Verizon Tries Its Hand at… Search
January 29, 2020
Verizon is hopping on the privacy bandwagon but how do we know we can trust it? ArsTechnica reports, “Verizon Offers No-Tracking Search Engine, Promises to Protect Your Privacy.” The company’s new platform is called OneSearch. It gets its results from Bing, but imposes privacy features on them. While still running contextual advertising, of course, but ones that rely on keywords, not tracking. This search service is in addition to, not replacing, the existing Yahoo search engine. (Verizon bought Yahoo in 2017.) Yahoo search also gets its results from Bing, but makes no promises about privacy.
Here are the promises we get from OneSearch: no cookie tracking, retargeting, or personal profiling; no sharing of personal data with advertisers; and no storing search histories. When users click on the “Advanced Privacy Mode” button, the platform encrypts their search terms and URL and sets the results link to expire in an hour. However, writer Jon Brodkin reports:
“The Verizon search engine homepage says, ‘OneSearch doesn’t use cookies. Period.’ Chrome detected that OneSearch did set one cookie on my computer, so that statement seems to be exaggerated. The EFF’s Privacy Badger detected a potential tracker that’s tied to the u.yimg.com domain, indicating a connection between OneSearch and Yahoo’s image service. What Verizon apparently means is that it doesn’t use cookies to build ad-targeting profiles. Verizon uses your IP address to determine your ‘general location,’ helping it deliver location-specific search results. Verizon said that ‘We only ever infer location data up to the city level of specificity for search localization purposes.’”
The write-up also lists in more detail the steps OneSearch performs for each query. We are also reminded of less-than-stellar performance of Verizon’s media division thus far. See the article for those details.
So, can we trust Verizon to deliver on its privacy vows? Brodkin notes several events that may give us pause: In 2016, the company paid a $1.35 million fine and agreed to change their ways over “supercookies;” it, along with T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T, was caught selling mobile customers’ location data to third-party brokers; and Verizon regularly opposes government regulations that would require carriers to protect customer privacy. The write-up suggests DuckDuckGo and Startpage as alternatives for anyone hesitant to take Verizon at its word.
Cynthia Murrell, January 29, 2020
China Software Numbers: Suggestive If Accurate
January 28, 2020
DarkCyber spotted “China’s Leading Software Companies Report Rising Income.” The write up included some interesting, but difficult to verify, numbers:
- The companies in the sample generated US$118.5 billion of revenue from software business in 2018, 6.5 percent up from that of the top 100 companies a year ago.
- More than 30 companies saw revenue surging by more than 20 percent
- 14 of the companies in the sample had revenues above US$1.4 billion
- Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud computing subsidiary, was number three on the list of 100 companies
- In the same period, these companies invested about US$25 billion in research and development, 12.6 percent higher than that of the top 100 companies in 2018.
And the killer number was, “Their average R&D intensity, the proportion of R&D expenditure to main business revenue, reached 10.1 percent, 2.2 percentage points higher than the average level of the software industry, the ministry’s data showed.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 28, 2020
Amazon: 2020 Begins with Problems Penetrating the Company Membrane
January 28, 2020
DarkCyber coined a work to capture what seems to be happening to Amazon. That word is “amagenic.” The idea is that external factors which previously bounced off the online bookstore are now getting through.
A more MBA type of phrasing might be “amagenesis”; that is, the conditions under which external factors penetrate an organization, its management team, and its business activities. An example of an amagenic event is the mobile phone “event.”
The information about the alleged hacking of Mr. Bezos’ iPhone X is difficult to interpret. A consulting firm doing business as FTI issued a report. That report suggests that a third party compromised Mr. Bezos’ mobile phone. You can download and read the allegedly original and complete report at this link. Critical discussion of the FTI report may be located at this link.
Other facets of the story include allegations that a specialized software vendor in Israel provided the tool used to compromise Mr. Bezos’ mobile phone. A number of sources link the assault on the phone to the government of Saudi Arabia. The reason? Dissatisfaction with Amazon’s blockchain technology? No, the country took action to find out if there was information related to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist who provided some stories to the Washington Post. Other sources say that Mr. Bezos’ mobile was compromised in 2008. (Yep, a decade ago.)
To muddy the water, information has been pulled from the “real” journalism archives; specifically, Mr. Bezos’ found himself the victim of a leak of information from a member of his “close friend’s” family. That information circulated, it is rumored, among the tabloids. Some of the “leaked information” presented Mr. Bezos in situations which were of a private nature.
But this Amagenic event is just one of a string of digital and real life viruses penetrating the juggernaut. Others include:
- An increasing tension between Amazon and Facebook. The vector of attack allegedly was WhatsApp.
- Amazon faces employees going public with information about alleged climate-hostile policies and actions. (Details are at this link.)
- Amazon workers are grousing about their work. An interesting example is the alleged Amazon truck driver who had to drive for 30 hours. (Allegation is summarized here.)
- Amazon is working hard to block Microsoft from beginning work on the $10 billion JEDI project. Did Amazon hire Department of Defense professionals in order to get an inside edge? Good question.
- Some US elected officials want an anti trust investigation of the company. (Some additional information is at this link.)
- Google and Microsoft poaching some Twitch stars.
Plus, there are continued complaints about knock offs (shanzai adherents) sold as the real deal on the Amazon eCommerce site, third-party sellers’ allegations that Amazon watches for hot products and then introduces its own product undercutting the Amazon seller, and other assorted hisses and boos.
Stepping back, DarkCyber believes these issues may illustrate amagenesis presenting itself in the Amazon construct.
Is this type of amagenic reaction curable? DarkCyber suggests taking two aspirin, getting a good night’s sleep, and checking in the morning.
Stephen E Arnold, January 28, 2020
Server Obfuscation Explained
January 28, 2020
An online information service published an article about copyright enforcement: “Patreon Can’t Solve Its P#rn Pirate Problem.” Why can’t a service block its customers who are allegedly violating copyright?
Here’s the legal explanation:
Despite its gung-ho statement to Kotaku two years ago, Patreon now says its terms of service effectively tie its hands. “We can’t do anything,” says Colin Sullivan, Patreon’s head of legal. “We don’t enforce [copyright] because we don’t have a license to the content.” In other words, it’s legally on Patreon’s creators to enforce copyright on their own work.
Here’s a technical explanation about how Yiff Party remains difficult to pin down:
Yiff.Party’s backend is a bit of a chimera by design. Dozes employs a bit of tech called a “reverse proxy.” A typical proxy obfuscates the identity of the user accessing a server; a reverse proxy hides the identity of the server the client accesses. Between Yiff.Party’s server and the Yiff.party website sits another server. “Yiff.party’s main server stays hidden because the ‘real’ IP address isn’t being exposed since traffic is routed through a proxy,” says Dozes. Reverse proxies aren’t uncommon; large sites might use one to help them run faster. “It’s essentially a VPN, but for a website,” Dozes says. “If our real hosting provider found out they hosted the site, we would be at risk of losing all our data.”
Interesting, particularly the idea of “creators.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 28, 2020
DarkCyber for January 28, 2020, Now Available
January 28, 2020
The end-of-January 2020 DarkCyber presents two stories. The first is an explanation about growing security vulnerabilities. When countries and billionaires are at risk, DarkCyber points out the obvious. The second story is a follow-up interview with Robert David Steele, former CIA professional and intelligence analyst. The topic is Amazon in India. Mr. Steele comments about the impact of Amazon on China’s door step. You can view the video on Vimeo or YouTube.
Kenny Toth, January 28, 2020
Amazon Blockchain: How Secure?
January 27, 2020
This write up does not address Amazon’s blockchain innovations. We have a summary of our Amazon blockchain technology which points out specific systems and methods, the online bookstore has “invented” to make blockchain more secure. (Keep in mind, Amazon is the inventor of S3 buckets, which in some circumstances, are somewhat leaky.) You can get a copy of the free DarkCyber Amazon Blockchain report using the information at the end of this blog post.
The article “Trust No One. Not Even a Blockchain” suggests that one of the most hyped data management technologies may have a weakness. Technology experts are not fond of weaknesses. Technology is a solution, and solutions must not have fatal flaws like mere humans working at a giant company or in the semi isolation of a coffee shop.
The write up points out:
Similarly, just because a person claims to have uploaded all of her photographs to a blockchain—like Mila’s mother in Parker’s story—does not mean there are no other pictures from her life. Omitted data, bad data, too much data: These dynamics rob a blockchain of the claim of being a source of truth. Garbage in, garbage out. This concept in computer science means that an input consisting of flawed data will generate a flawed output. So it is with blockchain technology. We can record false claims on a blockchain. We can omit data. Suddenly, that source of truth does not appear so honest.
The essay concludes with this observation:
Distortion of reality is a growing threat. Deepfakes, synthetic videos that replace an image of one person with that of another, may soon become indistinguishable from authentic videos. Today, deepfakes may largely be used in the making of memes, face-swapping celebrities, but their proliferation will undoubtedly have major implications on everything from political campaigns to policies around pornography. What makes the threat of deepfakes so profound is that they render a medium formerly viewed as reliable—namely video—undependable. We cannot trust the very thing that we are supposed to trust. This constitutes the most substantial danger to a society’s notion of reality. If we are supposed to trust whatever is on a blockchain, then we are in trouble indeed. After all, the blockchain is only as good as the data we put on it.
Amazon’s blockchain inventions address the “control” of the information placed in the blockchain. That may give Amazon an advantage in the policeware market.
If you want a copy of the DarkCyber executive summary for our 54 page report about Amazon’s blockchain and some of the implications of these inventions, send an email to darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. No charge for the summary. The full report, however, is not free.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2020
What Happens When Economists Think about AI?
January 27, 2020
Navigate to “The Economics of AI Today” and you may find some answers to this question. The article is a collection of conference notes assembled for publication in the Gradient. No single answer is offered, presumably because economic information does not provide clarity.
What emerges from information presented are several themes. DarkCyber noted these as interesting:
- Predictions. These will become “better.”
- Employment. It is good to be smart, rich, and AI savvy.
- Interconnectedness. The idea is that monopolistic services are under the glossy technology surface.
- Changes are coming: Research, medicine, etc.
- Benefits. Yes, less discrimination and the unicorns are romping in a green pasture.
- Skynet or a dark future. Nope.
DarkCyber found the article and its ideas a reminder about the vagaries of professional economists. I mean just look at the major economies. Humming right along, propelled by…economists and some lesser disciplines.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2020
Math Resources
January 27, 2020
One of the DarkCyber team spotted a list of math resources available. Some cost money; others are free. Math Vault lists courses, platforms, tools, and question – answering sites. Some are relatively mainstream like Wolfram Alpha; others, less well publicized like ProofWiki. You can find the listing at this link.
Kenny Toth, January 26, 2020
Facebook Amazon Tiff: A New Skirmish
January 27, 2020
Not long ago, Werner Vogels (CTO of the Bezos bulldozer) asked a Facebook wizard a question about its data policies. The irony of the question is that it seems to have been asked when the news about the alleged hacking of Mr. Bezos’ mobile device.
Well, there seems to be some tension in the air. Mashable published “Facebook Official Struggles to Explain Bezos’ WhatsApp Hack.” The story asserts:
When asked about WhatsApp’s security in the wake of reports that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia hacked the Amazon CEO’s phone via a WhatsApp message, Clegg seemed to struggle with defending the messaging app’s security.
Here’s the passage we noted:
“It sounds like something on the, you know, what they call the operating, the operating, the phone itself,” he sputtered. “It can’t have been, it can’t have been anything on the, when the message was sent in transit, because that’s end-to-end encrypted on WhatsApp…. It’s a bit like if someone sends you a malicious email, it only comes to life when you open it. I suspect it must have been something like that, so something would have affected the phone operating system.
Mashable does the real news thing, stating:
The issue with this explanation? While it’s convenient in keeping Facebook’s long-running beef with Apple alive, it ignores the fact that WhatsApp is vulnerable to spyware and other security flaws.
DarkCyber’s view is that the tensions between Amazon and Facebook are likely to increase. That may be the big story.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2020
Google: Making Friends Everywhere
January 26, 2020
Would it surprise anyone if Google alters search results to favor itself? Nope! Reuters explains that Europe is once again fed up with Google’s shenanigans, so “Axel Springer Unit, Others Say Google Still Playing Unfairly, Want EU To Act.” Axel Springer owns the shopping comparison Web site Idealo and it has teamed with forty other companies to accuse Google of altering search. The companies want the European Union to enforce a ruling against Google.
The claimants are pressuring European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager to enforce an order she made two years ago for Google to stop favoring its own price comparison shopping service. Axel Springer and its forty allies claim Google continues to alter search results, stealing potential customers from them. Google has not complied with Vestager’s order, when the company was also fined $2.65 billion (2.4 billion euros). Google claimed it would allow competitors to bid for advertising space at the top of a search page to even the odds, but Web site traffic has not increased for the claimants.
Google has a monopoly on shopping that Amazon does not have, but what about the smaller companies?
“Thomas Hoppner, a lawyer for Idealo said most of the signatories were voicing their frustrations for the first time. ‘The letter demonstrates a united front of genuine comparison shopping services against Google’s attempt to present measures as a “compliance mechanism,’ he said. Earlier this month, Vestager voiced concerns about the lack of significant traffic to Google’s competitors, rowing back on previous comments about the positive impact of the auctions.”
Google says the competition has increased for their ad space auctions, which would explain why these price comparison services are not getting much service. Google will probably do what it can to avoid paying more fines and angering world governments, but all it has to do is grease a few palms to continue its monopolies.
Whitney Grace, January 26, 2020
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