Efficiency: Modern Analytic Techniques Are Logical
September 21, 2020
I don’t pay much attention to writing about motion pictures. The title “Why Christopher Nolan Actually Blew Up A Real Plane For Tenet” was a bit of a baffler. I did not recognize the name “Christopher Nolan.” I knew the meaning of the word “tenet” but I had zero clue it was entertainment. When I looked him up, I did not recognize his cinematic masterpieces. Nevertheless, the premise of the essay was interesting:
Skip using a computer to fake blowing up a large airplane. But a 747 and just blow it up.
Interesting. Were there environmental costs? Were their additional safety related costs? Were there clean up costs? Were there additional legal costs associated with making sure that someone would have to pay if the whole deal went south? Maybe a post explosion maintenance worker catching on fire or just getting sick from breathing fumes?
Hey, breathing. What’s the big deal?
The write up does not address these questions, and my hunch is that expert cinema professionals think much about these problems even if some bright young sprout asked, “What happens if we screw up, kill a bunch of people, and maybe pollute the creek running next to the shoot?”
Hey, ducks and fish. Who cares? These folks are creating art for real people. Ducks? Or, “Hey, don’t rain on my parade” could well have been the response.
Thinking and acting efficiently is the way of the world among a certain cohort of professionals. If movie makers cannot ask, “How much will it cost if we screw this up?”, what other intellectual shortcuts have been taking place.
My hunch is a lot. Efficiency? Love it. Do large technology companies think in the manner of an esteemed, powerful creator of motion pictures? Yeah, good question.
Stephen E Arnold, September 21, 2020
Google Bert: Why Not Apply Method to Advertising?
September 17, 2020
DarkCyber noted this story: “Google Accused of Allowing Scammers to Display Fake Adverts for Debt Help Online.” The main point is that questionable advertisements continue to appear for some Google users. Google needs advertising revenue to pay to keep the plumbing shipshape. Extra money is needed to fund noble projects like the Loon balloon and solving death.
Does Google have a potential solution?
“Google Using Language AI Model to Match Stories with Fact Checks” raises the possibility that the company can. The write up reports:
Google is now leveraging BERT, one of its language AI models, in full coverage news stories to better match stories with fact checks and better understand what results are most relevant to the queries posted on Search. The more advanced AI-based systems like BERT-based language capabilities can understand more complex, natural-language queries.
But maybe not?
The article points out:
Google has more than 10,000 search quality raters, people who collectively perform millions of sample searches and rate the quality of the results.
DarkCyber thinks there may be another reason for faulty advertising screening.
That reason is money. Google needs cash and laying off people, automating, and fending off Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft is expensive. Maybe any advertising is judged differently from other types of content.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2020
Palantir: Will Investors Embrace Intelware Outfit Generating Consistent, Substantial Losses for More Than a Decade?
September 11, 2020
The stock market is chugging along, fueled by greed, the Rona, and a need to fuel the 21st-century F. Scott Fitzgerald gestalt. “Palantir Is Being Valued around $10.5 billion ahead of Direct Listing as Investors Question Growth Story” includes some interesting information about Palantir, an intelware startup which is only 17 years old, losing money, and shrouded in mysterious behavior.
The write up states:
Palantir said in its updated prospectus on Wednesday that it has 1.64 billion shares outstanding, as of Sept. 1 [2020]. Based on the average private market transaction price in the latest quarter of $6.45 a share, the company is being valued by investors at just over $10.5 billion. That’s far below Palantir’s valuation of $20.4 billion in a 2015 funding round.
Is “far below” a signal?
The write up notes:
In July, Palantir raised $410.5 million by selling shares at $4.75 a piece, according to the filing, which comes out to a valuation of about $7.8 billion. Transactions during the quarter took place at anywhere from $4.17 a share to $11.50 a share, suggesting a range of $6.83 billion to $18.8 billion. The math gets even fuzzier when considering that Palantir had a reported valuation of $20.4 billion in 2015, when the share price was $11.38. That price, based on the supplied share count as of Sept. 1, would indicate a current valuation of $18.6 billion.
Interesting.
But the losses need to be viewed differently; for example:
Palantir wants investors to concentrate on what the company calls its contribution margin, or the revenue left after subtracting the costs it bears to generate sales. That number climbed to 55% in the second quarter from 18% a year earlier.
I don’t recall “contribution margin” from my economics class in 1962.
The write up points out:
Palantir has only 125 customers that spent on average $5.6 million each in 2019. Glazer says the company’s products and sales strategies are “in their infancies.”
DarkCyber believes that Palantir’s trajectory over the last decade makes clear that there is a glass ceiling for software and services centric solutions. If our data are semi-accurate, Palantir is unlikely to grow in a way to repay its investors or achieve profitability in a highly competitive market sector.
Interesting play in the time of Rona, constrained budgets in government agencies, and a hint of financial desperation in some allied sectors.
Stephen E Arnold, September 11, 2020
Surveillance Footage Has Value
September 10, 2020
It is not a secret that Google, Facebook, Apple, Instagram, and other large technology companies gather user data and sell it to the highest bidder. It is a easy way to pad their bottom line, especially when users freely give away this information. The Russian city of Moscow wants to ad more revenue to the city’s coffers, so they came up with an ingenious way to get more cash says Yahoo Finance, “Moscow May Sell Footage From Public Secret Camera: Report.”
According to the report, Moscow’s tech branch plans to broadcast videos captured on cameras in public areas. Technically, at least within the United States, if you are in a public place you are free to be filmed and whoever does the filming can do whatever they want with the footage. Russia must be acting on the same principle, so Moscow’s Department of Information Technologies purchased cameras to install outside of 539 hospitals. It might also be a way to increase security.
All of the footage will be stored on a central database and people will be able to purchase footage. The footage will also be shown on the Internet.
What is alarming is that MBK Media wrote in December 2019 that footage from Moscow’s street cameras was available for purchase on black markets with options to access individual or an entire system of cameras. This fact is scarier, however:
“The same department organized the blockchain-based electronic voting in Moscow and one more Russian region this summer when Russians voted to amend the country’s constitution. The voting process was criticized for the weak data protection.”
Moscow wants more ways to keep track of citizens in public areas and it wants to make some quick rubles off the process. Companies in the US do the same thing and the government as well.
Whitney Grace, September 10, 2020
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Palantir Has Only Unicorn Scorn for Fellow Travelers
September 7, 2020
It is a time of change for Palantir, a software company that proudly serves the US intelligence community. The firm is both going public and planning to move away from Silicon Valley to Denver, Colorado. CEO Alex Karp took the opportunity to engage in some situational signaling. CNBC describes how “Palantir CEO Rips Silicon Valley in Letter to Investors.” Writer Ari Levy shares some excerpts:
“‘Software projects with our nation’s defense and intelligence agencies, whose missions are to keep us safe, have become controversial, while companies built on advertising dollars are commonplace. For many consumer internet companies, our thoughts and inclinations, behaviors and browsing habits, are the product for sale. The slogans and marketing of many of the Valley’s largest technology firms attempt to obscure this simple fact.’ Although he did not name any such companies specifically, Facebook fits the description—an ironic touch given that [Palantir cofounder Peter] Thiel was an early investor in that company and remains on its board of directors. Karp said in the letter that government agencies have been hamstrung, in part by failed tech infrastructure and that Palantir’s mission is to help. ‘Our software is used to target terrorists and to keep soldiers safe,’ he wrote. ‘If we are going to ask someone to put themselves in harm’s way, we believe that we have a duty to give them what they need to do their job.’”
That is some wordsmithing. Levy notes one risk factor acknowledged in Palantir’s paperwork—its strident refusal to work with China, despite that country’s rank as the world’s second-largest economy. The potential hit to the company’s growth is no match for its distain of the Chinese communist party, apparently. Count another virtue signaled. Surprisingly, Google’s alleged work with China did not make it directly into the letter, but the write-up reminds us:
“Thiel has accused the company of ‘seemingly treasonous’ behavior for allegedly helping the Chinese government while backing down from a contract with the U.S. government after facing employee criticism. Here’s how Karp addressed the matter: ‘We have chosen sides, and we know that our partners value our commitment. We stand by them when it is convenient, and when it is not.’”
The article reproduces the letter in full at the bottom, so navigate there to read the entire composition. Yes, perhaps it is high time this righteous company said goodbye to famously progressive Silicon Valley. Will Karp miss Philz Coffee as much as his former compatriots? Will interested individuals believe this restatement of reality from a fan of the ANB file format?
Cynthia Murrell, September 7, 2020
Mobile Data Costs Around the World
September 7, 2020
Sometimes it takes looking at the cost of certain services in other countries before we decide whether our situation is acceptable. No, I am not talking about healthcare—Cable.co.uk has published “Worldwide Mobile Data Pricing: The Cost of 1GB of Mobile Data in 228 Countries.” The interactive map makes it clear that the US is making it difficult for some to afford acceptable Internet access.
Anyone who cares to compare should navigate to the map, where one can hover over each country to see highest, lowest, and average prices. The creators have also assigned a rank to each country and note how many plans were sampled and when. Tabs at the top take the curious to “highlights” of the study, regional data, and researcher comments. The description tells us:
“Countries are color-coded by the average price of one gigabyte (1GB) of mobile data. As you can see, this paints an interesting picture, with a lot of the countries where mobile data is cheapest in and around the former USSR, and with some of the most expensive in North America, Africa and Western Europe. …
“Why some countries are missing data: Unlike our measurements of worldwide broadband speed and worldwide broadband pricing, where lack of fixed-line infrastructure meant significant gaps, mobile data provision is near-ubiquitous. However, there are still some countries or territories where either no provision exists, there exists only 2G infrastructure, providing only calls and/or SMS texts, or the data simply isn’t available. And there are countries and regions where problems with the currency do not allow for useful comparison.”
We particularly took note of three enlightening cost comparisons—The US average (in US dollars) of $12.55/GB versus $3.91 in Japan, $1.39 in the UK, and $0.81 in France. Hmm.
Cynthia Murrell, September 07, 2020
Hello, Apple. Did You Read This?
September 3, 2020
One of the DarkCyber research team called my attention to a paragraph in “Is MacOS Becoming Unmaintainable?” The author has been explaining thing Mac for decades. I think this person qualifies as an individual who is or was part of the Apple faithful. Here’s the paragraph:
From all that I hear about Big Sur’s new Sealed System Volume, MacOS 11.0 isn’t intended to improve the situation. If every time your car had a problem you had to replace its engine, wouldn’t you consider that abysmal engineering? It might be acceptable for an iPhone, but surely not for a proper computer.From all that I hear about Big Sur’s new Sealed System Volume, macOS 11.0 isn’t intended to improve the situation. If every time your car had a problem you had to replace its engine, wouldn’t you consider that abysmal engineering? It might be acceptable for an iPhone, but surely not for a proper computer.
I wonder if anyone at Apple noted this statement. My hunch is that someone did. Does anyone care? Not any more. The notion of “too complicated, time consuming, and expensive to fix” combined with millennial wisdom guarantees deterioration it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2020
Dark Patterns: Is the Future of Free Video Editing Software Duplicity, Carelessness, and Indifference?
August 31, 2020
One of the DarkCyber team suggested a run down of three free video editing software solutions. We had just finished a couple of our for-fee write ups about technology related to warfighting, and I concluded that the group wanted a break from million watt beam weapons.
I said, “Okay, just use a machine we don’t rely on for real work.” Stephanie was thrilled when Ben said he would help. The three “free” software solutions these two set about installing were:
DaVinci Resolve, allegedly “the standard for high end post production and finishing on more Hollywood feature films, television shows and commercials than any other software.” You can get a free copy at this link. (There is a $300 version too.)
HitFilm Express, allegedly “a free video editing software with professional-grade VFX tools and everything you need to make awesome content, films or gaming videos.” You can get a free copy at this link.
Shotcut, a free, open source, cross platform video editor. You can get a copy at this link.
We never got to the review. We were trapped in what sure looks like the FXHome / HitFilm Express dark pattern. It was a swamp populated by creatures dependent on auto reply email, bizarre instructions, and names like “Dibs” and “Joe.” So wholesome, yet so frustrating despite the friendly monikers.
This blog post is about dark patterns, not the video editing software. Sorry, Stephanie (the team member who cooked up the idea for the story.) Read on to find out why DarkCyber cares about a single firm and its enthusiastic pursuit of dark patterns.
The illustration below is a depiction of Dante’s Inferno. About eight layers down is the Dark Pattern of FXHome. That’s better than spending every day, all day with Beelzebub and the gang.
What’s a dark pattern?
The phrase means, according to the ever reliable Wikipedia, “A user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills.”
Stephanie tried to install the software and was greeted with a Web page presenting her with options to upgrade the free software by purchasing $25 to $50 dollar bundles of macros and pre-sets. Puzzled, she retrieved the details for the accounts we use to purchase software, pay for subscriptions, and buy crap from Amazon.
I ignored her grumbling, but I noticed when two of my engineers were standing behind her staring at the screen and getting that weird look in their eyes when something does not compute. I walked over to the group and said, “When will you finish your reviews of these three tools?”
Stephanie said, “I am running behind. I spent yesterday and today trying to get the software to work. Apparently someone installed a version of HitFilm Express last year, and now FXHome took the money, sent a series of steps, and nothing works.”
I said, “Okay, write the company. Explain what happened and get help to install the software.”
My two engineers nodded and walked away. This, in my experience, meant that the HitFilm Express software was something that presented numerous challenges. Researching and analyzing EMP technology was more appealing than not-so-free software.
I told Stephanie to give me the user name and password she used to buy the software. I happily logged in from a different machine, created a user name and password, saw the same difficult to evade plea to buy add-in packs, and I bought a $39 pack. The video editor came up but no add in software.
Now I was intrigued. Two installations. Almost $80US down a rat hole and no special add in packs. I told my engineers to log in, get the install information, and see if each could get the software to work.
Nope. FXHome has a system to take money. FXHome does not have a functional, reliable system to deliver what the customer purchased.
Now I am thinking cyber fraud. Call me silly, but I am a suspicious person, and when we write about next generation weapons, what type of customers do we have? Certainly not the Vatican or Green Peace.
I found a customer support email which is managed by “smart” software. The email to which I was directed is support@fxhome.com and along the line of a series of email exchanges over the span of nine days a human included his/her name. That individual identified himself/herself as Dibs McCallum.
The dark patterns we believe the user interface implements for the free software includes these elements:
- Blandishments to purchase upgrades before allowing downloads
- Instructions for installing software which do not install software
- Customer service interfaces intended to frustrate those seeking information; for example, the FXHome system strips attachments even though people or bots like Dibs McCallum request them and your truly attaches them. Even more dutifully I resend the attachments and receive zero acknowledgement or information about the failure.
Where am I? Well, definitely there is no review of FXHome. It is tough to write about software which does not function. The upside is that I have an anecdote for my next cyber crime lecture. As we were editing this story, PayPal reported a refund of $39. FXHome still has $39 and we have no functioning software.
When I step back and look at this series of events involving three of my team and the ever helpful Dibs McCallum, who insisted that attachments showing the unhelpful error messages HitFilm Express displayed, did not arrive.
Then there was this email:
Allow me to explain. You buy from us. If you want a refund within 14 days you get one.
That is why I have refunded both your order 0000000000000 for $39 that you made by credit card under the email seaky2000@yahoo.com and also your order 0000000000000 for $39 that you made via PayPal that you made under the email 00@arnoldit.com. Both amounts will appear in your prospective credit card and PayPal statements within the next 5-10 working days. Though most likely far sooner. This does mean your software packs will no longer work of course. Those effects will be deactivated and you are left with the free HitFilm Express without the extra content. It is always best to remember what email you use for purchases as it can be confusing if you habitually use more than one email. We are always dealing with this confusion with customers. Very common.
Best Regards, Joe Gould, Business Coordinator
Notice the phrase “We are always dealing with this confusion”.
Yeah, Joe said, “Always.” What’s that old saw about doing the same thing over and over? Was it ground hog day or one of Dante’s circles of Hell?
The dark pattern is apparently accidental. A situation exists which creates an “always” situation. Why not figure out changes to the system to eliminate an “always” problem. Why not think through making the interface work with a customer, not against the customer. Why not skip the “buy more add in packs”? Just charge people money.
What’s free mean? Upsells, confusing purchase options, and a “system” designed to make the craziness of Microsoft customer support for non-installable $0.99 HEVC codecs look like a paragon of lucidity.
One answer is that it earned this write up in Beyond Search and DarkCyber. It has converted sweet Stephanie into a termagant and HitFilm Express hater. (Good work that.)
Observations:
- Generating sustainable revenue is difficult. If a product is “good,” people will pay for it. If a product is not so good, carelessness, indifference, or laziness generates “buy this, then that” solutions. Helpful? Not so much. Suggestion for FXHome: Less weird orange color and more begging for dollar options like Indiegogo or Patreon, among others?
- Competing against Adobe, Apple, Magix, and other for-fee video editing programs is difficult. Yes, DarkCyber understands that FXHome needs revenue. Suggestion: Why not sell a subscription to upgrades?
- Relying on an interface and the people who conceived it may not be a winning tactic. Staff changes and additional inputs may provide the creative spark that moves beyond what sure look like dark patterns. Suggestion: Skip the hear, speak, and see no evil approach to your current upgrade interface. Listen and fix the problem. “Always”. Wow, that’s an endorsement of clear thinking.
Is DarkCyber suspicious? Yep. FXHome could be a YouTube video titled UXMoan.
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2020
Technical Debt: Nope, It Exists and That Debt Means Operational Poverty, Then Death
August 28, 2020
“Technical Debt Doesn’t Exist” is an interesting view of software. The problem is that “technology” is not just software. The weird behavior of an Adobe application like Framemaker can be traced to the program’s Unix roots. But why, one asks, is it so darned difficult to manage colors in a program intended to print documents with some parts in color? What about the mysterious behavior of Windows 10 when a legal installation collects $0.99 cents for an HEVC codec only to report that the codec cannot be installed? What about the enterprise application from OpenText cannot display a document recently displayed to the user of the content management system? Are these problems due to careless programming?
According to the article:
There is no such thing as technical debt. There is work to do, that we can agree on, but it’s not debt payment.
The punch line for the write up is that technical debt is just maintenance.
Let’s think about this.
The constraints of Framemaker result from its Unix roots. Now decades later, those roots still exist. Like the original i2 Analyst’s Notebook (a policeware system), some functions were constrained by the lovely interaction of the hardware, the operating system, and the code. The Unix touches remain today: Enter Escape O P C and the list of styles pop up. Yep, commands from 40 years ago are still working and remain inscrutable to anyone trying to learn the program. Why aren’t there changes? Adobe tried and ended up with InDesign. I would suggest that the cost of “fixing up” Framemaker were too high if Adobe could corral engineers who could do the job. Framemaker, therefore, is still around, but it is an orphan and a problematic one at that.
What about Microsoft and a codec? The fact that Microsoft makes a free version available for a person willing to put in the time to locate the HEVC download is one thing. Charging $0.99 for a codec which cannot be installed is another. Figuring out the unknown and unanticipated interactions among video hardware, software in the Windows 10 fun house, and third-party software is too expensive. What’s the fix? Ignore the problem. Put out some marketing baloney and tell the human doing customer support to advise the person with the failed codec to reinstall Windows. Yeah, right. A problem exists that will be around for exactly as long as there is Windows 10.
What about the OpenText content management system? We encountered this problem when trying to figure out why users of the system could not locate a file which had been saved the previous day. We poked around the hardware; we poked around the content management system; we poked around the search system which turned out to be an Autonomy stub. Yep, Autonomy search was “in” the OpenText system. The issue was the interaction of the Autonomy search system first crafted in the late 1990s, the content management system which OpenText bought from a vendor, and the hardware used to run the system. Did OpenText care? Nope, not at all. Open a file and wait 15 minutes. And what about the missing file? Updates sat in a queue and usually took place a couple of days after the Save command was issued. The fix? Ho ho ho.
Let me be clear: When a system is coded and it sort of works, that system is deployed. If a problem surfaces quickly, the vendor will have someone fix it. If it is a big problem, maybe two or three people will work on the issue. Whatever must be done to get the phone to stop ringing, the email to stop arriving, and angry customers to stop having their lawyers write nasty grams will be done. Then it is over. No one will go back and figure out what went wrong, make fixes, and dutifully put the ship in proper shape. The mistake is embedded in digital amber and the “fix” is part of the woodwork. How often do you look at the plumbing connections from the outside water line to your hot water heater. What happens when there’s a leak? A fix is made and then forget it.
What about technical debt? The behaviors I have described mean that systems persist through time. The systems are not refactored or “fixed”. The systems are just patched. Amazon enshrines this process in its two pizza teams. And how about the documentation for the fixes made on Saturday morning at 3 am? Ho ho ho.
Let me offer some observations:
- Significant changes to software today are mostly cosmetic, what I call wrappers. The problems remain but their pointy parts are blunted.
- The cost of making fundamental changes are beyond the reach of even the largest and most resource rich organizations.
- The humans required to figure out where the problem is and make structural changes are almost impossible for most technologies.
The article calls this maintenance. I think that’s an okay word, but the reality is that today’s software, particular software based on recycled libraries, existing systems accessed via application programming interfaces, and hardware with components with checkered or unknown pasts are not going to be “fixed.”
We live in an era of “good enough.”
The technical debt is going to catch up to those who sell and develop products. Users are already paying the price.
What happens if one pushes technical debt into tomorrow or next week?
That’s an easy question to answer. The vaunted “user experience” becomes more like a carnival act while the behind the scenes activity is less and less savory. How about those mandatory updates which delete photos, kill a Mac desktop, or allow a mobile phone to go dead because of a bug? The new normal.
It’s just maintenance. We know how much bean counters like to allocate cash for maintenance. Operational poverty, then the death of innovation.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2020
Free As a Dark Pattern
August 27, 2020
A number of online services offer free products. DarkCyber has spotted a semi clever play used by a developer of “free” video editing software. Three-dimensional models were not on our radar. The “free” software constructs are now identified and monitored by our steam-powered intelligence system. (We operate from rural Kentucky. What did you expect? Reinforcement learning?)
“3D Printering: The World of Non-Free 3D Models Is Buyer Beware” contains some information. Let’s take a quick look at a couple of revelations which caught the DarkCyber team’s attention:
First, a company has developed what appears to be a fresh approach to direct sales. The write up explains:
A standout success is a site like Hero Forge, which allows users to create custom tabletop gaming miniatures with a web-based interface. Users can pay to download the STL of their creation, or pay for a printed version. Hero Forge is a proprietary system, but a highly successful one judging by their recent Kickstarter campaign.
Second, you can acquire 3D models via “begging for dollars.” The article explains that these are requests for money paid via Patreon. I assume PayPal may work too.
Third is a kit. The customer gets a 3D model when buying some physical good. The write up points out electrical parts, fasteners, or a “kit,” which DarkCyber assumes is a plastic bag with stuff in it.
The problem?
According to the write up, the problems are:
- Vendors don’t offer “test drives, fitting rooms, or refunds”
- Models have lousy design for manufacture. (DarkCyber assumes this means whatever emerges from the 3D printer is not going to carry water. Nice 3D printed thermos you have there, Wally.)
These two problems boil down to “quality.”
After reading the article, DarkCyber thinks that one could interpret the word “quality” as a synonym for “fraud.”
Dark patterns are becoming increasingly common. Let’s blame it on an error, an oversight, or, best of all, the pandemic.
Stephen E Arnold, August 27, 2020
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