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Rebel Corporations Storm Gaza, West Bank

June 3, 2052
GAZA–In a surprise move Wednesday, squads of U.S. and multinational corporations seized control of key strategic sites throughout Gaza and the West Bank, demanding an end to Palestinian policies disfavoring capital movements and the distribution of consumer goods. “This is not an act of aggression,” explains Dobie Greengrass, VP of Insurgency and Pacification at Procter & Gamble. “Our sole aim is to ensure the security of our customers. Our customers have rights that shall not be overcome.”

The attack, timed to coincide with a local bank holiday and the closure of local bourses, struck private and public targets across the region, including utilities and key media assets. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” exclaims Euclid Finda, Executive Director of Gaza Bank. “Simultaneous buying on a massive scale. Total carnage. Within a matter of 72 hours the rebels had apparent control of eight of the nine largest Palestinian companies. And whatever they didn’t own, they burned.”

Making use of what have been characterized as ‘slash and burn’ tactics, the rebels, lead by prominent U.S. consumer products manufacturers, purchased controlling interest in the Palestinian economy, embargoing or driving into bankruptcy firms they could not purchase. “My business is ruined, and for what?” asks an unidentified West Bank retailer. “My supply lines are cut off. Nobody will sell to me. How long can I hold out without fresh inventory?”

Within hours of the attack, rebel managers, accountants, and consultants descended upon the country, occupying boardrooms, coffee shops, and hotel conference centers. “Sure, there’s some danger,” notes a member of a squad of elite McKinsey & Co. consultants. “Most of these investments are likely to end up worthless. But you accept danger when you’re fighting the good fight. That’s the job we’re here to do.”

International reaction to the attack was quick, but cautious. “It is not our mandate to intervene in the internal affairs of member nations,” explains U.N. General Secretary Maria Trafficante. “The Security Council is monitoring the situation closely, but, to date, no motion has been made towards a serious resolution on the issue either way.”

Employees of insurgent companies showed their support on Friday by wearing specially designed green ribbons. “I’m proud of them,” says an AOL employee of his fellow employees who seized control of Palestinian state-run television. “This is a good day for AOL, and a great day for the Palestinian people.”

Asked about the duration of the occupation, P&G’s Greengrass, speaking for the rebel coalition, declined to characterize the action as an occupation. “This is not an occupation; it’s a liberation. It’s about ensuring that people everywhere have the right to buy and enjoy the goods to which they aspire.”

Biosecurities Asphyxiate Famed Financier

April 16, 2023
PALO ALTO–Under pressure from the Food & Drug Administration and the Securities & Exchange Commission, spokespeople for the family of famed financier Michael Milken confirmed Friday that his death late last month was likely related to his ingestion of experimental, high-yield ‘biosecurities.’ “Mike was an innovator, and a risk-taker,” recalls Lillian Oval, director of the Milken Family Foundation. “Biosecurities were part of his vision for the future, and, though he believed them to be safe, he knew that there were risks. But he was a pioneer, and that’s what a pioneer does.”

Biosecurities, developed by Vitomus, LLC, a privately funded consortium of banks, brokerages, and biotech firms, represent a cutting-edge combination of financial and biological technologies. Each of the ‘securities’ is a “viable, engineered bio-organism” designed with the behaviors and qualities of a financial instrument. “The idea is really quite simple,” explains Erik Ween, Vitomus’ Chief Research Officer. “We take a simple single-celled organism, in some cases even a virus, and redesign it so that it can embody, for example, a convertible debenture, or even just a share of common stock.”

Through the use of advanced techniques for genetically encoding mathematical and computational algorithms, Vitomus’ member engineers have created bacteria whose growth rate mimics the coupon payments associated with some bonds, and have engineered special ciliates whose reproductive cell-division coincides with stock splits. “The trick isn’t really to define biological behaviors to represent financial behaviors. That’s easy enough,” Ween explains. “The essence of these instruments is really trust and authentication. Self-authenticating, encrypted DNA sequences unique to each organism allow you to identify them and know their legitimacy.”

Once ingested, short-term biosecurities typically live in the mouth and throat, with longer-term notes favoring the blood, lower intestines, and abdominal tissue. Transactions between ‘carriers’ are typically achieved through close contact or exchange of bodily fluids.

“It’s really quite a new paradigm in the financial world,” notes Merrill Lynch VP of Private Banking Barry Vary. “What I used to achieve through the touch of a button, I now do with a deep, wet kiss. There’s a new intimacy to high-value transactions that’s really quite refreshing.”

Originally designed as a more private, more secure replacement for the classic ‘bearer bond,’ biosecurities have gained a foothold among wealthy traders eager to avoid the scrutiny of conventional markets and exchanges.

Milken, a vocal advocate of the new instruments and a key member of the Vitomus advisory board, had reportedly converted much of his portfolio to the new securities, and was actively involved in the creation of synthetic and hybrid instruments through novel combinations of the organisms. “Mike was way ahead of all of us,” comments Vitomus’ Ween. “I heard that he was growing lots of synthetic puts and, as you might expect, was heavily into the high-yield end of the spectrum.”

Though the Milken family has declined to identify specific instruments, experts speculate that his untimely death was the result of run-away growth in his high-yield investments. “The doctors have informed us that Mike died as the result of a constricting inflammation in the throat area,” reported a family spokesperson. “And we have been led to understand that this inflammation was the result of the appearance of unusually large colonies of unidentified bacteria.”

Responding to the family’s announcement, Congresswoman Barbie Hi (D-MI), Chair of the House Committee on Edible and Ingestible Objects, put out an immediate call for an investigation: “This is a tragic loss, and it must not be in vain. My promise to the American people is that I will not rest until we know what these things are and what dangers they pose to the public health.”

Maryland Startup Sequences English Language

May 18, 2023
ROCKVILLE, MD–In a surprise announcement, Lexerica, a 23-employee, privately funded startup based in Rockville, Maryland, revealed Friday that it has completed an initial draft sequence of the English language. “This is a real David and Goliath story, a triumph for the little guy with the big idea,” exclaims Lucian Blunderbuss, founder, Chairman, and CEO of Lexerica. “We tackled the sequencing problem using only a fraction of the resources and employee-hours the experts said we would need.”

The sequence, which consists of “all well-formed and near-well-formed expressions possible in the English language,” was assembled with the help of a network of sophisticated computers employing a proprietary ‘scattershot’ sequencing algorithm developed by Blunderbuss himself.

“The trick to building the sequence is realizing that it’s more about figuring out what to include than figuring out what to exclude,” explains Blunderbuss. “Rather than building a database of all mathematically possible sequences of letters and then sifting through that for well-formed expressions, we took a large set of well-formed expressions, smashed them together, and then reformed them, looking for expressions in what resulted.”

Blunderbuss, once Chief Technical Director of the Public Domain Sequencing Project, a publicly funded effort to produce a similar sequence, broke with the Project over their reluctance to make use of the ‘scattershot’ technique. “Lucian is undoubtedly brilliant,” opines Georgiana Jumper, Chair of the PDSP executive committee. “And we applaud him for sticking to his guns, but the Project continues to have some reservations about the technique and the completeness of the sequence it has produced.”

Organizers of the Public Project also question the propriety of a privately funded and privately owned sequence. “The Lexerica sequence raises serious questions,” notes Pilar Daise, an anaphora expert and Project researcher. “While the Project is dedicated to increasing the size of the public domain by dedicating the sequence to it, the Lexerica sequence, once published, could conceivably be the source of copyright claims against the bulk of future linguistic expression.”

In theory the Lexerica sequence includes, according to Daise, “millions of billions of novel-length expressions,” each of which could conceivably pre-empt the work of a future Hemingway or Tolstoy. “It’s crucial that the sequence be part of the public domain,” exclaims Daise. “Otherwise the owner of the sequence will have a strangle-hold on future creative work.”

Though declining explicitly to dedicate the Lexerica sequence to the public domain, CEO Blunderbuss assures critics that his company is not interested in owning new expressions. “We have yet to fully resolve our business model, but you can rest assured that we will not start by suing individual writers. That’s just not in the cards. Our initial plan is to make the sequence commercially available, on a pay-to-use basis. It’ll actually be a service for writers, who will be able to prospect for new works in the sequence, rather than starting from scratch every time.”

“We don’t really know their plans,” notes PDSP Chair Jumper. “It is interesting to note, however, that [Blunderbuss’] scattershot technique relied upon well-formed expressions from the public domain. They had to have something to start with.”

Acknowledging that the Lexerica sequence did in fact make use of a number of public domain works as “seed expressions”–including some published early portions of the Public Project’s sequence–Blunderbuss is quick to point out that Lexerica also made use of many “indigenous well-formed expressions,” including, notably, three of Blunderbuss’ published books, transcripts of 133 of his public speeches, and transcriptions of more than 1,200 hours of his personal phone conversations.

Wireless Designer Labels Help Chic Shoppers Show Off

March 3, 2006
MILAN–In a bid to both attract technologically savvy clients and combat the scourge of high-fashion knock-offs, a special research committee of the Joint Council for Fashion and Design announced Wednesday the final draft an open standard for the wireless authentication of designer garments. “The standard has been a longtime in development,” notes Greta Weif, Chair of the Council’s steering committee. “And we are very pleased with the results. The system will, at last, bring the technology of fashion awareness into the 21st century.”

The system, known as ‘Authus,’ features wireless chips stitched into the labels or linings of designer garments. The flexible chips, made of a durable, semi-conducting polymer, each include identifying information, a unique ‘private’ encryption key, and bluetooth-compatible radio frequency wireless functionality. When in the proximity of an Authus garment, bluetooth aware devices will be able to receive information about the garment and it’s provenance, including the designer, season, line, and studio.

“Though it is about brand awareness, [Authus] is nothing as vulgar as advertising,” notes Hilbert Monroe, Helmut Lang’s Chief of Anthropology. “Our fieldwork indicates that many clients in our core demographic hesitate to inquire about a garment’s origins out of a fear of appearing ignorant. Authus ensures that the signature on our garments is available, always, discreetly, to everyone.”

The Authus standard also calls for use of a key-pair encryption scheme for authentication of a garment’s label. “Each label includes a private encryption key paired with a public key stored on a designer’s or studio’s secured server,” explains the Council’s Weif. “Information coming out of the chip is signed by the chip’s private key, and can be opened only by the public key. If there’s no public key for the garment on the designer’s server, then you can’t open its label and you know the garment’s a fake.”

In addition to information about the designer and season, Authus labels also identify the location of purchase, the amount paid for the garment at the time of purchase, and, for past-season garments, a depreciated value. “Our customers tend to be very price conscious,” explains Anthropologist Monroe. “Price transparency is crucial. If a customer paid $8,500 for peppermint cashmere socks, he wants the world to know so, in a verifiable way. That same customer wants to know if the other guy with the same socks bought them at-market, in-season, in Bal Harbor, or if he picked them up marked-down at an outlet, off-season.”

By pursuing open standards, the Council aims to enable cross-designer aggregation functions, including the ability of an ensemble including garments from different designers to produce a unified informational profile through a combination of inter-garment and inter-server communications. Weif explains: “What you should be able to do is point your PDA at somebody on the street and get an instant profile, including a total gross expenditure for the whole ensemble: where they shop and how much they spend, in a snapshot.”

Responding to the Authus announcement, privacy experts sounded notes of concern. “We are justifiably concerned about how this system is going to be used,” worries First Privacy founder Willamette Quan. “Beyond the nightmare possibilities of ‘fashion police’ devices looking for ‘knock offs’ is the subtler, but deeper, threat the system poses to the anonymity that is crucial to equality in public spaces. Do we really want to live in a world where everybody walks around with a dollar figure over their heads?”

“Fashion is about publicity, not privacy,” responds Prada spokesman Michael Adams-Green-Bury. “Our clothes make a complex social statement, and the [Authus] labels are part of that statement. Our clients choose us because they have something to say. Our job is to help them say it.”