Microsoft Goggle Chunder
October 19, 2022
I can resist. I read “Microsoft’s Army Goggles Left U.S. Soldiers with Nausea, Headaches in Test.” I am not too familiar with the training drills for US military personnel. Some create some discomfort. I can here “no pain, no pain” and other friendly, supportive, positive comments.
The write up explains:
U.S. soldiers using Microsoft’s new goggles in their latest field test suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments” including headaches, eyestrain and nausea, according to a summary of the exercise compiled by the Pentagon’s testing office.
How long did it take to create the interesting side effects? Less than three hours.
The trigger for the chunder is Microsoft’s innovation Integrated Visual Augmentation System. I wonder if the acronym or code for the gizmos will be ZUCK which rhymes with upchuck? Probably not.
One government official who works in procurement allegedly said:
the service “conducted a thorough operational evaluation” and “is fully aware” of the testing office’s concerns. The Army is adjusting the program’s fielding and schedule “to allow time to develop solutions to the issues identified…”
One of the issues may be the illumination of the gizmo itself. If true, is this a device designed by those who love science fiction movies or engineers with expertise in warfighting gear? My hunch is that the video game and motion picture aficionados outnumber the combat seasoned on the headgear team.
Bolting a weapon on a robot dog might be an alternative in my opinion.
Will more information be forthcoming? My hunch is that the next report will contain more positive information. F35 pilots seem to be doing okay with their new immersive helmets. Are pilots different from other military professionals?
What if the F35 helmet approach is better than the Softies who continue to struggle with getting printers to work in a way users expect?
Stephen E Arnold, October 19, 2022
Why Is Google on the Hot Seat in India? Does the Indian Government Understand Being Googley?
October 19, 2022
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is piling up allegations against Google faster than they can be resolved. The Indian Express reports, “CCI Orders Another Probe Against Google.” At issue is the company’s allegedly self-serving terms for news organizations. Gee, what do India’s regulators sense that US regulators seem to overlook? (And Europe‘s, for that matter.) We learn:
“The News Broadcasters & Digital Association had alleged that its members are forced to provide their news content to Google in order to prioritize their weblinks in the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) of Google. As a result, Google free rides on the content of the members without giving them adequate compensation, as per the complaint. Among others, it was alleged that Google exploited the dependency of the members on the search engine offered by Google for referral-traffic to build services such as Google News, Google Discover and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). The search engine major provides news content to user through Google Search and through news aggregator vertical, Google News. According to the complaint, in Google Search, users can either search directly for news through News Tab or receive news through result in SERPs. Google incorporated news content in its SERPs through featured snippets including ‘Top Stories’ carousels. However, the revenue distributed by Google to news publishers doesn’t compensate for the real contribution made by the association’s members to these platforms, it added.”
The latest probe is being consolidated with two similar ones already in progress. Those claimants are the Digital News Publishers Association and the Indian Newspaper Society. How many more plaintiffs will join the fray before the combined investigation concludes? More importantly, will any penalties be imposed that can even scratch the tech powerhouse?
Cynthia Murrell, October 19, 2022
TikTok: A New Weaponized Wasteland?
October 19, 2022
TikTok is the newest video consumption platform, but is it any different than television? Justin Hanagan’s Stay Grounded explores why TikTok Is Just TV Again, because it is a stream of safe, endless, auto-playing content. The article opens with the poignant reminder that television was the victim of the literati for two generations, because of its passive, banal, and massive appealing (appalling [sic]) content. Hanagan acknowledges that the arguments against TV are exaggerated and the definitions of what is considered banal and appealing are subjective. He also reminds people that television is a great unifier and programs have done many things to expose audiences to progressive ideas.
Hanagan, like other viewers, loved that the Internet would force audiences to wake up and demand more intelligent, artistic shows. Television and movie studios relied on generic content to play it safe, except he forgot about the 1980s with talk shows and reality TV. Executives were also finally allowed to apply the “sex sells” mantra for mass consumption. Despite the junk food TV, there are plenty of gourmet options too. The current phase of television is a golden crazy age.
TikTok ranks at the top of any passive entertainment that creates instantaneous endorphins, like the boob tube of the past:
“After all, nobody wants to be a brainless “boob tube” zombie. But, as you dear reader are likely aware, it turns out that for humans- the opportunity to be lightly entertained while doing basically nothing, is very hard to resist. TikTok took a format —very short, easily skippable videos— that already existed on social media (first on Snapchat and Vine, then later on Instagram as “stories”), and basically just dialed the “social” aspect of it waaay down.”
Instead of relying on studies, TikTok uses average viewers with promises of great rewards if they make it viral. It is the possibility of instant fame for everyone with a low-risk, high-return model. It could also be China’s evil plan to dumb down the West with obnoxious content and decreasing attention spans.
Whitney Grace, October 19, 2022
Am I Reading the CNN Critique of Big Tech Correctly?
October 18, 2022
I read “With Product Innovation Lagging, Silicon Valley Bets on a Fresh Coat of Paint.” The article discusses some familiar companies, founded by wizards who became cultural icons of US innovation. The write up states:
The emphasis on a new color palette for devices isn’t unique to Google. As tech companies showed off their latest smartphones, tablets and laptops at splashy press events over the last two months, many of the products had only limited changes on the outside but boasted elaborately named color options.
Does this mean that the technology of Silicon Valley has become similar to paint chips at Home Depot? Have the engineers been repurposed as interior decorators? Is Silicon Valley pointing to recalibrating Silicon Valley as a fashion forward outfit with “taste” becoming more important than delivering compelling products. I am thinking about the sad empty place which may be a metaphor for Mr. Zuckerberg’s vision of the future — a future with attractive colors no doubt.
The write up identifies some of the innovations in the article; for example:
- Seafoam
- Lemongrass
- Snows
- Sapphire
- Forest
- Metal
- Sandstone
- Alpine
- Bora purple
The write up points out:
But just as basic black, white, gray and silver are the top colors in the automobile industry, these colors tend to resonate most with smartphone owners, according to Peggy Van Allen, a color anthropologist for the Color Marketing Group.
Does this mean that Silicon Valley engineer decorators are living in a color bubble just as they existed in crazy features and projects no one understood or wanted. What was the color of Google Glass? What is the color of the Zuck’s metaverse? What’s the tint of Microsoft security? Here’s my answer: Failure gray maybe?
Net net: Engineer decorators, in my opinion, sums up where Silicon Valley’s innovation finds inspiration. Is that what “real news” thinks about the touchstone for technology gods? Paint chip people selling subscriptions?
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2022
The Zuck with Legs: Just a Demo?
October 18, 2022
Slashdot ran an interesting item on October 14, 2022. The title of the post was “Facebook’s Legs Video Was a Lie.” According to the short item, this factoid was reported: As UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton has since reported, Meta has issued a follow-up statement, which says, “To enable this preview of what’s to come, the segment [Zuck’s demo] featured animations created from motion capture.”
Did you ever hear the joke about Bill Gates who had to choose between heaven and hell. He examined both destinations and chose the location with babes, great location, and close friends like a construct that looked like Gary Kildall and another emulating Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Gates chose the one with babes and palls. When Mr. Gates passed to heaven, he ended up in a horrible place with hell fire and demons. He called Saint Peter (God was in a meeting) and asked, “What happened to the place with good weather, my pals and babes?” The response, “That was a demo.”
My hunch is that the Zuck’s final destination will be a 360 degree immersive TikTok stream. Legs may not be part of the equation.
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2022
Google: Clever Cost Cutting
October 18, 2022
Most web searchers do not make it past the first page or two of Google results. But even if one has the patience to go all the way to the end, it seems one can only see a fraction of the results promised at the top of each page. According to a blog post from web scraper SerpApi, “Google’s ‘Millions of Search Results’ Are Not Being Served in the Later Pages Search Results.” Writer Justin O’Hara reports:
“A misconception regarding Google’s search results is that all of the results are being served to the user conducting that particular search. Those 2 billion search results can’t be gotten through Google’s pagination, and it seems that this number is somewhat arbitrary to the search, or commonality of the keyword. I rarely go past the 2nd or 3rd page of Google’s search results for any kind of query anymore, but these rankings of results are big business with Search Engine Optimization. I wanted to do a little case study on the actual amount of searches that get served to users for a couple different searches.”
O’Hara experimented by searching for his company’s name and could see only 146 results out of the 166,000 Google said it found. Repeating the search with omitted results included, as Google offers, garnered only 369 results. But why? Cost cutting? Or perhaps information shaping? We may never know. Not surprisingly, O’Hara emphasizes SerpApi’s Google Search API can scrape the results Google itself does not deign to pass on to users.
Cynthia Murrell, October 18, 2022
How Social Media Robs Kids of Essential Sleep
October 18, 2022
Here is yet another way social media is bad for kids. A brief write-up at Insider informs us, “Kids Are Waking Up in the Night to Check their Notifications and Are Losing About 1 Night’s Worth of Sleep a Week, Study Suggests.” The study from De Montfort University Leicester is a wake-up call for parents and guardians. See the university’s post for its methodology. Writer Beatrice Nolan tells us:
“Almost 70% of the 60 children under 12 surveyed by De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, said they used social media for four hours a day or more. Two thirds said they used social media apps in the two hours before going to bed. The study also found that 12.5% of the children surveyed were waking up in the night to check their notifications. Psychology lecturer John Shaw, who headed up the study, said children were supposed to sleep for between nine to 11 hours a night, per NHS guidelines, but those surveyed reported sleeping an average of 8.7 hours nightly. He said: ‘The fear of missing out, which is driven by social media, is directly affecting their sleep. They want to know what their friends are doing, and if you’re not online when something is happening, it means you’re not taking part in it. And it can be a feedback loop. If you are anxious you are more likely to be on social media, you are more anxious as a result of that. And you’re looking at something, that’s stimulating and delaying sleep.'”
Surprising no one, the study found TikTok was the most-used app, followed closely by Snapchat and more distantly by Instagram. The study found almost 70% of its young respondents spend over four hours a day online, most of them just before bedtime. Dr. Shaw emphasizes the importance of sleep routines for children and other humans, sharing his personal policy to turn off his phone an hour before bed. When he does make an exception, he at least turns on his blue-light filter.
Nolan mentions California’s recent law that seeks to shield kids from harm by social media, but the provisions apply more to issues like data collection and privacy than promoting a compulsion to wake up and check one’s phone. That leaves the ball, once again, in the parents’ court. A good practice is to enforce a rule that kids turn off the device an hour before bed and leave it off overnight. Maybe even store it in our own nightstands. Yes, they may fight us on it. But even if we cannot convince them, we know getting adequate sleep is even more important than checking that feed overnight.
Cynthia Murrell, October 18, 2022
The End of Cyber Crime with Web 3? Will Bad Actors Get the Memo?
October 17, 2022
My understanding of cyber crime is limited. I have done some research and learned one important thing:
Cat and mouse.
What’s this mean?
- Law enforcement take down Dark Web eCommerce sites
- Bad actors use end to end encrypted messaging to sell content to their customers
- Law enforcement take down E2EE schemes
- Bad actors create new types of messaging such as the little known lucidchat.co.uk service to thwart law enforcement.
What’s the end game? A China-style total network control approach like the one described in the Wall Street Journal story “Chinese Users Lose Access to WeChat” on October 15, 2022?
There is no way to stop cyber crime. Sorry, but the cat-and-mouse game exploits:
- Software and systems which have unknown flaws which bad actors seek and exploit
- Law enforcement and cyber security companies react to the bad actors
- Government bureaucracy slows some reactions giving bad actors a window of opportunity
- Insiders stand ready to be blackmailed, bribed, or threatened unless these individuals provide access
- A mismatch between the mental state of an employee and the corporation itself create whistle blowers like a certain American now residing in Moscow, doing significant damage to the United States.
- Big companies’ carelessness creates opportunities which span years; for example, hypervisor’s impaired vision with regard to Windows drivers.
When I read “Web3 Will Spell the End of Cybercrime. Here’s Why,” I hoped that the write up would provide an answer to the points I just shared about cats and mice. The write up states that two things will be much better when a Web 3 architecture is implemented:
- Log in security
- Financial control and monetization.
Say what? Will these new systems be flawless, a condition that is difficult for a software and systems company to deliver. Will insider threats just go away? Will the mice chew away at next generation systems and find a way to penetrate them?
Sorry. Web 3 may lessen certain types of cyber crime, but I wager that a humanoid somewhere will click on a phishing link or a mother desperate to pay for medical care for a child will listen to a bad actor’s pitch for access to a system.
How will Web 3 deal with these persistent security issues?
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2022
Tor Friendly ISP Takes a Break
October 17, 2022
I usually do not post “real news.” I am making an exception today because two Tor friendly ISPs have taken a break. Usually when law enforcement takes down a Dark Web centric outfit, there are news releases, news stories, and reports about sentencing (if the “owners” are convicted).
Our routine check of the 24 Tor friendly ISPs we track, Ablative have either “paused” sign ups or disappeared. We are working to track down the individuals who have played a role in these companies. That’s not the easiest task for my team. There are some nifty obfuscation techniques available and creating personas (what some call sock puppets) is easy. Plus, the technique of paying a person in need of cash to set up an account without revealing how that account will be used is easier than ever. (Just check out the folks using free WiFi at a public library, a coffee shop near a university or methadone clinic, or individuals loitering near a food disbursement point.
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2022
Metazuck: An All Too Common Response in Silicon Valley Land
October 17, 2022
“How TikTok Ate the Internet” is a business school write up which contains some interesting data; for example:
The web’s most popular app [TikTok] has reshaped American culture, hypnotized the world and sparked a battle between two global superpowers…TikTok’s website was visited last year more often than Google. No app has grown faster past a billion users, and more than 100 million of them are in the United States, roughly a third of the country. The average American viewer watches TikTok for 80 minutes a day — more than the time spent on Facebook and Instagram, combined.
I think this means is that TikTok is the next big thing… after almost a decade in the gloomy bedrooms of teens.
Fortune Magazine explains “Mark Zuckerberg admits he missed a social networking trend that led to the TikTok boom.” How is this possible? Easy. Facebook or the Zuckbook just missed the next big thing. Money and legal woes can distract I suppose.
Now the Zucker wants to catch up. One article has the interesting title “Meta Has Burned $15 billion Trying to Build the Metaverse — And Nobody’s Saying Exactly Where the Money Went.” The write up focuses on using money to leap frog the next big thing. Okay, that may work, but I don’t think tech gurus on the way down can buy their way back up.
What’s my view of the Zucker’s situation? Think about a person watching a hauspex chop out a goat’s liver. The spectacle and the solemnity of the event fuels the hope that the desired outcome will be foretold. Sure it is.
In terms of Silicon Valley, the idea is that money divines the future. How does one deal with TikTok and a decided lack of enthusiasm for spending time in a cartoon without legs or a way to send a text?
Money.
Let’s take a helicopter to 3,000 feet and check out the lay of the Silicon Valley method.
- Spending money to “apply” technology is the best way to fix a problem. Is the logic, “Hey, this worked for the iPhone, and it will work in the TikTok situation.”
- The mental frame for solving problems ignores soft factors like users who want and need to use the TikTok content experience. Social graphs and knock off service. Thank you, no.
- The cloud of misperception is “a certain blindness” which is touchingly centered in Silicon Valley it seems from my helicopter.
Is the problem China and super algorithms?
First, TikTok’s method is not that sophisticated based on our examination of the system. Sure, the surveillance stuff is good, but that’s old hat in the intelware game. Everyone attributes technological wizardry to TikTok. Some influence? Sure. But the drip of digital anesthesia is easier and more fun when administered in the somewhat negative post Covid world.
Second, the Chinese government is not exactly the world’s most progressive institution. Bureaucrats recognized an opportunity to inject content and took it.
Third, the Silicon Valley mindset arrived late and the high speed train had departed the station. Buying a train does not deliver a way to catch up. What about building a rocket ship?
Net net: Long shot.
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2022
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