Twitch: Semantic Search Stream to Lure Gamers, Trolls, and Gals?
July 31, 2020
Amazon Twitch may be more versatile than providing the young at heart with hours of sophisticated content. There are electronic games, trolls (lots of trolls armed with weird icons), and what appear to be females.
Now Twitch will be moving along the content spectrum with the addition of a stream about semgrep. If you are not on a first name basis, semgrep is a semantic search thing. You can join in for free, no waiting rooms, and no big technical hurdles. I suppose one could create a lecture about semantic methods in TikTok 30-second videos which might be a first for the non-invasive, controversial app. Nah, go for Twitch. Skip YouTube and Facebook. Go Bezos bulldozer.
Navigate to https://twitch.tv and go to the jeanqasaur stream. The time on July 31, 2020? The show begins at 4 pm US Eastern time.
The program is definitely perceived by some as super important. A motivated semantic wizard posted a message on the TweetedTimes.com semantic page. Here’s what the message looks like:
DarkCyber’s suggestions:
- Do not become distracted by Raj recruiting, Bad Bunny, or Celestial Fitness. Keep your eye on the grep as it were.
- Sign up because Amazon wants you to be part of the family. Prime members may receive extra Bezos bucks somewhere down the line
- Exercise good grammar, be respectful, and keep your clothes on. Twitch banned SweetSaltyPeach who reinvented herself as RachelKay, Web developer, fashion model, and gamer icon. You may have to reincarnate yourself too.
- Avoid the lure of Animal Crossing Arabia II.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
DarkCyber for July 28, 2020, Now Available
July 28, 2020
The July 28, 2020, DarkCyber is now available. You can view the program on YouTube or on Vimeo.
DarkCyber reports about online, cyber crime, and lesser known Internet services. The July 28, 2020, program includes six stories. First, DarkCyber explains how the miniaturized surveillance device suitable for mounting on an insect moves its camera. With further miniaturization, a new type of drone swarm becomes practical. Second, DarkCyber explains that the value of a stolen personal financial instrument costs little. The vendors guarantee 80 percent success rate on their stolen personally identifiable information or fullz. Third, SIM card limits are in place in South Africa. Will such restrictions on the number of mobile SIM cards spread to other countries or are the limits already in place, just not understood. Fourth, Coinbase bought a bitcoin deanonymization company. Then Coinbase licensed the technology to the US Secret Service. Twitter denizens were not amused. Fifth, Microsoft released a road map to a specific type of malware. Then two years later the story was picked up, further disseminating what amounts to a how to. DarkCyber explains where to download the original document. The final story presents DarkCyber’s view of the management lapses which made the Twitter hack a reality. Adult management is now imperative at the social media company doing its best to create challenges for those who value civil discourse and an intact social fabric.
The delay between our June 9, 2020, video about artificial intelligence composing “real” music and today’s program is easy to explain. Stephen E Arnold, the 76 year old wobbling through life, had the DarkCyber and Beyond Search team working on his three presentations at the US National Cyber Crime Conference. These programs are available via the NCC contact point in the Massachusetts’ Attorney General Office.
The three lectures were:
- Amazon policeware, which we pre-recorded in the DarkCyber format
- A live lecture about investigative software
- A live lecture about Dark Web trends in 2020.
Based on data available to the DarkCyber team, the septuagenarian reached about 500 of the 2000 attendees. Go figure.
Kenny Toth, July 28, 2020
Zoom, Zoom, Meet, Meet, and Trust, Well?
July 24, 2020
We evolved to be social creatures—long, long before Zoom or MS Teams existed. That is why, as Canada’s CBC declares, “Video Chats Short Circuit a Brain Function Essential for Trust—and That’s Bad for Business.” Journalist Don Pittis writes:
“Canadian research on ‘computer-mediated communication,’ begun long before the current lockdown, shows video chat is an inadequate substitute for real-life interaction. The real thing, dependent on non-verbal cues, is extraordinarily more effective in creating rapport and getting ideas across. Not only that, but the familiarity and trust we currently feel with coworkers during the lockdown’s remote calls rests on connections remembered from back when we sat at a nearby desk or met for lunch. As the lockdown stretches out and the mix of colleagues changes, it may be almost impossible to establish healthy trusting working relationships using remote video chat tools alone. That’s bad for business, said organizational behavior specialist Mahdi Roghanizad from Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Business. The reason: getting a good reading on your fellow workers has been repeatedly shown to be essential for business efficiency, reaching common goals and establishing trust. It is why teams that worked remotely even before the pandemic lockdown always met periodically in person. The latest research shows human-to-human bonding is like a kind of intuitive magic.”
Researchers suggest several reasons for this “magic,” including pheromones, body language, and in-person eye contact. Some have found it is harder to detect when someone is lying across video. One social scientist, the University of Waterloo’s Frances Westley, likens video chat to talking with someone wearing sunglasses—it is less satisfying, and can even sap our energy.
For all these reasons, Pittis suspects the supposed work-from-home “revolution” may not last, as many had predicted. Businesses may find it more productive to summon workers back to the office once the danger is gone. In the meantime, Westley suggests, we should reinforce connections with the occasional (socially distanced, mask-augmented) in-person conversation.
Cynthia Murrell, July 24, 2020
Untangling Streaming: Responses to a Huge Web Search Fail
July 22, 2020
More and more users rely on a patchwork of internet streaming services for their video entertainment. Anyone who subscribes to several of these knows the time-wasting tedium of combing through different menus, each with a different UI, just to find something to watch. With even more proprietary streaming services on the horizon, it seems that problem is poised to grow. However, there are at least two apps that provide viable solutions—Reelgood and JustWatch. “These Two Underdog Apps Have Solved Streaming TV’s Biggest Headache,” Fast Company observes. Writer Jared Newman reports:
“Instead of making you bounce between disparate apps, both services can tell you what’s available on practically any streaming service. You can then add movies and shows to a watch list, get more suggestions based on your viewing habits, and even load their apps on your television to use as a centralized streaming menu. Compared to the app overload of most streaming devices, the universal guides offered by JustWatch and Reelgood seem like the ideal way to watch TV in the streaming era.”
Sounds helpful. But why does it take “underdog” apps to do what common sense suggests devices like Roku and Amazon Fire TV should already offer? There are several business reasons, we’re told, like Netflix’s resistance to the aggregation of its content or the fact that streaming services pay for placement on those platforms. As for Reelgood and JustWatch, they each have their own business models. It comes as no surprise that each involves user data. Newman writes:
“JustWatch says that … about 70% of its revenue comes from targeting users with movie trailers based on their viewing habits. For every movie or TV show users click on, JustWatch builds up a taste profile, then separates users into anonymized groups based on what they might like. Movie studios such as Universal and Paramount then give JustWatch a budget to target users with relevant video trailers on sites like Facebook and YouTube. … Reelgood, meanwhile, started from more of a Silicon Valley mindset of building up the product first and finding ways to monetize it later. Sanderson, a former ad product manager at Facebook, initially thought that would take the shape of recommendation-style targeted ads within the service, but lately the company’s been leaning more into selling access to its data.”
See the write-up for more on the business considerations and plans for each of these entities, big and small. There are other notable players in this arena, including TV Time, Simkl, Watchworthy, Wander, and VUniverse. It will be interesting to see where the market, and the technology, go from here.
Cynthia Murrell, July 22, 2020
Google, TikTok, and Seriousness
July 15, 2020
Short form video is in the news. TikTok captivates millions of eyeballs. Many of these eyeballs belong to Americans. Most of these Americans choose not to understand several nuances of “free” 30 second videos created, transmitted, viewed, and forwarded via a mobile device; to wit:
- Software for mobile phones can covertly or overtly suck up data and send those data to a control node
- Those data can be cross correlated in order to yield useful insights about the activities, preferences, and information flowing into and out of a mobile device equipped with an application. Maybe TikTok does this too?
- Those digital data can be made available to third parties; for example, advertising analytics vendors and possibly, just maybe, a country’s intelligence services.
The Information published one of those “we can’t tell you where we got these data but by golly this stuff is rock solid” stories. This one is called “TikTok Agreed to Buy More Than $800 Million in Cloud Services From Google.” Let’s assume that this story about the Google TikTok deal is indeed accurate. We learn:
Last week, though, word surfaced of a buzzy new customer for Google Cloud—TikTok, the app for sharing short videos that is the year’s runaway social media hit. The deal is a lucrative one for Google Cloud, The Information has learned. In a three-year agreement signed in May 2019, TikTok committed to buying more than $800 million of cloud services from Google over that period…
What’s with the Google? Great or lousy business judgment? Does Google’s approach to a juicy deal include substantial discounts in order to get cash in the door? Is the deal another attempt by the Google to get at least some of the China market which it masterfully mishandled by advising the Chinese government to change its ways?
Nope. The new Google wants to grow by locking down multi year contracts. The belief is that these “big deals” will give the Google Cloud the protein shake muscles needed to deal with the Microsofties and the Bezos bulldozer.
New management, new thinking at the GOOG, and there will be more of the newness revealed with each tweak of a two decades old “system.”
At the same time as the Information “real” news story arrived in the DarkCyber news center, a pundit published MBA type write up popped into our “real news” folder. This write up is “The TikTok War.”
Unlike the Information’s story, the Stratechery essay is MBA consultant speak, which is different from “real news.” The point of the 3,900 word consultant report is:
I believe it is time to take China seriously and literally…
There you go: An MBA consulting revelation. One should take China seriously and literally.
Okay. Insight. Timely. Incisive.
From this conclusion, TikTok’s service is no longer appropriate in the US. Banning is probably a super duper idea if I understand the TikTok War. (How does one fight a war by banning digital information? Oh, well, irrelevant question. What’s that truism about ostriches putting their heads in the sand? Also irrelevant.)
Let’s step back and put these two different TikTok articles in a larger context.
The Information wants everyone to know that a mysterious “source” has said that Google has a three year deal with TikTok. This is a surprise? Nope. Google is on the hunt for cash because after Google’s own missteps, it is faced with hard to control costs and some real live “just like Google” competitors; namely, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Netflix. There’s also the mounting challenges of political and social annoyances to add some spice to the Googlers’ day.
The MBA consultant analysis points out that China has to be taken seriously. Prior to TikTok, China was not taken seriously? I suppose TikTok is the catalyst for seriousness. More likely, the TikTok thing evokes MBA consultant outputs to confirm what many people sort of intuit but have not been able to sum up with a “now is the time” utterance.
In my lecture yesterday for the National Cyber Crime Conference, I presented a diagram of how Chinese telecommunications and software systems can exfiltrate information with or without TikTok.
Banning an app is another one of those “Wow, the barn burned and Alibaba built a giant data center where the Milking Shorthorns once stood” moments.
Sourceless revelations about Google’s willingness to offer a deal to a China centric TikTok and MBA consultant revelations that one should take China seriously warrants one response: The ship sailed, returned, built a giant digital port, and has refueled for a return journey. Ban away.
Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2020
How Many Ads Can a YouTube Video Hold? Answer: Never Enough
July 10, 2020
We spotted a HackerNews post wondering if the YouTube (free version) was getting more ad love from the merrie band of Googlers.
The answer is, “Absolutely.”
The Google bean counters are well aware of the cost of the “free” video service. Thus, the free video service has to generate cash and more cash so the system can produce infinite cash. That’s logical in a Googley way I think.
In the comments to the original question on HackerNews, an entity named Operyl wrote:
If I understand correctly from a friend, the problem is YouTubers (and YouTube/Google) are currently making _much less_ money per ad. It sounds like more are getting shoved per video to make up for it (iirc, it’s up to YouTube to determine this?).
I don’t know what iirc means, but the rest of the post is clear. More money is needed.
Observations:
- YouTube ads are more and more annoying. The fix obviously is to pay Google money. Most of the annoying ads go away. Google is discovering subscriptions. Undoubtedly Google will think subscription revenues for other services just like BMW and its heated steering wheel stroke of genius. German logic, of course. Ever read Kant? Congruent indeed.
- The YouTube ads are increasingly irrelevant when I check out some YouTube videos. I love the tours of the Incan ruins. Ads about all sorts of things unrelated to Peruvian stone work appear. Therefore, the famous smart algorithm is just spewing ads to burn up inventory is one thought which crossed my mind.
- The autoplay of post viewing content are interesting as well. How many of those ads are viewed BEFORE the YouTube user identifies which tab is playing the pitch to go Adobe? My hunch. Zero if these startled views are like me.
Net net: Those grousing about Google’s monetization quest have not seen anything yet. Why? The cost hole for the Google is probably close to infinite as long as there are former TikTok users looking for a home. Infinite costs can only be offset by infinite revenue. That too is logic worthy of a Google flashing logo pin.
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2020
YouTube Deletes Raw Videos of Aged Electronics Repair
July 9, 2020
A loyal fan of DarkCyber sent me a link to a video called “Youtube DELETED Jordan Pier’s Electronics Repair Channel!” For those hip to the zippity dippity world of Silicon Valley and Googley decisions, the decision makes perfect and logical sense.
Jordan Pier and his disgusting old electronics represent the past which must be removed. I think of vintage electronics in the same terms I frame statues of people whose names I don’t know.
Imagine. Rip open a wooden box. Expose disgusting and old fashioned capacitors. Wires have fabric on them some time. Bare wires should be sealed in epoxy so an independent repair person can just watch YouTube videos, not make them.
DarkCyber understands that digital and unrepairable electronics are the future. What if your beloved smart Pixel phone goes to the digital grave yard. Throw it out. Don’t even think about repairing that device or your MacBook Air or your friend’s father’s John Deere tractor.
Take those offensive repair videos down. Snuff out information about the past. Stalin would be proud. Naked electronics require revisionist action.
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2020
Secrets of Popular YouTube Videos Revealed. Are You Excited!
July 8, 2020
We found “Analysis of YouTube Trending Videos of 2019 (US)” amusing. Here are several of the chucklers we spotted:
First, hot YouTube videos use CAPITAL letter in TITLES.
Second, here are the words you need to use in your YouTube titles and descriptions:
Third, use emojis. The fire emoji is a “hot” addition.
Fourth, rely on “official” as in “official video.” What if the video is not official? Hey, what is this a courtroom. You just need to pass Judge Google, and you are good to go with rehab ads, wonky food info, and nifty fashion ideas.
Fifth, your video title must be 36 to 64 characters. Something like “Macbeth” would suck as a YouTube click magnet.
Sixth, when do you publish your video? Saturday is for losers, gentle reader.
There’s more astounding insights. You are officially ON YOUR OWN.
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2020
The Legacy of HP Management Expertise: Quibi
July 1, 2020
When I hear the name “quibi”, I think of Hewlett Packard in the era of Meg Whitman. My focus narrows to some interesting decisions by the Board of Directors, a somewhat high-profile acquisition, a vendetta which targets a feisty computer scientist, and a great big lawsuit. The lawsuit by the way is of the variety that is likely to be a source of income for attorneys for years to come. You know the litigation matter: Meg Whitman’s former outfit and the Cambridge engineer/scientist Mike Lynch. I will name the word: Autonomy.
I read “The Fall of Quibi: How Did a Starry $1.75bn Netflix Rival Crash So Fast.” What’s interesting about this “real” newspaper’s “real” news story is that it mostly misses the boat or, at the very list, trips over the step when boarding the tube.
The article identifies what anyone listening to chatter in the line up to buy a Starbuck’s confection knows: Short videos, free for some people, no one cares, and an oddball selection of content without programs like Cheers or Seinfeld.
What catches the attention of would be financiers is the number $1.75 billion. What catches the attention of those with Hollywood in their DNA is the name Jeffrey Katzenberg. What catches the attention of the DarkCyber research team is the co Big Dog Meg Whitman.
The “real” news story cares little about Ms. Whitman and her management “successes.” I assume that those researching the story were unaware that some individuals with first hand information about her management expertise were just too difficult to reach. What’s the distance? Maybe a mile, maybe less.
The write up states:
Notionally, Quibi endeavored to industrialize a new frontier of television: short-form narratives – that is, episodes of 15 minutes or less – at its shortest and most expansive.
Okay.
Here’s a promising factoid, courtesy of a Murdoch-owned “real” news outfit:
Meanwhile, several unflattering reports have depicted internal strife behind the scenes. The Wall Street Journal detailed longstanding friction between Katzenberg and Whitman’s working relationship.
DarkCyber believes that there is a ton of useful information floating around about Quibi. There’s a gold mine of information about Ms. Whitman and her approach to guiding a business. There’s even information available to put some meat on the bones of the launch during the pandemic.
What do we get? “Real” news.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
When You Were a Young Millionaire, Did You Write This Way?
June 29, 2020
I read “Mixer Co-Founder on Microsoft Pulling the Plug, Twitch’s Market Power, and His Startup Journey.” DarkCyber looks at the universes of live streaming services from our observation post in rural Kentucky.
Games are not an all-encompassing world. The travails of Dr. Disrespect, the odd-ball world of ManyVids, or individuals who haunt NoAgendaStream.com.
These services create an opportunity for bad actors, malefactors, and Dr. Jekylls to sell contraband, engage in questionable transactions, and pass messages mostly off the radar of the local country sheriff in Tennessee.
What caught our attention in the GeekWire article was this passage:
“Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the service for them as quickly and broadly as possible. It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”
The young millionaire and digital nabob may want to consider a job in public relations if he is snubbed by an interesting government agency.
Notable phrases:
- Ultimately
- success is dependent
- vision and experiences
- we’ve decided
- operations side
- help the community
- transition
- a new platform.
Yeah, typical 20 something blog speak.
The conclusions we have reached in the DarkCyber intelligence and forecasting center are:
First, Azure couldn’t deliver. If the Softie’s cloud thing can do JEDI, should Azure deliver streaming games? Sure, but it does not.
Second, Microsoft has been friends sort of with Facebook. Does Facebook have a more resilient, agile, responsive, and efficient video service? Facebook may aspire to be social YouTube, but it has a bit of distance to travel.
Third, Microsoft’s mix up with Mixer makes clear that the me to approach to innovation and the blenderized approach to management at Microsoft cannot tap a hot new sector any better than it can update Windows 10.
Net net: DarkCyber is thinking that on our list of soon-to-be-cold technical dinosaurs, Microsoft may find itself making big plans with Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Oracle, among others.
As for the young millionaire, after the election there may be a need for a person with wordsmithing skills, the vocabulary of a millennial lawyer, and the sentence structure of Cicero without the flair unfortunately.
Stephen E Arnold, June 29, 2020
xx
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