Palantir SPACtacular Pipeline Filler
June 14, 2021
I read “Palantir Gets Aggressive in SPAC Investments, Backing Digital Health, Aviation and Robot Companies.” The article explains that in a short period of time — about 12 weeks — the intelware company has “forged agreements to invest in at least six special purpose acquisition companies.”
Why?
The answer may be in this statement from the article:
Beyond the financial returns, Palantir is looking for innovative companies in big markets that can make use of its data tools.
Who says?
The write up answers this question too:
“We’re seeing an opportunity to back really good management teams with big visions,” said Kevin Kawasaki, Palantir’s head of business development. The company can partner and “allow them to have our data operating systems platform that we’ve put 15 years and billions of R&D dollars into,” he said.
It appears that Palantir is investing and then its “investment” is used to license its software.
If I am correct, this is an interesting way to generate revenues and obtain customer engagement. Let’s assume I am on the right track, my questions are:
- With the buzz generated by the initial public offering, have leads been converting into signed agreements at an improved rate?
- Is the Palantir system encountering the type of headwinds that other search and content processing companies have encountered; that is, long and complex set up, tuning, and customization process for impatient clients?
- Is the market for intelware facing competition from lower cost providers from other countries and US start ups which “appify” large, workstation like systems?
I, of course, don’t have answers to these questions. Worth watching how this SPACtacular pipeline filler delivers the sustainable revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2021
Recorded Future: Poking Googzilla?
May 26, 2021
Google and In-Q-Tel were among the first to embrace the start up Recorded Future. Over the years, Recorded Future beavered away in specialist markets. There were some important successes; for example, helpful insights about the Paris Terrorist bombing. But Recorded Future was not a headline grabber. Predictive analytics is not the sort of thing that inflames the real journalists at many “real news” publications. The Googley part of Recorded Future faded over time, and it seems to me that most of the analysts forgot it was around in the first place. Then came the sale of Recorded Future to Insight Partners for about $800 million. From start up to exit in 12 years and another home run for the founders. Now the work begins. The company has to generate more revenue, which has been a challenge for similar companies.
Recorded Future does do search, but it does not do online advertising as a revenue generator. The company has a broad array of services, and it is finding that established competitors like IBM i2, Palantir Technologies, and Verint are also chasing available projects for specialized software. To add a twist to the story, start ups like Trendalyze (an outfit focused on real time analytics) and DataWalk (a better Palantir in my opinion) are snagging work in some rarified niches.
What’s the non Googley Recorded Future doing?
After reading “Thousands of Chrome Extensions Are Tampering with Security Headers,” I think the Insight owned outfit is poking a stick into the zoological park in which Googzilla hunts. My hunch is that Google continues taking off-the-radar actions to ensure that its revenues flow and glow. (No, that’s not on any Google T shirt I possess.) The new Recorded Future is revealing a Google method, and I think some in the Googleplex will not be happy.
The write up does not get into Google’s business strategy. But someone will read the Recorded Future post and do a bit of digging.
Several thoughts:
- Has Recorded Future broken an unwritten rule regarding the explanation of Google’s more interesting methods?
- Will the Google respond in a way that tweaks the nose of the Recorded Future team?
- Will Recorded Future escalate its revelations about the GOOG to get clicks, generate traffic, and possibly make sales?
I have no answers. I think the write up is interesting and probably long overdue. I think this is an important shift which has taken place with a new owner overseeing the once Googley predictive analytics company. Insight probably used the Recorded Future methods to predict the probabilities for upsides and downsides of this type of article. There are margins of error, however.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2021
Specialized Technology: Why Processing Talk Can Be Helpful to Anyone
May 7, 2021
Some specialized services companies have provided cheat sheets for audio and video intercepts. I heard that this technology was under wraps and available only to those with certain privileges. Not any longer.
An outfit at Wordcab.com can perform what once was an intelligence function for anyone with Internet access, content, and a way to pay. Navigate to Wordcab.com and sign up. The company says:
Automagically summarize all your internal meetings. Wordcab creates detailed, natural-language summaries of all your meetings and sales calls. So you can focus on people, not paper.
Thumbtypers will thrill with the use of the word “automagically.” The service can ingest a Zoom recording and generate a summary. The outputs can be tweaked, but keep in mind, this is smart software, not Maxwell Perkins reincarnated as your blue pencil toting digital servant. There’s an API so the service can be connected to whizzy distributed services and, if you have a copy of Palantir Gotham-type software, you can do some creative analysis.
The idea is that the smart software can make an iPhone toting bro or bro-ette more efficient.
The key point is that once was a secret capability is now available to anyone with an Internet connection. And to those who don’t think there is useful information in TikTok-type services. Maybe think again?
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2021
Signal and Cellebrite: Raising Difficult Questions
April 22, 2021
Signal published an summary of its exploration of the Cellebrite software. Founded in Israel and now owned by the Japanese company Sun Corporation, Cellebrite is a frequent exhibitor, speaker, and training sponsor at law enforcement and intelligence conferences. There are units and subsidiaries of the company, which are not germane to this short blog post. The company’s main business is to provide specialized services to make sense of data on mobile devices. Yes, there are other use cases for the company’s technology, but phones are a magnet at the present time.
“Exploiting Vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer from an App’s Perspective” makes clear that Cellebrite’s software is probably neither better nor worse than the SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange Server, or other vendors’ software. Software has bugs, and once those bugs are discovered and put into circulation via a friendly post on a Dark Web pastesite or a comment in a tweet, it’s party time for some people.
Signal’s trope is that the Cellebrite “package” fell off a truck. I am not sure how many of those in my National Cyber Crime 2021 lectures will find that explanation credible, but some people are skeptics. Signal says:
[Cellebrite’s] products have often been linked to the persecution of imprisoned journalists and activists around the world, but less has been written about what their software actually does or how it works. Let’s take a closer look. In particular, their software is often associated with bypassing security, so let’s take some time to examine the security of their own software.
The write up then points out vulnerabilities. The information may be very useful to bad actors who want to configure their mobile devices to defeat the Cellebrite system and method. As readers of this blog may recall, I am not a big fan of disclosures about specialized software for certain government entities. Others — like the Signal analysts — have a different view point. I am not going to get involved in a discussion of this issue.
What I want to point out is that the Signal write up, if accurate, is another example of a specialized services vendor doing the MBA thing of over promising, overselling, and over marketing a cyber security solution.
In the context of the cyber security threat intelligence services which failed to notice the not-so-trivial SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Pulse Secure cyber missteps — the Signal essay is important.
Let me express my concern in questions:
What if the cyber security products and services are not able to provide security? What if the indexes of the Dark Web are not up to date and complete so queries return misleading results? What if the auto-generate alerts are based on flawed methods?
The cyber vendors and their customers are likely to respond, “Our products are more than 95 percent effective.” That may be accurate in some controlled situations. But at the present time, the breaches and the Signal analysis may form the outlines of a cyber environment in which expensive cyber tools are little more than plastic hammers and saws. Expensive plastic tools which break when subjective to real world work.
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2021
Palantir and Anduril: Best Buds for Sure
March 12, 2021
I read “Anduril Industries Joins Palantir Technologies’ TITAN Industry Team.” In the good old days I would have been zipping from conference to conference outputting my ideas. Now I sit in rural Kentucky and fire blog posts into the datasphere.
This post calls attention to an explicit tie up between two Peter Thiel-associated entities: Palantir Technologies and Anduril. The latter is an interesting company with some nifty smart technology, including a drone which has the cheerful name “Anvil.”
For details about the new US Army project and the relationship between these two companies, the blog post was online as of March 8, 2021. (Some information may be removed, and I can’t do much about what other outfits do.)
Information about Anduril is available at their Web site. Palantir is everywhere and famous in the intelware business and among some legal eagles. No, I don’t have a Lord of the Rings fetish, but some forever young folks do.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2021
DarkCyber for February 23, 2021 Is Now Available
February 23, 2021
DarkCyber, Series 3, Number 4 includes five stories. The first summarizes the value of an electronic game’s software. Think millions. The second explains that Lokinet is now operating under the brand Oxen. The idea is that the secure services’ offerings are “beefier.” The third story provides an example of how smaller cyber security startups can make valuable contributions in the post-SolarWinds’ era. The fourth story highlights a story about the US government’s getting close to an important security implementation, only to lose track of the mission. And the final story provides some drone dope about the use of unmanned aerial systems on Super Bowl Sunday as FBI agents monitored an FAA imposed no fly zone. You could download the video at this url after we uploaded it to YouTube.
But…
YouTube notified Stephen E Arnold that his interview with Robert David Steele, a former CIA professional, was removed from YouTube. The reason was “bullying.” Mr. Arnold is 76 or 77, and he talked with Mr. Steele about the Jeffrey Epstein allegations. Mr. Epstein was on the radar of Mr. Steele because the legal allegations were of interest to an international tribunal about human trafficking and child sex crime. Mr. Steele is a director of that tribunal. Bullying about a deceased person allegedly involved in a decades long criminal activity? What?
What’s even more interesting is that the DarkCyber videos, which appear every 14 days focus on law enforcement, intelligence, and cyber crime issues. One law enforcement professional told Mr. Arnold after his Dark Web lecture at the National Cyber Crime Conference in 2020, you make it clear that investigators have to embrace new technology and not wait for budgets to accommodate more specialists.
Mr. Arnold told me that he did not click the bright red button wanting Google / YouTube to entertain an appeal. I am not certain about his reasoning, but I assume that Mr. Arnold, who was an advisor to the world’s largest online search system, was indifferent to the censorship. My perception is that Mr. Arnold recognizes that Alphabet, Google, and YouTube are overwhelmed with management challenges, struggling to figure out how to deal with copyright violations, hate content, and sexually related information. Furthermore, Alphabet, Google, and YouTube face persistent legal challenges, employee outcries about discrimination, and ageing systems and methods.
What does this mean? In early March 2021, we will announce other video services which will make the DarkCyber video programs available.
The DarkCyber team is composed of individuals who are not bullies. If anything, the group is more accurately characterized as researchers and analysts who prefer the libraries of days gone by to the zip zip world of thumbtypers, smart software, and censorship of content related to law enforcement and intelligence professionals.
Mr. Arnold was discussing online clickfraud at lunch next week. Would that make an interesting subject for a DarkCyber story? With two firms controlling more than two thirds of the online advertising, click fraud is a hot potato topic. How does it happen? What’s done to prevent it? What’s the cost to the advertisers? What are the legal consequences of the activity?
Kenny Toth, February 23, 2021
Palantir Fourth Quarter Results Surprises One Financial Pundit
February 22, 2021
I read “Palantir Stock Slides As It Posts a Surprise Loss in Fourth Quarter.” The pundit noted:
Palantir stock has been very volatile this year. It is among the stocks that were been pumped by the Reddit group WallStreetBets. Palantir stock had a 52-week high of $45 amid frenzied buying. However, as has been the case with other meme stocks, it is down sharply from its recent highs. Based on yesterday’s closing prices, Palantir stock has lost almost 30% from its 52-week highs. The drawdown is much lower than what we’ve seen in stocks like GameStop and AMC Theatres. But then, the rise in Palantir stock was also not comparable to the massive gains that we saw in these companies.
Yikes. Worse than GameStop? Quite a comparison.
The pundit pointed out:
Palantir has been diversifying itself away from government business that currently accounts for the bulk of its revenues. This year, it has signed many deals that would help it diversify its revenues. Earlier this month, Palantir announced that it has extended its partnership with energy giant BP for five more years.
Who knew that a company founded in 2003 would have difficulty meeting Wall Street expectation? Maybe that IBM deal and the new US president’s administration can help Palantir Technologies meet financial experts’ expectations?
Search and content processing companies have been worn down by long sales cycles, lower cost competitors, and the friction of customization, training, and fiddling with content intake.
Palantir might be an exception. Stakeholders are discomfited by shocks.
Stephen E Arnold, February 22, 2021
Amazon: Putting Eyes on Humans
February 17, 2021
Amazon may have a new driver at the controls of the Bezos bulldozer, but the big orange machine keeps pushing monitoring technology. “Amazon’s Driver Monitoring App Is an Invasive Nightmare” does not like the system the online bookstore uses to keep an eye on human delivery drivers. The write up states:
Mentor is made by eDriving, which describes the app on its website as a “smartphone-based solution that collects and analyzes driver behaviors most predictive of crash risk and helps remediate risky behavior by providing engaging, interactive micro-training modules delivered directly to the driver in the smartphone app.”
From my tumble down shack in rural Kentucky, the Bezos bulldozer seems to be using technology from an outfit called eDriving. There are several options available to the online bookstore. Amazon can continue to pay eDriving. Amazon can clone the system. Amazon can acquire the company, people, or technology.
Based on my on-going research into Amazon’s surveillance capabilities, the enhanced cameras, the online hook to the AWS mothership, and the use of third-parties to nudge monitoring forward is still in its early days. Amazon moves slowly and in a low profile way. Most law enforcement and intelligence organizations observe Amazon the way a tourist does a turtle in the Galapagos: Check out where the turtle is after breakfast and then note that the darned thing moved behind a rock a few fee away by noon. No big deal. Turtles move, right? Turtles are not gazelles, right?
Several observations:
- Amazon chugs along in a sprightly manner behind the curtain separating public use of a system like Mentor
- Amazon time makes it difficult for some observers to note significant change in a system or technology
- The trick to figuring out where Amazon is headed in surveillance systems is to step back and observe the suite of systems.
What does one learn?
How about Amazon as the plumbing for many of the widely used policeware and intelware systems? Who knew that Palantir Technologies is a good Amazon customer? Maybe not IBM which inked a deal with the chipper Denver based “ride ‘em cowboy” policeware firm.
How useful would Amazon’s monitoring technology be if connected to a Palantir content intake system? My guess is that it would be quite useful, and it would require the Amazon cloud to work. What’s that mean for cloud competitors like Google, IBM, and Microsoft?
Amazon’s policeware and intelware approach is a lock in dream. Where could a Mentor-type system be useful to investigators?
Sorry. I can’t think of a single use case. Ho ho ho.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2021
A Tattoo Can Monitor Your Brainwaves
February 17, 2021
Most tattoos are works of art, but some people inject ink into their skin for medical reasons. Medical tattoos often list allergies or say “DNR” (do not resuscitate) on a person’s chest. Digital Trends share that a new type of tattoo ink can monitor brainwaves in the article: “This Game-Changing Graphene Tattoo Can Continuously Monitor Your Brainwaves.”
Brain Scientific, Inc. was founded by Baruch “Boris” Goldstein and specializes in special tattoos. These tattoos are inked on your head with a special grapheme ink, so they can monitor brainwaves. Here is a more accurate description:
“To be clear, Brain Scientific’s new Brain E-Tattoo doesn’t resemble any piece of ink you’ve seen before. It’s a small patch, about the size of a postage stamp that looks, for all intents and purposes, like a microchip wafer affixed above the ear of the wearer. While the company uses the word “tattoo” to describe it, it’s more accurately referred to as a minimally invasive, implantable, 4-channel, micro electroencephalography (EEG) with grapheme electrodes for continuous brain monitoring. And there’s a chance this bit of cyborg tech could one day help save your life.”
The idea is that the grapheme-based electrodes will be connected to a micro EEG to analyze brain patterns and alert you to abnormal brain patterns like seizures and Alzheimer’s.
Brain Scientific specializes in AI technology, but they transitioned into hardware when they could not find the right tools. Goldstein wants the grapheme tattoo to eventually replace EEG headsets and continuously monitor brain activity. With the recorded brain activity, medical professionals can observe how any changes differ from past neurological data. The grapheme tattoo can also monitor other body functions.
Grapheme tattoos may one day be programmed to download information directly into your brain. Companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google will have different grapheme tattoo types and sell exclusive content. How long before those get on the market?
Whitney Grace, February 17, 2021
Business Intelligence, Expectations, and Data Fog
February 10, 2021
Business intelligence and government intelligence software promises real time data intake, analysis and sense making, and outputs with a mouse click. Have you heard the phrase, “I have the Brooklyn Bridge for sale”? Sure, sure, I know I don’t want to own the Brooklyn Bridge, but that super spiffy intelligence software (what I call intelware), count me in.
The marketing pitch for business intelligence and general intelligence software has not changed significantly over the years. In my experience, a couple of nifty outputs like a relationship diagram and a series of buttons set up to spit out “actionable intelligence” often close the deal. The users of the software usually discover three points not making up a large part of the demos, the discussions, and the final contract for the customer’s requirements.
I read “The Age Of Continuous Business Intelligence.” The idea is appealing. Lots of information and no time to read, review, digest, analyze, and discuss the available information. In my opinion, the attitude now is “I don’t have time.”
Yep, time.
The write up asserts:
we [an outfit called KX] know that shortening the time it takes to ingest, store, process, and analyze historic and real-time data is a game changer for businesses in all sectors. Our customers in finance, manufacturing, automotive, telecommunications and utilities tell us that when processes and systems are continuously fed by real-time data that is enriched by the context of historic data, they can automate critical business decisions resulting in significant operational and commercial benefits.
The write up contains a diagram which lays bare “continuous business intelligence.”
The write up concludes:
As the research clearly shows, real-time data analytics is a critical area of investment for many firms. To ensure maximum value is derived from these investments, it is imperative that organizations – regardless of size and sector – challenge their understanding of what real-time means. By implementing a strategy of continuous business intelligence, firms can dramatically reduce the time it takes to uncover and act on insights that can materially change the game in terms of growth, efficiency and profitability.
I love that “research clearly shows.” The challenges for the continuous thing include:
- Defining real time. (According to research my team did for a project years ago, there are numerous definitions of real time, and there is a Grand Canyon sized gap among these.)
- Making clear the computational short cuts necessary to process “fire hoses”. (Yep, these compromises have a significant impact on costs, validity of system outputs, and the mechanisms for issuing meaningful outputs from sense making.)
- Managing the costs. (Normalizing, verifying, processing, storing, and moving data require human and machine resources. Right, those things.)
Net net: Software whether for business or government applications in intelligence work only if the focus is narrow and the expectations of a wild and crazy MBA are kept within a reality corral. Otherwise, business intelligence will shoot blanks, not silver bullets.
Oh, KX is hooked up with a mid tier consulting firm. What’s that mean? A sudden fog has rolled in, and it is an expensive fog.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2021
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