The Evidence Files - Hot off the Presses

A quick review of cool stuff from the Evidence Files

Hello everyone! Many of you are emerging from major holiday seasons—I hope the time brought you the chance to enjoy quality time with your family or friends. I celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States and recently offered a list of just a few of the great many things for which I am thankful.

In just a few hours I am traveling, so I wrote this post to give a little update on some happenings in the world and how they relate to some of my works that some of you might have missed. In a few days, I will resume my normal method of exploring a wide variety of topics, some technical, some terrifying, some exciting or heartwarming, and some that are just… well… weird.

First up in the news: On this trip I have a travel partner. He is a younger gentleman who is visiting Nepal to explore the possibilities of engaging in a bachelors study program in the computing-technology field. I will be introducing him to the institution with which I am affiliated, and also to many players in the sector. This is a big deal as Nepal is finding its way into the global sphere as a top-level contender in the technology world. Enticing and embracing non-Nepali students is a crucial element to the country’s rise because adding to the diversity of thought, background, and culture will only strengthen the country’s tech sector internally and competitively. I have not backtracked one iota from my initial argument that Nepal is poised to be the next Silicon Valley, outpacing even Bengaluru for the top-seeded spot. This is yet another step in that direction.

Intellectual Diversity: Just as bringing foreign scholars to Nepal will bolster the country’s capability and presence in the technology world, so too will increasing the visibility of Nepal’s own exceptionally skilled scholars and technicians. To that end, I strongly encourage my colleagues, students, and others in the field to reach out to me if interested in co-authoring or guest authoring a piece on this platform or working together in some other capacity. My audience is not exactly at the celebrity level, but it does stretch across a pretty diverse geography among people of many backgrounds. Moreover, as the section below shows, you just never know when your work might hit the limelight in unexpected ways. As an example, check out the article below produced together with Ganesh Bhusal, Faculty of Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security at Softwarica College, and Murari Jha, who is pursuing a bachelor's degree at Softwarica College, focusing on ethical hacking, Linux systems, and Python scripting.

Or check out this article written with Bishal Aryal, a Security Engineer at TechKraft, Inc. and a student of Coventry University through Softwarica College of IT & E-Commerce in Nepal.

Or, have a look at this article about the street dogs of Nepal, written with Tammy Conti, a professional dog trainer in the United States.

Help those who Help Themselves: If you find these collaborative efforts useful and interesting, help all of us out by sharing these works. You can encourage people to subscribe (it is 100% free) or join the Evidence Files Facebook page where each article is posted as it comes out.

Speaking of Tech: As wars heat up in various places in the world, the question of Artificial Intelligence’s role in those theaters has become an equally hot topic. Some time back, I wrote an article about a specific venture capitalist who had some rosy—and ridiculous—things to say about this very issue. As those of you who have been in my audience for a while know, I worry less about the Sci-Fi concerns about AI and more about the abusive ways in which it is implemented and applied today. This concern continues to manifest in a most tragic and serious way. What I had to say about that venture capitalist’s disingenuous statements resonated with many in the industry, and led to my article’s reposting by several institutions. If you missed that article, but are interested in AI, I encourage you to read it.

Repost of the article by the Distributed AI Research Institute on their LinkedIn profile, available here. The actual article is below:

What to do with Political Criminals: Well, it turns out that the US Congress will sometimes remove them… eventually. Back in May I opined about the untenable position of American voters when they are stuck with an inveterate fraudster, one who they voted for under completely fraudulent pretenses (as in, the guy running—George Santos—literally lied about nearly everything as a candidate). I mentioned that political concerns of those in authority trump moral, legal or constituent concerns leaving the electorate with little to no choice but to accept that an almost certainly soon-to-be convicted criminal makes day-to-day decisions affecting their lives. Congress finally, remarkably, did remove Santos, so doesn’t that prove the counterpoint to my argument? Alas, no. A minority of members of his same party voted to expel him, not a major surprise given that party’s collapse into flamboyantly embracing corruption. Those few in his party that did? Well, it seems some of them or their family were specific victims of Santos’ frauds. Funny how that works.

From Where Doth Guidance Come? In that article I also excoriated the now-former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy for his utter cowardice and fecklessness regarding the Santos debacle. By the way, the House itself recently identified Santos in a detailed, extensive report as a fraud and thief. So did the new House Speaker, one who proudly proclaims that the Bible is his world view, vote to expel Santos, the fraud and thief? Nope. Johnson must have missed the line of his allegedly favorite Psalm, “turn from evil and do good.” To be fair, that line is in the 27th paragraph of the Psalm, and he may have received a pornography alert before he got that far.

The Mammals Revolt: About three weeks ago, a pod of orcas sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar. No doubt some people rejoiced given that these vessels are environmentally destructive and continue to pollute the seas while serving no real useful purpose. This latest attack represents just one in a rising trend of orca assaults against boats, with around 500 documented since 2020. We know orcas are extraordinarily intelligent, but we really do not know how to quantify or evaluate that intelligence. The spike in attacks in recent years at least anecdotally suggests that orcas are more intelligent than we give them credit for, especially as we continue to make their seas less and less habitable. Moreover, before 2020, attacks were so rare in the wild that we have no record of an orca killing a single human despite hundreds or even thousands of documented encounters. Maybe they are just fed up and have started their own guerilla war against the weak, fleshy species destroying their homes. After all, as illustrated in the story of Port and Starboard (below), it is hard to know what motivates them, but easy to see what happens when they have decided to take action.

That is all for now: I am heading onto a series of flights with little layover time. So, my next piece might come a few days later than usual. The last month has been truly wonderful, allowing me to spend quality time with my family and friends, to reconnect with some people I have not seen in a (very) long time, and to get acquainted with some people I did not previously know. There is so much to do in this world, with seemingly so little time. But just as absence makes the heart grow fonder, studious effort backed by beneficent motivation gives just substance to that absence.

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I am a Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, Certified Crime Analyst, Certified Fraud Examiner, and Certified Financial Crimes Investigator with a Juris Doctor and a Master’s degree in history. I spent 10 years working in the New York State Division of Criminal Justice as Senior Analyst and Investigator. Today, I teach Cybersecurity, Ethical Hacking, and Digital Forensics at Softwarica College of IT and E-Commerce in Nepal. In addition, I offer training on Financial Crime Prevention and Investigation. I am also Vice President of Digi Technology in Nepal, for which I have also created its sister company in the USA, Digi Technology America, LLC. We provide technology solutions for businesses or individuals, including cybersecurity, all across the globe. I was a firefighter before I joined law enforcement and now I currently run a non-profit that uses mobile applications and other technologies to create Early Alert Systems for natural disasters for people living in remote or poor areas.

Find more about me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Mastodon. Or visit my EALS Global Foundation’s webpage page here.