
Black Hat Talk About ‘Time AI’ Causes Uproar, Is Deleted by Conference - lnguyen
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xw9kp/black-hat-talk-about-time-ai-causes-uproar-is-deleted-by-conference
======
raphlinus
This reminds me of a person who somehow managed an invitation to give a
presentation at UC Berkeley on database compression in 1993, with similar
levels of snake-oil. I remember one of the funnier moments, a theme of the
presentation was how there were more and more large data sets out there,
including the Library of Congress. In a burst of enthusiasm, the presenter
gushed about how they even had a Stradivarius violin in their collection. I
turned to my friend and said, "well, I can imagine how to do data compression
on that, but the decompression is going to be hard."

The actual technology was just a variant of Lempel-Ziv, and the claims about
lossless compression were just hiding the entropy by not counting a huge
dictionary off to the side. Even so, there were claims that this result
"extended information theory" and the patterns found could be the basis of
learning.

The presenter had climbed in their regional market, and gotten a puff piece in
a business magazine, but obviously the grad students at UC Berkeley weren't
buying it. The presenter's startup didn't go anywhere, but they have had a
successful career, and are now a VP at Gartner.

I guess the lesson is that there's a network that runs on technical expertise
and ability to deliver results, and a parallel network that runs on bullshit
and the ability to convince people. There's a lot of money and power in the
second network, and it intersects with respected, established institutions.
Grant seems to be playing that game masterfully, and the publicity from being
publicly attacked at a "Black Hat" conference plays into his hands
beautifully. Maybe Gartner will be hiring?

~~~
Nextgrid
I read your comment up to the last paragraph and was going to comment about
“VP at _Gartner_ ” and how these consulting companies (and Accenture,
Deloitte, etc) run on bullshit but your last paragraph sums it up perfectly.

I wonder what can be done to nuke these BS companies out of existence. Anyone
has ideas?

~~~
arbitrary_name
I think you need to dial back the vitriol. Yes Ive seen these firms screw
projects up royally (Accenture Hertz for example). Ive also seen them
consistently deliver valuable insights and outcomes for their clients. Ive
worked with utterly incompetent client staff (i.e. people not so dissimilar
from you, maybe) and some very very good ones (also you maybe). At no point do
I advocate nuking anything or anyone out of existence. Neither should you.

Signed,

A Consultant

~~~
Nextgrid
I’m a consultant as well. I’m confident I can deliver (with a team of trusted
contractors I personally know) most of what “Big Consulting” (aka the
aforementioned companies) delivers (or fail to deliver) for less than half the
price and still make a significant profit, or refer the client to someone
who’s more experienced in that area of business. The Hertz case is a prime
example.

My post isn’t a dig against consulting, it’s a dig against “Big Consulting”
where it’s more about bluff, a big brand (to prey on the “nobody has been
fired for choosing X”), lots of meetings & bullshit while the actual work gets
outsourced to monkeys in third-world countries with atrocious working
conditions.

I want to nuke “Big Consulting” out of existence to let _real_ consulting take
its place for people like you and me.

------
jlgaddis
The company has issued a "statement regarding recent allegations made at Black
Hat 2019 [0]. For anyone interested, the statement links to the guy's paper
[1] "where he identified the first Infinite Prime Number prediction pattern".

> _Utilizing multi-dimensional encryption technology, including time, music’s
> infinite variability, artificial intelligence, and most notably mathematical
> constancies to generate entangled key pairs, ..._

I'm not even remotely qualified to speak about any of it but it certainly
gives the feeling that they're selling "silicon snake oil". My bullshit
detector hit 11 after reading the above.

Supposedly, Grant's discovery enables "the accurate prediction of prime
numbers". I'm unable to find out just how many previously unknown prime
numbers he has successfully predicted thus far, however. Anyone know?

[0]: [https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/08/crown-sterling-
issues-s...](https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/08/crown-sterling-issues-
statement-regarding-recent-allegations-made-at-black-hat-2019/)

[1]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08570](https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08570)

~~~
angarg12
How much does your bullshit detector hit with their promo video?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8)

~~~
chvid
That video is amazing.

The conference is really playing into Time AIs game by censoring it.
Underlying the story that this new technology is just too big and too
groundbreaking for the industry to accept :-D

~~~
BubRoss
A conference not accepting a talk is not censorship.

~~~
misnome
The conference accepted the talk. They gave the talk. The conference is now
removing their videos after-the-fact. It's not hard to see how one could spin
that as censorship.

~~~
moloch
The conference did _not_ accept the talk, they paid the conference so that
they could give the talk.

~~~
StavrosK
Which they accepted, no?

~~~
jjeaff
They don't vet the paid presentations.

~~~
StavrosK
Really? Wow.

------
dguido
There's an article from PC Mag with a few more details:

[https://www.pcmag.com/news/370119/black-hat-attendees-
sponso...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/370119/black-hat-attendees-sponsored-
session-was-snake-oil-crypto)

Here's a video of Robert Grant giving an introduction to his Time AI nonsense
from their party the night before:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/llp24loq5odvyhk/Crown%20Sterling%2...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/llp24loq5odvyhk/Crown%20Sterling%20CEO%20-%20BH%2008.07.19.mov?dl=0)

JP Aumasson live tweeted their presentation at Blackhat:

[https://twitter.com/veorq/status/1159559785068429312](https://twitter.com/veorq/status/1159559785068429312)

~~~
tastroder
Do I understand those Twitter threads correctly in that BH security removed
you from the room? The heck?

~~~
dguido
Yes, and it makes sense that I was thrown out. It's not like the security
guard knows the talk is bullshit. He just saw a guy (me) yelling that, "all
you employees of this guy should quit and find real jobs!" I think that was an
appropriate response in the moment.

The true failure happened when Blackhat decided it was ok to accept money from
a con man.

~~~
tastroder
Fair enough, I naively assumed that security at BH had people embedded that
would be able to make that call. But yeah, agree on all fronts then, thanks
for standing up to him.

------
misnome
I have somewhat sympathy for Black Hat, especially with the "pay for talks"
model that they seem to get funding from, it's easy for these things to get a
platform.

I went to a maker space in the UK that occasionally held talks - one day they
had a talk by some "Alkaline water" machine manufacturer (not the
manufacturer, but one of the pyramid scheme dupes). Like many of these, it was
a random mix of diverse actual (irrelevant) science, pseudoscience bullshit,
conspiracy theory (as to why this wasn't e.g. used in medicine), appeal to
authority and outright fraud, gish-galloped together into one giant mess. The
diversity of the actual science means that there is _nobody_ who can be an
expert in all areas and so refuting can be waved away.

Many of the otherwise practically intelligent people (although a wide mix came
to this space) apparently couldn't tell or didn't care. Several people
actually bought machines from them.

I suppose all of this is (in these contexts) is preying on the tendency for
competent scientists to automatically question their own assumptions, but even
when they do most of the time it just feeds their "controversy" argument using
people who would never have bought it anyway.

Con-artists continue to thrive for a reason; even with the canniest/most
suspicious people there's an arbitrage on how long they can survive in one
place before moving onto the next target.

~~~
0xDEFC0DE
I don’t have any sympathy, but this isn’t really that big of a deal. Black hat
is expensive as fuck and they could have done without the money. I think they
do less than DEFCON while also charging more but that’s just my hot take. I
don’t think they’ll suffer any practical reputation damage (like people
choosing NOT to go to Black hat). It’ll just be a meme and something they
laugh about.

~~~
tptacek
They're different events. For a lot of offensive security subjects, the bar to
get a talk accepted at Black Hat is significantly higher than at Defcon. Black
Hat has a clear professional focus; Defcon tacks more towards culture and
enthusiasts.

If you don't want to pay for Black Hat, you don't have to; one of the things
Black Hat's registration price covers is professional recording, and the talks
are published on Youtube in a few months.

------
jedberg
I've always hated sponsored talks. I understand why they exist -- because they
are huge money makers for the conference organizers. Occasionally, you get a
good one, where it's a talk about a general topic that happens to have a light
tie in with the commercial product. Or it's a very good commercial product
that people want an in depth talk about.

But usually, it's just a 30 minute ad that's all fluff. I try to avoid them,
but sometimes I volunteer at conferences and get stuck managing a sponsored
talk track, and man is it depressing.

------
lordnacho
Snake oil for sure, but this is merely a snake oil sales guy who walked into a
room full of people willing to call him out.

The rest of society is not so courageous.

You only need to look at various management consultants, new age healers, and
religion to find more people who obviously know nothing about how the world
actually is, but are never held to account.

~~~
djsumdog
Black Hat is like a $2k ~ $3k conference. Even though many people there are
sponsored by their companies, it's still expensive and I suspect people who
put this kind of value in this conference aren't going to sit around and put
up with what they know is bullshit.

------
p1esk
I also suspect the guy (Robert Grant) is a conman, but whatever scheme he is
running is quite elaborate:
[https://strathspeycrown.com/team](https://strathspeycrown.com/team)

Does anyone have an insight as to what their endgame is, and where their
funding is coming from?

~~~
RL_Quine
Having a team page like that is your first red flag.

[https://strathspeycrown.com/subsidiary-companies-
investments...](https://strathspeycrown.com/subsidiary-companies-investments/)

> "Strathspey Crown is a visionary portfolio of transformational businesses,
> focused on the most complex sectors of healthcare, energy, and technology."

This seems to be the parent company, check out some of the goofy things they
claim to been involved in. Quotes like "changing the paradigm", "the internet
of wellbeing", "where little things make a big difference". It's cookie cutter
generic websites for every one of them, most of the time I can't work out what
their product is supposed to be or what they're claiming to be working on.

~~~
mattkevan
Just spent the last 15 minutes reading through their websites in quiet
amazement. How do they get funding? Why do people pay them?

When your ‘director of cryptography’ has this in his bio, surely something’s
up:

> dedicated the last fifteen years to decrypting mathematical codes in
> Shakespeare’s writings that have revealed unknown sacred geometry hidden in
> the pyramids of Giza.

Another of their companies sells patches that relieves pain through the magic
of quantum physics. Something about the energies of healing substances that
unlock a pain relieving carrier wave.

Yikes.

~~~
pjc50
It's like audiophiles; there's not too many people who believe it, but enough
of the ones that do have enough disposable income to make a great grift.

~~~
whymauri
I'm genuinely confused here... some audio equipment does actually sound better
than other audio equipment. Are you referring to snake oil audio cable
salesmen?

~~~
RL_Quine
"Audiophiles" are generally associated with not high end audio equipment at
absurd costs and no reasoning. Oxygen free copper cabling, making sure your
cables are isolated from the floor on little stands to reduce the vibration
they absorb, "burning in" amplifiers for thousands of hours to improve the
flavor of the output in a supposedly perceptible way. Many behaviors with the
consistency of rubbing deer blood on your car hood to give it bloodlust, and
therefor extra speed.

~~~
mxuribe
> ...rubbing deer blood on your car hood to give it bloodlust, and therefor
> extra speed.

I've never heard this one; brilliantly funny!!

------
Uptrenda
I'm getting an odd Wolf of wall street vibe from this. It's like the script
were taken as inspiration for the branding.

Crown sterling = Stratton Oakmont =
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPVMfGzXZP8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPVMfGzXZP8)

Stratton's logo is a lion. Crown Sterlings logo is a lion. The style of
presentation is the same: start with axioms that are hard to argue with. Use
it to build trust, then when they're listening segway into the real bs.

Building trust =
[https://youtu.be/dCANT0nG3bY?t=36](https://youtu.be/dCANT0nG3bY?t=36)

"First we pitch them disney, at & T, ... blue chip stocks exclusively.
companies these people know. once we've suckered them in we unload the dog
shite. pink sheets, the penny stocks, where we make the money."

They're doing the same thing but with encryption. Ofc, no one understands
encryption directly so they talk abstractly about entropy and appeal to
authority. After that comes the bs. The only part that seems missing from this
is what they're shilling for and they're already gathering emails.

Oops. I was going to say they missed the crucial ingredient which is to create
FOMO -- or fear of missing out. But they got that right too by implying
existing encryption was somehow flawed or broken. People would have to sign up
or risk their 'data liberty.' Nicely done.

I'll be surprised if this isn't to hype a blockchain-related project. IOTA
2.0.

------
stebann
When several companies like this one look related and are trying to push some
of their "products" into a pro market, it really smells like a money
laundering scheme. I have seen schemes like this one in South-America, Brazil
specifically, related to "religious" indoctrination. Hope someone in USA
investigates this. It looks well funded.

------
tptacek
The funny thing about this is that everyone knew this talk was happening, and
that it was going to be batshit; it was a hot Slack topic for a day a few
weeks ago, and the day of the talk, people were excitedly talking about making
to that talk so they could gape and heckle.

I don't know precisely what happened to change this from comedy to
controversy, but it definitely started with JP Aumasson's livetweet of the
presentation going viral. So I guess I blame twitter.

------
1023bytes
One of their sister companies actually sells healing crystals:
[https://arkcrystals.com/](https://arkcrystals.com/)

~~~
chvid
"Replicating the magnetohydrodynamics naturally occurring in a variety of
astrophysical objects, which couples plasma modes to the harmonic structure of
the quantum vacuum — the Harmonic Flux Resonator (HFR) replicates and
transfers quantum energy."

... it says on the website and then it links on to a website which offers
energy derived from vacuum:

Vacuum Energy

Energy extracted directly from the vacuum. Nothing to burn, nothing to
consume, nothing to destroy. No fumes, no toxins, no limitations. Nothing
short of a paradigm shift which will alter the course of human kind forever.

[https://torustech.com/technology/](https://torustech.com/technology/)

Is it one of those websites that is really marketing for a new sci-fi show?

~~~
jotm
> Energy extracted directly from the vacuum. Nothing to burn, nothing to
> consume, nothing to destroy. No fumes, no toxins, no limitations.

So, it is _nothing_. Shieeet I wish I could sell nothing to people _for
money_.

~~~
chvid
It is a free energy machine / perpetual motion machine. That is always good if
you are tech investor to have that sort of thing in your portfolio :-D

------
jacquesm
Giving a sponsored talk at a conference that attracts a lot of experts in the
field is an interesting attempt at hacking, had they gotten away with it they
would have had that much more bragging rights while trying to land investor
money.

Outright scams are pretty rare but I've come across them a couple of times in
the last decade, it always amazes me that investors would even begin to
consider them.

~~~
tastroder
In an era of kickstarter scams I'm not sure that there's that much of a
difference between this and "getting away with it". I get that vetting
sponsored talks is hard from a BH perspective but... just looking at how the
presenter downplays this in their twitter responses, I'm pretty sure they'll
use it for bragging rights anyway. Just like they apparently claim to have
published something with an arxiv paper.

It is pretty doubtful that anybody will remember this incident in a month when
they pitch it to a non-technical crowd, worst case for them is using a
slightly different name to avoid superficial search engine due diligence.

~~~
jacquesm
They might even use the 'Secrets that Black Hat does not want you to know'
angle to their advantage.

------
Ice_cream_suit
"The author will show that when applying this simple operation to magical
numbers, and to many other groups of numbers, an amazing world of hidden
interconnections; repetition cycles; numerical symmetries; and geometrical
patterns emerge. Especially when the geometrical (the circle) and the
numerical aspects of the digital root world are combined together. It is in
this circular/numerical world where numbers, individually and collectively,
exist in their most basic, yet perfect and symmetrical states, and where the
basic nine numbers are differentiated into three groups of amazing properties,
which will be shown to underlie the essence of the whole universe; from the
atom and its forces to the solar system and its geometry."

Right....

------
jumelles
> Usually, talks submitted to Black Hat go through a thorough approval process
> managed by a review board of industry experts. But, as in this case,
> companies can also pay to play and get these sponsored talks, which are not
> vetted for quality.

That just seems ripe for abuse like this. I'm surprised this hasn't happened
before.

~~~
hannob
Of course this has happened before. It's just usually nobody who has a clue
cares about these sponsored talks.

Do you think all the other products they pitch there live up to the promises
made? This is just a bit extreme in its wording, so it's causing attention.

------
naner
Interesting move trying to push snake-oil in a room full of SMEs.

~~~
segfaultbuserr
Yeah, selling snake-oil encryption to a group of professional infosec
researchers and cryptographers? Do they even a have brain...

~~~
emn13
I'm guessing there aren't all that many cryptographers at blackhat; that's
quite a different specialty, isn't it? Then again, is also pays to know enough
about cryptography to at least identify poorly applies crypto, so there are
likely enough people in attendance with surprisingly in-depth knowledge even
if crypto isn't technically their specialty.

~~~
duskwuff
You don't have to be a medical expert to recognize that a guy selling crystal-
infused snake oil probably hasn't found the cure to cancer.

------
rv-de
[https://www.robertedwardgrant.com/about](https://www.robertedwardgrant.com/about)

That's Robert Grant's personal website. Check it out. It's hilarious.

~~~
elliekelly
> He was formerly CEO and President of Bausch and Lomb Surgical in June of
> 2010.

So he was in the position for... one month? Am I reading that correctly?

~~~
rficcaglia
From this it seems he was there at least until 2011:
[https://news.chapman.edu/2011/05/16/jerry-lewis-among-
commen...](https://news.chapman.edu/2011/05/16/jerry-lewis-among-commencement-
speakers/)

PR when he was appointed in 2010:
[https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/bausch-and-lomb-
na...](https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/bausch-and-lomb-names-b-
robert-e-grant-b-as-ceo-and-president-of-its-surgical-business-/)

Clearly the guy made a fortune from Botox, knows how to leverage that success
and build an organization around buzzwords that attract investor money.

To be fair, is that any worse than Silicon Valley VC?

------
H8crilA
Here's a full portfolio of snake oil "companies" that these guys (or this
guy?) engage in:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8paZWjiJIk8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8paZWjiJIk8)

------
wtdata
For me, the best stream of Twitter comments about this is this one where the
company claims that no Encryption algorithms are peer reviewed and then,
several people working for legitimate companies tell them that's just
bollocks:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/Robert_E_Grant_/status/1160226095...](https://mobile.twitter.com/Robert_E_Grant_/status/1160226095481806848)

------
thatguy27
Did anyone back up the video before it got taken down?

------
Animats
Why did Black Hat delete it, rather than making snide comments about it? A
video of people laughing at the speaker would have been great.

~~~
jlgaddis
The speaker('s company) paid a hefty price for him to be there to present.
Black Hat doesn't wanna dissuade any other potential vendors from not giving
them their money.

~~~
Twisol
I feel like you could make the same case for _not_ loudly renouncing "Time
AI". If Black Hat were to stand by this sponsor, I would wonder if other
potential sponsors might actively _withhold_ funds specifically to avoid being
associated with "Time AI". Like the YouTube adpocalypse -- the media storm
around certain kinds of content made advertisers uncomfortable with being
associated with that content.

~~~
Nasrudith
Well part of the point with sponsors is to find someone that can make money
without 'selling out' and doing major damage to themselves as a conference
brand. "Time AI" isn't paying nearly enough money to be worth the damage that
not renouncing them would do.

------
ian0
Sure it's not documentary makers seeing how far they can take it? This looks
like a piss-take.

~~~
jaynetics
the team page supports your point (
[https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/05/alan-
green/](https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/05/alan-green/) ):

"Alan [...] dedicated the last fifteen years to decrypting mathematical codes
in Shakespeare’s writings that have revealed unknown sacred geometry hidden in
the pyramids of Giza."

i don't think anyone will invest so much time into such a bungled attempt of
con-artistry, so this does look more like a (costly) hoax.

maybe it is intended to discredit certain players in SecOps, Sokal-affair-
style (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)
).

~~~
jowsie
It's more likely to be along the same lines as the Nigerian Prince scam
emails. They look absolutely ridiculous to anyone with the slightest ability
to critically think about the situation. Those aren't the people they're
targeting, though.

~~~
jaynetics
even in the Nigerian prince mails they don't go out of their way to give the
prince a biography that could have been written by Erich von Däniken.

------
lucb1e
I don't get why we give this so much attention. The authors are clearly
kidding, mentally ill, or have a purpose beyond my understanding (this can't
be the easiest way to launder money).

~~~
andrepd
The purpose is to make money selling snake oil, not anything more complicated
than that.

------
mruts
Here's a instagram post from the founder:

[https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/vp/1ba57134a58455de0595824...](https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/vp/1ba57134a58455de0595824423feaf0c/5DEB85B3/t51.2885-15/sh0.08/e35/p640x640/66697542_482125555666888_8950706368114846991_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent.cdninstagram.com)

Also look at his papers. He likes to draw a lot instead of doing math.

~~~
ghthor
You're an asshole. Geometric relationships between numbers are doing math.

~~~
dang
Personal attacks will get you banned here, so please don't post like this
again. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
not_a_cop75
Sometimes I think there should be a law that states products should be
accurately described in advertisements.

If such a law were enacted, this product might be called Fucked Up Encryption.
I say that because the first law of encryption is that you don't roll it
yourself. You can build things that use known encryption in non-standard ways,
and even that can lead to things that were unexpected - like side channel
attacks.

------
youdontknowtho
I think this guy will be eating out on "getting shutdown for telling the
truth" for years to come. Just looking at the kinds of things this guy has
done on youtube, yeah...they are definitely in the whole "mainstream science
is a conspiracy camp".

The whole pyramids thing is hilarious...I can't remember who coined the term,
but "pyramidiots" is my favorite.

------
thesausageking
Their intro video is really well-produced. If I had landed on it without any
context, I would've thought it was a new Netflix show:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8)

------
whycombagator
The holding/parent company[0] has lots of other interesting ventures

[0] [https://strathspeycrown.com/](https://strathspeycrown.com/)

------
mattxxx
Reminds me of this music video:
[https://youtu.be/hKosaf5tmpI](https://youtu.be/hKosaf5tmpI)

... I can't imagine this being serious

------
0XAFFE
Reminds me a bit of [https://timecube.2enp.com/](https://timecube.2enp.com/)

~~~
youdontknowtho
It's like TimeCube guy had wealthy parents or something like that.

------
hannasanarion
Did anybody catch an archive/mirror of the talk? I want to watch it for
entertainment value

------
kerng
I find it not ideal from Blackhat to remove this talk.

They paid to speak, so why not leave it at that. In many ways the guy hacked
Blackhat with a few thousand dollars, which is kinda noteworthy.

This guy certainly gets all the attention he wanted by Blackhat removing the
video.

------
mansilladev
Perhaps he’s from the future. But I’d guess he’d say, “Only _time_ will tell.”

~~~
youdontknowtho
Upvoted for more dad jokes on HN.

~~~
mansilladev
Yeah, tough crowd. Pulled the quote right from that promo reel.

