Did You Know This Barn Burned 20 Years Ago?
December 30, 2019
Now let’s be positive. One can play games any time, any place. One can broadcast one’s thoughts any time, any place. One can find objective information any time, any place. What’s not to like?
Quite a bit, according to a newspaper which has tried for years to embrace zeros and ones. No, not embrace, love those zeros and ones. Navigate to “We’ve Spent the Decade Letting Our Tech Define Us. It’s Out of Control” and relive the old news: Barn burned. Horses killed or rustled. Amazon warehouse built on the site.
Yep, old news.
The write up states:
What this decade’s critiques miss is that over the past 10 years, our tech has grown from some devices and platforms we use to an entire environment in which we function. We don’t “go online” by turning on a computer and dialing up through a modem; we live online 24/7, creating data as we move through our lives, accessible to everyone and everything.
Obviously the newspaper continues to write about what happened quite a while ago. The history of online was set when online databases crushed traditional print indexes. Online outfits like Dialog, SDC, and even Dialcom for goodness sakes changed research and journal publishing. Did anyone notice? Sure, those disintermediated. But the nature of online information was evident by 1980. Let’s see, wasn’t that about 40 years ago.
But now we have a decade to consider.
The newspaper notes, almost with a little surprise:
We’ve spent the last 10 years as participants in a feedback loop between surveillance technology, predictive algorithms, behavioral manipulation and human activity. And it has spun out of anyone’s control.
The datasphere surprises, it seems. The basic law of online is that a monopoly structure is the basic protein structure of the digital world. It’s a surprise that once data flow through a system, those data must be logged. Logged data have to be analyzed. More data begets additional data. And there are other “laws” of online.
The venerable newspaper, with its begging for dollars please rendered in #ffff00 is reporting the news.
One problem: The news is really old. The new year is almost upon us. Maybe old news is just safer, easier, and more clickworthy than what is actually scrolling and swiping to the future.
Keep in mind that that Amazon delivery will arrive today.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2019
Online Calendars: Maybe Not for Everyone?
December 27, 2019
Fast Company published an unusual “hey, technology may not be the cat’s pajamas” article. The title? “This Old-School Weekly Planner Runs My Life.” The main point is that writing stuff in a paper monthly planner works reasonably well. For anyone giving a deposition, trying to gather data for a tax audit, or just sitting down with a lawyer—those paper calendars may be more usable than electronic systems. Plus, the calendars are fungible. This hard copy approach can be a net positive in some circumstances.
This very Silicon Valley information service states:
In an era of technological inundation, I’ve found that the one thing that actually does keep me on track is an old-school, pencil and paper weekly planner. It allows me to map out my life, week to week, and pull all my disparate notifications and notes from emails, texts, in-person meetings, and phone calls into one place.
Just a thought that makes sense from a publication which often touts some wonky analyses.
Stephen E Arnold, December 27, 2019
Underground Operations: Some Considerations
December 27, 2019
We believe the greatest dangers posed to modern society come from the air in the forms of intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombs, and armed drones. The Federation of American Scientists, however, explain that US soldiers face subterranean dangers too as explained in a new manual entitled, “ATP 3-21.51 Subterranean Operations -November 2019.”
Subterranean warfare is one of the oldest and most successful forms of combat. Ancient civilizations built underground fortifications to fend off their enemies or used them to transport supplies or as escape routes. In World War II, the Japanese built underground bunkers in their island hopping campaign to fight the Allied Powers. During the Vietnam War, the Vietcong constructed elaborate tunnel systems that ranged for miles and were booby-trapped. In October 1978, a tunnel was discovered on the North and South Korean borders. The North Koreans planned to use the tunnel to attack Seoul and it was estimated the 30,000 armed troops could march through it.
Subterranean warfare may seem primitive, but it remains one of the most effective means of combat. Current conflicts within the Middle East and Syria rely on tunnels and the Hamas use tunnels to protect Israeli leaders from air raids:
“Whether to protect vital assets and capabilities, mitigate weapon system and sensor overmatch, to strengthen a larger defensive position, or simply to be used for transportation in our largest cities, subterranean systems continue to be expanded and relied upon throughout the world. Therefore, our Soldiers and leaders must be prepared to fight and win in this environment.”
While tunnels and underground bunkers prove to be reliable, the greatest dangers may come from soldiers and other personnel forced to serve underground.
“Soldiers descending into unknown subterranean spaces often face a sense of isolation, entrapment, and claustrophobia due to the temperature changes, navigating a strange maze of passageways, lack of natural light and air movement, and other factors prevalent in subterranean spaces. Additionally, spiritual, philosophical, cultural beliefs, and previous experiences with subterranean spaces may affect a Soldier’s psychological well-being. The darkness and disconnection from the surface environment affects an individual’s conception of time. Entering unknown subterranean spaces may reduce a Soldier’s perceived sense of security, even before direct fire contact with the enemy.”
No matter the training, a stressful environment will take its toll on a soldier’s mind. Technology to the rescue? Not yet.
Whitney Grace, December 5, 2019
The Real Tesla, Not the Auto Tesla
December 26, 2019
Good old Nikola Tesla. The fellow was not exactly an electrically charged JP Morgan. If you know about the inventor, you may have a flickering sense of his ideas about electricity. But there is another, less publicized facet of his life. For a look behind the towering equipment, navigate to the FBI Vault. There are three sets of PDF files related to this sparking personality. Find the documents at this link: https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla.
Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2019
Facial Recognition Glitches: Nothing New When Marketers and the Greedy Explains Technology
December 20, 2019
You can read “Federal Study Confirms Racial Bias of Many Facial Recognition Systems, Casts Doubt on Their Expanding Use” and get a semi coherent explanation about a nifty, much hyped technology.
A camera captures a picture. Software matches the image to a reference image. Software displays the identity of the person in the captured image.
Nothing could be easier, better, faster, and cheaper except when these systems return 25 to 60 percent incorrect matches. Close enough for horse shoes.
The write up states:
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal laboratory known as NIST that develops standards for new technology, found “empirical evidence” that most of the facial-recognition algorithms exhibit “demographic differentials” that can worsen their accuracy based on a person’s age, gender or race. The study could fundamentally shake one of American law enforcement’s fastest-growing tools for identifying criminal suspects and witnesses, which privacy advocates have argued is ushering in a dangerous new wave of government surveillance tools.
I am not dragging my French bulldog into this pet store. I do want to point out a few things which are likely to make some people wish I would just go to the warehouse for the elderly and commence the dying thing:
1. None of the whiz bang technologies work in the real world. This means that enterprise search, content management, predictive analytics — don’t work like the marketing pitches say they do. The technologies work under quite specific conditions. When those conditions are not met, the systems go wonky. Clueless managers want to buy a silver bullet, preferably from someone with whom they can relate. When the tech nose dives into the ground, just call the lawyers and procure another system. There’s a reason liberal arts majors don’t take differential equations in college.
2. Engineering demonstrations take place in a hot house. You know. The kind of place that eccentrics use to raise orchids in Manhattan. Take the technology out of the hot house and let 23 year olds use the system, and the results are predictable. There are not enough dollars and people in the world to work through the data to figure out who is who and what is what. Why not guess? The results are likely to be more useful. Shocker. Come on. You know that random guesses can do better than a Bayesian based system which is not retrained on a continuing basis with carefully selected data.
3. Companies and stakeholders are so desperate for sales, opportunities to make presentations, and to convince people to give them money that the truth is squeezed from the engineers’ and developers’ actual statements. For example, the engineer says, “The training data must be updated every day, preferably in real time.” The marketer says, “Set it and forget it.” Yeah, right.
Net net: Facial recognition technology works under the right conditions. Unfortunately the right conditions are not the real world with people wearing sparkly sunglasses, a new hair style, a disguise, or a face that reflects one too many mojitos or a collision with a door.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2019
NSO Group: Getting Mostly Fact Free Content Marketing
December 19, 2019
NSO Group is a specialized software and services firm. For years, the company operated off the radar of journalists and other observers. Once again NSO Group is making headlines, and DarkCyber is not sure if this is a good or not so good thing.
“Israeli Spyware Allegedly Used to Target Pakistani Officials’ Phones” reports that “NSO Group malware may have been used to access WhatsApp messages for state on state espionage.” There’s nothing quite like the weasel word “allegedly” and the phrase “may have been used” to raise some questions about this write up in a UK newspaper.
The article focuses on WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. The controversial outfit provides encrypted messaging to millions of people. Facebook is not exactly the world’s most straightforward company because it fancy dances around a number of behaviors.
Is it surprising that specialized firms have developed systems and methods to shine some light on the encrypted messages flowing through a widely used messaging app? DarkCyber thinks that dozens of specialized firms are working on exactly this problem. Do bad actors use Facebook’s and other firms’ encrypted messaging solutions to plan, recruit, and raise money? Yep.
What are governments supposed to do? Ignore the bad actors’ and their low cost, secret communications mechanism?
DarkCyber thinks this is a reasonable question to consider. The write up states, reports, or asserts:
Representatives for NSO declined to comment on questions about whether the company’s software had been used for government espionage.
The company has previously said that it considered it a “misuse” of its product if the software was used for anything other than the prevention of “serious crime and terrorism”. While it is not clear who wanted to target Pakistani government officials, the details are likely to fuel speculation that India could have been using NSO technology for domestic and international surveillance. The government of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, is facing questions from human rights activists about whether it has bought NSO technology after it emerged that 121 WhatsApp users in India were allegedly targeted earlier this year.
Yep, “not clear”, “speculation”, and another “allegedly.” Plus, NSO Group and others cited in the write up declined to comment.
Reason? The information presented is designed to generate clicks and not provide substantive, verifiable facts about what are ultimately decisions by governments of nation states.
Right? Governments. Nation states. Laws. Policies. Maybe nations should not be allowed to operate according to their precepts.
And NSO Group? Back in the spotlight about systems and methods tailored to governmental entities. Perhaps the newspaper should focus on some of the more interesting specialist firms operating in the UK. There are some, and a few might welcome fact based coverage.
Alleged and speculative writing is marketing from DarkCyber’s point of view. NSO Group has customers; the newspaper begs for money. Relevant? Yes, because sensationalism is not helpful for some important specialist products and services.
Stephen E Arnold, December 19, 2019
The Middle Kingdom and Surveillance Technology: Another Revenue and Influencer Opportunity?
December 19, 2019
China empowers 63 ruling entities with surveillance tech.
We are not surprised to learn that China had become a hub of surveillance technologies for repressive governments. The Japan Times’ article, “AI Surveillance Proliferating, with China Exporting Tech to Over 60 Countries, Report Says,” cites a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The article specifies:
“Chinese companies have exported artificial intelligence surveillance technology to more than 60 countries including Iran, Myanmar, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and others with dismal human rights records, according to a report by a U.S. think tank. With the technology involving facial recognition systems that the Communist Party uses to crack down on Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s far western Xinjiang region, the report calls Beijing a global driver of ‘authoritarian tech.’ The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace released the report amid concerns that authoritarian regimes would use the technology to boost their power and data could be sent back to China.”
We also learn China often encourages governments to purchase this tech through soft loans, effectively subsidizing high-tech repression throughout the world. To make matters more ominous, over half these countries have opted in to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure project meant to boost China’s global economic influence.
The report does not stop at China, however. It notes that in Japan the NEC Corporation alone exports AI surveillance tech to 14 countries, IBM does so to 11 countries, and France, Germany, and Israel also proliferate it beyond their borders. According to the report, none of these nations adequately monitor and control the technologies, allowing it to be linked to a “range of violations.”
Cynthia Murrell, December 19, 2019
As the New Year Approach, a Small Reminder for the US Quantum Wizards
December 19, 2019
When it comes to supercomputers, IBM’s Watson is the number one machine. Despite environmental and human rights issues, China wants to be a world leader in quantum research and artificial intelligence. Tech In Asia shares how, “China Quantum Research Team Uses AI To Crack Processing Time In Supercomputer Race.” AI is apparently the key to making supercomputers billions of times faster than they currently are.
China has some of the world’s largest quantum research facilities and they have developed machine learning processes that have cut down on calculation times. The Chinese supercomputers would calculate the ties between subatomic particles. Quantum technology was designed to understand how quantum mechanics work, thus the need for the supercomputers. With the new AI, discovering correlations between subatomic particles faster than anything that has been invented to date. How would it work?
“ ‘It works like the separation of minerals,’ said professor Li Chuanfeng, a lead scientist of the study with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, Anhui province. ‘The AI tells us whether an ore contains gold, iron, or copper, so we can make use of them for different purposes. This was not possible before,’ Li said.
Until now, quantum researchers have had to measure a complete set of physical properties to determine the type of link between particles. It is a difficult, time-consuming job and, when the number of particles increases, the workload grows exponentially. ‘At the end of the day, we might be able to tell this is not a piece of gold, and that would be it. There is no way to know more,’ Li said. This method will increase the supply of resources for quantum information processing significantly.”
USTC has experimented with quantum mechanics for years and the university has a large amount of data for the AI to learn from. The AI designed to measure particles’ physical properties is 90% accurate and works in less than a second, when before it required over an hour. USTC plans to train the AI with larger data sets and is working on a quantum computer than is predicted to be one trillion times faster than today’s most powerful supercomputer.
Sounds impressive, but not as interesting as the number of engineers the Middle Kingdom possesses.
Whitney Grace, December 19, 2019
5G: Service or Surveillance?
December 16, 2019
A newspaper with an interesting reputation may have revealed surveillance secrets. “5G Can Spy on You” restates assertions by a “vocal 5G critic.” DarkCyber noted these assertions, which if accurate, reveal why the technology has some professionals intrigued and possibly motivated to deploy the technology:
- 5G can listen to private conversations in homes
- The 5G devices now being deployed are “scanners”
- A single car can be subject to “target acquire” functions
- Analysis of microwaves makes it possible to digitalize a voice conversation
- A similar analysis allows an observer to see an image of a person in a home.
A single source article which references pickled vegetables with 5G technology may cause some to sniff. The question is, “Are these assertions accurate?”
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2019
Smart Automation
November 30, 2019
Companies the world over are using AI to automate more and more of their business processes. Digital South Africa takes a look at how some companies use the technology in their customer relationship management (CRM) in the article, “How AI Is Helping Brands Manage their Online Reputation.” Reporter Ashleigh Wainstein notes advantages include improved efficiency, error reduction, and detailed performance analyses. She writes:
“Customers are warming to the idea of artificial intelligence because it provides a way to get quick responses. Review responses can be semi-automated through NLP and AI but it is important to always have a human eye to ensure 100% accuracy and personalization. It’s important that there is some customizable wording in the response to the customer, but much of the information can be automated. It’s also important to have strategic keywords and elements in your review responses and software can ensure these elements are dynamically added, making the responses feel personalized and relevant to the rating and review.”
We are cautioned, however, to never automate responses to bad reviews or complaints. Leaving a bot to handle negative comments could easily spiral into a PR nightmare. Wainstein also observes automation must be adapted to business sectors and regions. In South Africa, for example, they have a lot of local slang on top of 11 official languages. She and her team chose the newly open sourced Google Bert, which she says uses a wider range of contextual words and natural language for more accurate results. They have trained it with their own data on South African language quirks.
Third-party APIs can be used to automate reporting, which saves time and reduces human error. We are reminded:
“Reports can be produced on anything from impressions, clicks and calls to reviews, review scores, social media posts and bookings stats. Generally, anything that’s quantifiable and that’s available to analyze, can be aggregated, counted and automated. Any measurable digital marketing stats are generally available through third-party APIs (application programming interfaces). An API is a link between two sites, for example between ours and Facebook, Google or TripAdvisor’s – which allows you to pass information back and forth.”
Wainstein closes by reiterating that, though automation can greatly benefit companies, it is important not to go too far. Maintaining the human touch is important, and not just when fielding criticisms. Each company will have to find its own balance.
Cynthia Murrell, November 30, 2019
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
