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The Problem Isn’t Access — It’s Exposure

A Practical Proposal for Restoring Signal Integrity on the Open Internet

THE SHEILD Introduction: There was a time when the internet felt like discovery.

You didn’t scroll — you found. You didn’t consume — you explored. The network wasn’t perfect, but it had a defining quality: signal was earned. You had to go looking for it, and when you found it, it meant something.

That environment no longer exists.

Today’s internet is not constrained by lack of information, but by overexposure to low-quality, manipulative, or irrelevant content. The dominant systems that govern distribution — algorithmic feeds, recommendation engines, engagement loops — are not designed to maximise value, truth, or relevance. They are designed to maximise time, reaction, and monetisation.

The result is a form of cognitive exhaustion:

Endless fake or distorted narratives

Marketing disguised as authenticity

Coordinated influence patterns

Ragebait, urgency loops, and emotional manipulation

This creates what can be described as moron fatigue — not as an insult, but as a structural condition. The system ensures constant exposure to the lowest common denominator because it performs best under current incentives.

Attempts to fix this have largely failed.

Centralised moderation leads to censorship concerns and political bias

Walled gardens create isolation and fragmentation

New platforms simply repeat the same incentive structures

What’s missing is not a better platform.

What’s missing is control at the point of intake.

Introducing THE SHEILD THE SHEILD is a conceptual product — a user-controlled, cross-platform filtering layer designed to restore signal integrity without breaking the open nature of the internet.

It does not replace platforms. It does not block the internet. It does not isolate the user.

Instead, it acts as a selective filter between the user and the network, allowing connection to remain intact while dramatically reducing exposure to manipulation, noise, and low-value content.

At its core, THE SHEILD is based on a simple premise:

The problem is not what exists on the internet. The problem is what is forced into your field of view.

Design Principles THE SHEILD is built around five core principles:

User Sovereignty The user controls what they see, not the platform.

Filtering logic, trust networks, and preferences are owned and portable — not locked inside a service.

Selective Permeability The goal is not isolation, but controlled exposure.

Users can still access anything — but nothing is artificially prioritised or forced upon them.

Transparency Over Censorship Content is not removed. It is contextualised.

Manipulation, origin, and spread patterns are made visible rather than hidden.

Network Retention The system must preserve connection between users.

A shield that isolates is not a solution — it simply creates a quieter prison.

Incentive Resistance THE SHEILD is designed to degrade the effectiveness of engagement-driven manipulation.

If ragebait and propaganda lose reach, they lose value.

Core Components of THE SHEILD

Personal Signal Firewall At the heart of THE SHEILD is a local filtering system — a Personal Signal Firewall.

This operates at the user level (browser, proxy, or OS layer) and evaluates incoming content in real time.

Rather than blocking content outright, it:

Deprioritises low-signal material

Flags manipulation patterns

Greys out or delays suspicious content

Highlights high-trust sources

This preserves access while reshaping attention.

Trust Graphs Instead of relying on platform-defined authority, THE SHEILD introduces user-defined trust networks.

Users build their own trust graphs based on:

Direct endorsements

Consistent engagement

Observed reliability

Content is prioritised based on proximity to trusted nodes.

This creates a decentralised reputation layer, replacing platform verification with actual human signal.

Content Provenance Layer Every piece of content is accompanied by a contextual overlay:

Original source (where it first appeared)

Edit or mutation history

Spread dynamics (organic vs coordinated)

Indicators of automation or manipulation

This does not prevent misinformation — it makes it obvious.

Friction Layer Modern systems optimise for speed. THE SHEILD introduces intentional friction.

Examples include:

Delayed surfacing of viral content

Cooldown timers for emotionally charged material

Rate limiting on repeated narratives

This disrupts manipulation cycles without preventing discussion.

Shared Shield Profiles To avoid isolation, users can share and adopt filtering configurations:

“No marketing noise”

“High-trust tech sources”

“Minimal political exposure”

“Weird signal only”

These profiles are:

Portable

Forkable

Customisable

Think of them as open-source attention filters.

Cross-Platform Overlay THE SHEILD does not require a new platform.

It operates as an overlay across:

Social media

News sites

Video platforms

Forums

A single filtering layer governs all inputs.

This is critical. Any solution that requires migration becomes another silo.

Signal Pools To maintain connection, THE SHEILD introduces Signal Pools — shared, filtered spaces where users converge.

Pools are:

Topic-based

Trust-weighted

Noise-reduced

They allow discovery without algorithmic distortion.

Instead of being alone in a filtered box, users participate in curated commons.

Why Existing Systems Fail Most current approaches fall into one of three traps:

Centralisation Platforms attempt to “fix” content through moderation or algorithm tuning. Result: bias, opacity, and loss of trust.

Isolation Users retreat into private groups or closed ecosystems. Result: fragmentation and echo chambers.

Reinvention New platforms emerge promising better systems. Result: eventual convergence on the same engagement-driven models.

THE SHEILD avoids all three by operating:

Locally

Transparently

Across existing infrastructure

Technical Feasibility (Reality Check) This is not speculative.

A functional version of THE SHEILD could be built today using:

Browser extensions for UI and filtering

Local proxy layers for traffic inspection

RSS and feed aggregation for controlled input

Heuristic scoring systems (rule-based or ML-assisted)

Portable configuration files (JSON/YAML profiles)

More advanced layers (provenance tracking, network graphs) can evolve incrementally.

The system does not require permission from platforms — it operates independently of them.

Economic Implications If widely adopted, THE SHEILD would:

Reduce the effectiveness of targeted advertising

Disrupt engagement-based revenue models

Devalue manipulation tactics

This makes resistance inevitable.

However, because THE SHEILD operates at the user level, it cannot be easily suppressed without restricting user autonomy itself.

Cultural Impact THE SHEILD does not aim to “clean” the internet.

It aims to rebalance attention.

Potential outcomes include:

Reduced cognitive fatigue

Higher signal density

More intentional discovery

Re-emergence of niche communities

Decline of mass-manipulation tactics

In short, it restores the ability to choose what reaches you.

Path Forward: Building THE SHEILD The path is not institutional.

It is incremental, user-driven, and practical.

Phase 1 — Personal Stack Feed control (RSS, curated inputs)

Basic filtering (keywords, domains)

Local tools (scripts, extensions)

Phase 2 — Shared Profiles Publish and share filter configurations

Build small trust networks

Create early signal pools

Phase 3 — Unified Layer Develop cross-platform filtering tools

Introduce provenance overlays

Expand trust graph functionality

Phase 4 — Network Effect Grow adoption through utility, not marketing

Encourage interoperability

Maintain decentralisation

Conclusion: A Return to Intentional Connection The internet does not need to be rebuilt.

It needs to be reframed at the point of interaction.

THE SHEILD offers a direction that is:

Technically feasible

Socially scalable

Resistant to central control

It does not attempt to fix the network.

It gives individuals the tools to navigate it on their own terms.

And in doing so, it restores something that has been quietly lost:

The ability to engage with the internet by choice, rather than by design.

THE SHEILD is not a product launch. It is a direction.

A simple idea:

You decide what gets through.

Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022

Fundamentals of electric circuits continues in the spirit of its successful previous editions with the objective of presenting circuit analysis in a manner that is clearer, more interesting and easier to understand than other more traditional texts. This book retains the "design a problem" Feature which helps students develop their design skills by having the student develop the question as well as the solution. 2-Circuit and Network Theory - GATE, PSUS and ES Examination Paperbackby Karna Satish K. (Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022) The book Circuit and Network Theory—GATE, PSUs and ES Examination has been designed after much consultation with the students preparing for these competitive examinations. Interweaving of numerous solved examples to provide a 360 degree grip on concepts. - Table of Content : - Network Graphs - Sinusoidal and Steady-State - The Laplace Transform and its Application - This book is good for GATE & PSUs exams.It covers most of the point for solving problems,so many concept has been covered in this book.Enough practice questions are given with explaintation. Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022 2. Nodal Analysis and Mesh Analysis of Resistive Circuits (Chapter - 2) Linearity of a circuit and Superposition theorem - Substitution theorem - Compensation theorem - Thevenin's theorem and Norton's theorem - Determination of equivalents for circuits with dependent sources - Reciprocity theorem - Maximum power transfer theorem - Millman's theorem - Duality theorem - Duality between electricity and magnetism. 5. Time Domain Response of Second Order Linear Circuits (Chapter - 6) Initial conditions in elements, Procedure for evaluating initial conditions, Solution of circuit equations by using initial conditions. 8. Laplace Transform Analysis and Transfer Function Applications (Chapter - 9) One port networks - Two port admittance parameters (y parameters) - Admittance parameters analysis of terminated two - port networks - Two port impedance parameters (z-parameters) - Impedance and gain calculations of terminated two - port networks modeled by z-parameters - Hybrid parameters (h - para) - Inverse hybrid parameters (g - para) - Transmission parameters (ABCD parameters) - Scattering parameters (S parameters) - Scattering transfer parameters (T parameters) - Reciprocity - Various combinations of two-port network. 4-Network Analysis | Revised Third Edition | By Pearson Paperback by M. E. Van Valkenburg/T.S. Rathore (Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022) chapter 1 development of the circuit concept. Chapter 4 response of first order circuits. Chapter 7 response of circuits through Laplace transform. Chapter 10 circuit functions; Poles and Zeros. Chapter 13 frequency response plots. Chapter 16 Fourier integral and continuous spectra.

Within the context of social networks this book discusses the measurement of centrality and power as well as allocation rules such as the Myerson value and hierarchical allocation rules. For hierarchical organizations, two basic approaches to the exercise of authority are explored; for each approach the allocation of the generated output is developed. Each chapter is accompanied by a problem section, allowing this book to be used as a textbook for an advanced graduate course on game theory. Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022 8-Network Analysis and Synthesis Paperback by Ravish R. Singh (Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022) Network Analysis and Synthesis is meant to be a interesting read for the fresh entrants to engineering to help them develop this extremely important skill required by their course that of the knowledge of electric circuit analysis. Salient features- Numerous examples from frequently asked examination questions. 2. Elementary Network Theorems 5. Resonance 8. Three Phase Circuits 11. Laplace Transform and its Application 14. Fourier analysis This book is good for solving numerical lots of solved example are there in book. Book good and concise at theory part. A balanced for theory as problems. Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022

Additionally, key pedagogical aids, such as questions from previous year question papers are added afresh to further help students in preparing for this course and its examinations. For the tech savvy, the practice of MCQs in a digital and randomized environment will provide thrill. 461 Frequently asked questions derived from important previous year question papers Circuit Elements and Kirchoff's Laws Introduction to Alternating Currentsand Voltages Steady State AC Analysis Coupled Circuits Introduction to Laplace Transform Two-Port Networks An Introduction to PSpice 12-Networks and Systems Paperback by Ashfaq Husain (Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022) Large number of carefully selected worked examples. Most simplified methods used. Step-by-step procedures given for solving problems. Ideally suited for self-study. table of content1 - Introduction2 - circuit elements3 - signal waveforms4 - Kirchhoff's laws and equivalent networks5 - sinusoidal and phasors6 - Single-phase series AC circuits7 - Single-phase parallel and series-parallel AC Circuits8 - resonance9 - Three-phase circuits10 - Laplace transform Analysis11 - mesh and nodal Analysis12 - network theorems13 - network graph theory14 - circuit transients15 - state variable Analysis16 - two-port networks17 - coupled elements and Circuits18 - network functions - Fourier series20 - Fourier transform21 - passive network Synthesis. Extraordinary book for basics in circuit theory. Easy language, detailed description and many other satisfactory features have made the book an useful key to enter the interesting world of Network Theory. Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022 14-NETWORK THEORY Paperback by U.A.BAKSHI (Network Theory Books for GATE 2022) 15-Network Theory Paperback by D. Ganesh Rao , K. Channa Venkatesh (Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022) This book on Network Analysis is designed, keeping in mind that the students of Electrical Sciences study it as a one semester introductory course in the subject. The book provides a comprehensive study of the subject covering basic as well as advanced concepts. Informal and simple in discussion, the text is prepared without diluting the rigor of the subject.Best GATE Preparation Books Network Theory Books for GATE 2022. Read the full article

#Books #ESE #Gate #JuniorEngineerforEE #NetworkTheory #PSU

Paper - Sequences of purchases in credit card data reveal lifestyles in urban populations

Digital traces from credit card and mobile phone usage can be used to map urban lifestyles and understand human mobility.

Credit Card Records (CCRs) are currently used to measure similarities in purchasing activity, but for the first-time researchers have used the data along with Call Detailed Records (CDRs) to understand the daily rhythms of human mobility and communication.

Combining both reveals patterns in citizens’ socio-economic behaviors.

For the study, published today in Nature Communications, we analyzed anonymous and aggregated credit card data from a major city to group the urban population into six spending clusters with peculiar socio-economic characteristic.

#creditcard #complex systems #networktheory #network #mobilephone #human behavior

Reprising social media 🙄 #networking #networktheory #mit #diagram #node (at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT))

#mit #networking #networktheory #diagram #node

Our brains are very good at sorting and recognising patterns. We catagorise and make sense of abstract marks instantly and effortlessly. We do the same with the information we collect and store. This innate ability allows the information and knowledge with gather room to adapt and alter in from within the context of a moment #interconnectivity #form #proximity #similarity #gestalt #networktheory

#interconnectivity #proximity #gestalt #similarity #networktheory #form

“Principles of a-signifying rupture: against the over-signifying breaks separating structures or cutting across a single structure. A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a give spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines.

-Gilles Deleuze

A river bed will always be a poised to host the stream. It, as it's final cause, is here to be the medium. A geologist's aim is to detract the story of a space through its material, formal and efficient causes. A judge accords the tale in a way to ascertain a things final cause. Every space, if studied genealogically, can be accorded and thus ascertained a finality. Though changes may occur along the way, an acorn is supposed to be one and only thing.

In Farsi, language of Iran & Afghanistan, the countries of many peaks and valleys, estuaries and dried lands, river is "rood-khooneh." "Rood" translates to stream/flow, and "khooneh," home... Home of Flow. As the skies send the message down to the earth, earth accommodates this through its own materiality. Solid formations are set and piece with the fluidity of the flow for mutual sustenance of form's potential.

Friedrich Kittler, in his "City as a Medium," first starts with the concept of Capital, then divides his text into the following headings:

Technology: Information is at the core of the flow.

"Regardless of whether these networks transmit information (telephone, radio, television) or energy (water supply, electricity, highway), they all represent forms of information.

He goes on to rightly point out that every modern energy flow requires a parallel control network.

"Even in those unthinkable times when energy still needed beasts of burden like Sinbad, and information required messengers like the first marathon runner, networks existed. They just hadn't been built yet or, in technician's jargon, implemented. The narrow, rugged mule trail was replaced by the railway and the highway, which in turn have been replaced by no less transient copper and fiber optic cables."

There has been many of times when the device was invented but the network wasn't available for hosting it. For example, it has been stated that Chopin wrote pieces that were ahead of the technical capacity of pianos at the time, and he wrote such pieces in anticipation of future hosting of such information in a new version of the piano. The introduction of such tokens sometimes reminds the world of the possibility of creating networks to suit the worthy new comer. The influence of new introductions can entice/force the creation of new parallels.

Network: There is nothingness that networks fill.

"To best reconstruct the way out of a labyrinth (as the Greeks were said to have done in reading the ruined foundations of Knossos, Phaistos, or Gournia), one doesn't need to sketch the still visible connecting walls, rather their inverse: the invisible passages between path and door."

Two entities sit in the world and they posses a certain tendency to connect. Not all two entities which sit in the world are supposed to connect but there are certain entities that recognizing such tendency in them may lead to discovery of a priori or a posterior networks. There are not shapes in the stars above. It is our recognition of supposed tendencies in between them that creates belts and pans. That is the order of a designer's brush and sculptor's thumb.

Graphs: Coordinate points and their connecting lines. Beginning of the story.

"From these two abstract elements, all structures in space can be reconstructed: trees and stars, junctions and bridges, rings and hubs, regions and countries_ and maps."

There is nothing till there are seen lines.

"The space in which the modern city unfolds its structures is clearly an abstract space in which the individual constraints are of a topological order; seen from the point of view of the unfolding of these structures, the territory is simply the surface effect of its own topicality."

Sense and sense making are layers of discovery that need tools, only for the sake of having tried excavation with the the aid of the most availably optimal tools. In other words sense is there, and sense making needs the best tools because sense making deserves clarity.

Intersections: No emptiness really. Only networks over other networks.

"A city, likewise, is not a flattenable graph. In a city, networks overlap upon other networks. Every traffic light, every subway transfer, and every post office, as well as all the bars and bordellos, speak for this fact."

There are material and immaterial networks. The immaterial are waves unseen and possibly unfelt but still real in their occupation of spaces.

" By means of its own storage facilities (buildings, vaults, archives, monuments, tablets, books), the city became capable of transmitting a complex culture from generation to generation, for it marshaled together not only the physical means but the human agents needed to pass on and enlarge this heritage. That remains the greatest of the city's gifts."

Data- Memory, Formatting,

Media: Record, transmit, and process information. Gates, ports, circuits allow the transmission of information.

"Elements which are logically the most simple, and which have no memory, have been known as gates or ports. Circuits, on the other hand, whose initial and final positions are not only a function of the gates and ports, but also of the circuit's own prehistory, presuppose (no less municipal here) a built-in memory."

Technology is progressive and any progress presupposes improvements on some history. A miner will dig from where the last one left off from. The system tracks its own progress for its own advancing self sustenance.

"Just like a computer, with a microprocessor, the memory and buses, that carry out arithmetical commands, addresses and data based on the parameters of the processor and its most recent command; the memory ultimately makes it possible to read commands or data at precise addresses or to encode them."

The space follows commands from its rooted essence. The system tracks and moves its own progress for its own advancing self sustenance. It brings the precise tools for a clear encoding of such commands specially if it has demanded power previously.

"Other media can, likewise, be transferred to the discrete universal machine. And this is reason enough to bring together the workings of the city with concepts from general information science. Reason enough, moreover, to decipher past media and the historical function of what we refer to as "man," as the play between commands, addresses, and data."

Data:

> Commands

#silicon valley #san jose #technology #Philosophy #networktheory

(If you haven't already you should take a look at Discogsgrapher and then come back if you want more info, I'll wait...)

During my CS studies graphs were among my favorite topics. Mapping complex real world relationships to data structures and using algorithms to find information about their structure that was previously unknown fascinates me. I belive that the digitization of more and more aspects of our lives and society, the emergence of big data and network theory provide opportunities for understanding and facing many of the big challenges of our time.1

For a while I'd been trying to come up with a project related to networks in some way, to learn some of the terms and use some of the tools. When a friend linked to this philosophy citation network vizualisation in a tweet2 the thought came to me that if this could be done for philosophy, an interest of mine, then maybe I could do it for electronic music, another interest of mine. When I came upon the Discogs data dumps I had my data source.

While I guess they don't count as big data per se the Discogs data dumps are bigger than anything I have played around with before, with the unzipped releases xml file coming in at 12 gb. Parsing it took about an hour and you want to make sure that you don't try to cram 12 gb into your working memory!

The process

Here's how the parsing works:

You feed it with a genre, a country, a timespan and a threshold for artist inclusion (i.e. a certain number of releases that an artist has to have in order to count as part of the scene)

It finds all the releases that belong to that genre and fit within the other parameters too.

If two artists have released music on the same label they are considered connected.

Based on that data it creates communities, grouping together artists that have strong ties.

You could off course do the network for longer timespans, more genres or even the whole discogs db. Whilst interesting it doesn't make for as pretty a picture and probably would crash your browser.

My Graphs

I created two graphs, of my favorite styles of music from my favorite years:

Dubstep - UK - 2004-2009

Drum & Bass / jungle - UK - 1994-1999

The graphs speak pretty much speak for themselves. Click a node to see which artists and connections it represents. Sometimes its interesting how the algorithm groups people together and to see how the scene progresses.

If you find this interesting you might also like discogs-xml2db. An impressive project that allows you to parse the Discogs Data dumps into SQL format, which would allow for much more indepth analysis.

Caveats

This was just made for fun, hopefully it can be informative as well, but take it with a grain of salt. It is based on an incomplete data set and has quite a few random points of reference 3

The parser does not recognize pseudonyms and considers all artist name as one artist.

I used the datadump from May 2013, so some of the data might be out of date by now.

The size of a node is determined by the number of a relases that artist has had, it is important not to confuse this with influence or popularity. An artist can be prolific and release on a lot of labels without being influential, and vice versa an artist can have a relatively small number of releases on a small number of labels and be very influential and popular.

There are some big dangers and privacy concerns there as well off course. ↩︎

I drew heavily from the PhiloCite d3/javascript/graph implementation too. ↩︎

There might be bugs in the code too despite my best efforts. ↩︎

#networktheory #networks #english #vizualization #discogs

Analysis of millions of tweets finds more precise use of social media which seems to contradict idea that Twitter users want to share everything with everyone

#Twitter #SocialNetworkingAnalysis #SNA #SocialMedia #NetworkTheory