Sync Variations: For Sixteen Isolated Electric Violin Players and a Programmed Network System

Sync Variations is a collaboration between the composer and sound artist Elad Shniderman, the physicist Moti Fridman, and his colleagues Nir Davidson and Shir Shahal. An article on the scientific research aspect of this project was published in Nature Communications2. This article focuses on the musical performance and score.The project is the product of a unique interaction between musicians through a custom-programmed network system. This system simulates the network environment of the internet in many ways. However, the piece has not yet been performed over the internet, which naturally will be the next step in this project. In this project, “synchronization” is defined as the operation or activity of two or more things at the same time or rate. “Chaos” is defined as complete disorder and confusion. _____________________________2 Fridman, Moti et al., “Synchronization of Complex Human Networks,” Nature Communications 11 (2020): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17540-7. A short documentary on Sync Variations is available to watch in the “additional files” section of the “Sync Variations” article download page

Taggart: Cost Justification

A Review of Cost Justification. By Herbert F. Taggar

The Case for Banning (and Mandating) Ransomware Insurance

Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly pervasive and disruptive, resulting in ransom demands becoming more exorbitant. Payments for ransom costs are increasingly being covered by insurance, which may offer coverage for a variety of cyber-related losses. Some commentators have expressed concern over this market phenomenon. Specifically, the concern is that the presence of insurance is making the ransomware problem worse based on the following theory: because there is ransomware insurance that covers ransom payments, and because paying the ransom is often far cheaper than paying the restoration and business interruption costs covered under the policy, there is an increased tendency to pay the ransom—and a willingness to pay higher amounts. This fact, known by the criminals, increases their incentive to engage in ransomware attacks, which increases the demand for insurance. And the cycle continues. This Article demonstrates that the picture is not as simple as this story would suggest. Insurance offers a variety of pre-breach and postbreach services that are aimed at reducing the likelihood and severity of a ransomware attack. Thus, over the long-term, cyber insurance has the potential to lower ransomware-related costs, even without government intervention. As recent research has shown, however, insurers have not yet fully embraced their potential role as ex ante and ex post regulators of cyber risk—a role for which they are especially well-suited. This Article discusses reasons why that might be the case and offers suggestions for how government intervention may help. Among these suggestions is a limited ban on indemnity for ransomware payments with exceptions for cases involving threats to life and limb, which would be an expanded version of what is already in place with the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (“OFAC”) sanctions program. We also explain how a government regulator, such as the OFAC, could serve a coordinating function to help cyber insurers internalize the externalities associated with the insurers’ decisions to reimburse ransomware payments—a role that is played by reinsurers in the context of kidnap-and-ransom insurance. Finally, we consider the idea of a federal mandate requiring property and casualty insurers to provide coverage for the costs of ransomware attacks but exclude coverage for the ransomware payments

The Case for Banning (and Mandating) Ransomware Insurance

Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly pervasive and disruptive. Not only are they shutting down (or at least “holding up”) businesses and local governments all around the country, they are disrupting institutions in many sectors of the U.S. economy — from school systems, to medical facilities, to critical elements of the U.S. energy infrastructure as well as the food supply chain. Ransomware attacks are also growing more frequent and the ransom demands more exorbitant. Those ransom payments are increasingly being covered by insurance. That insurance offers coverage for a variety of cyber-related losses, including many of the costs arising out of ransomware attacks, such as the costs of hiring expert negotiators, the costs of recovering data from backups, the legal liabilities for exposing sensitive customer information, and the ransom payments themselves. Some commentators have expressed concern with this market phenomenon. Specifically, the concern is that the presence of insurance is making the ransomware problem worse, on the following theory: Because there is ransomware insurance that covers ransom payments, and because paying the ransom is often far cheaper than paying the restoration costs and business interruption costs also covered under the policy, there is an increased tendency to pay the ransom — and a willingness to pay higher amounts. This fact, known by the criminals, increases their incentive to engage in ransomware attacks in the first place. And the demand for insurance increases; and the cycle continues. This Article demonstrates that the picture is not as simple as thi story would suggest. Insurance offers a variety of pre-breach and post-breach services that are aimed at reducing the likelihood and severity of a ransomware attack. Thus, over the long-term, cyber insurance has the potential to lower ransomware-related costs. But we are not there yet. This Article discusses ways to help ensure that ransomware insurance is a force for good. Among our suggestions are a limited ban on indemnity for ransomware payments with exceptions for cases involving threats to life and limb, coupled with a mandate that property/casualty insurers provide coverage for the other costs of ransomware attacks. We also explain how a government regulator could serve a coordinating function to help cyber insurers internalize the externalities associated with the insurers’ decisions to reimburse ransomware payments, a role that is played by reinsurers in the context of Kidnap-and-ransom insurance

Synchronization of complex human networks

The synchronization of human networks is essential for our civilization, and understanding the motivations, behavior, and basic parameters that govern the dynamics of human networks is important in many aspects of our lives. Human ensembles have been investigated in recent years, but with very limited control over the network parameters and in noisy environments. In particular, research has focused predominantly on all-to-all coupling, whereas current social networks and human interactions are often based on complex coupling configurations, such as nearest-neighbor coupling and small-world networks. Because the synchronization of any ensemble is governed by its network parameters, studying different types of human networks while controlling the coupling and the delay is essential for understanding the dynamics of different types of human networks. We studied the synchronization between professional violin players in complex networks with full control over the network connectivity, coupling strength of each connection, and delay. We found that the usual models for coupled networks, such as the Kuramoto model, cannot be applied to human networks. We found that the players can change their periodicity by a factor of three to find a stable solution to the coupled network, or they can delete connections by ignoring frustrating signals. These additional degrees of freedom enable new strategies and yield better solutions than are possible within current models. Our results may influence numerous fields, including traffic management, epidemic control, and stock market dynamics.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, to be submitte

Sync Variations

Almost every ensemble in nature demonstrates synchronized behavior, from thousands of fireflies blinking, schooling fish swimming as a group, the singing of crickets, and even the synchronization of menstrual cycles of women living in the same household. In physics, synchronization appears from the largest scales such as clusters of galaxies to the smallest scales such as subatomic particles, and from slow-coupled planets to ultrafast-coupled lasers. All these synchronized phenomena require coupling between the different components of the ensemble, and the synchronization depends on the specific parameters of the system. In many cases, it is possible to shift the system from a synchronized state into a chaotic state by changing a single parameter. The transition from a synchronized ensemble to chaotic behavior is not abrupt but rises after splitting the entire system into more and more synchronized clusters. When introducing human nature into a coupled physical system, the situation becomes even more interesting. In some cases, people can behave as simple oscillators and in other cases, they enrich the system thanks to their complicated psychology. This is the main focus of this piece. We demonstrate this unique conflict between synchronization and chaos of an ensemble of people to the audience while investigating new and novel aspects of the interaction within complex human networks. This piece is the outcome of the synchronization between professional violin players in complex human networks with full and accurate control over the network connectivity, coupling strength of each connection, and delay between players. We set 16 isolated electric violin players to repeatedly play a musical phrase. We collect the sound output from each violin and control the input to each player via noise-cancelling headphones. The players cannot see or hear each other apart from what is heard in their headphones. All the players start playing the musical phrase with the help of an external rhythmical beat, to verify that they all start together. The external rhythmical beat is stopped after one cycle of the phrase and the only instruction to the players is to try to synchronize their rhythm to what they hear in their headphones. At this point we establish a chain of connectivity between the players and begin to incorporate delays in the system of communication