The New Term for Failure: Iowa App
February 9, 2020
Every elder generation is critical of the subsequent generations. It is a rite of passage. This pattern is as old as Socrates and other ancient philosophers, but it is more apparent now due to the Internet blasting it in our faces 24/7. Problems with older generations are that their brains have less flexible neuroplasticity and that leads them to misunderstand the youth. It also makes them less likely to try or understand new things, such as technology. Are Generation Z and the Millennials as hopeless as believed? The MIT Technology Review posted a winning essay that answers that question, “We Asked Teenagers What Adults Are Missing About Technology. This Was The Best Response.”
The MIT Technology Review held a contest that asked the question: What do adults not know about my generation and technology? Taylor Fang from Logan, Utah won the contest out of 376 submissions from twenty-eight countries.
Fang relies on the standard poetic prose that favors singular words and short sentences. She repeats Generation Z criticisms, then abandons the poetic prose for the for a more conversational essay that answers the questions. Usually essays and poetic prose do not share the same page or if they do it is not successful. Yang first uses the metaphor that kids “conceal” themselves behind screens, then Segways into how social media allows them to write their “biographies” and find themselves.
All kids and young adults are finding themselves, screaming to be validated in a world they cannot influence or control. Are these rebels without a cause? Yes, but the Internet helps them find the cause and gives them a voice. Generations before the Z and Millennials screamed for a voice, but were regulated to puff pieces and brushed off. The Internet gives youth a voice and an upper hand because they understand technology more than their elders. It is also a creative outlet that helps kids find themselves:
“This isn’t to say that every teenager should begin creating art. Or that art would solve all of social media’s problems. But approaching technology through a creative lens is more effective than merely “raising awareness.” Rather than reducing teenagers to statistics, we should make sure teenagers have the chance to tell their own experiences in creative ways.
Take the example of “selfies.” Selfies, as many adults see them, are nothing more than narcissistic pictures to be broadcast to the world at large. But even the selfie representing a mere “I was here” has an element of truth. Just as Frida Kahlo painted self-portraits, our selfies construct a small part of who we are. Our selfies, even as they are one-dimensional, are important to us.”
Yang inserts Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” as the obligatory inspirational quote from a famous person to affirm there claims that the Internet does not ruin kids inner selves, but rather validates it and creates their identity. She reverts back to the typical poetic prose to emphasis her idea and ends with “We’re striving not only to be seen, but to see with our own eyes.”
Honestly, it’s an essay that pulls from multiple literary techniques to answer why old people are so grouchy about the youth. Yang’s essay is basic, but intuitive for a senior in high school. It won an international contest and offered sympathetic and mindful food for thought. However, her writing technique is all over the place and exhibits the folly of youthful writing. She is focused and ambitious, but in forty years time Yang could be complaining about the next catchy named generation. It is a vicious cycle and a rite of passage.
And Iowa? Youth demonstrate that their expertise has limits? The future beckons for Iowa Apps regardless of one’s age.
Whitney Grace, February 9, 2020
Why Techno-Babble and Crazy Promises Are Necessary
February 3, 2020
Do you believe the assertions about artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and quantum computing? The question is important because, according to the Nieman Lab, “Humans are hardwire to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview.” For those who believe in unicorns and fantasize about unicornification, the wilder and crazier the explanations about technology, the more coherent they sound. But try to provide facts, and the human brain is just not that interested if the research is accurate.
The write up asserts:
In theory, resolving factual disputes should be relatively easy: Just present the evidence of a strong expert consensus. This approach succeeds most of the time when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of hydrogen. But things don’t work that way when the scientific consensus presents a picture that threatens someone’s ideological worldview. In practice, it turns out that one’s political, religious, or ethnic identity quite effectively predicts one’s willingness to accept expertise on any given politicized issue.
What do these references to politicization have to do with technology sales and marketing?
DarkCyber believes that when one points out that an error rate of 85 percent means that there are 15 mistakes per 100 items. People think that error rate is okay, acceptable, maybe great. Apply the error rate to identifying potential bad actors, and someone has to figure out how to explain what happened to the 15 actors put in the bad egg bin.
Present this type of “fact” to a group, and most of the people exposed to the fact will ignore it.
But— and here’s the important point — evoke Star Trek, some magical numerical recipe, or just plain old hocus pocus like Google’s endless yammering about search quality, and people believe this stuff.
Years ago, enterprise search pitch men and pitch women discovered that promising to index “all of an organization’s information” and “eliminating time wasted looking for information” was the key to sales. Explaining that enterprise search was more like crafting a specific search system for a particular and quite specific problem was the more rational approach.
Sales were made, but the users were unhappy. The consequences were dire. Companies failed. Investors lost their money. One search executive was convicted of a criminal offense.
Flash forward to today. Predictive analytics, algorithms, and smart software will improve efficiency, reduce costs, unleash innovation, extract value from dark data, and generate new revenue.
Facts are one thing. Marketing hype another. Guess which takes precedence in search, analytics, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing?
If you said facts, you are in the minority if the Neiman Lab write up is correct.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2020
NSO Group: More Lumens Added to the PR Spotlight
February 1, 2020
DarkCyber noted this Thomson Reuters’ story: “FBI Probes Use of Israeli Firm’s Spyware in Personal and Government Hacks.” This is an exclusive story from “sources.” The write up reports:
The FBI is investigating the role of Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group Technologies in possible hacks on American residents and companies as well as suspected intelligence gathering on governments.
Our view is that companies purpose built to serve the needs of government agencies may find themselves struggling to break through a revenue ceiling made of Level 1 bullet resistant acrylic sheet. That may be an issue. Also, some of the specialized tools may be used for extracurricular activities which may not be monitored or authorized.
Why?
- Developing and maintaining the efficacy of special purpose software is expensive. Think in terms of more demand for certain engineers than there are engineers. Think in terms of the time required to figure out how to perform certain tasks.
- Investors have many, many choices of cyber security ventures in which to invest. The companies which have been around for several years may not provide the potential “lift” a funding source requires. (It doesn’t matter if these Borges-like dreams are possible. Dreams about big payoffs are just more interesting. Otherwise, a fund could buy stock in Verint.)
- There are a finite number of really big specialized software buyers. This means that price pressure on licensing fees exists for most of the companies.
- Numerous “me too” services are pushing down prices of specialized tools; possibly Sixgill, another firm based in Israel, with the tag line “deep, dark, and beyond.
- There are unexpected competitors; for example, some specialized tools can be located using off the grid services located via WhatsApp groups, i2p services, or the on-again, off-again Dark Web.
A changing market with more companies facing a need to make sales may push specialized software vendors to look for other sources of revenue. And there may be some enterprise customers who could be repurposing certain systems and methods. Some software may be so useful it can punch holes in that acrylic ceiling.
Net net: What is clear that change is afoot.
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2020
Ivy Covered Irony: MIT Reports about Harvard
January 30, 2020
DarkCyber has mentioned MIT’s enthusiastic but mostly covert embrace of the late Mr. Epstein’s donations. One of the research team noted this article in the MIT Technology Review: “A Harvard Super Chemist Has Been Arrested Over Lying about Secret China Payments.” The main point of the Epstein-supported MIT Technology Review struck the DarkCyber team as:
According to a charging document written by an FBI agent, Lieber received more than $15 million in US grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, among other sources. Researchers are supposed to disclose if they also have foreign funding. But Lieber didn’t do so and then, when confronted, gave “false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements” to the DOD and to the NIH as recently as this month.
Yep, the Epstein-interacting institution is reporting that Harvard engaged in illegal activities.
Several observations:
- The write up may have more to do with making sure readers of MIT Technology Review know that Harvard University has a bad actor on the payroll
- Another prestigious institution struggles to provide a reasonable example of ethical behavior
- An interesting philosophical question can be discussed in a law school class at Suffolk University: “Which is more desirable — Taking money from an accursed human trafficker or selling information to a foreign power?”
DarkCyber is disappointed that two institutions of higher education are teaching by example, just not positive example.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2020
China Software Numbers: Suggestive If Accurate
January 28, 2020
DarkCyber spotted “China’s Leading Software Companies Report Rising Income.” The write up included some interesting, but difficult to verify, numbers:
- The companies in the sample generated US$118.5 billion of revenue from software business in 2018, 6.5 percent up from that of the top 100 companies a year ago.
- More than 30 companies saw revenue surging by more than 20 percent
- 14 of the companies in the sample had revenues above US$1.4 billion
- Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud computing subsidiary, was number three on the list of 100 companies
- In the same period, these companies invested about US$25 billion in research and development, 12.6 percent higher than that of the top 100 companies in 2018.
And the killer number was, “Their average R&D intensity, the proportion of R&D expenditure to main business revenue, reached 10.1 percent, 2.2 percentage points higher than the average level of the software industry, the ministry’s data showed.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 28, 2020
Amazon Blockchain: How Secure?
January 27, 2020
This write up does not address Amazon’s blockchain innovations. We have a summary of our Amazon blockchain technology which points out specific systems and methods, the online bookstore has “invented” to make blockchain more secure. (Keep in mind, Amazon is the inventor of S3 buckets, which in some circumstances, are somewhat leaky.) You can get a copy of the free DarkCyber Amazon Blockchain report using the information at the end of this blog post.
The article “Trust No One. Not Even a Blockchain” suggests that one of the most hyped data management technologies may have a weakness. Technology experts are not fond of weaknesses. Technology is a solution, and solutions must not have fatal flaws like mere humans working at a giant company or in the semi isolation of a coffee shop.
The write up points out:
Similarly, just because a person claims to have uploaded all of her photographs to a blockchain—like Mila’s mother in Parker’s story—does not mean there are no other pictures from her life. Omitted data, bad data, too much data: These dynamics rob a blockchain of the claim of being a source of truth. Garbage in, garbage out. This concept in computer science means that an input consisting of flawed data will generate a flawed output. So it is with blockchain technology. We can record false claims on a blockchain. We can omit data. Suddenly, that source of truth does not appear so honest.
The essay concludes with this observation:
Distortion of reality is a growing threat. Deepfakes, synthetic videos that replace an image of one person with that of another, may soon become indistinguishable from authentic videos. Today, deepfakes may largely be used in the making of memes, face-swapping celebrities, but their proliferation will undoubtedly have major implications on everything from political campaigns to policies around pornography. What makes the threat of deepfakes so profound is that they render a medium formerly viewed as reliable—namely video—undependable. We cannot trust the very thing that we are supposed to trust. This constitutes the most substantial danger to a society’s notion of reality. If we are supposed to trust whatever is on a blockchain, then we are in trouble indeed. After all, the blockchain is only as good as the data we put on it.
Amazon’s blockchain inventions address the “control” of the information placed in the blockchain. That may give Amazon an advantage in the policeware market.
If you want a copy of the DarkCyber executive summary for our 54 page report about Amazon’s blockchain and some of the implications of these inventions, send an email to darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. No charge for the summary. The full report, however, is not free.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2020
Technical Debt: Less Like Tetris, More Like Ignoring Rotting Foundations
January 21, 2020
Googlers were chattering about technical debt years ago. I can’t recall the specific service which triggered a discussion about investing, patching, ignoring, or shuttering a service due to “costs.” The online ad giant was not the first mover in MBA/bean counter thinking about the resources consumed maintaining, enhancing, and changing the oil in its massive online systems.
DarkCyber noted “Technical Debt Is like a Tetris Game.” The write up is interesting, and the comparison in some ways is apt. However, video games are set up so that “winning” is often elusive. Dealing with technical debt in an organization is a bit different. The erosion often takes time and may be caused by wrapping the core software in more code. How often are substantive changes made to Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft services. Amazon recommends books the DarkCyber team has already read. Why not look up recommendations in the user’s list of Kindle purchases? An expense for technical debt or managerial indifference? Facebook routinely purges false accounts, but DarkCyber’s mascot has a Facebook page and posts infrequently and then via a software script. The page is still alive and kicking. Why not match user activity to an account and dump the dogs? Pun intended. Technical rot, not technical debt and who wants to lose a “user”? Google delivers irrelevant search results for many queries. Why not fix up the clever PageRank thing? Technical debt or the lack of programmers who want to plunge their hands into the terracotta tiles of the Stanford Mycenaean’s? And Microsoft? Why not make numbering work in Word or document the known dependencies in the Pharonic Fast Search & Transfer code.
These are not game scenarios. These examples are conscious choices to avoid fiddling with software developed decades ago. The premise appears to be that “good enough” is indeed the path to riches. DarkCyber believes that a failure to invest in foundations means that the structure will sag over time. If the structure collapses, the problems are not the death of colorful digital creatures. The implosion will affect humans. Not a game.
There is not money, time, and skilled personnel to remediate what’s chugging along. Decades, not weeks or months. Decades.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2020
US China Deal: The Honeymoon Will Not Last Long
January 17, 2020
DarkCyber spotted a write up called “China Bracing for US Tech War with Plan to Cut Reliance on Imports of Key Components to Just 25 Per Cent.” If the information in the write up is accurate, the implications for certain countries and companies selling to China could be interesting. We noted this statement in the article:
China is aiming to increase its reliance on domestic production for key components, including chips and controlling systems, to 75 per cent by 2025, according to a former minister.
So a dollar spent by China to shore up its Great Firewall will allegedly become $0.25 in 60 months or less.
This statement seemed to more of a warning and less of an olive branch extended to the US:
The move, which includes a series of plans to improve weak links in the areas of hi-tech research and crucial component development “one by one”, is seen as part of China’s preparation for a intensifying technology war with the United States.
(“China Must Rein in SOEs to Gain Upper Hand in Tech War, Help Private Firms like Huawei to Innovate” provides some color on China’s desire to become the dominant technology player in the future.)
To support the knowledge sector, the write up reveals:
China will also increase the number of “national manufacturing innovation centers” to 40 by 2025 from 11 at the end of 2019 “to cover all major industries”. China’s first national manufacturing innovation centre was launched in 2016, focusing on making and researching electric vehicle batteries.
The concluding section of the write up states the obvious:
is increasingly clear that a technology rivalry between China and US is set to deepen…with competition in next generation communication, 5G and artificial intelligence key areas of contention.
Net net: A calm before the storm.
Stephen E Arnold, January 17, 2020
Software: Duct Tape Is the Fabric of Solutions
January 16, 2020
Polygon published “The Truth Is That Many Games Are Held Together by Duct Tape.” The write up explains that software is messy. Here’s one statement from the write up:
Time and time again, development stories of video games reveal that, because video games have so many different moving parts, from game design to sound, that things often don’t come together until the last possible second — if they come together at all.
We noted this passage as well:
Obviously, developers should care about game-breaking bugs, or anything that gets in the way of a player’s enjoyment of the experience, but as they say, perfect is the enemy of good.
DarkCyber has one issue with the article. The focus is narrow when it should be more inclusive. Microsoft Word numbering, Framemaker’s handling of color, iTunes inability to delete items, Android widget disappearance, and similar quirks have been nettlesome for years, and in some cases decades.
Good enough is the name of the game.
And to provide a light at the end of a very long tunnel: smart software and point and click programming will solve these problems. Sure enough.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2020
Smart Software: Is Control Too Late Arriving?
January 4, 2020
I read “US Government Limits Exports of Artificial Intelligence Software.” The main idea is that smart software is important. The insight may be arriving after the train has left the station. The trusty Thomson Reuters’ report states:
It comes amid growing frustration from Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the slow roll-out of rules toughening up export controls, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, urging the Commerce Department to speed up the process.
And the reason (presented via a quote from an expert) seems to be “rival powers like China.”
I took a quick spin through other items in my newsfeed this morning, Saturday, January 3, 2020. Here’s a selection of five items. Remember. It’s Saturday and a day when many Silicon Valley types get ready for some football.
- A.I. Is Learning to Read Mammograms. Will Google keep this technology from other countries? Google is a stakeholder in One Medical. Publicly traded companies have to generate revenue. Will Google and One Medical ignore revenue opportunities?
- A free book “Dive into Deep Learning”. Will this information be limited in its distribution? What about code on GitHub?
- “This Startup Is Raising $7 Million for a Technology That “Can Authenticate People Based on Their Typing Style”. A non US company, now based in Brooklyn, uses AI to identify individuals. What if the technology returns to the land of its birthplace and seeks customers to the East?
- “Mirriad’s AI Slips Ads into Empty Spaces in Online Videos”. Will this Five Eyes’ participant prevent an advertising company from deploying its smart software into other solutions in other countries?
- “Build, Train, and Deploy a Machine Learning Model” Will Amazon limit access to its machine learning how-to content online, at conferences, and in college classrooms?
Not far from where I am writing this, more than 100 exchange students are working in teams to master a range of technologies, including smart software. One group is Chinese; another is German. Will the smart software encountered by these students be constrained in some way? What if the good stuff has been internalized, summarized, and emailed to fellow travelers in another country?
DarkCyber has a question, “Is it perhaps a little late in the game to change the rules?”
Stephen E Arnold, January 4, 2020
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