The Espionage

Trinity: Morpheus believes he is the one.
Cypher: Do you?
Trinity: It doesn’t matter what I believe.
Cypher: You don’t, do you?
Trinity: Did you hear that?
Cypher: Hear what?
Trinity: Are you sure this line is clean?
Cypher: Yeah, of course I’m sure.
Trinity: I better go.

Are you sure this line is clean? What line? What does that even mean? Let’s use The Matrix to further define identity systems.

Remember our definition of identity? An identity is the perception of an entity by a witness within the context of space time. When Trinity asks Cipher if the line is clean in the beginning of The Matrix, she is really asking Cipher if there are any unwanted witnesses. Have you ever excused yourself from the room because of a cell phone conversation? Why did you do that? You did that because the secrets exchanged in the conversation were to be shielded from unwanted witnesses. This is privacy. Security is the shield for doing so. In this case, what shield is used? Simply space time. Relocating puts unwanted witnesses out of earshot. The shield is not always that simple.

Internet transactions generally rely on the Secure Sockets Layer (or SSL) to exchange secrets. SSL depends on encryption for its shield. Data is encrypted on the origin computer by a key. The encrypted message is then sent over the channel. The destination decrypts the message by the same key. This is how the internet shields its private messages.

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I was driving home the other day on the Hutchinson Bypass. It is a toll road that runs between Delmont and New Stanton (southeast of Pittsburgh, PA). It was late evening, but the the Hutchinson is a new road with many street lights.

So I am driving home. Well up ahead I can see red tail lights on the side of the road. Sometimes police cars sit on this road to catch speeders. My initial perception is to define the entity ahead as a police car. It has red tail lights just like a police car. It was on the side of the road like a police car. I have no choice but to assume it to be. I slow down just in case. As I approach, it becomes clear that the entity is not a police car. It is a semi truck! This is really fascinating to me. Somewhere on the Hutchinson Bypass, a witness (me) saw a police car (first perception of entity) morph (change perception) into a semi truck (second perception of same entity). An entity’s identity changed right in front of me. I got to thinking that this probably happens all the time, but we never think of it in this way!

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Genius is someone that turns the extremely complex into something simple. - Grant Alan Friedline

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I started dreaming up Spyshakers back in 2003. Back then I was fresh off my philosophical courses at Saint Vincent College. I had an outstanding professor at Saint Vincent. His name was Dr. Guess. He doesn’t teach philosophy anymore (I believe he went into High School Chemistry?). I like to say that he had to quit teaching philosophy because I answered all his questions. Haha. We had good discussions though. I had a lot of fun in Metaphysics. I came to peace with many philosophical questions that I had. Those answers influence everything. They establish beliefs. It is funny how close belief and fact are related. If 2 + 2 = 4 is a fact, don’t I first have to believe in the 2, believe in the +, believe in the = and believe in the 4 for the equation to even make sense?

Mind you before I go further my major was not philosophy (it was Computer Science). I have not been in college for a while! Nevertheless I tried to build Spyshakers around philosophy when possible. I will explain over time.

Enter the concept of an identity. If you want to build the world’s premier identity website, it would help to construct the definition of identity. Merriam-Webster defines identity as “sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing”. At the time of writing Merriam-Webster has four definitions for identity. Lets break down the aforementioned. If an identity is sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing, is my sameness as a baby equal to my sameness as an adult? Hardly. What is the difference between the two identities? Many things. When did the sameness change? Vaguely and through time. By who’s testimonial did anything change? By the perception of someone who witnessed. No wonder everyone has such a hard time coming up with good identity solutions. The definition is wrong! Haha.

A better definition of identity would be “the perception of an entity assigned by a witness in the context of time and space”. If perceptions are being assigned within time and space, that means the identity of an entity is subject to change. In English that means identities for real world things can change!

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Welcome to the Espionage. My name is Grant Alan Friedline. I am the President of Grant City Ventures Inc and the founder of the Spyshakers project. This is my first post on our re-designed blog. I admit, I didn’t really know what I was doing with the first blog. I think I can do better this time around. Where to start? Let’s start at the beginning!

I am an alumni of Saint Vincent College (2002) and University of Pittsburgh (2003). I studied Computer Science at Saint Vincent College. After graduation I had a very hard time getting a job. Job opportunities were few and far between in 2002 (right after nine eleven). My internships at Saint Vincent College were nothing impressive. I was in a world of hurt. In 2003 I went back for my Masters Degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science. I graduated from Pitt in one year. Pitt grad school gave me enough insight to consider starting my own company. I thought up a project for storing favorite websites online.

At the time my project was called Page Genius (I later found out that website was taken - not too bright in my young age haha). As I coded Page Genius I found similar websites popping up on the internet. This was disappointing and I put the project on the shelf for a while. I started working at Sony on the assembly line. It was the only (slightly) respectable job I could get.

Working on the assembly line was hard work. When I first got the job I would dance at my station. I finally had a job! But after time I got ran down. This was trial by fire. I worked in what they call “the dark room”. It is just that. Picture a trailer-like shelter built over top of the assembly line. Quality control tests are done inside. Thousands of televisions pass by me. I worked by myself. In the dark. On the graveyard shift. With no air conditioning and no chairs! It was not pleasant, but it was a job.

You have a lot of time to kill when you work a job like this. I dusted off Page Genius. It was my ticket out of here. What to do? I started taking notes. Lots of notes. In the dark. I did have a flashlight. Haha.

This is my suggestion to anyone who wants to start their own business. Get a zombie job. You need a zombie job in the very beginning. What am I talking about? You need a job where you can literally think about something else for eight hours on end. Your body is working. It is automated. Very robotic. Your mind is drifting off. Solving problems. You are planning something else. You are building a business while you earn a paycheck. This doesn’t work at all jobs. Choose wisely.

Back to Page Genius. I focused on passwords instead of favorite websites. Nobody out there could do password management the way I wanted. How do you store someone else’s password without knowing what it is? And give it back to them whenever they want? And prevent it from being stolen by spyware? And get it from any computer? And nooo I am not carrying a flash drive everywhere. I can barely remember my car keys!

These were major problems that took me months and months to solve. Maybe not solve, but at least provide a working solution. The answers came to me. The answers came to me in the darkness at Sony on the graveyard shift. I picked up my investor somewhere in there. You will find that during the business building stage you lose track of time. Not just by days. By years. It’s 2008 already? Where have I been!

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