divver, Senior Vice President, Community Development, Zions Bank Hans Werner, CEO, Radar Jeff Hudson, CEO, Venafi
3:30pm - 4:00pm	Break Directly outside the Stein Eriksen Ballroom
4:00pm - 5:00pm	Breakouts (Locations subject to change): I. FiRe CTO Design Challenge: Working Session: "Comparative Image Computing: Creating the First Pictorial Processing System" The Challenge Team: Greg Brandeau, Managing Director, Paradox Strategies; Murray Cantor, Author, past IBM Distinguished Engineer, and CTO, Aptage; Andrew Connolly, Director, DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington; Brad Holtz, Chief Nexus Officer, Coventry Computer; Jeff Hudson, CEO, Venafi; Bryan William Jones, Retinal Neuroscientist and Principal Investigator / Director, Marclab for Connectomics, University of Utah; Edy Liongosari, Chief Research Scientist and Managing Director, Accenture Labs; Nathanael Miller, Technical Lead, Earth Energy Monitoring System (E2MS), and Aerospace Engineer, NASA Langley Research Center; Valerio Pascucci, Endowed Chair Professor of Computing and Founding Director, CEDMAV, University of Utah; Rob Shearer, Senior Director of Architecture, Microsoft; and others tbd. II. "The UnDx (Undiagnosed) Global Initiative": With Katia Moritz, Documentary Filmmaker (Undiagnosed: Medical Refugees); moderated by Doug Jamison, Founder and CEO, HALE.life Silver Room III. "Climate Solutions: The Carbon Trifecta and the Earth Energy Monitoring System": Moderated by Lee Hall, Project Lead, E2MS; and Hans-Peter Plag, Director and Professor, Old Dominion University, Mitigation and Adaptation Research Institute Gold Room IV. tbd Bronze Room
5:00pm - - -	Dinner: Off-agenda Ask the Concierge for suggestions in Park City! Then reconvene for . . .
8:00pm - - -	*The FiReJAM Session and Networking Event: A musical adventure open to all* FiRe Participants & partners** (sorry, no minors) including FiRe Speakers, FiReStarters, Exhibitors, Press, and SNS & FiRe Staff; with cash bar and snacks Bronze Room & Foyer Bar

Friday, October 13
6:45am - 7:50am	Buffet Breakfast Olympic Gallery
7:55am - 8:00am	Announcements: Sharon Anderson Morris Stein Eriksen Ballroom
8:00am - 8:30am	"Computational Propaganda": Berit Anderson, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Scout.ai; hosted by Ed Butler, Presenter and Senior Broadcast Journalist, BBC
8:30am - 9:00am	"The Future of Analytics: From Connected Car to Fintech": Gahl Berkooz, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Acorns, and past Chief of Analytics for General Motors' Global Connected Customer Experience Division; and John Heintz, CEO, Aptage; hosted by Robert Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies and HEVT LLC
9:00am - 9:30am	"Breakthroughs in Robotics: Taking AI into Space": Michael Sims, Founder and CEO, Ceres Robotics; hosted by Jason Preston, Co-Founder, Dent
9:30am - 10:30am	Conclusion and Report Out: FiRe CTO Design Challenge "Comparative Image Computing: Creating the First Pictorial Processing System" Judges Charging the CTO Panel: Mark Anderson; Larry Smarr, Founding Director of Calit2 (a UC San Diego / UC Irvine partnership), and SNS Ambassador for Pure Science; and Ty Carlson, Founding Member and CTO, Coventry Computer The Challenge Team: Greg Brandeau, Managing Director, Paradox Strategies; Murray Cantor, Author, past IBM Distinguished Engineer, and CTO, Aptage; Andrew Connolly, Director, DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington; Brad Holtz, Chief Nexus Officer, Coventry Computer; Jeff Hudson, CEO, Venafi; Bryan William Jones, Retinal Neuroscientist and Principal Investigator / Director, Marclab for Connectomics, University of Utah; Edy Liongosari, Chief Research Scientist and Managing Director, Accenture Labs; Nathanael Miller, Technical Lead, Earth Energy Monitoring System (E2MS), and Aerospace Engineer, NASA Langley Research Center; Valerio Pascucci, Endowed Chair Professor of Computing and Founding Director, CEDMAV, University of Utah; Rob Shearer, Senior Director of Architecture, Microsoft; and others tbd.
10:30am - 11:00am	"Building Tomorrow's Pyramid(s): A First Look at Tomorrow's Compute Universe" I. The Pattern Recognition Processor (PRP): Robert Patti, VP Hardware, KnuEdge II. The Pattern Recognition Lab: Larry Smarr, Founding Director, Calit2 (a UC San Diego / UC Irvine partnership) III. The Pattern Computer: Ty Carlson, Founding Member and CTO, Coventry Computing IV. Flow Computing: Nathanael Miller, Technical Lead, Earth Energy Monitoring System (E2MS); and Aerospace Engineer, NASA Langley Research Center V. The Earth Energy Monitoring System (E2MS): Lee Hall, Project Lead, E2MS, and Principal, Clew Group LLC VI. Pictorial Processing: Valerio Pascucci, Endowed Chair Professor of Computing and Founding Director, CEDMAV, University of Utah Hosted by Mark Anderson and Brad Holtz, Coventry Computer
11:00am - 11:30am 11:30am - 12:00	"Your Turn: The Next Five Years": Audience Questions & Comments and . . . Closing Comments and Summary Hosted by Mark Anderson

We look forward to seeing old friends, and making new ones, in just under a week's time.

For those who are planning to attend but haven't yet signed up, there are a few seats left, but get to it: www.futureinreview.com/register

For everyone already registered, we're all looking forward to what is, every year, the best week of the year. And bring a guitar, some spoons, or whatever you want to bang on during our very first FiReJAM.

Your comments are always welcome.

Sincerely,

Mark R. Anderson

CEO

Strategic News Service LLC
P.O. Box 1969
Friday Harbor, WA 98250 USA

Tel.: 360-378-3431
Fax: 360-378-7041
Email: mark@stratnews.com

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Quotes of the Week

"These new findings raise our level of concern about these events, as elements of our research point towards a possible unknown, sophisticated actor," [said a Cisco spokesperson]. "These findings also support and reinforce our previous recommendation that those impacted by this supply chain attack should not simply remove the affected version of CCleaner or update to the latest version, but should restore from backups or reimage systems to ensure that they completely remove not only the backdoored version of CCleaner but also any other malware that may be resident on the system."

After previously suggesting alarm at the compromise was unnecessary, [CCleaner owner] Avast has now acknowledged the attack seems to be more severe than first suspected. In a new blog post, it accepted Cisco's findings and said it would be reaching out to the tech companies affected. Avast described the attack as a "typical watering hole attack where the vast majority of users were uninteresting for the attacker, but select ones were."

The investigation has now turned into a full inquiry into the compromise of Avast's servers and the identity of the malicious actors. U.S. law enforcement has seized the control server behind the malware and efforts are underway to trace the cyberattack's author. Cisco noted that the control script sets its timezone to match China's, but warned this finding is far from sufficient to confirm a direct link. DigitalJournal.com, 9/22/17

A cyber-criminal has hidden the code for a PHP backdoor inside the source code of a WordPress plugin masquerading as a security tool named "X-WP-SPAM-SHIELD-PRO."

The attacker was obviously trying to leverage on the reputation of a legitimate and highly popular WordPress plugin called "WP-SpamShield Anti-Spam," a popular anti-spam tool for self-hosted WordPress sites.

Instead, users who downloaded X-WP-SPAM-SHIELD-PRO got a nasty surprise in the form of a backdoor that allowed the attacker to create his own admin account on the site, upload files on the victim's servers, disable all plugins, and more. Bleepingcomputer.com and others

Security researchers from Check Point Software Technologies recently found around 50 malware-infected Android applications hosted on Google Play that had been downloaded millions of times. They determined that the malicious code was actually part of a third-party SDK that app developers had integrated into their apps.

There have also been cases where Android devices came with malicious applications preloaded in their firmware. This is a very potent type of supply chain attack because preinstalled applications often have system privileges and cannot be uninstalled by users or even antivirus programs running on the device. Mobile antivirus programs have the same privileges as regular apps, so they cannot remove system applications that were already part of the firmware." Vice.com

"It's a huge security vulnerability. You are definitely giving inner access and potential exploits to an adversary." Greg Martin, a former security architect for ArcSight, on HPE showing Russian officials security source code used by the Pentagon; quoted by Reuters

"Supply chain attacks are almost impossible to detect by regular consumers because of their complexity. Depending on the security solution installed on the victim's machine, an attack could be stopped or not. Supply chain attacks that target hardware vendors though, are impossible to detect because malicious firmware can compromise the operating system or the locally installed security solutions." Bogdan Botezatu, a senior analyst at antivirus vendor Bitdefender.

Takeout Window

CRINK Alliance in Cyber

Members know we were early in showing the new military, economic, and political alliance between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK, as we now call it), including the subterfuge behind the providing of nuclear weapons and missile provisions to NK by China, Russia, and Iran, as well as the NKChina sanctions farce, wherein Russia picked up any slack needed by China's reductions in trade with NK.

Now we are seeing Russia providing increased Net and broadband access as well.

Don't watch my other hand, just watch this one

This just in, from 38north.org:

Until now, Internet users in North Korea and those outside accessing North Korean websites were all funneled along the same route connecting North Korean ISP Star JV and the global Internet: A China Unicom link that has been in operation since 2010.

Global Internet connectivity to Star JV. The orange denotes the China Unicom connection and blue the TransTeleCom. The graphic shows the Russian connection coming online around 0900 UTC, a short period of instability then a stable connection with two networks. (Dyn Research)

"The addition of Russian transit would create new internet path out of the country, increasing its resilience and international bandwidth capacity," said Doug Madory, who analyzes global Internet connectivity at Dyn Research.

and

TransTeleCom, or TTK, is one of Russia's biggest telecommunications companies and a subsidiary of the Russian railway operator. Fiber optic lines are laid alongside the railway and, according to a map on its website, on a route from Vladivostok right up to the North Korean border.

Where NK is concerned, there is no China, no Russia, no Iran only CRINK.

Ethermail

Re: "SNS: Securing the Cloud"

I really liked this article, Mark. I hope people pay attention.

Mike Riddle

[Founding Member and Chief Systems Architect
Coventry Computer (in stealth mode)
Cave Creek, AZ]

Mark,

This is amazing. Thank you for sharing!

Meg Weber
Executive Director
Technology Alliance Group
Bellingham, WA

Mark,