A Peek into Google and Palantir Contracts: The UK National Health Service Versions
June 8, 2020
Curious about the legalese, terms, and conditions of US companies licensing and servicing government entities in the United Kingdom require? Good news. You can (at least as of June 6, 2020 at 0600 US Eastern time) can read allegedly complete contracts for software and services.
- The Google NHS agreement is at https://tinyurl.com/y88tzdqq
- The Microsoft NHS agreement is at https://tinyurl.com/y8vzj5ye
- The Palantir NHS agreement is at https://tinyurl.com/ybgdl82p
A contract from Faculty.ai is also available. Founded in 2014, Faculty.ai does not have the cachet of a Google. If you want to look at that contract, it is for now at https://tinyurl.com/ya3kzolw.
The deals are between these firms and an entity doing government business under the name of NHSX which seems to mean “a joint unit bringing together teams from the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England and NHS Improvement to drive the digital transformation of care. COVID-19 Response.”
Are there some interesting details in these documents? Yep. Will these be shared in this blog post? Nope. You will learn some of the DarkCyber’s team insight if you attend our National Crime Conference presentation about investigative tools and systems.
Not invited? For fee briefings are still offered. Contact benkent2020 at yahoo dot com.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2020
Amazon Grinds into Teams and Rolls Across Its Playground Cracking the Asphalt
June 5, 2020
Distracted by an inability to deliver packages quickly, Amazon has revved the engine of the Bezos bulldozer. The giant online bookstore and the world’s richest human being is punching the gas pedal and lurching forward. The objective? The Microsoft Teams’ playground. The bulldozer will crunch over the feet of the nimble Zoomers and shove the Google toward the shower room, but the big orange diesel leaves a visible pathway, small creatures unable to avoid the metal treads and assorted debris similar to the storefronts on Main Street USA.
The action is described in “Slack and Amazon partner to take on Microsoft Teams.” DarkCyber does not want to argue which wonky online organizational, communication, and squabbling service is better. Amazon has the technical infrastructure to make almost anything work and to bill people for taking data out of its giant cloud environment.
The write up states:
On Thursday (4 June), it emerged that Slack and Amazon have forged a multi-year agreement, allowing all Amazon employees to use Slack. The news comes at a time when Slack has seen increased competition from Microsoft Teams. In a recent SEC filing, the company said that the Microsoft platform is its “primary competitor”. This is despite the fact Microsoft’s main focus is video and voice calling, while Slack is primarily used for text-based workplace chat. As part of the deal with Amazon, Slack will deepen its partnership with AWS by migrating its voice and video calling functions to Amazon’s Chime platform, in a bid to strengthen its video and voice calling offerings.
DarkCyber thinks this development is important for three reasons:
- The deal makes it clear that Amazon, although late to the game, is going to be trying to be like Zoom on steroids. (A side consideration is that Amazon employees will have a more zippy way to organize the two pizza parties when a fail safe system falls over.)
- The tie up means that Slack is not going away. Amazon can include Slack functions in a wide array of services. Imagine how much easier it will be to chase down knock off product information using a reasonably functional Slack and Chime service? Well, maybe not too aggressively?
- The inclusion of Slack means that Amazon’s oft-ignored policeware services get a useful tool for enforcement and intelligence professionals. DarkCyber thinks this is important, and possibly someone will notice before Amazon jumps out of its hidey hole and reveals that it powers much of the policeware infrastructure for low profile companies.
Worth watching even though the write up is content to point out:
By using Chime technology to run Slack’s video and voice call features, the company hopes to add new features. Armstrong said that the company is looking at bringing video calling to the mobile version of Slack, as it currently does not have this feature. He also said that Slack is looking into transcription.
Hitting the small nail squarely? Yes.
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2020
NSO Group and Its Covid Tracker
May 30, 2020
As the COVID-19 virus globally spread, people want know where it is, when an individual was infected, and other pertinent information. Two week self-imposed isolation periods are mandatory for most potential carriers, but that is not enough to ease worried minds. TechCrunch reports that, “A Passwordless Server Run By Spyware Maker NSO Sparks Contact-Tracing Privacy Concerns.”
NSO is an Israeli company known for making mobile hacking tools. The company developed a COVID-19 app that tracks carriers. A security researcher discovered NSO’s content-tracing project “Fleming” online, he contacted them and NSO removed it. Fleming most likely contained fake data. The project was most likely a demonstration of NSO’s technology, but it still causes concern that people’s personal data is kept in a centralized database without proper security measures. The Israeli government has not approved usage of Fleming yet.
When the COVID-19 outbreak worsened in March, the Israeli government granted its security service Shin Bet unprecedented access to collecting mobile phone data to track potential infections. Fleming was one of two systems the government working on and NSO said it used location data purchased from data brokers. Data brokers sell data amassed from apps that collect and sell user data.
Content-tracking apps are beneficial during the pandemic, but an individual’s privacy should be taken into consideration. There are ways to have these apps and protect privacy rights:
“Most countries are favoring decentralized efforts, like the joint project between Apple and Google, which uses anonymized Bluetooth signals picked up from phones in near proximity, instead of collecting cell location data into a single database. Bluetooth contact tracing has won the support of academics and security researchers over location-based contact-tracing efforts, which they say would enable large-scale surveillance.”
NSO has possible ties to the Middle East, including an allegation that the Saudi Arabian government used the company’s Pegasus software to compromise Jeff Bezo’s cell phone. There is also a current legal battle that NSO built a hacking tool for Facebook’s WhatsApp. NSO Group is a provider of specialized services to government entities.
Whitney Grace, May 30, 2020
4iQ Amps Up Its Marketing
May 28, 2020
It is all about volume. Though most of us delete the ubiquitous “sextortion” emails with little thought but a passing sense of distaste, enough victims fork over Bitcoin to make it a lucrative scam. 4iQ’s blog examines the tactic in, “Demystifying ‘Sextortion’ & Blackmail Scams.”
Lest you, dear reader, are so fortunate as to be unfamiliar with such emails, the post includes examples. Dripping scorn for those who would exploit fears and threaten people during a pandemic, writer ClairelfEye explains these deceivers purchase real email addresses and passwords stolen in one of the large-scale data breaches that have become all too common. They then leverage this information to convince marks they possess more, very personal, details. She writes:
“I reached out to my social networks to see if this is widespread, and sure enough, many people confirmed that they — or someone they know — have received these types of scams in the past five weeks. … While most people get annoyed, roll their eyes and delete these blackmail e-mails, this is a numbers game. There will be a few people that fall for these low-level scams. Out of the many sextortion scams forwarded to me by friends and family, one [Bitcoin] address received 0.270616 BTC, which equals $2,082.03 USD as of April 27, 2020.”
Regarding the data breaches that make this scam possible, ClairelfEye explains:
“Working at 4iQ, I am almost too aware of data breaches happening on a daily basis. We investigate, validate and report on breached data every day. In fact, I can probably accurately surmise that this scammer got my email and clear text password in the 1.4 billion clear text credentials trove our breach hunters found back in 2017. Same goes for many of the forwarded scam emails I received. Interesting to see this information run full circle.”
The author’s colleague Alberto Casares, she tells us, is aggregating, investigating, and reporting on these extortion attempts. To participate, receivers of such emails can send them to report.email.threats@gmail.com. Dubbing itself the “Adversary Intelligence Company,” 4iQ offers consumer protection products and curates and normalizes compromised identities to help combat fraud and other crimes. Founded in 2016, the company is based in Los Altos, California.
Another specialized services firm amps up its marketing. This quest for sales and venture funding may be a trend.
Cynthia Murrell, May 28, 2020
Policeware Marketing: Medium Blog Post a Preferred Channel
May 27, 2020
Just a short note. Sintelix, a developer of policeware, published a white paper called “Sintelix – The Text Intelligence Solution.” The document is available on Medium, a popular publishing platform. The white paper / product description is about 1,500 words in length. The article contains illustrations, diagrams, and lists. One of the DarkCyber team said, “It reads like a product brochure.” I thought the information was useful. The Sintelix decision to use Medium is one additional example of the stepped up marketing policeware and intelware vendors are taking. Shadowdragon is using Twitter to promote its policeware system. Palantir Technologies’ CEO has used public forums and video to explain use cases for its investigative and analytic system. LookingGlass has moved forward with online demonstrations and webinars for potential licensees of its cyber system.
Observations:
- Tradition has dictated that vendors of specialized services developed for law enforcement and intelligence agencies market via personal contacts or restricted/classified events. The fierce competition for available government contracts may be forcing a change.
- Face-to-face events like breakfasts, brown bag presentations, and lectures for LE and intel professionals may be difficult to supplement with online-only initiatives. Plus, there is the danger of webinar fatigue or the sign up and no show problem. Security is also a consideration because some attendees may not be whom they purport to be on registration form.
- Expanded visibility like that achieved by NSO Group may have unexpected consequences. Some government procurement processes shy away from high-profile vendors. As a result, obtaining information about the activities of a Leidos, for example, is difficult. Increased visibility may repel some potential customers.
The shift in marketing, no matter how minor, is important. The downstream consequences of visibility are difficult to predict because conference organizers, procurement processes, customers who prefer face-to-face interactions, and similar pre Rona methods may no longer work as well.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2020
Palantir Technologies: A Very Unusual Emission from a Specialized Services Firm
May 26, 2020
The PR battle among the firms providing specialized services to law enforcement and intelligence entities has taken an unusual turn. If you send email to an outfit like BlackDot, you will probably be ignored. The same non response holds true for the vast majority of firms delivering solutions that put bad actors at a disadvantage. Sure, there are less low profile uses of these technologies, but applications like eDiscovery do not capture the attention of the real media.
DarkCyber spotted “Our Product Is Used on Occasion to Kill People’: Palantir’s CEO Claims Its Tech Is Used to Target and Kill Terrorists.” DarkCyber has noted that NSO Group has found itself in the PR spotlight due to allegations from Facebook and assertions about an NSO professional using the firm’s system for personal activities. But the “kill people” thing is sure to catch the attention of the hundreds of specialized service firms’ attention.
What’s even more interest catching is that one of the senior managers of Palantir Technologies serves as a member of the Axel Springer shareholder committee. What’s an Axel Springer? The company owns Business Insider, the “real news” outfit which reported Mr. Karp’s rather intriguing statement about a use case for Gotham and other Palantir modules.
The story also provides a link to a video from an outfit called Axios, presumably to buttress the “true fact” of Mr. Karp’s statement.
For a low profile outfit to offer this alleged admission about software’s link to termination with extreme prejudice may have some downstream consequences. With low profile companies like Shadowdragon publicizing its system on Twitter, will PR become the go-to marketing method in the future?
Making sales is one thing, but some government customers are wary of specialized services vendors who hum the 1960s song “Talk Too Much.” Some licensees can consult the “seeing stone” or just hit Philz and listen for some Palantirian chatter.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2020
Tracking Apps: All Buttoned Up?
May 15, 2020
The United Kingdom has many Big Brother-esque monitoring techniques to keep track of its citizens. Unlike Orwell’s Big Brother where citizens were killed for rebelling, UK residents shout their objections when they have been wronged. The Register shares how a group of “Academics Demand Answers Over Potential Data Time bomb Ticking Inside New UK Contact-Tracing App.”
One hundred seventy-three academics have called out the National Health Service for their COVID-19 contact-tracing app, because it is potentially dangerous. The app does the following:
“Due for release in the coming weeks, NHSX’s contact-tracing app will be the official way that everyone’s contacts with COVID-19-positive people will be tracked. The app will emit an electronic ID from your phone and receive the IDs of other phones with the app installed. If someone develops the coronavirus, everyone who came into contact with that person (i.e. their app came close enough for their ID to be logged by others) will receive an alert.”
The app would track and store people infected with COVID-19 in a centralized, government-controlled database and it is possible the data would not be anonymous. The fear is that the database could be hacked, then people’s information would be stolen or sold. The UK government could also lose more trust with their citizens.
Nothing like a pandemic to make life more secure and “open”?
Whitney Grace, May 15, 2020
DarkCyber for May 12, 2020: Web Tracking, Free Malware Appliance, Banjo Trouble, New Drones, and Mobile Location Spoofing
May 12, 2020
DarkCyber for May 12, 2020, is now available. You can view this program on YouTube or Vimeo. This week’s program covers the Banjo founder – KKK connection. SoftBank invested $100 million in the company. There has been a potential feature film project called Banjo Policeware: The Wrath of Khan. Two stories focus on surveillance of persons of interest. The first references allegations that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation uses faked Web pages or seized pages to obtain useful information about actors. Another story describes an open source malware analysis appliance. Unlike commercial solutions which cost thousands of dollars, the Phoenix appliance is available without charge. The appliance, which is a software wrapper around a number of tools, allows analysis and visualization of malware behavior. The program also includes a report about two new drones which can perform surveillance and data collection. The first is an autonomous system developed by AeroVironment. The second is DJI’s drone equipped with a 48 megapixel camera.
We are now producing two DarkCyber videos each month. We plan to release a short “special focus program” between our regular shows. Watch DarkCyber for details about this special report. Topics on the production schedule include the failure of cyber security solutions to protect Work From Home employees and contractors, search engine optimization fraud, and policeware marketing.
DarkCyber is produced by Stephen E Arnold and the DarkCyber research team. Tony S. has rejoined the group after a hiatus due to family responsibilities. Join me in saying, “Yo, Tony, get to work.” He is now our principal researcher for a new project related to the European Community’s investigation of Google search result manipulation. (I know that most people are unaware of this most recent thrust at Google, but it is happening.)
One final but important point: The DarkCyber video programs contain no sponsored content, no advertisements, and no embarrassing “begging for dollars” messages. The approach allows the DarkCyber team to discuss a range of topics, even those which can be uncomfortable for search engine marketers, consultants, and sketchy service providers.
Kenny Toth, May 12, 2020
Banjo: What Did SoftBank Money Buy?
May 11, 2020
We completed an analysis of Banjo’s intellectual property. Note: the Banjo url ends in jo, not com. The company — despite its low, low profile since 2016 — has been a reasonably active policeware vendor. Is the activity directed at publicity? Expanding its sales force? Developing a platform comparable to Amazon’s sprawling policeware initiative?
Nope.
The firm has been patenting and repatenting some of its ideas. A quick example is the method disclosed in a paper by one of Banjo’s first employees: “Lateral Thinking in Search Engines” by Yann Landrin-Schweitzer, et al, in Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, March 2006. You can locate a copy of this infrequently cited document at this link. Note: you may have to pay to view the document.
The ideas were evident in Banjo’s consumer app, which will not be discussed in this brief blog post, and again in the post-pivot patent documents.
The method, known for decades, was popularized by Endeca. The idea is to find, show, or leverage in some fashion related content. Some of the now disgraced search and retrieval evangelists called this “side search.”
For an example of Landrin-Schweitzer’s influence, check out US 8,341,223, Method for relevant content discovery. Since the patent document was filed in mid 2012, Banjo has made this method one of its key foundation stones.
What is interesting is that Landrin-Schweitzer left the company about the time the patent document was in process.
DarkCyber wants to point out that the “hot” technology powering the LiveTime unique capability is not particularly distinctive. Granted, Banjo has built a system which processes video and combines it with other inputs to generate alerts.
Nevertheless, the low profile adopted by the company may have been a way to reduce public scrutiny of what technology was the foundation for the interesting claims the company’s PR made.
I want to note that the DarkCyber research team tracked some of Banjo origin story to Jennifer Peck, worked at Banjo and who later married Mr. Patton. (Did the marriage or common sense stop the PR about Banjo which flowed in a steady stream until the end of 2015?)
Shifting gears the NASCAR way stabs the accelerator for more capital. SoftBank invested $100 million in Banjo in early 2016.
What is interesting is that the SoftBank due diligence process seems to have overlooked [a] some aspects about Mr. Patton and possibly the firm’s origin story, [b] Mr. Patton’s hackathon “wins” at a Google event and in an event held in China with “original” code, [c] and the firm’s core technology, [d] Landrin-Schweitzer’s contributions.
Mr. Patton’s trajectory from homeless waif in LA to the US Navy and military warfighting to NASCAR to construction to genius coder seems to be well crafted, almost like a feat of Baron Munchausen. The positioning of the company as one that wants to “save lives” could be a modern parable crafted on Madison Avenue to elevate the company above the likes of Palantir Technologies.
Wrapping the “good” cloth around surveillance technology is a PR plus to some. Plus, Banjo manifests Patton’s white knight accoutrements in the little known world of policeware applications. Also the factoids about Mr. Patton’s hard fought effort to obtain a college education and how a hitchhiking ride made an education possible could be inspiring to a befuddled and homeless youth. Does this remind anyone of a Jim Bakker? A modern version of a Horace Greeley tall tale?
Several questions:
- Are the other technology foundation stones unique and rock solid?
- How much of the technology embodied in Banjo is unique?
- What are the due diligence processes used by investment firms when facts suggest the founder’s past has not been vetted?
DarkCyber thinks that Banjo is an interesting firm. We have prepared a summary of Banjo’s intellectual property. If you are interested in learning more about this report, write benkent2020@yahoo.com.
The May 12, 2020, DarkCyber video program has more Banjo related content. You can view that video at this link. Remember: No ads, no search engine optimization, no begging for dollars. Just information.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2020
Banjo Targets an F Sharp and Breaks a Polyweb String
May 10, 2020
Policeware vendor Banjo continues to make headlines. (This may be welcome news to NSO Group, another low profile firm which has been in the spotlight recently.)
The Banjo story is one of the features in the DarkCyber video news program which becomes available on Tuesday, May 12, 2020.
Mr. Patton graduated from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. NASCAR helped him get a degree after his discharge from the US Navy. He served in an intelligence unit and participated in military activities in the Middle East. He allegedly races trucks.
There’s an update to the interesting revelations about the founder Damien Patton. Mr. Patton started a company sometime between 2011 and 2013 called Banjo. The original idea was a social media app. The function was to ingest Tweets and other content and display who was nearby. After some excitement about privacy, Mr. Patton pivoted and created a policeware company.
The angle was to use real time live video and content from social media sources like Twitter and Facebook to inform law enforcement about events. Unlike some of the policeware companies, Mr. Patton’s spin was that Banjo would be used to save lives and do good.
By 2016, Mr. Patton has wrapped up about $131 million in funding and bundled his past underneath the firm’s PR blitz. The “news” about Banjo and Patton played up a rags to riches story: From Mr. Patton’s homelessness to the US Navy, from a NASCAR grease pit to entrepreneurial clover.
Until… the story emerged about Mr. Patton’s activities in his youth. The allegations included the KKK, shooting up a religious facility, and rubbing elbows with interesting characters.
Where are we now?
“Banjo CEO Steps Down as Fallout from the Revelations of Past Ties to KKK Continues” brings us up to date. The write up states:
Embattled event detection tech firm Banjo announced Friday that the company’s current CEO and founder, Damien Patton, has resigned and the company will transition to a new leadership team with current Chief Technology Officer Justin R. Lindsey taking over the top position.
And the investors?
One of the principal sources of funding for the company is SoftBank, a firm which has the distinction of investing substantial funds in WeWork.
Now the firm has a new president, probably some agitated investors, and the distinction of becoming the first policeware company to hurtle from obscurity to headlines in a matter of a couple of days.
One question: “What did Banjo do with the investment funds obtained from investors?” DarkCyber opines that the patent filings in the last four years indicate inventing and fencing in its real time services consumed time and effort.
Banjo has amassed a number of patents related to its real time analysis of content. One of the early employees (Yann Landrin-Schweitzer) and co inventor of Banjo’s foundational technology said adios after a short stint at the company. Despite the assertions that the company has hundreds of employees in offices in California and Utah, Banjo has kept a low, low profile since 2016. Paying customers have not be enshrined on the company’s Web site at www.banjo.co.
Net net: This is an interesting story, and it does little to build confidence in the vendors providing specialized services to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. At one time, companies like Banjo kept a low profile, tried to avoid problems, and served a tight lipped clientele. NSO Group broke with tradition. But NSO’s legal spat with Facebook has been shoved off state.
Now we have a NASCAR type booth featuring a banjo player. What does it cost to see the show? John Malloy at BlueRun paid a couple of million. But Masayoshi Son put an estimated $100 million to get a piece of the act.
Was it worth it?
The reviews are just starting to come in, and they are a little negative. This could be a new PR challenge for Jennifer Peck, the PR wizard who helped orchestrate the Damien Patton story.
Observations:
- Having skeletons in one’s closet related to the KKK and a drive by shoot up of a synagogue are not useful when selling to law enforcement and intelligence entities
- Losing contracts and having government officials in Utah scrambling to figure out if Banjo’s algorithms are biases poses a challenge to other policeware vendors. Algorithms are indeed biased, but figuring out where the bias creeps in and how it effects the outputs of a smart system is a tar ball. This is probably not a plus for other policeware vendors.
- Agitating SoftBank’s president Masayoshi Son is possibly an unwelcome side effect of this situation. The investment in Banjo is going to require time and probably more money to get the company back on track.
The DarkCyber video segment about Banjo becomes available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress early Tuesday, May 12, 2020.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2020
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