Sure, Computers Are Psychic
June 12, 2019
Psychics, mentalism, divination, and other ways to communicate with the dead or see the future are not real. These so-called gifts are actually ancient arts in human behavior, psychology, and nature. With practice and skill anyone can learn how to manipulate and predict someone’s future movements, that is basically all algorithms are doing. According to Entrepreneur, humans are leaving bread crumb trails online that algorithms watch and then can predict an individual’s behavior: “How Algorithms Can Predict Our Intentions Faster Than We Can.”
While artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) are still developing technologies, their advancements are quickly made. Simply by tracking an individual’s Web activities, AI and NLP can learn behavior patterns and “predict” intentions, thoughts, and even our next move.
Social media is a big predictor of future events too. Take the 2016 election of Hilary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, then there is Brett Kavanaugh’s trials and his confirmation to the Supreme Court. When Paul Nemirovsky’s dMetrics analyzed unstructured social media data, they found that the data was skewed in favor of Kavanaugh’s assignment to the court. Later this came to pass as fact. On the positive side of things, this could mean better investment outcomes, improved marketing messaging, higher customer satisfaction, and deeper insights into anything we choose.
Algorithms are literally dumb pieces of code. They only do what they are programmed. In order for them to understand user data, algorithms need NLP:
“Natural Language Processing, or NLP, is a neuro-network that essentially teaches itself the way we say things. By being exposed to different conversational experiences, the machine learns. Simply put, once you tell the machine what each sentence means, it records each meaning in order to process it in the future. By processing this information, it learns the skills to better understand our intentions than we do.”
NLP is not magic and needs to be programmed like any piece of software. Predictive analytics are still and will be a work in progress for some time, because of costs, applications, and also ethical violations. Will predictive analytics powered by AI and NLP be used for evil? Er, yeah. They will also be used for good, like cars, guns, computers, and putting words in the mouths of people who never made a particular statement.
Whitney Grace, June 12, 2019
The Middle East and Facial Recognition
June 12, 2019
How many times has science fiction been called stuff and nonsense, but the genre has actually predicted many things that are commonplace today? One thing that used to be make believe is facial recognition technology. US right advocates have successfully banned the technology in some parts of the country, but facial recognition developers are taking their creations to “friendlier” locals. Buzz Feed News shares where in the article, “Facial Recognition Technology Is Facing A Huge Backlash In The US. But Some Of The World’s Biggest Tech Companies Are Trying To Sell It In The Gulf.”
While the US is saying no way, Chinese and American facial recognition purveyors take their wares to Dubai. The biggest sellers are IBM, Hikvision, and Huawei. In the US, opposers to the technology state it could be used for social control, but Dubai is located in the United Arab Emirates where citizens are more under the government’s thumb. Hacking software is already used to spy on political dissidents, potential criminals, and journalists. While Dubai is heralded as a futuristic city, it is still in the heart of fundamentalist Islam territory. Theocracies are not known to be tolerant of “unreligious” behaviors.
“Police in Dubai have begun rolling out an ambitious program, dubbed Oyoon, the Arabic word for “eyes,” that will implement facial recognition and analysis driven by artificial intelligence across the city. Police say the program will reduce crime as well as traffic accidents. An analysis of hundreds of government procurement and regulatory documents make clear the scope of Dubai’s high-tech policing ambitions, showing the police have sought video analytics platforms meant to record and analyze people’s faces, voices, behavior, and cars in the time it takes to do a Google search. And a review of dozens of company marketing materials and interviews with officials show global tech giants are eager to provide the police with the technology they are seeking.”
Dubai police favor facial and voice recognition technology and use it to monitor potential threats through a central command center. There have already been three hundred arrests with the technology. Several UAE government agencies support using the technology to monitor its citizens. Like any sort of technology, it can be used for good or bad.
Dubai has the most political prisoners per capita I the world and the UAE prides itself on keeping order.
“‘They focus on preventative surveillance,’ said Joe Odell, a campaigner at the International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE. It’s about control to prevent street mobilizations through establishing a wide-reaching surveillance state, where they can nip anything in the bud before it even happens. They’ve spent millions of pounds on that.’”
The UAE does not like anyone that opposes its government and goes after even the most peaceful protesters. It is an authoritarian government armed with technology that is so strange it can only be true. Here is some advice: do not do anything stupid to anger the UAE if you visit.
Whitney Grace, June 12, 2019
LookingGlass Threat Map
June 11, 2019
You may want to check out an interesting approach to marketing as practiced by a cyber intelligence firm. And if you are curious about threats posed by exploits, malware, and other cyber weapons, you will want to examine the LookingGlass Threat Map. The display shows attacks (attempted and successful). If you put your mouse on the map, you can display threats by region. The map is zoomable, so you can obtain information about target of the attack; for example, attacks in Italy. Click on a dot and information about the attack is displayed in a pop up window.
The map also displays a moving real time graph of attacks per second. DarkCyber found the scrolling list of attack types particularly interesting. One can see that the Sality variants are one of the more popular attacks at this time (Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 0603 US Eastern time).
The threat map provides graphs as well; for instance:
I discuss some of LookingGlass’ capabilities in my Dark Web 2 lectures. For more information about LookingGlass, navigate to the company’s Web site. The Sality exploit exists in variants. The software has been available for many years. It exploits the bad actors’ best friend: Microsoft Windows. After 16 years and numerous variants, one could ask the question, “What’s up with this, Microsoft?”
I won’t ask that question because I address Microsoft’s ball fumbling in the DarkCyber video for June 11, 2019.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2019
The Jedi Return: Page and Brin Address Those Perceived to Be Really Smart
June 11, 2019
I read “Elusive Google Co-Founders Make Rare Appearance at Town Hall Meeting.” What these fine innovators do is not likely to become a talking point in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. I did note this passage in the write up:
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have long been the stars of the search giant’s weekly “TGIF” town hall meetings. But for the past six months, the pair had been no-shows, an absence that coincided with Google controversies over antitrust concerns, work in China and military contracts.
Interesting but what happened to the discrimination and sexual harassment dust ups? I assume that certain management flubs are more important than others. It is clear that the researcher working on this CNet article did not come across information about a certain liaison which triggered a divorce and an attempted suicide. And what about the Googler, the yacht, the alleged female of ill repute, and a drug overdose? Obviously fake, irrelevant, or long-forgotten items I assume.
I also noted this passage:
The disappearing act drew criticism from those who see Page’s and Brin’s absence as dodging accountability during the most tumultuous period in the company’s 20-year history.
What’s that reminder about correlation and causation? Probably the six month hiatus is a refine of the firm’s management techniques. Are there antecedents? What about restructuring to Alphabet to provide more insulation in the Googleplex from the heat of certain investigations? What about the “Gee, we’re not really working on a China centric search system”?
How about this statement from the article?
But as Google’s issues mount, the company’s co-founders have faded into the background.
There’s even a reference to the YouTube clown car.
Most recently, Google-owned YouTube drew blowback last week after the service refused to take down the channel of Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian who hurled homophobic slurs at Carlos Maza, a Vox journalist and video host who is gay.
And the discrimination and retribution approach to human resources warranted a comment:
One of the questions during the Q&A portion of the May 30 TGIF concerned alleged retaliation from management against employees, according to a partial transcript viewed by CNET. The question was about the departure of Claire Stapleton, a Google walkout organizer who said she was unfairly targeted because of her role in the protest. Stapleton announced her resignation in a blog post Friday. The questioner asked if “outside objectivity” could be added to HR investigations.
The write up is interesting, but there are aspects of the Google matter which warrant amplification, if not by the real new outfit CNet, then some other entity, perhaps former MBA adjunct professors embracing the gig economy of the MBA implosion?
What the write up makes clear but does not explain is the unwillingness of the Google to be forthright about what it has done, when it began to implement certain interesting monetization procedures, and how it decided upon certain management processes to deflect criticism and understanding of the firm’s Titanic algorithms.
The CNet write up is interesting, not for what it reveals, but for its omissions. Today that’s real news.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2019
DarkCyber for June 11, 2019, Now Available
June 11, 2019
DarkCyber for June 11, 2019, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://www.vimeo.com/341177540.
The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold. It is the only weekly video news shows focusing on the Dark Web, cybercrime, and lesser known Internet services.
This week’s story line up includes: News about Leidos’ new cyber intelligence system; the risks and vulnerabilities of autonomous smart weapons; and the overlooked factors in the Baltimore ransomware attack.
This week’s feature is a discussion of three facets of the Baltimore ransomware problem. The city was unable to deliver some services and conduct routine business due to malware. With the computers down, Baltimore officials struggled to get its computers back online. Most of the reports ignored three facets of this problem which are as important as the vulnerability of the city. DarkCyber points out that sensitive software must be better protected. Multiple security lapses within US government agency have occurred. The loss of the personnel data from the Office of Personnel Management, the Edward Snowden data theft, and the TSB activity, among other are inexcusable. There is plenty of talk about cyber security, but that talk has not prevented data loss. That’s a problem which endangers lives, national security, and the integrity of Federal institutions. Action is necessary.
Second, cyber security firms offering a mind boggling array of threat intelligence, defensive shields, and specialized procedures are not enough. Perhaps Baltimore could not afford products sold by companies located within the city limits or a short drive down the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. The vendors of cyber security systems have to do a better job. Now. The breezy PowerPoints and the slick demos are obviously falling short.
Finally, the Microsoft Corporation is the vector of an attack which has been available to bad actors for more than two years has dropped the ball. The company’s software has no significant defense, and that too is inexcusable. Microsoft has either been unable or unwilling to address the security flaws which EternalBlue exploits. Should a company receive the Department of Defense JEDI contract worth about $10 billion when its software is vulnerable and being exploited? Microsoft must be held accountable. More than a Congressional hearing is needed. Much more.
Stephen E Arnold, producer of DarkCyber and author of “The Dark Web Notebook,” said in his lecture on June 4, 2019, at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference: “The stakes continue to rise. Cyber professionals have to become more aggressive in their efforts to prevent bad actors from mounting successful attacks.”
Other stories covered in the June 4, 2019, DarkCyber video include:
Leidos (formerly SAIC) has announced developed a new intelligence analysis system known as “Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning Microservices Platform”. The system has been developed to solve one major problem facing analysts; specifically, data that can be useful has been stored on a variety of stovepiped software systems, or in different digital mediums. A manual investigation is impractical due to the different data formats and the volume of historical and real time data. The new system Artificial intelligence and machine learning uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to sort through data and pinpoint the content relevant to their operation.
The final story identifies new research which pinpoints what experts call “normal accidents” in smart, autonomous weapons systems. The problem was identified decades ago when complex processes interact and tiny probabilities trigger a chain of failure.
DarkCyber appears each Tuesday and is available on YouTube, Vimeo, and directly from the DarkCyber news service.
Kenny Toth, June 11, 2019
Twitter Tools
June 10, 2019
One of our readers spotted “5 Twitter Tools to Discover the Best and Funniest Tweets.” The article is a round up of software utilities which will provide a selected stream of information from Twitter “content creators.” Keep in mind that threads have been rendered almost useless by Twitter’s editorial procedures. Nevertheless, if you don’t have access to a system which provides the “firehose” content or a repository of indexed and parsed Twitter content, you may find one of these useful:
- Funny Tweeter
- Ketchup (an easy way to provide Google with information about Tweets)
- Really Good Questions
- Thread Reader (what about those disappeared tweets and the not available tweets
- Twitter’s digest
- Twubbler (not exactly a Palantir Gotham timeline, however)
Consult the source article for explanations of each and the links.
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2019
Amazonia for June 10, 2019
June 10, 2019
Grind. Grind. Grind. This is the sound of the Amazon bulldozer. It complements the buzz of the Amazon delivery drone. Enjoy news of the world’s favorite online book store.
FedEx Express: Not for Amazon
Jeff Bezos got fired. by FedEx. A tough message to accept from FedEx’s MBAs.
FedEx, despite its confidence in Amazon as a customer, seems to be doing a rethink. “FedEx Will No Longer Provide Express Shipping for Amazon in the US” revealed that the company conceived in an MBA class:
decided not to renew its express U.S. shipping contract with Amazon. The company said in a statement that it was a “strategic decision” and that the change won’t affect other existing contracts with Amazon, including international shipping.
With Amazon refurbing the Cincinnati / Covington airport (a bit of a white elephant), FedEx is edging toward the realization that Amazon wants some or all of FedEx’s business. DarkCyber once used FedEx several times a week. I can’t recall the last time I sent or received a FedEx envelope. The deal affects air deliveries, but when Amazon rolls out its smart electric delivery devices, FedEx may have to check out another MBA class, but even these are becoming unattractive. Students find that many courses are taught by worn shoe types or are no longer offered. Imagine. An MBA taking a class in ethics. When it has to absolutely, positively get there overnight, we use email or just wait for the Amazon delivery. We received a surprise same day delivery. That’s speedy. DarkCyber has to instruct Amazon to deliver on certain days to make sure there is someone around to collect the box. The cute but invasive magic door bell does not ding dong for us.
Amazon Usurps the Sidewalks of Suburbia
Not really. More accurately, not yet. “How Amazon’s Delivery Robots Will Navigate Your Sidewalk” explains that cute, rolling breadboxes with six wheels, will delivery products to customers. How the little cute breadboxes will get up steps, enter apartments, avoid testosterone fueled teens, street robbers, old people who push the machines into the gutter with their electric wheelchairs, and other assorted actions is not clear. Assume that the breadbox does trundle up in front of a dwelling. How does the package get from the Amazon wheeled vehicle to the consumer. Will a couple of disgruntled youth baseball players carrying aluminum bats vent their frustration on the cute but smart vehicles? Interesting idea. I wonder if Amazon spends much time checking out the real world.
Amazon Embraces Diversity
CNBC, a surprising news source, revealed that the “elite S Team” has a new member. Before you ask, “Who?”, it is Rick DeSantis. Mr. DeSantis has worked in the jungle for more than 20 years. DeSantis has held various engineering positions, but he’s best known for helping launch Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the cloud service that lets other businesses offload much of their data center needs to Amazon. He joins 18 other Amazon chieftains. This band of elite individuals make key business decisions. How many women are members of the S team? Guess. [a] one, [b] one, [c] one. Time’s up. Amazon suggests that it is into diversity. There are, after all, four women among the top 48 Amazon executives.
Amazon Telephone & Telegraph
NoJitter provides more information about Amazon’s communications initiative. “AWS Gets Serious about Cloud Communications” explains that Chime unified communications or UC in phone lingo is getting more beef. Among the enhancements are speech analytics, including translation capabilities. The article explains:
The Amazon Chime updates revolve around broader voice capabilities. Chime already has rich chat, meetings, and collaboration features. Now AWS is adding two new features. The first is business calling capabilities that enable users to place and receive calls and text messages in more than 100 countries directly from the Chime desktop application, mobile client, or Web interface. Callers can use the integrated keypad or click or tap to call on a Chime contact. Incoming calls will ring wherever a user is logged in, so if a worker has the desktop app and mobile client logged in, it will simultaneously ring on both devices. The addition of native calling puts AWS in the competitive crosshairs of all the UCaaS vendors. In addition, the company is trying to disrupt the market by changing the pricing model. Instead of pre-paying per user, businesses only pay for the minutes used. Administrators can provision as many phone numbers as they need to but only pay for calls made. If a worker makes no calls on a number in a particular month, the business isn’t charged. There are no minimum fees or long-term contracts.
Are AT&T, T Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon listening? Why should they? The Motley Fool has spelled out four reasons why Amazon is not into the telephone business. And the reasons? Well, being a phone company is expensive. Second, Amazon will focus on drones autonomous vehicles. Third, telcos are low margin businesses. (Groceries apparently are not, DarkCyber concludes.) Finally, the crack regulatory legal eagles would block that sort of move. NoJitter? Obviously unrelated.
UAW Banking Work: Off the Radar for a Reason
Amazon Teams with Emirates NBD to streamline banking services. This is an important announcement. Amazon is applying its technology outside the US. At some point, the services will find their way to other countries. What services can Amazon offer as a financial partner? Credit checks, anyone? Supplementary data for tax purposes? Source: Marketwatch
High Street Could Become Low Street
“Amazon Sellers to Hit UK High Streets in Year Long Pop Up Pilot” makes it clear that Amazon is testing the robustness of High Street vendors. A “high street” is a row of shops selling everything from UK food faves like McVitie’s biscuits to a washing machine the size of a bread box in my grandmother’s kitchen.
According to the write up:
Internet shopping has been blamed for boarding up high streets across the UK. So it looks politically judicious for Amazon, the original ecommerce behemoth, to now be attaching its brand name to a pilot project aimed at sparking a little commercial life in denuded UK towns and cities by parachuting online SMEs into pop-up shops around the country.
DarkCyber sees the test as way for Amazon to figure out how to capture more UK shoppers’ money. If the test works, the high streets may be renamed Baja Close. Will an Amazon pop up merchant offer gilded lilies?
Amazon Channels Sears’ DIY Houses
“Amazon Is Selling Entire Houses for Less than $20,000 — with Free Shipping” reports that Amazon is embracing the past. Even though the Bezos bulldozer crushed dear, old Sears & Roebuck, Amazon’s canny executives flipped through a dead tree catalog from the now moribund mail order company and found inspiration.
This is the Amazon five star Allwood Avalon Cabin Kit | 540 SQF + Loft (Triple Glass Windows and Doors) for $33,990 and free shipping. Like the original Sears’ customers are do it yourselfers. But some people will want to have expertise in handling trivial tasks like plumbing, electrical work, and the site preparation. Basic skills.
Amazon’s search system makes it tough to locate these products. Persevere or write us at darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. We can help, but we do charge money. Payment in Amazon fractional “points” is not accepted at this time. In case you don’t recall the printed Sears’s catalog from 1908, here’s what one of its house ads looked like:
What happens if Amazon bundles a house building service with its kit? Sounds like a possible play if the tiny houses sell.
Vroom. NASCAR Selects the Amazon Cloud: No Rain Days
Yahoo, a go to source for big time news, reported that NASCAR picked Amazon as its cloud provider. DarkCyber learned:
AWS has been selected by National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) as its cloud-based machine learning and artificial intelligence workload provider. This highlights the power and reliability of AWS services.
NASCAR and artificial intelligence plus automobile racing videos. What will SageMaker discover?
Ama-Drones Aloft
Techcrunch reports:
It’s an ingenious hexagonal hybrid design, though, that has very few moving parts and uses the shroud that protects its blades as its wings when it transitions from vertical, helicopter-like flight at takeoff to its airplane-like mode.
DarkCyber call it an Ama-Drone. Some may prefer this type of design dating from the mid 2000s, however.
Snap and Buy
Fancy someone’s duds? Now you can take a picture on your mobile phone and Amazon will find the product or a near match. You can then buy it. Why spend time selecting clothes or doing the hunter-gatherer procedure. Source: The Verge
Alexa: Talk and Apps
Why search? Talk and use Alexa apps. Typing is so yesterday. Smart software and speech recognition with a dash of personalized data analysis. Magic. Source: Wired
Amazon: A Top Artificial Intelligence Company
According to Datamation, Amazon is the number four AI company. Keep in mind that this is an alphabetical list. The write up states:
The online retail giant offers both consumer and business-oriented AI products and services and many of its professional AI services are built on consumer products. Amazon Echo brings artificial intelligence into the home through the intelligent voice server, Alexa. For AWS, the company has three primary services: Lex, a business version of Alexa, Polly, which turns text to speech, and Rekognition, an image recognition service.
Partners and Integrators
- AnythingIT. We’re not sure we know how one recovers cloud assets. Nevertheless, the company doe it with Amazon. Source: Finanzen
- CrowdMachine offers ASW to its customers. CloudMachine eliminates complexity and brings data to life. Source: Host Review
- Cruz Street is an Amazon QuickSight provider. Source: Digital Journal
- Ricoh has expanded its relationship with Amazon. Source: Business Insider’s Market Insider. (Note that you may have to pay to read the story.)
- ScaleGrid can now handle “bring your own cloud” to the new computing paradigm which is timesharing sort of. Source: Yahoo
- Lemongrass Consulting is able to do SAP things in the Amazon cloud. Source: Virtual Strategy
- McAfee (not the fellow staying out of the spotlight except when he is not) will add security to the Amazon AWS cloud. Not a moment too son, we think. Source: Yahoo
- Modiface allows a mobile user to try on a new lipstick. Source: Chain Store Age
- Tripwire is in the Amazon jungle. Source: Yahoo
- Northwest Vista College is an Amazon “teach ‘em to code the Bezos way.” Move along, code doggies. Source: Yahoo
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2019
About That Internet Traffic to China
June 10, 2019
The Cisco Talos researchers pointed out that a foundation server was under stress. I discussed this on June 4, 2019, in my lecture at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference. The idea of usurping control of lower level Internet services and devices is a wake up call. I noted the rerouting of Internet traffic to China in a number of reports such as this one: “For Two Hours, a Large Chunk of European Mobile Traffic Was Rerouted through China. It Was China Telecom, Again. The Same ISP Accused Last Year of “Hijacking the Vital Internet Backbone of Western Countries.”
According to the story:
The incident occurred because of a BGP route leak at Swiss data center colocation company Safe Host, which accidentally leaked over 70,000 routes from its internal routing table to the Chinese ISP.
My hunch is that the word “leak” which is used in the write up is short hand for hip hopping over more analytic explanations.
First, the BGP or border gateway protocol is one of those plumbing components which have become juicy targets of opportunity. The Internet Servicer Providers get these up and running and then worry only when something goes wrong.
China Telecom, the third largest ISP in China, noted the issue and, according to ZDNet,
re-announced Safe Host’s routes as its own, and by doing so, interposed itself as one of the shortest ways to reach Safe Host’s network and other nearby European telcos and ISPs.
When such issues like this magical “leak” occur, the fixes are applied quickly, often within minutes either by automated scripts or semi automated humans who are monitoring alerts or logs.
This problem took a couple of hours to remedy, and my thought is that one can learn a great deal in that two hour span; for example:
- Length of time between “leak” and someone noticing
- Facts about traffic volume, data types, handoff points in the flow, etc.
- After event consequences; that is, fixes put in place to prevent such “leaks” in the future.
In short, one might gain some operational intelligence. That’s hypothetical, of course. Of course.
Like the attacks on Netnod servers, the goal is to gain access. With that access savvy operators will remain invisible. There’s no reason to let anyone know that a vital component of the increasingly burdened Information Highway is in the hands of bandits riding Mongolian ponies.
Was this a “leak”? Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2019
Google: Can Semantic Relaxing Display More Ads?
June 10, 2019
For some reason, vendors of search systems have shuddered if a user’s query returns a null set. the idea is that a user sends a query to a system or more correctly an index. The terms in the query do not match entries in the database. The system displays a message which says, “No results match your query.”
For some individuals, that null set response is high value information. One can bump into null sets when running queries on a Web site; for example, send the anti fungicide query to the Arnold Information Technology blog at this link. Here’s the result:
From this response, one knows that there is no content containing the search phrase. That’s valuable for some people.
To address this problem, modern systems “relax” the query. The idea is that the user did not want what he or she typed in the search box. The search system then changes the query and displays those results to the stupid user. Other systems take action and display results which the system determines are related to the query. You can see these relaxed results when you enter the query shadowdragon into Google. Here are the results:
Google ignored my spelling and displays information about a video game, not the little known company Shadowdragon. At least Google told me what it did and offers a way to rerun the query using the word I actually entered. But the point is that the search was “relaxed.”
The purpose of semantic expansion is a variation of Endeca’s facets. The idea is that a key word belongs to a category. If a system can identify a category, then the user can get more results by selecting the category and maybe finding something useful. Endeca’s wine demonstration makes this function and its value clear.
Google: Are Stress Cracks Appearing?
June 9, 2019
I thought briefly about doing an item about the clown car YouTube. Instead I will focus on stress cracks evident from Google’s more aggressive marketing. Google may be implying that Apple’s iPhone is overpriced. The price angle is important because Google is pushing one of its devices as a great deal.
What difference does a little letter “i” make? Not much in one recent ad campaign, because it can be considered implied. “Google Rips iPhone for Being a Rip-Off,” reports ZDNet. Writer Chris Matyszczyk noticed that Google’s ads had been comparing their Pixel 3a, at $399, to “Phone X,” priced at $999—the same cost as a 64GB iPhone X, as it happens. However, he insists, this is about as accurate as comparing a Mini to an Audi A8. The write-up observes:
“In essence, then, Google wants you to believe that its 3a is just as good as an iPhone that’ll cost you more than twice as much. … I don’t dispute for a nanosecond that the Pixel 3a isn’t a very fine phone. Some might say, though, that its specs might bring it closer to an iPhone SE than an iPhone XR. If you buy a 3a, you’ll make so with a single camera for your selfies — the shame of it. You’ll also have a far slower processor. Oh, and you won’t be able to drop it down the toilet or in the swimming pool without ruining it. One more thing. Your wireless charging joy will be extinguished.”
Still, Matyszczyk concedes Google may have a point to make about inflated phone prices. Few people are prepared to pay a grand for their phone, so Android will benefit if Apple is painted as a brand for elites. The author wonders, though, whether some buyers will be disappointed in their Pixel 3a’s in the end.
The importance of this tiny stress crack is significant. Google and its approach to management are now dipping into the textbooks which explain how to sell commodities. Perhaps the methods of used car sales people will have more utility as Google wobbles forward, burdened by regulators, employee pushback, and the emissions of the Bezos bulldozer powering through the advertising landscape.
My goodness. Google is marketing the old fashioned way.
Cynthia Murrell, June 9, 2019
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