Facebook: Ripples of Confusion, Denial, and Revisionism
March 18, 2019
Facebook contributed to an interesting headline about the video upload issue related to the bad actor in New Zealand. Here’s the headline I noted as it appeared on Techmeme’s Web page:
The Reuters’ story ran a different headline:
What caught my attention is the statement “blocked at upload.” If a video were blocked at upload, were those videos removed? If blocked, then the number of videos drops to 300 million.
This type of information is typical of the coverage of Facebook, a company which is become the embodiment of social media.
There were two other interesting Facebook stories in my news feed this morning.
The first concerns a high profile Silicon Valley investor, Marc Andreessen. The write up reports and updates a story whose main point is:
Facebook Board Member May Have Met Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower in 2016.
Google: No China Interaction?
March 18, 2019
I read the NBC report “Google Denies Working with the Chinese Military after Trump Criticism.” Not much of a surprise. The Google had to say something. The real news outfit reported:
“We are not working with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare,” a spokesperson said.
Google blew off the US government project Project Maven and then found itself stung by its Dragonfly initiative.
DarkCyber believes everything Google says. Doesn’t everyone? Mr. Trump does not it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2019
Amazonia for March 18, 2019
March 18, 2019
The Bezos bulldozer has run into some soil filled with largish granite boulders. Check out these developments.
Amazon and Elasticsearch
Elasticsearch, the open source search system, is a popular way for many companies to make content searchable. With add ons, one can perform many useful functions. Elastic, the company founded by Shay Banon, provides for fee services to the search and retrieval technology. The Elasticsearch open source community does open sourcey things.
Amazon is open sourcey, although with a twist. The firm wants to provide a ready-to-go version of Elasticsearch as a widget callable from the numerous AWS services. How does Amazon achieve that goal? One solution is to move farther away from the Elastic version of Elasticsearch. Early signs of this special approach have been document by Code 972. Datanami published an interesting view of the AWS Elasticsearch activity in “War Unfolding for Control of Elasticsearch.”
That write up states:
AWS is seizing upon Elastic’s actions in creating this three-tiered system – not to mention the merger of X-Pack into Elastic Stack proper with the version 6.3 release of the Elastic Stack last summer – in justifying the creation of Open Distro for Elasticsearch.
Amazon does not want to fork Elastic or Elasticsearch.
Datanami states:
Banon accused AWS copying code and co-opting the Elasticsearch product for its own use.
Will legal eagle fly? Will Elastic’s investors and customers complain? Will Amazon alter its course?
No answers at the moment.
DarkCyber hypothesizes that if Amazon comes calling, one should listen. If Amazon asks for something, one should find a way to cooperate. A failure to orbit Amazon can have consequences, fork or not. See the culture item below.
Amazon’s Culture
Amazon is, from DarkCyber’s point of view, a big, friendly Teddy bear of a company. Some insights into the culture of the company are revealed in “AWS CEO Andy Jassy Drills Down On Cloud Adoption And Amazon’s Culture.” Here are a couple of highlights:
- No PowerPoints allowed
- Move quickly (for example, pull out of New York, we assume)
- Speed build
- Employees build their destiny using AWS.
Sound exciting. You can apply at this link.
Virginia: Pushback and Maybe Incentive Pullback?
The Big Apple was sour. Now “Amazon’s second headquarters Faces New Blocks in Virginia Funding Vote.” Pity Crystal City stakeholders. Feel some remorse for the condo speculators. According to the real news outfit Reuters:
local [Virginia] officials vote on Saturday on a proposed financial package worth an estimated $51 million.
The JEDI deal seems to be stalled. Either the wheels of bureaucracy are in neutral, or the various legal challenges are fouling the smart automatic braking system for the billion dollar deal. The slower the processes move, the more time anti-Amazon forces have to refine their tactics.
Gogo to AWS
Gogo’s in flight service is now collaborating with Amazon. According to the ever reliable Verizon Oath Yahoo:
Gogo is set to shift its entire infrastructure to AWS is order to improvise cost structure and achieve better work efficiency by utilizing AWS storage, database, analytics and serverless services. Meanwhile, the company has already shifted its commercial and business aviation division.
Amazon landed these customers in the last year:
Amgen
Ellie Mae
Guardian Life Insurance
Korean Air
Mobileye
National Australia Bank
Pac-12
Santander’s Openbank
As one person told me, “Microsoft can sell better than Amazon.” Synergy Research Group figured out that Amazon had 34 percent of the cloud business.
Where did Amazon Yahoo Oath get this information? Zack’s.
Training Courses
Amazon offers more than 350 training courses for those interested in the Bezos bulldozer’s technology. You can find these at amzn.to/2Y3wX1V . IIT Kharagpur has added AWS courses to its curricula.
Connect with Startups
Amazon has had a mechanism for monitoring startups for years. Now anyone can tap into this flow of potential financial opportunities. “Amazon [is] testing a new program that connects outside investors with startups that use AWS.” The service is called Pro Rata.
The write up points out:
Amazon uses other programs such as the Alexa Fund and Amazon Catalyst to invest in startups.
New Partners/Providers
DarkCyber spotted these partners in the AWS news last week:
Duo World. Info here.
Manthan. Info here.
Symbee. Info here.
Wipro. Info here.
Amazon wants to provide more visibility to its partners and integrators. The company has launched AWS Digital CX Competency. (CX means customer experience.)
Volkswagen Fears Amazon?
Not sure if “fear” is the right word. But DarkCyber found this article suggestive: “In Picking Microsoft’s Cloud, Volkswagen Shows That Even Carmakers Have Some Fear of Amazon.” Could part of the reason stem from Amazon’s buying Mercedes’ vans?
Amazon Smart City Program
IBM does the Watson thing at MIT, but Amazon is putting is Smart City center at Arizona State University. You can get the details in “ASU, Amazon Web Services open Smart City Cloud Innovation Center.” What’s a “smart city”? Google’s angle is to get a piece of the tax money. What’s Amazon’s? The write up states:
…The new center is part of a long-term collaboration between ASU and AWS to improve digital experiences for smart-city designers, expand technology alternatives while minimizing costs, spur economic and workforce development and facilitate sharing public-sector solutions within the region.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2019
Hashing Videos and Images Explained
March 17, 2019
A quite lucid explanation of video and image identification appears in “How Hashing Could Stop Violent Videos from Spreading.” Here’s one passage from the article:
Video hashing works by breaking down a video into key frames and giving each a unique alphanumerical signature, or hash. That hash is collected into a central database, where every video or photo that is uploaded to a platform is then compared against that dataset. The system requires a database of images and doesn’t use artificial intelligence to identify what is in an image — it only identifies a match between images and videos.
CNN emphasizes Microsoft’s PhotoDNA technology. Information about that system may be found at this link. The write up points out that Facebook and Google use “this technology.”
One question is, “If the technology is available and in use, why are offensive videos and images finding their way into public facing, easily accessible systems?”
The answer according to an expert quoted in the CNN story is:
The decision not to do this [implement more effective hashing filter methods] is a question of will and policy—not a question of technology.”
The answer is that platforms are one way to avoid the editorial responsibility associated with old school methods of communication; for example, wire services, newspapers, and magazine. These types of communication were not perfect, but in many cases, an editorial process prevented certain types of information from appearing in certain publications. So far, the hands off approach of some digital channels and the over hyped use of smart software have not been as effective as the hopelessly old fashioned processes used by some traditional media outlets.
So will? Policy?
Nah, money, expediency, and the high school science club approach to management.
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2019
Text Analysis Toolkits
March 16, 2019
One of the DarkCyber team spotted a useful list, published by MonkeyLearn. Tucked into a narrative called “Text Analysis: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need” was a list of natural language processing open source tools, programming languages, and software. Each description is accompanied with links and in several cases comments. See the original article for more information.
Caret
CoreNLP
Java
Keras
mlr
NLTK
OpenNLP
Python
SpaCy
Scikit-learn
TensorFlow
PyTorch
R
Weka
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2019
Forget Facebook Resignations, Is Google Actually Aiding the Chinese?
March 15, 2019
Okay, okay, the source is Gizmodo. The article may be spot on or a bit like outputs from quite interesting sources from lesser known experts. The value of the write up rests in its reminding me of the duck – rabbit paradox:
Is this a duck (Peking variety) or rabbit (cute technological bunny)?
The title which caught my eye was:
Pentagon Brass Bafflingly Accuses Google of Providing ‘Direct Benefit’ to China’s Military
The “bafflingly” is an interesting word. Gizmodo cannot understand why someone from the Pentagon would “accuse Google of providing direct benefit to China.”
I noted this passage:
Dunford’s incendiary comments came during a budgetary hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee this afternoon. During his time for questioning, freshman Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, turned to the subject of Google’s decision to back away from projects with the Pentagon. Hawley asked the panel if he understood the situation correctly and that the men were saying, “that Google, an American company, supposedly, is refusing to work with the Department of Defense, but is doing work with China, in China, in a way that at least indirectly benefits the Chinese government.”
General Dunford is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
Google has many government projects, a big office near a Metro stop, and a modest lobbying team. Nevertheless, “brass” seems to suggest that our beloved Google is not interested in working on behalf of the US. I wonder if the same could be said of Baidu, Huawei, or ZTE efforts on behalf of the Chinese government?
General Dunford is quoted as saying:
You know, senator, I’m nodding my head on exactly the point that you made: that the work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefitting the Chinese military. And I’ve been very public on this issue as well; in fact, the way I described it to our industry partners is, ‘look we’re the good guys in the values that we represent and the system that we represent is the one that will allow and has allowed you to thrive,’ and that’s the way I’ve characterized it. I was just nodding that what the secretary was articulating is the general sense of all of us as leaders. We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing there is that indirect benefit, and frankly ‘indirect’ may be not a full characterization of the way it really is. It’s more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.
Google’s position is:
As an American company, we cherish the values and freedoms that have allowed us to grow and serve so many users. I am proud to say we do work, and we will continue to work, with the government to keep our country safe and secure.
Gizmodo’s interpretation of the baffling comments may be nestled in this paragraph:
But Dunford sent a striking message to any tech companies that might consider getting involved with the DoD in the future: If you get in bed with us and you decide you want to break it off, you might be called a traitor.
I don’t know anything about General Dunford. I know nothing about Google’s current work for the US government. However, I have heard comments from my acquaintances to the effect:
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck. It is a duck.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2019
Fake News Takes a Surprising Turn
March 15, 2019
I must admit I don’t pay much attention to Wikipedia pages. I don’t pay much attention to Wikipedia. When anyone can post, edit, and generate “accurate” content—I look elsewhere for information. I do pay attention to Wikipedia when allegations such as those appearing in “Facebook, Axios And NBC Paid This Guy To Whitewash Wikipedia Pages” find their way to my inbox.
The write up asserts:
NBC, too, apparently decided to put Sussman’s service to use in the aftermath of The New Yorker’s bombshell Harvey Weinstein report and, later, the allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Lauer.
You can read the original article to get details on the person Sussman.
What interests me is that a news organization is apparently taking steps to shape the news about itself.
Fake news or shaped news? PR or weaponization? With access to online publishing and TV broadcasting channels, NBC was at a loss to deal with a Wikipedia page in a more direct manner?
Interesting. If true, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2019
When the Best and the Brightest Tech Stars Fail
March 15, 2019
Two outages. Two explanations.
Google’s March 12, 2019, outage was explained this way at Google Cloud Status Dashboard.
On Monday 11 March 2019, Google SREs were alerted to a significant increase in storage resources for metadata used by the internal blob service. On Tuesday 12 March, to reduce resource usage, SREs made a configuration change which had a side effect of overloading a key part of the system for looking up the location of blob data. The increased load eventually lead to a cascading failure.
I like the phrase “cascading failure.” Sounds inevitable.
Facebook’s explanation of its one day plus outage appeared in “Biggest Facebook Outage in its History Due to Database Issues.” The explanation was:
The company’s databases were “overloaded.”
Concentration, just like in the mainframe days, can create some challenges for those downstream. If the big outfits cannot deal with failure, I don’t feel bad when my Android phone complains it cannot connect to the Google Play store where malware may still live.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2019
China: Ensuring Control and a Separate Digital Kingdom?
March 15, 2019
I read “Huawei Confirms It Has Built Its Own Operating System Just in Case US Tensions Disrupt Use of Google’s Android.” On the surface, a big Chinese company is making contingency plans. The write up reports that “Huawei says it would only use its own OS in extenuating circumstances.” Logical. The write up includes an amplification in this paragraph:
Huawei Technologies, the largest smartphone vendor in China, said it has developed its own operating systems (OS) for both smartphones and computers, which can be used on its devices in the event that current systems provided by US technology giants are no longer available.
Is Huawei slaying a metaphorical technological dictator?
I noticed the addition of operating system for computers. Makes sense. Why not use open source and original super innovative Chinese technology to build a back up. Just in case. For a rainy day.
The article includes a statement which seems very clear, quite unambiguous:
“Huawei does have backup systems but only for use in extenuating circumstances. We don’t expect to use them, and to be honest, we don’t want to use them,” said a Huawei spokesperson on Thursday. “We fully support our partners’ operating systems – we love using them and our customers love using them. Android and Windows will always remain our first choices.”
Could these software be used for other applications and use cases; for example:
- Exclude non compliant customers from features and functionalities
- Extend China social capital data collection
- Filter content more effectively
- Deploy weaponized data?
Only in extenuating circumstances. So what’s “extenuating” mean? Is a seer available today (March 15) to elucidate?
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2019
First, Encryption, Now DNA: Annoying, Marketing, or Taunting?
March 14, 2019
I read “Home DNA-Testing Firm Will Let Users Block FBI Access to Their Data.” I came away asking myself, “Is this outfit just annoying government authorities or taunting them? Or, maybe the company wants to look good from a PR point of view?”
Australia introduced regulations which require that companies doing business in the country cooperated with law enforcement when it comes to accessing data on encrypted services. That initiative is likely to be watched closely by those in the Five Eyes. In fact, DarkCyber thinks that the Australian move is a trial balloon. Decryption is a contentious issues, and Facebook has suggested that it will embrace privacy. Some in the enforcement sector rely on Facebook data, and if those data become unreadable, that will spark some discussion. The key point is that Australia took regulatory action.
When the no DNA for the FBI story crossed my desk, I thought about the implications. China has addressed the DNA sampling issue directly. In once geographic area, people have to show up and provide a sample. Fail to cooperate? That action will not generate positive points on the individual’s social credit score.
DNA information is available or obtainable. I want to add “in one way or another.”
The issue is control and access. The use of DNA data is fairly straightforward. DNA may answer the question, “Whom should be investigate?”
The write up states:
The combination of genetic data from home DNA-testing kits and family tree databases has allowed individuals to find relatives by matching DNA, but has also opened a new way for police to solve crimes. Police used the technique last year to identify the man thought to be behind a series of murders in California during the 1970s.
But the company was cooperating. Now a “procedure” must be followed.
Mixed signals, push back, a concern for customer privacy, or PR? The more interesting question is, “Is the company poking pointy sticks into the backs of government authorities.” Will compliance regulations emerge from one of the Five Eyes?
Stephen E Arnold, March 14, 2019
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