Russia Considers Building a Garden Wall
February 14, 2018
In a move that could presage the future of the internet, Russia is considering a walled garden for itself and its fellow BRICS members; TechDirt reports, “Russia Says Disconnecting From the Rest of the Net ‘Out of the Question,’ but Wants Alternative DNS Servers for BRICS Nations.” We learn it was the Russian Security Council that recommended its government develop this infrastructure, proposing the creation of a separate, independent DNS backup system. The write-up observes:
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story is the following comment by Putin’s Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov: ‘Russia’s disconnection from the global internet is of course out of the question,’ Peskov told the Interfax news agency. However, the official also emphasized that ‘recently, a fair share of unpredictability is present in the actions of our partners both in the US and the EU, and we [Russia] must be prepared for any turn of events.’ That offers a pragmatic recognition that disconnection from the global Internet is no longer an option for a modern state, even if Iran begs to differ. It’s true that local DNS servers provide resilience, but they also make it much easier for a government to limit access to foreign sites by ordering their IP addresses to be blocked — surely another reason for the move.
The “unpredictability” of the US and Europe? That’s a bit rich. We’re reminded Russia has been trying to localize control over parts of the Internet since at least 2012, and it looks like its fellow BRICS members may be supportive.
Cynthia Murrell, February 14, 2018
DarkCyber for February 13, 2018, Now Available
February 13, 2018
The February 13,2018, DarkCyber reports on Ecuador’s country-wide surveillance system. A new story about a Dark Web criminal case sparks a surge of interest in the Dark Web. The publicity is similar to the attention directed at Random Darknet Shopper’s exhibition of contraband purchased by a software robot from hidden Internet contraband markets. Bitcoin’s anonymization is becoming less and less anonymous. The latest innovation is the use of ad tracking technology similar to that used by Google DoubleClick to unmask users of digital currency for Dark Web purchases. Ecuador has implemented a country-wide surveillance system developed jointly by Chinese and Ecuadorian engineers. The program is also available on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/255241891.
Kenny Toth, February 13, 2018
Should Google Blogger Users Worry about the Platform?
February 13, 2018
Not long ago, Beyond Search picked up a vibe that Blogger, Google’s blogging platform, was going the way of Google Accelerator and Orkut. There may be some tailwind pushing that idea forward.
Navigate to “Google Partners With WordPress To Accelerate The Development Of A Faster Web.” The article reports as “real” news, of course:
WordPress controls a staggering 59 percent of the CMS market. Partnering with the platform makes sense for Google to advance its goals in creating a faster and better web.
I understand the need for speed, but perhaps Blogger is falling behind WordPress, and the Google may love more users more than its own platform. Is Blogger a liability, a black hole of costs, or an acquisition that failed to avoid a Dodgeball fate?
We’re watching.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2018
EU Considers Making Platforms Pay for News Content
February 13, 2018
European journalists are sick of giant internet companies profiting from their labor without recompense, we learn from Yahoo News’ article, “Net Giants ‘Must Pay for News’ From Which They Make Billions.” The declaration from nine press agencies comes in support of a proposed EU directive that would require companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to pay for the articles that bring so much ad revenue to their platforms. The write-up shares part of the agencies’ plea:
Facebook has become the biggest media in the world,” the agencies said in a plea published in the French daily Le Monde. “Yet neither Facebook nor Google have a newsroom… They do not have journalists in Syria risking their lives, nor a bureau in Zimbabwe investigating Mugabe’s departure, nor editors to check and verify information sent in by reporters on the ground. Access to free information is supposedly one of the great victories of the internet. But it is a myth,” the agencies argued. “At the end of the chain, informing the public costs a lot of money.
News, the declaration added, is the second reason after catching up on family and friends for people to log onto Facebook, which tripled its profits to $10 billion (€8.5 billion) last year. Yet it is the giants of the net who are reaping vast profits “from other people’s work” by soaking up between 60 and 70 percent of advertising revenue, with Google’s jumping by a fifth in a year. Meanwhile, ad revenue for news media fell nine percent in France alone last year, “a disaster for the industry”.
Indeed it is. And, we are reminded, a robust press is crucial for democracy itself. Some attempts have been made in France, Germany, and Spain to obtain compensation from these companies, but the limited results were disappointing. The press agencies suggest granting journalists “related rights” copyrights and assure a concerned Parliament that citizens will still be able to access information for free online. The only difference, they insist, would be that an appropriate chunk of that ad revenue will go to the people who actually researched and created the content. That sounds reasonable to this writer.
Cynthia Murrell, February 13, 2018
Facebook: A Tracking Super Power?
February 12, 2018
One person on the DarkCyber research team called my attention to Hacker news post 16339088. (Be aware that some Hacker News items can become hard to find if the ID does not resolve.)
The post is about Facebook crawling every page recorded by its tracking pixel. If you want to know more about tracking pixels, this link may be useful.
Beyond Search and DarkCyber do not have a dog in this fight. However, the individual posting the assertion “Facebook crawls every page recorded by its tracking pixel” generated some interesting comments.
The DarkCyber researcher noted these, which may or may not be actual factual. Only the Facebook, like the Shadow, knows.
- Maybe Facebook does not crawl?
- Tracking takes place with “Like” buttons
- Facebook uses link prefetching
- Avoid using Facebook trackers
- Facebook does and does not observe robots.txt instructions
- “Shady tracking techniques”
- “Facebot crawler will crawl _every_ url that was recorded by their tracking pixel”
What’s correct? What’s incorrect?
Facebook often has useful information for those who have access to that information. Outside the US, some government authorities find Facebook data interesting and highly desirable to access in some investigations.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2018
News Corp. and Google: Glass Houses and Stone Throwing
February 12, 2018
I read “News Corp Executives Say Google and Facebook Created Dysfunctional, Debased Online Environment.” Let’s assume that the information is “real” news and actual factual.
The write up states:
News Corp. chief executive officer Robert Thomson slammed Google and Facebook for what he calls a “dysfunctional” and “debased” online environment that harms traditional media, according to a variety of published reports. The criticism came Thursday, as News Corp. announced its quarterly earnings, France 24 reported. Efforts by the two online giants to reduce misinformation and improve online news were only “modest steps toward changing a digital environment that is dysfunctional at its core,” Thomson said.
I like the phrase “dysfunctional at its core.”
I would point out these pieces of information which did not make it into the “real” news story:
- Phone and email hacking in the UK
- Fox news personnel in interesting situations
- News Corp. management succession activity
“Dysfunctional” means, according to the Wiktionary, not performing its proper or intended function or functioning incorrectly or abnormally; especially, designating of a business, family or social group with harmful, aberrant, strange or abnormal behavior.
As I noted in the headline, “glass houses” and “stones.” I don’t have the energy for “debased.”
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2018
IBM Releases Power9 AI and Machine Learning Chip
February 12, 2018
Make no mistake, the new AI processor from IBM has Watson written all over it—but it does move the software into new territory. We get a glimpse from the brief write-up, “IBM Has a New Chip for AI and Machine Learning” at IT Pro Portal. The new chip, dubbed Power9, is now available through IBM’s cloud portal and through third-party vendors and is built into the new AC9222 platform. (See here for a more detailed discussion of both Power9 and AC9222.) Writer Sead Fadilpaši? quotes market analyst Patrick Moorhead, who states:
Power9 is a chip which has a new systems architecture that is optimized for accelerators used in machine learning. Intel makes Xeon CPUs and Nervana accelerators and NVIDIA makes Tesla accelerators. IBM’s Power9 is literally the Swiss Army knife of ML acceleration as it supports an astronomical amount of IO and bandwidth, 10X of anything that’s out there today.
That is strong praise. Fadilpaši? also quotes IBM’s Brad McCredie, who observes:
Modern workloads are becoming accelerated and the Nvidia GPU is a common accelerator. We have seen this trend coming. We built a deep relationship with them and a partnership between the Power system and the GPU. We have a unique bus that runs between the processor and the GPU and has 10x peak bandwidth over competitive systems.
Will the Power9 live up to its expectations? We suspect IBM has reason to hope for success here.
Cynthia Murrell, February 12, 2018
Winter Olympics Opening: Was It a Demo?
February 11, 2018
I love digital technology. I even have a computer with video editing software. It seems that other folks follow my lead. Many are younger than I. I know this because the opening ceremony drone extravaganza was a demo.
I read “Drones Grounded at Opening Ceremony — But Not on Tape Delay.” I assume the write up is accurate, although even “real” news outfits have issues with “fake news.”
The line between reality and post production seems blurry. Does it matter? Not to advertisers as long as they get eyeballs. And Intel? Well, at least the post production drone show works unlike some of the firm’s technology.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2018
UK Surveillance Backlash
February 9, 2018
Recently, the UK attempted to fight a variety of criminal activity by developing a mass data unit that used analytics and AI to fight crime. If it sounds like science fiction, that’s because it doesn’t really exist. The task force was ruled illegal recently, we discovered in a Guardian story, “UK Mass Digital Surveillance Regime Ruled Illegal.”
According to the story Security minister Ben Wallace responded to the ruling saying:
“Communications data is used in the vast majority of serious and organized crime prosecutions and has been used in every major security service counter-terrorism investigation over the last decade. It is often the only way to identify pedophiles involved in online child abuse as it can be used to find where and when these horrendous crimes have taken place.”
While the British police are crying for more freedom, they are not the only ones being restricted. A better solution, in our mind, comes from Crime Report, who are advocating for a balanced system of big data policing. According to their report, “acceptable boundaries” must be set in order to protect citizen privacy, but also increase the police’s ability to do their job through technology. It’s likely to be a debate that rages on for a while, but we are hoping for an acceptable solution.
Patrick Roland, February 9, 2018
The Dark Web Pushes Social Boundaries
February 9, 2018
When the Silk Road, the infamous dark web drug, weapon, and other illegalities emporium, was broken up the general public peered into a frightening world. Everything is for sale for the right price, even things you didn’t know were out there, as we discovered in a recent Naked Security story, “Babies’ Data Being Sold to Tax Fraudsters on the Dark Web.”
According to the story:
“Terbium Labs says that for the “relatively high price” of $312, a buyer can purchase an infant’s name, Social Security number, date of birth, and mother’s maiden name. All a thief has to do is claim a child dependent that they don’t actually have, and presto: that $312 investment turns into the maximum child tax credit of $1,000 per child.”
That is frightening news. More unsettling still is the idea that we still have no hold on this underworld. Governments are currently hacking into the dark web to try to monitor it, but the web geniuses running it are likely to stay a step ahead. This is just a reinforcement that we all must stay diligent in analog forms, like checking credit scores and scouring credit card bills for anomalies. For now, this seems like the only way for individuals to respond to the cracks in social boundaries.
Patrick Roland, February 9, 2018
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