Australia: Facial Recognition Diffuses
June 17, 2020
Facial recognition is in the new in the US. High-profile outfits have waved brightly colored virtue signaling flags. The flags indicate, “We are not into this facial recognition thing.” Interesting if accurate. “Facial Surveillance Is Slowly Being Trialed around the Country” provides some information about using smart software to figure out who is who. (Keep in mind that Australia uses the Ripper device to keep humans from becoming a snack for a hungry shark.)
The write up reports:
Facial recognition technology uses artificial intelligence to identify individuals based on their unique facial features and match it with existing photos on a database, such as a police watch list. While it’s already part of our everyday lives, from tagging photos on Facebook to verifying identities at airport immigration, its use by law enforcement via live CCTV is an emerging issue.
That’s the spoiler. Facial recognition is useful and the technology is becoming a helpful tool, like a flashlight or hammer.
The article explains that “All states and territories [in Australia] are using facial recognition software.”
Police in all states and territories confirmed to 7.30 they do use facial recognition to compare images in their databases, however few details were given regarding the number of live CCTV cameras which use the technology, current trials and plans for its use in the future.
The interesting factoid in the write up is that real time facial recognition systems are now in use in Queensland and Western Australia and under consideration in in New South Wales.
The article points out:
Real-time facial recognition software can simply be added to existing cameras, so it is difficult to tell which CCTV cameras are using the technology and how many around the country might be in operation.
DarkCyber believes that this means real time facial recognition is going to be a feature update, not unlike getting a new swipe action with a mobile phone operating system upgrade.
The article does not identify vendors providing these features, nor are data about accuracy, costs, and supporting infrastructure required.
What’s intriguing is that the article raises the thought that Australia might be on the information highway leading to a virtual location where Chinese methods are part of the equipment for living.
Will Australia become like China?
Odd comparison that. There’s the issue of population, the approach to governance, and the coastline to law enforcement ratio.
The write up also sidesteps the point that facial recognition is a subset of pattern recognition, statistical cross correlation, and essential plumbing for Ripper.
Who provides the smart software for that shark spotting drone? Give up? Maybe Amazon, the company not selling facial recognition to law enforcement in the US.
Interesting, right?
Stephen E Arnold, June 17, 2020
Amazon: Can Money Buy Smooth Sailing?
June 15, 2020
What is the obvious solution when you must not leave home but there are things to purchase? Amazon.com, of course. And where do businesses turn when they must suddenly facilitate remote workers? For many, the solution is Amazon’s AWS. During this pandemic the tech giant has grown even larger, but with this success comes a lot of criticism. Yahoo News tells us, “Amazon Hit from All Sides as Crisis Highlights Growing Power.” One prominent example—New York state Attorney General Letitia James and others were disgusted Amazon fired a worker who had led a protest over covid-19-related safety concerns. The company says the employee was actually fired for refusing to quarantine after testing positive for the disease. Hmm.
AFP reporter Julie Jammot writes:
“As Amazon becomes an increasingly important lifeline in the pandemic crisis, it is being hit with a wave of criticism from activists, politicians and others who question the tech giant’s growing influence. Amazon has become the most scrutinized company during the health emergency. It has boosted its global workforce to nearly one million and dealt with protests over warehouse safety and reported deaths of several employees. But Amazon has also pledged to spend at least $4 billion in the current quarter — its entire expected operating profit — on coronavirus mitigation efforts, including relief contributions and funding research. Amazon’s AWS cloud computing unit, which powers big portions of the internet, is also a key element during the crisis with more people and companies working online. Amazon’s market value has hovered near record levels around $1.2 trillion dollars as it reported rising revenues and lower profits in the past quarter.”
The company’s size alone, say activists, is reason enough for scrutiny. Some are concerned about the way Amazon treats workers, others balk at the financial gain CEO Jeff Bezos has personally enjoyed during this time. Though the company has increased pay above minimum wage during the crisis, to $15 an hour, critics say it could afford to pay much more. There is also concern that, with its popular streaming service on top of everything else, the company just wields too much influence in people’s daily lives.
Amazon seems to have sailed through the biological disturbance. Now comes the legal thunderstorms. Smooth cruising ahead? Unlikely.
Cynthia Murrell, June 15, 2020
Conferences: A Juicy Source of Intelligence?
June 9, 2020
Conferences are interesting. These face-to-face experiences are becoming virtual. After decades of operating off the radar for most attendees, the content of conferences is “suddenly” getting some love.
Decades ago, I worked at a company which produced a database called CPI or Conference Papers Index. That database was sold to another firm, and I am not sure if the original product persists 39 years later. Only a handful of customers accessed this product compared to our flagship databases ABI/INFORM and Business Dateline.
“Potential Organized Fraud in ACM/IEEE Computer Architecture Conferences” caused me to think about who (the people) and the companies (the outfits hiring the people) used CPI. Almost 40 years ago, the who and the companies were either government agencies from countries which now provide high technology to the US and other nation states and companies either based in the US with non-US owners or outfits with names difficult to connect to a particular discipline. Did I care 40 years ago? Nope. We wanted to sell that database for several reasons:
- Conference organizers were among the most disorganized and distracted outfits we tapped for information; for example, copies of talks, abstracts, and names and affiliations of speakers. Much effort and many “let’s have lunch” and “yes, we will send that information tomorrow.” Sorry, lesson learned. Conferences 40 years ago were a different content animal. Fiefdoms, ego centric owners who wanted “total control”, trade associations eager to serve their members and preserve their mostly concierge type jobs, and similar flora and fauna. Much remains unchanged even as conferences undergo Rona-ization.
- Customers were not plentiful. The customers the CPI attracted wanted more: More images, more full text, more presentation foils. Delivering more cost money and it was not clear that if we invested the money to get “more” information that it would be a profitable operation. My hunch is that indexes of conferences, including the wonky listings one can find on the Internet, are essentially useless. Why? Sponsors are not indexed consistently. Names of speakers are not included as searchable content. The presentations, if one is lucky, becomes a YouTube video, usually delivered with both lousy audio and video. Sigh. Conferences are today a black hole of content. Going into the virtual conference business just makes the black hole deeper and weirder than before Rona.
- Conference organization is a remarkable exercise in rejecting, begging, and scrambling. Each conference wants stars for the keynotes. Each conference wants new talent to deliver hot information. Each conference desperately needs sponsors; that is, people to pay for snacks (yuck), liquor (much loved by attendees except for virtual presentations unless a company FedExes bottles to an attendee-with-a-budget’s home), and lunch (now a weird buffet brown bag thing which hopefully will disappear from real and virtual events completely). The organizer wants to put on a stellar show but lacks the expertise, money, and organizational talent to pull off most events.
What’s the fix?
If the information in the write up is accurate, it seems — note the hedge word “seems” — that individuals, companies, and countries are doing everything in their power to get their hands on the same information that people told us to include in our Conference Papers Index.
Valuable data include:
- Abstracts of proposed talks, some submitted a year before an event in certain event cycles
- The actual draft presentations: Text, PDFs of the visuals, author’s biography, and author details
- Names of speakers, addresses, email, etc.
The blog post suggests that some fancy dancing has been underway in the rarified world of big tech at the ACM and IEEE computer architecture conferences.
The article is worth reading.
However, there is context for what amounts to intelligence exploitation.
The question is, “Will most conference organizers care?” Another question, “Will most conference organizers be sufficiently adept at addressing the alleged problem?”
DarkCyber has a tentative answer, “Nope. The sucking of conference data is an institutionalized behavior for many “experts,” their employers, some government entities, and even employees of conference companies.
Net net: Squeeze the fruit for informational juice.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2020
Rounding Error? Close Enough for Horse Shoes in Michigan
June 9, 2020
Ah, Michigan. River Rouge, the bridge to Canada, and fresh, sparkling water. These cheerful thoughts diminished when I read “Government’s Use of Algorithm Serves Up False Fraud Charges.”
The write up describes a smart system. The smart system was not as smart as some expected. The article states:
While the agency still hasn’t publicly released details about the algorithm, class actions lawsuits allege that the system searched unemployment datasets and used flawed assumptions to flag people for fraud, such as deferring to an employer who said an employee had quit — and was thus ineligible for benefits — when they were really laid off.
Where did the system originate? A D student in the University of Michigan’s Introduction to Algorithms class? No. The article reports:
The state’s unemployment agency hired three private companies to develop MiDAS, as well as additional software. The new system was intended to replace one that was 30 years old and to consolidate data and functions that were previously spread over several platforms, according to the agency’s 2013 self-nomination for an award with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. The contract to build the system was for more than $47 million. At the same time as the update, the agency also laid off hundreds of employees who had previously investigated fraud claims.
Cathy O’Neil may want to update her 2016 “Weapons of Math Destruction.” Michigan has produced some casualties. What other little algorithmic surprises are yet to be discovered? Will online learning generate professionals who sidestep these types of mathiness? Sure.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2020
Many Internets: Fragmentation Gains Momentum
June 8, 2020
The idea of one big digital ocean appealed to some. Now doubters are doing more than grousing at the bowling alley. GAIA-X which surfaced a couple of years ago is chugging along. Slow but steady is the catchphrase. “Legal Entity for Gaia-X Established, European Cloud Platform Now Official” explains:
The first steps to the creation of the European cloud computing platform Gaia-X have been taken, with the creation of a legal entity in Belgium. Set up to address Europe’s dependence on American or Chinese cloud providers, 22 French and German companies, with the backing of several countries, have agreed to launch the joint venture.
The US and some of its big cloudy monopolistic-oriented companies are not on the invitation list. The write up includes diplomatic-type statements. The intent is clear: Independence from US vendors and control of the cloud computing environment in Europe.
Now how does sending email work again? Eurocrats are not into the Wild West approach practiced out West it seems. The fancy talk may mean, “Tie that bronco up out back and wait until GAIA-X lets los americanos in the digital café.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2020
Adulting at Facebook: Filtering Government Generated Content
June 5, 2020
Facebook may have realized that certain nation states are generating weaponized content. My goodness, what an insight, what a flash of brilliance, what a realization about the world of adults! DarkCyber noted “Facebook to Block Ads from State Controlled Media Entities in the U.S.” The write up reports:
Facebook said Thursday (June 5, 2020) it will begin blocking state-controlled media outlets from buying advertising in the U.S. this summer. It’s also rolling out a new set of labels to provide users with transparency around ads and posts from state-controlled outlets. Outlets that feel wrongly labeled can appeal the process.
Some government professionals in Sweden were hip to state actors using social media ads for state owned purposes about a decade ago. Facebook just got the memo maybe? The article adds:
The purpose of labeling these outlets is to give users transparency about any kind of potential bias a state-backed entity may have when providing information to U.S. users.
How many users of social media know that some content is “real,” and other content is “pay to play”? Not too many. DarkCyber has picked up hints that fewer than five percent of online content consumers can figure out provenance as a concept, let alone identify wonky information and data. Infographics? Hey, looks like real numbers, right?
The key point is that adulting is arriving a day late and a dollar short. Does anyone care? Sure, some people. But decades into the Wild West of weaponized content, information and data, slapping an index term on a content object is similar to watching the ocean liner sailing toward the horizon. Missing the boat? Yep.
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2020
Google to Australia: What! Us Pay You? Take a Walkabout, Mates
June 2, 2020
This will be interesting. Google has found the Australian request for money to save “real news” unacceptable. The information, if accurate, appears in “Google Rejects Call For Huge Australian Media Payout.” DarkCyber learned:
Google has rejected demands it pay hundreds of millions of dollars per year in compensation to Australian news media under a government-imposed revenue sharing deal.
What’s interesting is that Google, working overtime to control its costs of being the Google, said:
The company’s top executive in Australia said Google made barely Aus$10 million (US$6.7 million) per year from news-linked advertising, a fraction of a government watchdog’s estimates for the sector.
Will that explanation fly in Canberra (yep, DarkCyber know there was an aircraft with the moniker Canberra, but did you know that word may mean “meeting place?). Unfortunately the meeting place for Google and the government of Australia is likely to be in Oodnadatta in the summer.
The Ms. Silva, chief Googler in Australia:
also denied ACCC arguments that the tech firms gain significant “indirect benefits” from displaying news since the content draws users to their platforms. News “represents only a tiny number of queries” on Google, accounting last year for barely one percent of actions on Google Search in Australia, she said.
After 22 years of almost zero government initiative in regulating or using legislative mechanisms to deal with Google, Australia is moving forward to protect news. The effort will be interesting to watch. Unfortunately companies are likely to have more sticktoativity than some government professionals. What happens if Google hires some of the attorneys pushing the anti Google activity?
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2020
Facebook: A Too Clever Ninja Move?
June 2, 2020
Facebook has some ninja DNA. “Mark Zuckerberg’s Ridiculously Wrong, Misleading, And Self-Serving Statements Regarding Twitter Fact-Checking The President” explains that Facebook is ducking the censorship dust up. The write up states:
Sure, they [this plural means Facebook] have a different policy, because almost all sites have different policies, but if you compared Facebook’s policies on content moderation to Twitter’s you’d find that Facebook does vastly more moderation than Twitter has ever done and Facebook introduced similar “fact checking” efforts years ago. To pretend that Facebook doesn’t do the exact same thing that Twitter is accused of doing here is just ridiculous. And, we all agree that no platform should be “the arbiter of truth” but that’s not the same as saying “do no moderation” (and again, Facebook does a ton of moderation). As for the final claim that Facebook is “hands off” when it comes to political speech, that’s also false. Facebook is hands off on political ads, but not all political speech. And so is Twitter, in that it bars all political ads in the first place.
Pretty close to the pin. However, a question arises, “Why is Mr. Zuckerberg taking this position?” Possible reasons include:
- Facebook has data which suggests that making friends with Mr. Trump is a good idea. Antagonizing the president is, therefore, not a good idea. Mr. Zuckerberg is acting in his own best interests.
- Facebook’s leader believes that Facebook is indeed different, possibly superior to the companies which are trying to gain traction in the digital world he has crafted. Thus, the statements are a reflection of the “truth” as perceived by Mr. Zuckerberg.
- Facebook is not really doing censorship, filtering, or any of the actions cooked up in response to what DarkCyber thinks of as “the Cambridge Analytica incident.” Talk, handwaving, hiring people, paying for psychological counseling are just handwaving.
Other reasons are like to exist. But DarkCyber is content with pointing out that with a couple of public statements, Mr. Zuckerberg has distanced himself and Facebook from the Twitter conflagration. Mr. Zuckerberg is likely to join Mr. Thiel as a go to resource for the White House. Plus, Mr. Zuckerberg is his warm, charming manner is saying, “Zuck you, Twitter.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2020
Criticism of Zuck: Empowering the Digital Ninja
June 1, 2020
Update: Mark Zuckerberg’s kimura arm lock is weakening. For details about a surprising pushback from Facebook professionals, navigate to the San Jose Mercury News’s story “Facebook employees plan virtual walkout over Trump treatment
Some workers disagree with Zuckerberg’s hands-off policy to president’s posts.” In a battle of power, which entity has more oomph: The Zuck or the proles? Worth watching this play off game. June 1, 2020, 3 pm US Eastern
DarkCyber found the article in Forbes Magazine (the capitalist’s tool, a phrase endorsed by the motorcycling publisher) adds juice to the Zuck. “Legal Organization Condemns Facebook, Zuckerberg For Not Condemning Trump” reports that Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is not happy with the Facebook founder’s approach to tweets from Donald J. Trump. The Forbes’ article states:
While a war of words and threats continues between Twitter and the President, the Lawyers’ Committee bemoaned Trump’s tweets on the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police officers. In those posts, the President referred to protesters as “thugs” and threatened to use military force to subdue the violent and destructive protests.
Factual? Yes. However, the article is likely to add juice to the digital ninja’s relationship with the current administration. The business story is that Facebook may be moving in a direction different from that followed by other high-technology companies. Which ones? Maybe the Google? Maybe proud creators of Catalina? Facebook has some useful data to inform certain tactical actions of the Zuck.
Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2020
Booz Allen Wins Modest Contract
May 27, 2020
I used to labor in the Booz Allen & Hamilton vineyards. I noted “DOD lands major contract for war-fighting AI.” The headline is misleading. Booz Allen obtained from GSA a contract “to develop AI for warfighting operations.” The contract is in the $800 million range: Smaller than JEDI but bigger than many other contracts. Yo, the Booz does smart software. Wait for those scope changes, gentle reader.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2020
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