Productivity and Information Technology: A Myth?
August 30, 2019
The IT department is the go-to department for new technology and innovative ideas. According to the IT Pro Portal article, “Workers Aren’t Convinced IT Departments Are Making Them More Productive” United Kingdom workers believe that their IT departments are not the centers of productivity (the title says it all).
Citrix conducted a poll of 1000 UK based workers and discovered that people are clinging to outdated IT workplace practices. The IT departments are also not updating to implement new technology. Many practices compromise security:
“Almost a third doesn’t share securely hosted files, but instead use email to share documents around, making multiple copies, confusing workers and generally hurting productivity. A quarter saves important documents on their desktop even though they know they should be using the secure cloud.”
Humanoid punching bags — I mean millennials — are blamed for violating company security, according to the poll. They work on unprotected Wi-Fi networks and use unapproved apps for communication, like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
It seems that Citrix responded to the poll with PR speak about the value of information technology as a sure fire way to improve productivity and employee engagement.
Do employees want to change their behavior?
Some IT workers have become complacent and resist change. But why invest? Perhaps this year’s “Citrix” crop does not satisfy like fresh squeezed information technology?
Whitney Grace, August 30, 2019
Business Intelligence: Enterprise Search, Data Lakes, and the Squeal of a Baby Unicorn
August 29, 2019
A baby unicorn became a semi reality this week. We learned this in “ThoughtSpot Hits $1.95 Billion Valuation With $248 Million Fundraise.”
Forbes, the capitalist tool and home for sponsored content, reported:
ThoughtSpot, the business intelligence startup that offers data analytics searches as simple to use as Google, hit unicorn status on Wednesday with a $248 million funding round led by Lightspeed Ventures. The E Series round raised total funding to $554 million with a valuation of $1.95 billion.
Now watch what happens. Business intelligence becomes enterprise search:
“Though the user experience is inspired by Google, the fundamental search problem we are solving is very different than what Google has to solve,” Singh tells Forbes. “On the surface, all search engines look the same, like search bars, but Google is searching Web documents of unstructured texts.
So what makes ThoughtSpot special?
We’re searching numbers that sit in data lakes and complex cloud databases, we had to build a search engine that understands data lakes.”
And the ultimate venture funder’s Holy Grail:
there’s potential for ThoughtSpot to be the “next Google” for enterprise search.
Net net: The old promises of enterprise search are back. The problems persist. The knowledge that people cannot find answers to questions exists. Closing the “unknowing” gap may be difficult.
With few enterprise search experts thinking about the lessons of Autonomy, Convera, Delphes, Endeca, Entopia, Fast Search & Transfer, STAIRS, and Vivisimo — the past may be poised to rewind and play an old “Mission Impossible”. For free profiles of some of the notable “enterprise search” services, navigate to www.xenky.com/vendor-profiles. Let’s watch reruns until a “new” consultant’s report, a Magic Quadrant, or a Wave flows in.
Stephen E Arnold, August 29, 2019
Elasticsearch and AWS
August 29, 2019
Elasticsearch is expanding its offerings once again. Yahoo Finance reports, “Elastic Launches Elasticsearch Service on AWS in London Region.” With this release, the U.K. joins nine other regions in which Elasticsearch is supported on AWS. The press release informs us:
“The Elasticsearch Service on Elastic Cloud is the only official hosted and managed Elasticsearch and Kibana service, created and supported by Elastic. With the Elasticsearch Service, you can spin up a fully loaded deployment in the AWS London region, activating powerful features such as security, monitoring, APM and machine learning (among others) that are only available from Elastic. Experience refreshingly headache-free, zero-downtime upgrades to the latest versions of our software. For minor version upgrades, it’s just a click of a button and you’ve upgraded to the latest security patches and bug fixes. Zero-downtime upgrades are possible across major versions as well, starting at 6.8+, using rolling upgrades. … The London region, similar to Elastic’s other regions, offers all of the Elasticsearch Service features. Learn more about Elasticsearch Service subscriptions on our website.”
Not surprisingly, the service is available to those in London via the AWS Marketplace. Also, Elasticsearch’s lightweight data shipper Fuctionbeat comes as an AWS Lambda; this means it can receive AWS Services events like Amazon CloudWatch logs, Amazon SQS, and Amazon Kinesis. AWS customers can also leverage their virtual private cloud with a dedicated environment via Elasticsearch Service Private subscription. Finally, Elasticsearch has carefully ensured it complies with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation principles.
Cynthia Murrell, August 29, 2019
The New Lingo of Enterprise Search
August 28, 2019
Enterprise search is back. My Google Alert has been delivering market research reports which tell me that finding information is huge. Plus, there have been some announcements about funding which have surprised me. Examples include:
- Capacity raised $13.2 million. Source: DarkCyber
- LucidWorks snagged an additional $100 million. Source: Globe News Wire
- Squirro pulled in additional funds, but the timing of the Salesforce investment and additional funding of this Zurich based company remains a bit of a mystery. Source: Venture Lab
These are just three examples plucked from my box of note cards about search vendors.
What’s interesting is the lingo, the jargon, and the argot these outfits are using. Frankly the plumbing is usually open source, a fact which the companies bury beneath the blizzard of buzzwords.
Here are some examples:
AI powered
actionable insights
artificial intelligence
cloud
cognitive
connect the dots
data mining
fusion
information mining
machine learning
natural language
pattern detection
platform
self learning
transform
The problem with the vendors collecting investment funds are easy to identify:
- The content processed is text. The unstructured information in videos, podcasts, messaging apps like WhatsApp, images like chemical structures and engineering drawings, etc. are not included.
- Indexing content residing on cloud platforms may work today, but as market dynamics shift, access to that content my be blocked or prohibited by regulations in certain countries
- Federation, on-the-fly so that real time information is available remains a challenge which typically requires script fiddling or new content filters
- Configuration of “smart” systems is not significantly different from the complex, time consuming, and expensive procedures which added friction to some Autonomy, Convera, Fast Search & Transfer, and similar systems’ deployment
- Maintenance is an issue, micro services work well in a low latency environment. Under loads, the magic of sub three second response can disappear
- Search remains an idiosyncratic solution. Many departments require specific features. As a result, enterprise search — regardless of the wrappers around open source information retrieval systems — is a series of customizations.
To sum up, enterprise search has failed to deliver for more than 50 years. Despite the optimism that investors have for “finding the next Google”, enterprise search vendors will find themselves hitting a revenue ceiling just as Autonomy, Fast Search, and similar firms did.
The fix was acquisitions and allegations of financial fancy dancing. If we assume that investors still dream of a 10x or higher return, is it possible that LucidWorks can generate sufficient revenue to pull off an IPO or a sale like Exalead, Vivisimo, and other search vendors were able to complete before the hammer fell?
This is an important question because new enterprise search vendors are popping up like mushrooms. The incumbents like Attivio, Coveo, Mindbreeze, and Sinequa are also trying to smash a ball over the fence.
Net net: Enterprise search appears to be putting on the worn slippers last used by the founders of Fast Search & Transfer. Maybe Microsoft will buy another enterprise search vendor? The problem is that enterprise search is easy to make visible with marketing LED lights. Delivering sustainable revenues is a far greater challenge when Amazon is a competitor and a platform enabler.
What happens when Amazon competes more aggressively, raises its prices, or bundles text search into another of its services?
Answer: Nothing particularly beneficial for the investors in new and improved enterprise search solutions based on Lucene/Solr and dusted with disco glitter.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2019
Amazonia for August 26, 2019
August 26, 2019
Amazon has been criticized in the last seven days. If anything, the scrutiny of the firm has increased. Examples include reactions to good news tweets from happy warehouse workers to stronger hints that government investigations are gathering steam. Other developments DarkCyber noted are:
Amazon AWS Crashes
DarkCyber spotted a report from FXStreet with the disconcerting headline: “The Amazon Web Services Crash Is Causing Havoc with Crypto Exchanges (Could Explain BitMex).” The write up presents this information:
AWS has crashed according to reports on twitter causing havoc at crypto currency exchanges.
Coindesk has chimed in, reporting that KuCoin is having problems.
If true, one might pose this question:
How reliable is Amazon AWS?
DarkCyber hypothesizes that the answer will be, “Good enough.” But is good enough good enough? DarkCyber is feeling Gnostic today.)
More Publishers Grousing, Squawking, and Releasing Legal Eagles
Reuters reported that top US publishers are suing Amazon Audible. The reason? Copyright infringement. The real news outfit reported:
Audible was sued by some of the top U.S. publishers for copyright infringement on Friday, aiming to block a planned rollout of a feature called ‘Audible Captions’ that shows the text on screen as a book is narrated.
The idea is that Amazon needs to obtain permission to display text on a screen. (Will some produce a motion picture channeling “Snakes on a Plane” with the title “Text on a Screen? The FBI agent could be played by Maya Mavgee maybe?)
Amazon Gives Up Control of It Site and Other Horrors
“Amazon Has Ceded Control of Its Site. The Result: Thousands of Banned, Unsafe or Mislabeled Products” has a serious allegation about the online bookstore. The pay walled story includes a nifty illustration. Here’s a snippet of the image:
Presumably the stuffed animals might harm you. The clock? Maybe it will chop off a child’s fingers. The flashlight? It could explode and remove your entire hand! The sticker? Oh, the sticker?
How many Amazon products are banned? Ars Technica says, “4,100” and references the Wall Street Journal.
The consequences are too horrible to contemplate. Amazon has to clean up its product offerings?
What would this product do to you?
The answer DarkCyber knows not.
PS. For a similar “Amazon is bad” write up. Check out the New York Times’ disclosure that the George Orwell you buy on Amazon may be a fake, rewritten, or some other dastardly bastardization of 1984 in 2019. Source: New York Times, complete with pay wall, begging for email address, etc. from a somewhat needy Gray Lady.
Amazon: Hard Sell at the Pentagon
ProPublica may be doing a type of journalism not practiced at the Washington Post. The nonprofit news out published “How Amazon and Silicon Valley Seduced the Pentagon.” The subtitle is a click magnet:
Tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt have gotten unprecedented access to the Pentagon. And one whistle blower who raised flags has paid the price.
When printed out, the article required 13 pages. Please navigate to the source document or one of the recycled versions of the story.
Several observations are warranted:
- Blowing the whistle on big wheels does not seem to be a career enhancing action. Just sayin’.
- The emphasis on Amazon is okay, but the real subject of the write up is the GOOG. But once Google fired the Department of Defense, changing the title was probably easier than beefing up the Amazon content.
- The Google may have been in a prime position to nab significant billions from the DoD. But quitting Project Maven, opening the door for Anduril Industries, and igniting a certain Silicon Valley big wheel to toss around suggestions of treason was significant.
There is juicy Amazon fruit in the write up. But the Google is front and center in this interesting company.
Will Amazon “win” the JEDI contract? DarkCyber is not sure. We hope it works better than the first delivered F 35 aircraft when JEDI leaves the launch pad. (No, we did not consult an “oracle” for this information.)
Amazon Enhances Australia
ZDNet published “What Amazon Web Services Security Certification Is Doing for Government.” The main idea is that the government of Australia is “now getting its hands on new technology.” DarkCyber learned:
When Amazon Web Services (AWS) achieved protected-level certification earlier this year, which meant it could provide storage for highly sensitive government workloads out of its AWS Asia Pacific region in Sydney, the company’s head of solution architecture Simon Elisha said it helped “unlock innovation” for the public sector.
Will similar benefits accrue to the US if Amazon wins the JEDI competition?
Also related to Australia: ZDNet reports that Amazon now offers a job placement service for Australian veterans. Good for Australian veterans, yes. The initiative appears to be part of Amazon’s effort to teach programmers how to make Amazon the world’s operating environment and know about Amazon’s hundreds of products, services, and functions.
Amazon: Big Revenue, Tiny Profits
The write up “Amazon’s Tiny Profits Explained.” We had a habit of napping in Econ 101 and just studying for the tests in Finance class. Amazon uses a range of techniques to keep profits down. There’s even a hockey stick and earthworm chart to show how the numbers have flower for a decade. Mr. Bezos worked on Wall Street, which may be something to keep in mind.
DarkCyber thinks it understands the profit method. The write up does not tackle a question DarkCyber finds more interesting; that is,
Why does Amazon pay low or no taxes?
The write up has an answer: Investment. We noted:
Amazon’s internal investments also keep its tax bill down, saving the company money. While we don’t know exactly what Amazon pays in taxes, various estimates suggest its rate is low thanks in part to its huge investments in its business. What we do know is that its taxes have provided plenty of fodder for presidential candidates like Joe Biden, who’s mentioned it on his campaign and on Twitter, and Elizabeth Warren, who included the company as an example in her new corporate tax proposal. President Donald Trump has also harangued the company for not paying enough in taxes. Amazon has responded that it’s simply paying what the government says it owes.
How skilled are Amazon’s finance and tax professionals? Skilled enough to keep Mr. Bezos happy.
Oh, Oh, Alexa: Dumber than Google?
We noted this write up by a relative of Debbie Downer called “The Results Are In: Alexa Is Legitimately Dumber than Siri and Google Assistant.” First off, DarkCyber would just say “Alexa is dumber than Siri and Google Assistant.” The legitimately and the results don’t add much. Alexa is dumb could be considered suitable as a headline as well.
The main point of the write up? Alexa is dumb.
We noted this statement:
The venture capital firm recently asked Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant the same 800 questions. Google Assistant was the most successful of the bunch and was able to answer 93% of the questions correctly. In comparison, Siri was only able to get 83% of the questions right, and Alexa got 80%. Samsung’s Bixby and Microsoft’s Cortana, both lesser-used voice assistants, didn’t even make the cut.
I am not sure is I have much confidence in venture capital funded or completed research. The scores appear to fall within the range of competent smart software systems. Keep in mind that accuracy rates with 10 to 20 percent “wrong” answers is likely to make decisions generated by these wondrous numerical recipes wrong— a lot. If one of those questions pertains to the antidote required to save your child, are you going to rely on smart software or a trained physician?
Dumb, by the way, is relative. Identifying rotten tomatoes is different from identifying bad actors. But the name of the game today is “good enough.” That’s what these smart systems deliver. And you know what? That’s good enough, which is something Debbie Downer intuits.
A Vote of Not Much Confidence
The assumption that Amazon is the solution to a range of problems may be correct for some people. “Companies Should Disclose Amazon Web Services as Material Risk” reminds people that “Amazon’s hack prone cloud computing platform” is an issue. The negative paint daub is a reaction to the former AWS professional who breached security at Capital One and possibly more than 24 other companies. DarkCyber noted this statement in the report:
regardless of any potential SEC actions, shareholders should be demanding answers about AWS usage from companies already in their portfolio and those in which they are considering investing.
Amazon Forecast Available
Amazon has made its machine learning technology to the public. Amazon Forecast is a managed service which outputs forecasts. With the technology one can predict demand for products and services. The system also makes it possible to predict infrastructure requirements, energy demand, and similar variables; for example, allocation of police resources. Amazon Forecast produces private, custom models that can help developers make predictions that are up to 50% more accurate than traditional methods.Amazon Forecast automatically sets up a data pipeline, ingests data, trains a model, provides accuracy metrics, and performs forecasts. Amazon asserts that developers do not have to have any expertise in machine learning to use the service. More information is available at https://aws.amazon.com/forecast/. DarkCyber anticipates that as this product matures, its functions will be a direct competitive threat to Palantir Technologies, Recorded Future, and similar policeware and intelware vendors.
Amazon to Increase Staff in Portland
BizJournals reported that Amazon will add up to 400 new jobs in Portland, Oregon. This “real news” item is protected by a pay wall. But a free version with more information is available from MarketWatch at this link. Amazon has been a good corporate citizen. We learned:
The company has created more than 3,500 full-time jobs in Oregon since 2010 and invested over $9 billion in the state, including customer fulfillment facilities, cloud infrastructure, and compensation to its employees.
Amazon India
We reported that Amazon has been chugging toward India. The Amazon facility is, according to Reuters, “its biggest global campus.” Amazon India is growing fast and needs to expand in Hyderabad. How big?
The new campus in India, spread over 9.5 acres and costing “hundreds of millions of dollars”, will house over 15,000 employees, the company said. Amazon has 62,000 employees in India, roughly a third of whom are based in Hyderabad.
Portland’s 400 staff additions sends an interesting signal.
Move Over US Medical Database/Taxonomy Experts. AWS Is Now the Sheriff of This Here Domain
The individuals who build controlled vocabularies have embraced the term “metadata”. Goodbye, indexing. Jargon is better. Some of the people who build controlled term lists are into certain fields. Medical terminology is an example which keeps “Taxonomy in a Day” types at bay.
Who should create approved medical terminology? How about the National Institutes of Health?
Wrong.
The correct answer appears in “The ADHA Is Simplifying Its Clinical Terminology Database with AWS.” The ZDNet write up reports like a good “real news” outfit:
the ADHA has developed NCTS 2.0 to be more simplified by taking a serverless approach to the system to take advantage of the AWS shared responsibility model.
DarkCyber thinks that this is important, a harbinger, and an approach coming to America.
Defining terms frames reality. When reality is the AWS SageMaker system, there will be some downstream adjustments that individuals, indexers, and commercial health and database publishers will find interesting.
Change or die in the Amazon forest.
Amazon Bahrain Is Open and Training People
Get trained up or get left at the station. AWS is holding cloud training for Bahrain businesses. Why? you ask.
Trade Arabia states:
the new region adds to the already existing investment of infrastructure from Amazon in the Middle East with the already operational Amazon CloudFront edge locations in the cities Dubai, and Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates.
Amazon AWS Inspires Third Party Hardware
We found “Renesas Electronics Enhanced RX65N WiFi Connectivity Cloud Kit Simplifies Secure IoT Endpoint Device Connections to Amazon Web Services” long winded. The main point is that Renesas built a card which includes on board support for Amazon FreeRTOS. Connection to AWS is, thus, easy. What else is on the device? Here’s a short list: Dual bank flash for over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates and Trusted Secure IP (TSIP). The cost? Just $50.
Amazon Supported Ignite: Farm to Consumer Start Up
All the Farms is a Web site that finds farms. The idea is that a person can locate fresh produce near one’s home. According to the Register Guard:
The US Ignite Startup Accelerator Program, partnered with Amazon Web Services, this year accepted 19 startups from across the country. Each was deemed a business-ready startup with a product that could help create “smart cities.”
Like Google, Amazon wants to spot high potential start ups. If some of those outfits need cloud technology, it is possible that the Bezos bulldozer could hook a needy outfit up to the megawatt outfit’s data center. Any connection to Whole Foods? The write up does not speculate.
Amazon and Blockchain
Amazon has announced that its Managed Blockchain is going to get cloud support through Amazon’s CloudFormation. The idea is that scaling will be easier. Source: FXStreet
Gaps in AWS Security? Your Problem
According to Forbes, the capitalist tool, yes. “The Truth About Privileged Access Security On AWS and Other Public Clouds” reveals that basic security services are provided but:
the free version often doesn’t go far enough to support PAM at the enterprise level. To AWS’s credit, they continue to invest in IAM features while fine-tuning how Config Rules in their IAM can create alerts using AWS Lambda. AWS’s native IAM can also integrate at the API level to HR systems and corporate directories, and suspend users who violate access privileges.
The write up points out:
- AWS can’t protect you
- Use the security model provided
- Use the AWS identity infrastructure
- You can go cross cloud with security.
How? It’s simple. Just assemble the parts shown in the figure below:
Remember how IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft would lock customers in? Amazon uses the same methods.
Partners/Resellers/Consultants
Amazon continues to gather third parties for a Bezos bulldozer ride. Examples are:
Academy Software Foundation. This outfit has snagged AWS as a premier member. Wait. Amazon has joined the movie industry outfit. Source: Newkerala
Druva. The data protection start up enables intelligent data storage on AWS. Source: Silicon Angle
Rockset. The company has released areal time SQL for Amazon’s DynamoDB. Source: MarketWatch
SoftServe. The consulting firm has expanded its relationship with Amazon. Source: Yahoo
Stackery. The serverless workflow software is now available on AWS. Apps can be managed from development to production. Source: Digital Journal
Wespac. The Little Ripper drone is now an Amazon partner.
Customers can now tap into near real time video streaming via the cloud. Anduril Industries, are you nervous? Source: Aero News Net
Stephen E Arnold, August 22, 2019
Google and Its Amazing, Proliferating Services
August 22, 2019
It is all about the live streaming, backed by strong DVR capabilities. Digital Trends asks and answers, “What Is YouTube TV? Here’s Everything You Need to Know.” At a pricy $50 a month (minimum), the service is quite the entertainment investment. For some, though, it may be worth it. Writer Josh Levenson insists that the available features, particularly YouTube TV’s version of a cloud-storage DVR, more than make up for its limitations. These shortfalls include fewer channels than competitors, like AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now) and Sling TV, and support for fewer devices. He tells us:
“Out of all the various features baked into YouTube TV, one stands out from the crowd: Cloud DVR. Granted, that’s a tool that most live TV streaming services offer these days, but Google has hit the nail on the head offering a more natural experience—letting you record as much content as you want, which can be stored for up to nine months at an end, putting an end to the storage limits that most competitors impose. …
We also noted:
“Like most streaming services, YouTube TV also offers its customers the option to watch the content on multiple screens at once. To be specific, you’ll have the option to create up to six sub-accounts for family members, of which three can watch at the same time. There is no option to upgrade to a higher plan, either—so that’s a firm cap at three streams at the same time, but that should be more than enough for most families.”
But will most households have a device on hand that can play YouTube TV? To run the service on a 4K television, one needs a set-top stream-capable box or a dedicated streaming stick. And as with any service but PlayStation Vue, viewing on a Playstation 4 is out, but all Xbox Ones are supported. It can be run through a Chrome or Firefox browser on a PC or from the operating system on Android and Apple devices. YouTube TV is also supported on Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku OS, Vizio SmartCast televisions, and post-2016 smart TVs from LG and Samsung.
Yes, most could probably find something on which to watch YouTube TV. Is it worth the monthly cost? How long will Google stick with the service? Who has time for multiple streaming services? What about Twitch.tv? How can a YouTuber message another? What about child suitable options? Perhaps benched AI whiz Mustafa Suleyman is available to contribute to resolving thorny YouTube questions?
Many questions for a company with remarkable management acumen.
Cynthia Murrell, August 22, 2019
Factualities for August 21, 2019
August 21, 2019
Editorial note: Factualities will not appear in September and October 2019. Due to international travel and conference commitments, it will be able to post this summary each week. If significant “fact related” news surfaces and we have access to our publishing system, we will put the item in the daily DarkCyber posts. (The posts between September 10 and September 21, 2019, will be published automatically. Internet access in some of the areas from which the team will be operating may not be available.)
The craziness factor of some of the “facts” served up in the last seven days is keeping pace with the heat wave in the United States. Our factuality of the week is a stunner from ScienceAlert:
55.1. Hours per week a female performs housework when the male is the breadwinner. Here’s a table of the data “proving” women work harder than men.
Other “factualities” which caught our attention in the last seven days include these numerical wonderments:
10. Number of hours per day senior citizens in the US spend accessing and using their computing devices. Source: Economist
15. Percent of log in attempts which use compromised passwords. Source: IT Pro
20 percent. Percentage of California law makers identified as criminals by Amazon Rekognition facial recognition system. Source: Vice
45. The percentage increase in R&D spend by the Top 100 Chinese Internet companies. The spend amounts to 10 percent of the firms’ overall revenue. Source: ZDNet
278. The earnings of US CEO are 278 greater than the average workers’ compensation. Source: Common Dreams
9,088. Number of patents granted to IBM in 2018. (Note: Google obtained 2,597 in the same time period.) Source: PCMag
10,057. Number of pages in one person’s Facebook profile. Source: Slate
293,000. Number of products Amazon sent to a garbage dump in a nine month period. Source: Verge
$629,000. Amount the government of Columbia will fine Uber for obstructing a regulatory visit. Source: Reuters
1.2 million. The number of Dutch citizens who were victims of cyber crime in 2018. [Note: The population of the Netherlands is about 18 million.] Source: NLTimes
$2 million. Rumored amount WordPress’ parent paid Verizon for Tumblr. [Note: Yahoo paid more than $1.1 billion for Tumblr in 2013.]
24 million. Number of jobs which Apple is responsible. Source: Apple Insider
$5.2 million. Amount France spent for 30,000 square feet (0.6 kilometers) of solar road. The solar road project was cancelled because it did not stand up to traffic, leaves, and harsh weather. Source: Science Alert
$1.5 billion. Amount the Trump administration has paid Palantir Technologies for its surveillance system and services. Source: The Next Web
US$17.6 billion. Operating profit of the top 10 Korean conglomerates. One year ago the operating profit of this group was more than US$30 billion. Source: Korea Times
$400 billion. The value of Amazon’s cloud business. Source: Motley Fool
1.5 quintillion. The number of calculations per second the new HP Cray Shasta supercomputer can compute. (Notes: [a] 1.5 quintillion is 1.5 ExaFLOPs. [b] A quintillion is one billion billion operations per second, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. An iPhone X can perform only five trillion operations per second or 5,000,000,000,000, but the iPhone is smaller and consumes less energy.) Source: Tom’s Hardware
Stephen E Arnold, August 21, 2019
Scalability: Assumed to Be Infinite?
August 20, 2019
I hear and read about scalability—whether I want to or not. Within the last 24 hours, I learned that certain US government applications have to be smart (AI and ML) and have the ability to scale. Scale to what? In what amount of time? How?
The answers to these questions are usually Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, or some other company’s cloud.
I thought about this implicit assumption about scaling when I read “Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum’s Scalability Issue Is Proving To Be A Formidable Impediment To Adoption By Institutions.” The “inventor” of Ethereum (a technology supported by Amazon AWS by the way), allegedly said:
Scalability is a big bottleneck because Ethereum blockchain is almost full. If you’re a bigger organization, the calculus is that if we join it will not only be full but we will be competing with everyone for transaction space. It’s already expensive and it will be even five times more expensive because of us. There is pressure keeping people from joining, but improvements in scalability can do a lot in improving that.”
There are fixes. Here’s one from the write up:
Notably, Vitalik is known to be a supporter of other crypto currencies besides Ethereum. In July, Buterin suggested using Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to solve the scalability barrier in the short-term as they figure out a more permanent solution. Additionally, early this month, he supported the idea of integrating Bitcoin Lightning Network into the Ethereum smart contracts asserting that the “future of crypto currencies is diverse and pluralist”.
Questions which may be germane:
- What’s the limit of scalability?
- How do today’s systems scale?
- What’s the time and resource demand when one scales to an unknown scope?
Please, don’t tell me, “Scaling is infinite.”
Why?
There are constraints and limits. Two factors some people don’t want to think about. Better to say, “Scaling. No problem.”
Wrong. Scaling is a problem. Someone has to pay for the infrastructure, the know how, downstream consequences of latency, and the other “costs.”
Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2019
Amazonia for August 19, 2019
August 19, 2019
Editorial note: Amazonia will not appear in September and October 2019. Due to international travel and conference commitments, it will be able to post this summary each week. If significant Amazon news surfaces and we have access to our publishing system, we will put the item in the daily DarkCyber posts. (The posts between September 10 and September 21, 2019, will be published automatically. Internet access in some of the areas from which the team will be operating may not be available.)
News about Amazon continues to trend toward the happy face side of the spectrum. The flood of “new” and “improved” announcements from the Bezos bulldozer have slowed. With record heat indices, perhaps the giant orange behemoth has overheated and cooling off in a large Amazon warehouse filled with happy, happy Tweeters?
Management, Employees, Immigration, and Religion: A Volatile Mix
DarkCyber noted “Jews Protesting Amazon’s Business with ICE Arrested.” This passage captured the basics of the report:
40 Jews were arrested in New York Protesting Amazon. A protest of Amazon’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saw forty Jews arrested in New York City. Close to 700 people were pulled out in the previous week in the agency’s largest-ever raid. The activists rallied together to bring attention to Amazon’s cloud contracts with Palantir Technologies and ICE. Palantir Technologies gives ICE data which they make use of in enforcement actions as well as immigration raids.
The write up included this allegedly accurate factoid:
The protesters weren’t alone. They were joined by 50 other demonstrations which happened across the United States to highlight Tisha b’Av. Tisha b’Av is a Jewish day of mourning and was observed by Jews in the United States to oppose the immigration policy of the United States. The protests took place in many cities such as Washington D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles.
If true, Amazon faces another staff management challenge. The mixture of religion and law enforcement is complex. DarkCyber will monitor the push back Amazon may be experiencing.
Happy Tweeters
The source of this “real news” is Bellingcat, an online “real news” outfit. We noted this story: “Amazon’s Online Bezos Brigade Unleashed on Twitter.” The thrust of the story is interesting because it reminded DarkCyber of methods employed by those who seek to manipulate the “augmenting” functions of certain social media channels.
The write up asserted:
Last year, Amazon rolled out a program where employees at these fulfillment centers (warehouses) are able to also work as brand ambassadors to describe their experiences working at Amazon. A number of media outlets reported on this new program last year after the first wave of Ambassadors sent out bizarre tweets promoting Amazon’s workplace conditions.
The acronym FC refers to an Amazon fulfillment center or warehouses. There have been allegations about the work environment in these facilities.
DarkCyber finds the report intriguing. If Amazon is manipulating some content streams, would other tech giants use similar tactics? What if search results on Bing, Google, or Yandex were shaped? What if Facebook were tweaking what content appears, where it appears, and when it appears?
DarkCyber has no answer to these questions. But the Amazon operation runs on efficiency and disintermediation, not raw innovation and invention. Therefore, it is possible that the fat bull’s eye of social media content streams may have caught an Amazon whiz kid’s attention.
There’s another approach to the topic in “There’s Something Fishy about Amazon’s FC Ambassadors.”
Amazon Capital One: No Problems
Cyberscoop reported that Amazon found no significant issues at other companies allegedly breached by Paige Thompson. The write up reports that Amazon said:
“As Capital One outlined in their public announcement, the attack occurred due to a misconfiguration error at the application layer of a firewall installed by Capital One, exacerbated by permissions set by Capital One that were likely broader than intended,” Stephen Schmidt, the chief information security officer for AWS, said in an Aug. 13 response to Wyden.
Paige Thompson once worked at Amazon. Amazon will be more proactive going forward. Amazon will “do more to ensure its anomaly detection services “more broadly adopted and accessible in every geographic region.” Otherwise, no problems.
Amazon Uses Old School Leveraging Methods: Vendors’ Choice
Amazon’s alleged vendor management tactics were the subject of “Amazon Offered Vendors ‘Amazon’s Choice’ Labels in Return for Ad Spending and Lower Prices.” The main point of the write up seems to be:
Amazon’s Choice label, which is a mark that denotes that an item is recommended, gives certain products and items higher and more obvious placement in search results. While it’s unclear how exactly the mark is earned, it’s been accepted that it’s generally a mix of product listing and specifications, price and reviews, operated by Amazon’s algorithms. But sources say that Amazon actually offered sellers the chance to bid on the mark back in 2017.
DarkCyber interprets this statement as the long way around a very small barn. The idea may be to use leverage to herd some products shepherds to a Bezos controlled happy valley. There are other terms which might be used to describe this approach. We prefer “leverage” to “strong arm” or “coercion.” If you are curious, the novel “Sophie’s Choice” is available for the Kindle for about $9, or you could buy it in hardcover for a low as $1.50. Look for the small blue price. Your choice.
Amazon: Price Controls for Some Sellers?
Modern Retail published “A Slippery Slope: Amazon Wants to Control Third Party Sellers Product Pricing.” The idea is that sellers in its third party marketplace submits a product to Amazon. Amazon’s smart software prices the product. The article states:
According to Amazon, SBA doesn’t cost anything additional to FBA, which charges sellers a fee to store and ship items from Amazon’s warehouses with Prime Shipping. With SBA, Amazon also exerts control over the product’s sale price, by dynamically pricing products to make sure Amazon’s prices are lowest.
Modern Retail notes:
But sellers should be wary when forfeiting control over any aspect of their business — and particularly pricing — to Amazon.
Slippery slope for whom? Amazon or its partners in the third party special category? The article sidesteps many questions. Hopefully investigators will be more persistent if Amazon’s use of its market position in an improper way becomes a matter of interest.
Amazon and Modern Marketing: Cheap Gasoline
“Cops Put a Stop to Amazon’s 30 Cent “Mrs. Maisel Gas Promo” reports that the lure of cheap fuel was indeed a marketing magnet. To promote an Amazon film, Amazon hit upon the idea of using an idea from the 1950s. DarkCyber learned:
Santa Monica police made Amazon suspend a one-day Marvelous Mrs. Maisel promotion that charged people 30 cents for gas at a station to reflect prices in 1959 (when the show is set) due to sheer demand. Apparently, the traffic snarls from lined up cars were so severe that law enforcement had no choice but to shut it down.
Any publicity is good publicity, particularly in the Los Angeles area.
The Lure of India
“Amazon Nears Deal for Up to 10% of India’s Second-Largest Retailer” explains that India is important to the Bezos bulldozer. The write up asserts:
Amazon.com Inc. is in late-stage talks to acquire as much as 10% of India’s Future Retail Ltd., people familiar with the negotiations said, as the U.S. company moves to bolster its brick-and-mortar presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing retail markets.
This is not a surprise. Amazon will follow the data to nation states where its approach to efficiency is likely to be welcomed. That’s the assumption.
Amazon Does Do Emotion. Not Its. Yours.
Amazon’s policeware capabilities continue to mature. The facial recognition subsystem has added emotion recognition to its capabilities. “AWS Adds Fear to Facial Recognition Repertoire, Draws Immediate Fire.” DarkCyber does not want to speculate about the use case for fear recognition. The write up is fearless and reports:
The public cloud behemoth has also improved accuracy for emotion detection of the other seven emotions it recognizes. These are “happy”, “sad”, “angry”, “surprised”, “disgusted”, “calm”, and “confused. It has also improved age range estimation accuracy.
DarkCyber anticipates more public announcements about the features and functionality of the SageMaker linked facial recognition subsystem; for example, how could age recognition integrate with surveillance of bars and dance clubs?
Amazon Donates Returns
“Amazon Will Now Donate Unsold Merchandize by Default Instead of Trashing It” explains that “will donate unwanted products from third-party Marketplace sellers instead of sending them to the garbage dump.” The new program is Fulfilled by Amazon Donations. The write up included this statement:
The goal is to reduce waste and to allow sellers a more environmental friendly and cheaper way to get rid of unsold inventory. Prior to the new program, Amazon charged 35 cents less, or just 15 cents per unit, to dispose of a product rather than donate it.
The article did not comment on the tax upside or downside of the donation program. DarkCyber thinks this may be of interest to some Amazon observers.
Amazon and Publishing: Is a Takeover Underway?
“The Amazon Publishing Juggernaut” explains that Amazon may take over traditional publishing. The idea is not a new one. Here’s a summary of where Amazon is in the once chummy world of publishing:
As Amazon Studios does with movies, Amazon Publishing feeds the content pipelines created by the tech giant’s online storefront and Amazon Prime membership program. At its most extreme, Amazon Publishing is a triumph of vertical engineering: If a reader buys one of its titles on a Kindle, Amazon receives a cut both as publisher and as bookseller—not to mention whatever markup it made on the device in the first place, as well as the amortized value of having created more content to draw people into its various book-subscription offerings. (One literary agent summed it up succinctly to The Wall Street Journal in January: “They aren’t gaming the system. They own the system.”)
The idea that Amazon would take over “publishing” is interesting, but once the hot properties are skimmed, what’s left in what has been for many firms a low margin business reduced to begging for dollars, pay walls, and ads which obscure the “real news”?
Amazon Police Interaction: Ring, Ring
“Ring Rewarded Users for Reporting Suspicious Activities” provides more allegedly accurate information about Amazon’s burgeoning policeware business. The article states that Amazon
encouraged users to form Watch teams and to post videos on social media to receive promo codes for future devices. It also promised free swag to anyone who recruits 10 new users and to those who blog about Ring “in a positive way,” as well as 50 percent discounts on Ring products to those who can solve a crime with the help of local cops.
More information may be available at this link. Note: Content may be removed and/or a paywall may be in place. DarkCyber does not update links to keep pace with the fluid, uncertain world of free content from “real news” source.
Amazon and Blockchain
DarkCyber noted FXStreet’s article “Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudFormation Will Be Integrated with the Firm’s Managed Blockchain.” Amazon has indicated that some of its services can perform deanonymization. The article does not address that interesting facet of Amazon’s blockchain activities. Instead the write up focuses on the fact that:
AWS, the firm’s cloud computing division, is going to be supporting Amazon’s blockchain in the management and structuring of all its interconnected networks and member nodes.
Important? Yep.
AWS Fargate Close Analysis
Curious about AWS Fargate? If so, you will want to read “How Far Out Is Fargate?”
The key phrase in the write up is “clusterless container orchestration,” which strikes DarkCyber as a useful way to think of this feature/service/function.
Amazon describes Fargate this way:
AWS Fargate is a compute engine for Amazon ECS that allows you to run containers without having to manage servers or clusters. With AWS Fargate, you no longer have to provision, configure, and scale clusters of virtual machines to run containers. This removes the need to choose server types, decide when to scale your clusters, or optimize cluster packing. AWS Fargate removes the need for you to interact with or think about servers or clusters. Fargate lets you focus on designing and building your applications instead of managing the infrastructure that runs them.
The article contains a brief comparison of Fargate and Kubernetes and Fargate and Lambda. Good write up.
A related story is “Basecamp’s Cofounder Explains Why It Ditched Google Cloud for Amazon this summer. Note: you will have to pay to read this rah rah article about Amazon. In a nutshell, risk. Amazon is not cheaper and it is not without its own risks. But Basecamp is willing to deal with more complexity. Logical? The argument did not stop one DarkCyber researcher from asking, “Did Amazon cut this outfit a sweetheart deal to get a PR type article published?” We don’t know, but it seems plausible.
Partners/Integrators/Consultants
Amazon’s third party business relationships continue to bloom despite the blistering heat in the Lower 48. Here’s a selection of outfits involved with Amazon. Many of these sport extremely creative names:
AutoGrid. The company offers flexibility management software for the energy industry. The company now collaborates with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring artificial intelligence-powered distributed energy management to its energy-industry customers. Source: Yahoo
Center for Internet Security. Amazon has a security partner. Apparently Amazon is eager to do more security in the wake of some interesting developments. This particular service is call ATO on AWS. Does anyone remember the Capital One breach? Well, there may be 29 others after the handiwork of a former AWS professional. Source: MarketWatch
CloudHesive. CloudHesive has achieved Premier Consulting Partner status in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN). Source: Yahoo
Elastic. Remember the idea that Amazon would bulldoze Elasticsearch. Now Elastic is offering Elasticsearch on AWS in London. Source: Yahoo
Globe and Mail. The publishing company has adopted Amazon’s SageMaker and related service to promote its content. Source: SiliconAngle
Kickdynamic. This company will use TigerGraph on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud to deliver hyper personalized marketing. Does this meaning user tracking? Maybe, and it means that TigerGraph is an Amazon customer. Source: MarketWatch
Rapid7. The company has increased its involvement with Amazon AWS. The company’s growth has come from products, many of which run on AWS. The firm’s consulting revenues declined. Source: Seeking Alpha
Stephen E Arnold, August 19, 2019
Google Petitions: Like a High School Student Council Campaign
August 15, 2019
Is DarkCyber is getting tired of Googlers who protest Google? Not. The antics are amusing. Has anyone said, “Hey, high schoolers, you took the job. You get money. You are not running the company”?
I read “Google Employees Refuse to Be Complicit in Border Agency Cloud Contract.” The petition, the protests, and the rest of the adolescent antics are getting stale.
I learned:
In a petition circulated today inside Google and on Medium, a group of employees said immigration officials are “perpetrating a system of abuse and malign neglect” at the border. The employees point to the Trump administration’s family separation policy and the recent deaths of children in immigration officials’ custody. “These abuses are illegal under international human rights law, and immoral by any standard,” the petition reads. In the hours after it was released, hundreds of employees added their signatures to the petition.
Are the Googlers unaware of the AI institute in China? Are Googlers aware of the YouTubers who find themselves marginalized? Are Googlers fighting for small companies whose Google traffic disappears overnight? Are Googlers worrying about Android malware? Are Googlers concerned about their contributions to assisting a system which defines reality for grade school children?
There are quite a few problems at the GOOG. Approaching them the way a candidate for a high school student council seat is not likely to be effective.
Why not quit? Why not run for office and work for change? Why not get out of the hypocritical position of accepting a paycheck and demanding that a commercial enterprise change because you don’t like competing for government contracts.
Quick tip: Anduril is thrilled with your high school student campaign.
And a question for Google personnel: “When are you going to do quit your job and embrace the stand up comedy opportunity?” You can sell merch and turn down gigs at military bases too.
Stephen E Arnold, August 15, 2019
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