Work from Home: Stating the Obvious and a Newish Word
October 12, 2020
I read “Organizations Have Accrued Technical Debt in the Shift to Remote Work, and Now They Have to Face the Fallout.” Three facets of the article snagged my attention. The first was this observation attributed to a Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, a information services firm:
“Many organizations have accrued a lot of technical debt, for lack of a better term, to get people working remotely,” said Malik. “They’ve enabled remote access to servers that they traditionally would never have given access to, or they might have relaxed some security rules. I heard of an organization that actually dropped 2FA to allow all of their employees to easily connect into the office, because they didn’t have enough resources to deploy 2FA to everyone, or train them up, or to deal with the number of tickets that would inevitably come in.
Okay, the obvious has been stated.
Second, the use of the phrase “technical debt” indicates that services firms want to make clear that taking one set of technologies and applying them to remote work has risks.
No kidding. News? Hardly. Reports from assorted cyber security companies have been pointing out that phishing has become a go-to mechanism for some time. A useful report is available from Interpol.
The third facet of the article was the use of the portmanteau “websem.” The coinage appears to be a combination of the word “webinar”, itself a modification of “seminar, and the now ubiquitous term “Web.”
Observations:
- Recycling Interpol data does not constitute an insight worthy of a consulting gig
- Whipping up jargon adds some froth to the Reddiwip analysis
Why not cite sources and use words WFH’ers will understand; for example, Zoom-eeting. Mammals braying, excitement, and snacks with toppings? The fallout? Plump targets for phishers.
Stephen E Arnold, October 12, 2020
Streaming Data: Does the Information Presage the Future for Google Advertising?
October 12, 2020
DarkCyber is not populated with work hour gamers. (Tibby is the exception.) One of the research team spotted “Streamlabs & Stream Hatchet Q3 Live Streaming Industry Report.” The summary contained an interesting factoid, which we assume is spot on. Here it is:
Twitch now represents 91.1% of the market share for hours streamed, up 14.5% from last quarter. This massive increase can be attributed to Mixer’s shutdown, which captured 14.2% of all content live-streamed last quarter. That is compared to Facebook Gaming, which now represents 3.4% of the market share, and increased by 1% since last quarter, and YouTube Gaming, which now represents 5.5% of the market share, and decreased by 1.2% since last quarter.
The data prompted a question from one of the DarkCyber researchers:
What is the likelihood that Amazon’s online streaming advertising follows a similar path?
At lunch on October 8, a number of ideas floated above the miasma of take out Chinese:
- No way, José. Google will find a way to get into the online streaming money flow.
- Yikes. Google may be too distracted by removing features from its lackluster mobile devices, fending off regulators, and dealing with its “human resource” issues to respond in an effective manner.
- The Bezos bulldozer grinds forward. The effectiveness of Amazon in multiple market sectors may push Google and others aside. Product searches and product advertising are likely to be more important as the retail sector in the US erodes.
Which is it? Worth watching.
Stephen E Arnold, October 12, 2020
Amazon Policeware: Is the Online Bookseller a Corporate Nation State with Policeware?
October 12, 2020
Who knows if the statements in “Leaked: Confidential Amazon Memo Reveals New Software to Track Unions.” Would a company create policeware to spy on employees? Possibly, but DarkCyber thinks that Amazon’s policeware is simply being repurposed. The Bezos bulldozer is a digital nation state, and some governance methods embrace data gathering, analytics, and predictive outputs. The idea is to be in front of trends, actions, and groups. Nothing new about this.
The write up, however, revels in the “confidential” document and places it in a zippy socio-political context. DarkCyber noted this passage:
The new tool would also track other non-union threats to the company, like crime and weather.
The operative word is “new.” In our analysis of Amazon’s policeware and intelware innovations, the “new” mischaracterizes products, services, partnerships, and features under development for more than a decade. My Amazon policeware lectures for the 2020 National Cyber Crime Conference plus some other presentations for LE and intel professionals have walked through some of the capabilities of the AWS policeware platform. (Want to know more? Write benkent2020 at yahoo dot com. Options and prices will be provided to qualified inquirers.)
The write up reports:
The new technology system — called the geoSPatial Operating Console, or SPOC — would help the company analyze and visualize at least around 40 different data sets, the memo says. Among them are many related to unions, including “Whole Foods Market Activism/Unionization Efforts,” “union grant money flow patterns,” “and “Presence of Local Union Chapters and Alt Labor Groups.” Additionally, one of the potential use cases for the tool is described in the memo as “The Union Relationship Map,” though no other details are provided.
Snappy name but the plumbing is in operation. Here’s a test question for the intrepid “real” journalists bandying the word “new” hither and yon. “What cloud service provides the back end, content processing, and other analytic features for GeoSpark Analytics?” You have one minute to write your answer in your blue book.
And where, pray tell, is the source document?
Interesting but the Amazon policeware and intelware platform is overlooked. Why? One does not know what one does not know I presume.
Stephen E Arnold, October 12, 2020
GSA Government Okays These Drones
October 12, 2020
The General Services Administration has given five manufacturers its blessing to sell their small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) to government agencies. GCN examines the development in, “US-Made Small Drones Added to GSA Schedule.” The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance program (SRR) have been working toward this approval for 18 months. That joint effort has developed drones equipped with situational awareness tools that can be deployed quickly. A related DIU project, Blue sUAS, focused on non-DOD applications of drones, like safety inspections, rescue missions, and fighting forest fires. Writer Stephanie Kanowitz informs us:
“The five companies whose products will be available are Altavian, Parrot, Skydio, Teal and Vantage Robotics. … Recognizing a need for drones that government agencies, including the military, could use, Vantage applied to be part of Blue sUAS and tweaked its Vesper unmanned aerial vehicle for federal agency use. Vesper, developed for DIU, differs from Vantage’s first-generation drone, Snap, in that it is ‘substantially more advanced in just about every way,’ including sensors, flight capabilities, security and materials, said Vantage CEO Tobin Fisher. ‘To be specific, on the sensor side, we developed a camera that can see in the dark in 4K and integrated a thermal sensor as well as 18x zoom,’ Fisher said. Additionally, Vesper can fly for 50 minutes and features an extended radio range with an AES 256-encrypted 5-mile link. Vesper is made with components from trusted sources, which Fisher said includes Qualcomm for the onboard processor, Microhard for the radio and SigmaTron International for assembly.”
Impressive. It was crucial that any component that touched data in any way be from a non-Chinese source. For security reasons, the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act prohibits government agencies from purchasing or using drones made in China. The effort goes beyond government agencies, though. Those eye-popping capabilities will soon grace commercial drones, as well. The article quotes the DIU’s Chris Bonzagni:
“These companies have been able to leverage the roughly $18 million in DOD investments to develop spinoff enterprise solutions to offer secure, domestically produced options to enterprise customers worldwide, ultimately adding a much-needed boost to the U.S. sUAS industrial base.”
Ready or not, drones are here to stay and only getting more capable and numerous. Chinese drones are interesting too, but some may phone home.
Cynthia Murrell, October 12, 2020
Spreadsheet Fever Case Example
October 12, 2020
I have been using the phrase “spreadsheet fever” to describe the impact of fiddling with numbers in Microsoft Excel has on MBAs. With Excel providing the backbone for numerous statistical confections, the sugar hit of magic assumptions cannot be under-estimated. The mental structure of a crazed investment analyst brooks no interference from common sense.
“Excel: Why Using Microsoft’s Tool Caused Covid-19 Results to Be Lost” provides a possible case example of what happens when thumbtypers and over-confident innumerates tangle with a digital spreadsheet. No green eyeshades and no pencils needed. Calculators? One can hear a 22 year old ask, “What’s a calculator? I have one on my iPhone?”
The Beeb reports:
PHE [Public Health England, a fine UK entity] had set up an automatic process to pull this data together into Excel templates so that it could then be uploaded to a central system and made available to the NHS Test and Trace team, as well as other government computer dashboards.
And what tool did these over confident wizards use?
Microsoft Excel, the weapon of choice for business and STEM analysis, of course.
How did the experts wander off the information highway into a thicket of errors? The Beeb explains:
The problem is that PHE’s own developers picked an old file format to do this – known as XLS. As a consequence, each template could handle only about 65,000 rows of data rather than the one million-plus rows that Excel is actually capable of. And since each test result created several rows of data, in practice it meant that each template was limited to about 1,400 cases. When that total was reached, further cases were simply left off.
The fix? Can kicking perhaps:
But insiders acknowledge that the current clunky system needs to be replaced by something more advanced that excludes Excel, as soon as possible.
Righto.
Stephen E Arnold, October 12, 2020
Does Search Breed Fraud?
October 11, 2020
The question “Does search breed fraud?” is an interesting one. As far as I know, none of the big time MBA case studies address the topic. If any academic discipline knows about fraud, I believe it is those very same big time MBA programs.
“South Korean Search Giant Fined US $23 Million for Manipulating Results” reveals that Naver has channeled outfits with a penchant for results fiddling. The write up states:
The Korea Fair Trade Commission, the country’s antitrust regulator, ruled Naver altered algorithms on multiple occasions between 2012 and 2015 to raise its own items’ rankings above those of competitors.
Naver responded, according to the write up, with this statement:
“The core value of search service is presenting an outcome that matches the intentions of users,” it said in a statement, adding: “Naver has been chosen by many users thanks to our focus on this essential task.”
The pressure to generate revenue is significant. Engineers, who may be managed loosely or steered by the precepts of high school science club thought processes, can make tiny changes with significant impact. As a result, the manipulation can arise from a desire to get promoted, be cool, or land a bonus.
The implications can be profound. Google may be less evil because fiddling is an emergent behavior.
Stephen E Arnold, October 11, 2020
China Alert from the FBI
October 10, 2020
DarkCyber noted “New FBI Film Warns about China’s Recruitment of US Officials.” The DarkCyber research team has not viewed this video. We did note this statement in the article about the video:
FBI Director Christopher Wray and other officials have said that China’s goal of becoming the world’s top technology provider is fueling Beijing’s aggressive techniques to get as much information on technologies from around the world as possible. “Social media deception continues to be a popular technique for foreign intelligence services and other hostile actors to glean valuable information from unsuspecting Americans,” NCSC Director William Evanina said in a statement. “Through this movie and other resources, we hope to raise awareness among Americans so they can guard against online approaches from unknown parties that could put them, their organization, and even national security at risk.”
Data generated by social media provides one skilled in certain arts to:
- Identify individuals who may be susceptible to pressure or payoffs
- Provide hints about an individual’s weaknesses or pressure points
- Pinpoint activities, including destinations, so that person contact can be initiated.
The cavalier dismissal of social media like TikTok as no big deal is not warranted. The FBI’s concern is understandable. If anything, enforcement agencies should have been more aggressive. The film is a useful first step, but more communication about the risks certain countries pose to the security of US businesses and governmental agencies is needed.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2020
Googzilla Versus the Bezos Bulldozer: Shopping Search, Ads, and Sales
October 9, 2020
The battle between the two ethical outfits is becoming more interesting. “Google Tries to Turn YouTube into a Major Shopping Destination” reports that there will be more advertising than ever on the precursor to TikTok. The write up reports:
The world’s largest video site recently started asking creators to use YouTube software to tag and track products featured in their clips. The data will then be linked to analytics and shopping tools from parent Google. The goal is to convert YouTube’s bounty of videos into a vast catalogue of items that viewers can peruse, click on and buy directly, according to people familiar with the situation. The company is also testing a new integration with Shopify for selling items through YouTube.
The essay / analysis includes another sourceless factoid:
However, the pandemic has hammered marketing budgets, particularly in the travel and physical retail sectors that are major Google advertisers. Meanwhile, e-commerce has boomed as people stay home and order more products online. That’s left Google watching from the sidelines as rivals such as Facebook and its Instagram app become hotbeds of online shopping. Amazon, the US e-commerce Goliath, has seen sales soar, while Google suffered its first-ever revenue decline in the second quarter.
There may be some other facets to this concern; for example:
- Amazon’s product search function may be taking bulldozer-sized chunks out of Google search traffic. One of my research team’s estimates pegged the downturn at about 35 percent in the last year.
- The Google has a history of getting excited and then failing; for example, Froogle and Google Plus. Shopping is of interest now, but as the competitive toll is collected, the Googlers eager to work on a bonus-guaranteed project may look elsewhere for career satisfaction.
- The write up suggests that Google may not have worked out some of the administrivia to cash in on products in YouTube videos appropriately tagged by “creators” who might be skeptical of the actual payoff for their “creativity.”
To sum up: If the write up is accurate, Googzilla may have to investigate acquiring more firepower; for example, Shopify, Dr. Scott Galloway’s favorite stock to hype.
Worth watching. Googzilla Confronts the Bezos Bulldozer, a Netflix original.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2020
After Decades of the Online Revolution: The Real Revolution Is Explained
October 9, 2020
Years ago I worked at a fancy, blue chip consulting firm. One of the keys to success in generating the verbiage needed to reassure clients was reading the Economist. The publication, positioned as a newspaper, sure looked like a magazine. I wondered about that marketing angle, and I was usually puzzled by the “insights” about a range of topics. Then an idea struck me: The magazine was a summarizer of data and verbiage for those in the “knowledge” business. I worked through the write ups, tried to recall the mellifluous turns of phrase, and stuff my “Data to Recycle” folder with clips from the publication.
I read “Faith in Government Declines When Mobile Internet Arrives: A New Study Finds That Incumbent Parties Lose Votes after Their Citizens Get Online.” [A paywall or an institutional subscription may be required to read about this obvious “insight.”] Readers of the esteemed publication will be launching Keynote or its equivalent and generating slide decks. These are often slide decks which will remain unfindable by an organization’s enterprise search system or in ineffectual online search systems. That may not be a bad thing.
The “new study” remains deliciously vague: No statistical niceties like who, when, how, etc. Just data and a killer insight:
A central (and disconcerting) implication is that governments that censor offline media could maintain public trust better if they restricted the internet too. But effective digital censorship requires technical expertise that many regimes lack.
The statements raise some interesting questions for experts to explain; for example, “Dictatorships may restore faith in governments.” That’s a topic for a Zoom meeting among one percenters.
Several observations seem to beg for dot pointing:
- The “online revolution” began about 50 years ago with a NASA program. What was the impact of those sluggy and buggy online systems like SDC’s? The answer is that information gatekeepers were eviscerated, slowly at first and then hasta la vista.
- Gatekeepers provided useful functions. One of these was filtering information and providing some aggregation functions. The recipient of information from the early-days online information systems was some speed up in information access but not enough to eliminate the need for old fashioned research and analysis. Real time is, by definition, not friendly to gatekeepers.
- With the development of commercial online infrastructure and commercial providers, the hunger or addiction to ever quicker online systems was evident. The “need for speed” seemed to be hard wired into those who worked in knowledge businesses. At least one online vendor reduces the past to a pattern and then looks at the “now” data to trigger conclusions. So much for time consuming deliberation of verifiable information.
The article cited above has discovered downstream consequences of behaviors (social and economic) which have been part of the online experience for many years.
The secondary consequences of online extend far beyond the mobile devices. TikTok exists for a reason, and that service may be one of the better examples of “knowledge work” today.
One more question: How can institutions, old fashioned knowledge, and prudent decision making survive in today’s datasphere? With Elon Musk’s implants, who will need a mobile phone?
Perhaps the next Economist write up will document that change, hopefully in a more timely manner.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2020
IBM Watson: Some Old People Like Me Are Lonely and AI Will Not Reveal the Depths of My Despair at Crazy Marketing
October 9, 2020
Forbes, the capitalist tool and the fave read of AOC, reports that smart software can identify old people who are lonely. “Artificial Intelligence Used to Predict Loneliness in Senior Citizens” breaks this heart-stopping news:
the study by researchers from the University of California, IBM and elsewhere could prove vital in helping society assess and address widespread loneliness.
Apparently the experts have never visited a warehouse for elders (aka “nursing home” or “retirement community”). Some old people appear to be lonely. I am qualified to make this observation based on personal experience because I am going to be 77 in a few weeks.
Ask me, “Are you lonely?”
I will reply, “Where’s IBM Watson? That’s the technology I need to figure out if I am going to die of heartbreak while wearing an adult diaper, sitting in a lime gray green room, watching a flickering cathode ray heart monitor.
The write up points out:
For the purposes of the study, the researchers interviewed 80 residents at an independent living sector of a senior housing community in San Diego County. They asked questions intended to gauge various aspects of loneliness, with the answers being transcribed and then analyzed using the IBM Watson NLU (natural language understanding) iv program, which could “quantify sentiment and expressed emotions.”
Some old people are deaf; others are lost in misfiring neuronal noise.
But IBM Watson can figure out that some old people are lonely.
The write up pulls back from pure balderdash by asserting:
But while AI, virtual reality, and other technologies can certainly be used to detect problems, we need to remember that most of our problems aren’t caused by a lack of tech.
Right, pacemakers and electric wheelchairs cannot do it all. Not even the ever cheerful and uplifting Facebook can make some people not lonely. No bowling alone, please.
It’s great that IBM Watson has moved from matching people to stray dogs. Progress. But what about those Covid treatments facilitated by IBM Watson. Remember? Even oldsters like me recall that IBM Watson assertion.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2020
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