Understanding Google: Site Reliability
August 6, 2018
There are few mysteries we never thought would be answered: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? What happened to Amelia Earhart? And how does Google marketing work? The first two will probably never find a satisfactory solution, but the third might, after we stumbled upon a recent page and book “The Site Reliability Workbook.”
According to the site:
“The Site Reliability Workbook is the hands-on companion to the bestselling Site Reliability Engineering book and uses concrete examples to show how to put SRE principles and practices to work. This book contains practical examples from Google’s experiences and case studies from Google’s Cloud Platform customers. Evernote, The Home Depot, The New York Times, and other companies outline hard-won experiences of what worked for them and what didn’t.”
While this doesn’t prove to be the Rosetta Stone we were hoping for, it’s always good to get a better understanding of the mechanics at play in these situations. However, the jury is out about whether it is a smart use of time. Some critics say Google is a mess that could experience an outage at any minute, while others are celebrating the search giant and its marketing chops. Either way, we’ll have a slightly better understanding about why after reading this workbook.
Patrick Roland, August 6, 2018
Periodic Table of Technology
August 4, 2018
Get ready to redistribute your retirement funds or plan your career. A Periodic Table of Elements with two letter mnemonics, brief descriptions, and more is now available. The work is an output of Imperial Tech Foresight. I scanned the table, focusing on technologies which are likely to come along in the near future. I noted three:
- The balloon powered Internet. Yep, that’s a Google thing.
- Computerized shoes. Yep, but I think I saw a young skater with sneakers which flashed secret messages.
- Human bio hacking. Yep, but I thought one fellow who was doing self DNA modification has moved on to another realm.
One interesting inclusion in the chart is a listing of companies engaged in these technologies.
One or two will produce financial home runs. Start investing.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2018
Institutionalizing Good Enough
July 26, 2018
The question is, “When is it a good time to fix bugs?” The answer is, “Not too often.” The reason, as I learned from an alleged whiz kid who was speaking at one of the German tech conferences, was, “Software just has to be good enough.”
I was on the program too, but I was advocating an opinion less popular than a lecture about sediments in the Ruhr Valley in 1615.
As it turns out, the whiz kid is absolutely correct. Try and search YouTube for live streams about the Hawaii volcano. How’s that working out for you? Need to locate the phone number of person in your neighborhood via Bing? Let me know if you too long for the long gone white pages directory. Need information from a Russian blog? Give Qwant.com a whirl. Helpful, right?
I read “Not All Bugs Are Worth Fixing and That’s Okay.”
That’s a special title. We have the “all” word. A categorical affirmative. Logical. I also like the psychbabbley “That’s Okay.”
Good. I’m okay. You’re okay.
The write up explains that flaws are not really a problem. Maybe a missile guidance system has a glitch and takes out a primary school. Hey, no biggie.
I learned:
You may feel a strong pull to fix every software bug in your application. This is almost always a bad idea.
Obviously the children at the aforementioned school were of little consequence.
The author makes clear:
“The truth is sustaining high availability at the standard of five-nines costs a lot of money.” It’s a similar story with stability—at a certain point, it’s too expensive to keep fixing bugs because of the high-opportunity cost of building new features. You need to decide your target for stability just like you would availability, and it should not be 100%.
Okay, flaws are in.
The idea is that “good enough” is now institutionalized.
Interesting. I wonder what happens if that smart software has some issues which surface in unexpected ways.
Good enough, I assume.
Stephen E Arnold, July 26, 2018
Geo Map Pricing
July 20, 2018
In the market for maps for your application? If so, you may find the pricing data in “Farewell, Google Maps” useful. Current information about the costs of real time, cloud based data services can be difficult to get for a specific use case. Here’s the segment which I found helpful:
- Google Maps – $7 for each 1000 map loads irrespective of map size or zooming/panning by the user ($5.60 with discount for high volume)
- Mapbox – $0.50 for each “map view”, which despite the name is not a map view, but request of 4 or 15 map tiles (depending on map type), rounded up
- Azure Maps – $0.50 for 1000 “transactions”, where transaction is equal to 15 map tiles
- TomTom – $0.50 for 1000 “transactions” ($0.40 with highest volume discounts), each transaction is equal to 15 map tiles
- HERE – pricing is by bundles, Standard bundle amounts to $0.50 for 1000 “transactions” (15 tiles)
- MapTiler – $0.05 for each map tile
- Apple Maps – so far is in beta and offers a generous free usage allowance, no commercial pricing available.
The write provides other helpful information; for example, data density. I would point out that the illustrations used make another point; specifically, low contrast maps are very difficult to read.
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2018
Changing How Electronics Are Done
July 18, 2018
I read “DARPA Plans a Major Remake of US Electronics.” The write up reports that the US government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding activities to “radically alter how electronics are made.” The idea is to make an engineer skilled in the anticipated art to become more productive. If the funding generates innovation and applied research deliverables, “the effect could be to make small groups of engineers capable of feats that take 100 engineers to achieve today.”
There are some interesting observations presented in the write up. These are attributed to Bill Chappell, who is the DARPA directors for this initiative. The write up is important because the stated objectives are one that will allow some technical and process roadblocks to be removed; for example, acceleration of innovation, increasing productivity, and stepping up activity for open source hardware.
However, there are several ideas percolating in the statements in my opinion.
First, the US is not producing what we call in Harrod’s Creek “home grown electronics engineers.” In part, the initiative is to increase US activity. China and Russia, two cite two nation states, are creating more technical professionals. Now the US has to do more with less.
Second, big picture problems are not what some US projects accomplish. The way innovation works is to make incremental advances within often quite specific scopes of interest. This new initiative is more big picture and less improving the efficiency of an advertising server’s predictive matching in silicon or some equally narrow focus.
Third, the program suggests to me that some insightful US government professionals are concerned about the US electronics industry. The idea that technology from another nation state could create an unknown vulnerability is sufficiently troubling to warrant this big picture program.
In short, the failures of the US electronics sector have become a concern. One hopes that this project will address, in part, this significant issue. In my DarkCyber video news program to be released on July 24, 2018, I comment about the forthcoming Chinese made blockchain phone. I ask one question, “Does this device have the capability to phone home to the manufacturer? Could the device be monitored by an entity in the country of origin?”
Stephen E Arnold, July 18, 2018
The Spirit of 1862 Seems to Live On
July 2, 2018
Years ago I learned about a Confederate spy who worked in a telegraph office used by General Henry Halleck and General US Grant. The confederate spy allegedly “filtered” orders. This man in the middle exploit took place in 1862. You can find some information about this incident at this link. The Verge dipped into history for its 2013 write up “How Lincoln Used the Telegraph Office to Spy on Citizens Long Before the NSA.” Information about the US Signals Corps and Bell Telephone / AT&T is abundant.
Why am I dipping into history?
The reason is that I read several articles similar to “8 AT&T Buildings That Are Central to NSA Spying.” The Intercept’s story, which struck me as a bit surprising, triggered this cascade of “wow, what a surprise” copycat articles.
Even though I live in rural Kentucky, the “spy hubs” did not strike me as news, a surprise, or different from systems and methods in use in many countries. Just as Cairo, Illinois, was important to General Grant, cities with large populations and substantial data flows are important today.
Stephen E Arnold, July 2, 2018
Real of Fake News: Did the NSA Help Develop Bitcoin?
June 15, 2018
Here in Harrod’s Creek, one can buy corn meal and squirrel meat using the barter method. Put that quart jar of moonshine on the counter and pick up your vittles. No digital currency here.
Therefore, the assertion in “The NSA Helped to Invent Bitcoin, Founder of World’s Second Largest Cryptocurrency Ethereum Claims” puzzles the Beyond Search and DarkCyber research team. The source is impeccable: The UK tabloid Metro.
We learned:
Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-born creator of Ethereum, suggested the National Security Agency (NSA) was involved in the development of the virtual currency.
With Amazon on the Ethereum bandwagon, we think that currency and transaction platform is worth monitoring.
But did a US government agency create Bitcoin? Metro reports:
Earlier this year, it was reported that a boss of the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky made a similar claim. ‘Bitcoin is a project of American intelligence agencies, which was designed to provide quick funding for US, British and Canadian intelligence activities in different countries,’ she said, according to Sputnik News. ‘[The technology] is privatized just like the Internet, GPS and TOR. In fact, it is dollar 2.0. Its rate is controlled by the owners of exchanges.’
We’ll stick to old fashioned currencies and the staple one of our contract workers manufactures in another hollow. White lightning can change one’s perception of reality. A reporter, for example, hot on the trail of Satoshi Nakamoto might have taken a slurp.
Stephen E Arnold, June 15, 2018
Could Ma Bell Get Her Old Mojo Back?
June 15, 2018
Many years ago I worked on projects for the original AT&T, also Bellcore, and USWest. I am not a bell head, but I understand some of the Maslovian forces at work. Telecommunications utilities want to be monopolies. It seems to be a genetic law embedded in former members of the Young Pioneers and in the bricks and electronics of the Piscataway data center and the Cherry Hill labs.
I want to point out the write up “AT&T completes Acquisition of Time Warner, Inc.” The deal may not be for copper wire and 5ESS switches, but Ma Bell may be gathering her skirts and getting ready to rumble.
The write up states that AT&T has communications, media, international services, and advertising.
What’s missing?
From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, AT&T is one acquisition away from bring back Ma Bell. Either AT&T buys Verizon or Verizon buys AT&T and all will be right with the world. Another angle for revivifying Ma Bell is for an investment bank to purchase both companies and merge them.
Why?
Digital services are more efficient and effective when they operate as single source providers.
Judge Green went against the natural order of digital services, and now Bell Telephone is one acquisition away from a most auspicious return. Will that happen? Could that happen?
AT&T just bought Time Warner. Why not deliver a true Bell head solution?
Even Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft would have to rethink their business plans.
One other benefit: Phone calls would connect more quickly and certain types of oversight become much simpler.
I will have to look around for my Young Pioneers baseball cap. I think I had a red, white, and blue one with a Bell logo. None of that death star iconography.
Stephen E Arnold, June 15, 2018
Why We Cannot Have Nice Info Things
June 9, 2018
With every good invention there comes a time when somebody figures out how to use it for the porn industry. The examples include the inventions of the Internet, animation, comic books, writing, drawing, plumbing, electricity, printing, movies, videogames, and the list goes on. Now we can add AI algorithms to the list. Quartz shares how innocent AI algorithms became used for porn in the article, “Google Gave The World Powerful AI Tools, And The World Made Porn.”
Google released its internal tool TensorFlow to the public in 2015. This changed the way AI tools would forever be developed. TensorFlow is a powerful tool that can turn anyone with a little know how into an AI developer. For a while, academics were the only ones using TensorFlow, then the Reddit community got hold of it. What did Reddit do with it? They used TensorFlow to make porn and lots of it!
Reddit user deep fakes built a video editing app that allowed users to seamlessly put people’s faces on porn actors’ bodies. It escalated from there. Blaming Google for bringing a new dimension to porn is like saying the entire Internet is bad. Yes, the Internet has a figurative and literal dark side), but the benefits outweigh the negatives. Also Google is not liable for the porn:
“Since the software can run locally on a computer, large tech companies relinquish control of what’s done with it after it leaves their servers. The creed of open source, or at least how it’s been viewed in modern software development, also dictates that these companies are freed of guilt or liability from what others do with the software. In that way, it’s like a gun or a cigarette.”
But there are ethical concerns:
“The tools that Google offers today are not the keys to creating Skynet or some other super intelligent being, but they can still do real harm. Google and others like Microsoft, which also offers an open-source AI framework, have been vocal about the ethical development of artificial intelligence that would not cause harm, and their on-staff scientists have signed pledges and started research groups dedicated to the topic. But the companies don’t offer any guidance or mandates for those who download their free software. The TensorFlow website shows how to get the software running, but no disclaimers on how to use the software ethically or instructions on how to make sure your dataset isn’t biased.”
There is a right to be concerned, but at the same time there is not. Should this be monitored? Of course, especially if it will do harm to others. But if it is self-contained and no innocents are being hurt, it is arguable to leave them alone too. We all know, however, that harm will come from this. It is the same story in a new medium.
Whitney Grace, June 9, 2018
DarkCyber for June 5, 2018: Amazon and Its LE and Intelligence Services
June 5, 2018
The DarkCyber for June 5, 2018, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress or on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/273170550.
This week’s DarkCyber presents an extract from Stephen E Arnold’s lectures at the Prague Telestrategies ISS conference. The conference is designed for security, intelligence, and law enforcement professionals in Europe.
Stephen’s two lectures provided attendees with a snapshot of the services Amazon’s streaming data marketplace offer to customers, developers, and entrepreneurs.
Stephen said:
The Amazon platform is positioned to provide a robust, innovative way to anonymize digital currency transactions and perform the type of analyses needed to deal with bad actors and the activities.
The information was gleaned from Amazon conference lectures, Amazon’s Web logs and documentation, and open source documents.
For example, one public document stated:
“… A law enforcement agency may be a customer and may desire to receive global Bitcoin transactions, correlated by country, with USP data to determine source IP addresses and shipping addresses that correlate to Bitcoin addresses.”
Coupled with Amazon’s facial recognition service “Rekognition” and Amazon’s wide array of technical capabilities, Amazon is able to provide specialized content processing and data services.
Stephen stated:
Instead of learning how to use many different specialized systems, the Amazon approach offers a unified capability available with a Kindle-style interface. This is a potential game changer for LE, intel, and security service providers.
In this week’s DarkCyber video, Stephen provides an eight minute summary of his research, including the mechanisms by which new functions can be added to or integrated with the system.
A for fee lecture about what Stephen calls “Amazon’s intelligence services” is available on a for fee basis. For information, write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com.
Kenny Toth, June 5, 2018
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
