Author Archives: bredemarket

Marketing and writing services.

De-Sora

I first mentioned OpenAI’s Sora last October in connection with the privacy concerns of its Cameo feature. Does Cameo create an innocuous likeness, or an evil deepfake?

As it turns out, neither. Sora is going to the tech graveyard.

From https://x.com/soraofficialapp/status/2036546752535470382

We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.

We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work. – The Sora Team

The March 25, 2026 List of PAD 3 Conforming Solutions

Update to the March 3 version. Added Oz Forensics.

VendorModalityConfirming LabLink/Date
AwareFaceBixeLabNovember 2025
FaceTecFaceBixeLabOctober 2025
IncodeFaceiBetaFebruary 2026
Oz ForensicsFaceBixeLabMarch 2026
ParavisionFaceIngeniumSeptember 2025
YotiFaceiBetaJanuary 2026

Surviving Without Electricity or Internet

I wrote this over two years ago.

How long can you survive without pizza? Years (although your existence will be hellish). 

OK, how long can you survive without water? From 3 days to 7 days. 

OK, how long can you survive without oxygen? Only 10 minutes.

But let’s look at two other items: electricity, and the Internet.

These two items are similar to the pizza item above; lack of them won’t result in immediate death. Even a lack of electricity is survivable: although you could lose air conditioning on 100° F days, historical people survived without electricity, and 750 million people do so today. Including temporary losses of electricity, such as a whole-day blackout in a part of the Philippines.

As for the Internet…it’s complicated.


From https://www.yourtango.com/201168184/facebook-relationship-status-what-does-its-complicated-mean.

The number of people without Internet access is 2.5 billion. They are surviving…with challenges. But school connectivity can bring positive benefits.

An Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report underscores the importance of school connectivity in enhancing learning outcomes and boosting economies. The report found that in the least developed countries, a 10% increase in school connectivity can improve children’s effective years of schooling by 0.6% and increase GDP per capita by 1.1%.

I’ve previously looked at the business world. Specifically my business, which is heavily dependent on the Internet (as my current Internet Service Provider issues attest). While blogs are meaningless in a world without Internet, Bredemarket could still conduct business.

Even if the Internet were to disappear, I could still write text for case studies (maintaining my Inland Empire case study writing business) and white papers. I could send my client a Microsoft Word file (perhaps an old version of Word), and the firm could send the file to their printer. But how would I send the file? Put a CD in the mail?

Life without Internet would be much more difficult.

And a final question: how many of us would run into difficulty if generative AI were to go away?

You CAN Modernize…But Should You?

In the past, I have said:

“[T]he technology is easy. The business part is the difficult part.”

But Chris Burt of Biometric Update phrased it more succinctly:

“[P]olicy chases modernization”

As Burt notes, examples of policy chasing modernization include:

  • Digital sovereignty, a topic of discussion with everyone from ID4Africa to an organization called the World Ethical Data Foundation. (As an aside, a Bredemarket client and I were recently discussing the pros and cons of managing digital identities in the cloud vs. peer-to-peer synchronization.)
  • Cybersecurity and digital identity, a topic of discussion in government (the White House, NIST) and industry (Jordan Burris of Socure).
  • Other topics, including police facial recognition policy. (Hmm…I recall that both government and vendor biometric policies were the topic of a Biometric Update guest article last year.)

All of you recall Pandora’s Box. I’ve used the story multiple times, including when discussing my creation of Bredebot and its nearly-instantaneous hallucinations. Yes, I do have “policies” regarding this “modernization,” including full disclosure.

But are policies enough?

On Intent

I’ve been playing with the idea of intent (what I call “somewhat you why”) as a factor of identity verification and authentication. And although most people aren’t willing to go that far, intent analysis is becoming more important.

Biometric Update’s Chris Burt quoted RealSense Chief Marketing Officer Mike Nielsen on the company’s ID Pro. In this case, intent detection is used in a non-biometric fashion.

“We now have the ability to detect a person — not just a face — on the module.  Meaning, we can classify body parts (legs, arms, hands, feet) and estimate pose in real time, without any additional external software.  This includes which direction they are walking, how far away they are, and how quickly they are moving. This opens up an enormous opportunity for next-gen applications where you need to know the intent of a person beyond identifying their identity.  And you still get the ability to authenticate faces on the same platform.”

This is definitely NOT identity verification or authentication, but is certainly useful.

If accurate. If a system misreads intent, it can be disastrous.

Returning to Lattice Identity

The last time I delved into lattices, it was in connection with the NIST FIPS 204 Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard. To understand why the standard is lattice-based, I turned to NordVPN:

“A lattice is a hierarchical structure that consists of levels, each representing a set of access rights. The levels are ordered based on the level of access they grant, from more restrictive to more permissive.”

In essence, the lattice structure allows more elaborate access rights.

This article (“Lattice-Based Identity and Access Management for AI Agents”) discusses lattices more. Well, not explicitly; the word “lattice” only appears in the title. But here is the article’s main point:

“We are finally moving away from those clunky, “if-this-then-that” systems. The shift to deep learning means agents can actually reason through a mess instead of just crashing when a customer uses a slang word or a shipping invoice is slightly blurry.”

It then says

“Deep learning changes this because it uses neural networks to understand intent, not just keywords.”

Hmm…intent? Sounds a little somewhat you why…or maybe it’s just me.

But it appears that we sometimes don’t care about the intent of AI agents.

“If you gave a new employee the keys to your entire office and every filing cabinet on day one, you’d be sweating, right? Yet, that is exactly what many companies do with ai agents by just slapping an api key on them and hoping for the best.”

This is not recommended. See my prior post on attribute-based access control, which led me to focus more on non-person entities (non-human identities).

As should we all.

Modem Replacement Part Three

March 27 update here.

Also see part one and part two.

For a day and a half my home Internet worked great.

Sunday morning my wi-fi started failing again, and my ISP is sending a second technician out to work on “signal issues.”

The remainder of this post is written by Google Gemini (but not as Bredebot).

  • I do not have the knowledge to detect if Gemini is hallucinating, so if anything seems off please comment.
  • Note how Gemini adopts a reassuring tone at the beginning of this passage, having been trained to know that someone asking such a technical question may be frustrated. It fakes emotion well.

Google Gemini on fiber network “signal issues”

(Written by Google Gemini)

It can be incredibly frustrating when your internet isn’t working and the fix feels like it’s being kicked down the road. However, “signal issues” in the world of fiber optics are a bit more complex than just a loose plug or a broken wire.

Here is the breakdown of what is happening behind the scenes and why a “balance” is necessary.

What are “Signal Issues”?

In a fiber network, data is transmitted as pulses of light through thin strands of glass. A “signal issue” occurs when that light doesn’t reach your router with the correct intensity or clarity.  

Think of it like trying to read a book by flashlight from across a dark room. If the light is too dim (loss), too bright (saturation), or flickering (interference), you can’t read the words.

Common causes for signal degradation:

  • Micro-bends: A fiber cable that is pinched or bent too sharply.  
  • Contamination: A single microscopic speck of dust on a connector can block the light path.
  • Attenuation: The natural loss of light intensity as it travels over long distances or through splitters.  
  • Splice Failures: Where two fibers are fused together, a “cold” or imperfect weld can cause light to scatter.

Why does the line need to be “Balanced”?

Fiber networks (specifically GPON or Passive Optical Networks) are shared. One main fiber from the provider’s hub is split into many smaller branches that go to different houses.  

“Balancing” is the process of ensuring that the light levels across these branches are within a specific “sweet spot.”

  • Signal too weak: The light is too faint for your ONT (Optical Network Terminal) to distinguish data from background noise.
  • Signal too strong: The light “blinds” the receiver (saturation), much like a camera flash being too close to your eyes.

The “Second Technician” logic

The first technician usually checks the “drop” (the line from the street to your house). If they find the signal is bad before it even hits your property, the issue is further “upstream”—likely at a splitter cabinet or a main distribution frame.

Balancing requires looking at the whole neighborhood’s light levels to ensure that fixing your signal doesn’t accidentally “starve” your neighbor’s connection or blow out their receiver.

Why it takes two visits

Often, the first tech is a residential installer who handles home wiring. The second tech is usually a network or “outside plant” technician. They have specialized equipment (like an OTDR—Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer) to “see” miles down the glass and pinpoint exactly where the light is leaking.