Handy List of Smart Software Leaders
June 27, 2019
As the field of AI grows, it can be difficult to keep track of the significant players. Datamation shares a useful list in, “Top 45 Artificial Intelligence Companies.” If you skim the lineup, just keep in mind—entries are not ranked in any way, simply listed in alphabetical order. Writer Andy Patrizio begins with some observations about the industry:
“AI is driving significant investment from venture capitalist firms, giant firms like Microsoft and Google, academic research, and job openings across a multitude of sectors. All of this is documented in the AI Index, produced by Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute. …
We noted:
“Consulting giant Accenture believes AI has the potential to boost rates of profitability by an average of 38 percentage points and could lead to an economic boost of US$14 trillion in additional gross value added (GVA) by 2035. In Truth, artificial intelligence holds a plethora of possibilities—and risks. ‘It will have a huge economic impact but also change society, and it’s hard to make strong predictions, but clearly job markets will be affected,’ said Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal, and head of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms.”
For their selections, Datamation chose companies of particular note and those that have invested heavily in AI. Many names are ones you would expect to see, like Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Others are more specialized—robotics platforms Anki and CloudMinds, for example, or iCarbonX, Tempus, and Zebra Medical Vision for healthcare. Several entries are open source. Check out the article for more.
Cynthia Murrell, June 24, 2019
Amazonia for June 24, 2019
June 24, 2019
The Amazon online bookstore continues to push outside the virtual mall. Some of the more interesting announcements about the landscape changing Bezos bulldozer include:
Bebo Bepops into Amazon Twitch: Name That Gamer Tune
DarkCyber believes that Amazon’s acquisition of Bebo, a moribund social network outfit, is a big deal. You can get the Silicon Valley take on this cheapo acquisition in “Amazon’s Twitch Acquired Social Networking Platform Bebo for Up to $25M to Bolster Its Esports Efforts.” DarkCyber thinks that there are other reasons for this deal. Socializing esports is a great red herring snagged by a public relations hook. There is more behind this deal, but the explanation will not be disclosed in this blog. Catch me after my Amazon lecture in late September 2019. I will be in San Antonio at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference holding forth for law enforcement, security, and intelligence professionals.
Some Amazon game programmers now have an opportunity to drive Amazon delivery vans or flip burgers. Green Man Gaming reports that Amazon Game Studios lays off dozens of staff. We think Google Stadia may be hiring.
Surveillance as a Service
Quite a few pundits and wizards noted that Amazon received a patent for flying a drone with a camera. Now that is one of those inventions which is not on a par with the spat over calculus. If you want to read the document, navigate to this link. Why’s this important? It’s not, but it snaps into the matrix I use for Amazon’s push into policeware. Lecture available for a fee. Just write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. Although not directly about Amazon, this write up edges close to the revenue potential of the alleged Amazon service.
DHS Has Moved Biometrics to Amazon’s Cloud
Ouch. Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle just took one to the jaw. We noted this article in Geekwire: “DHS Moving Biometric Screening System to Amazon Web Services Amid Debate over Government Tech.” Here’s a statement we circled in bright blue marker:
The Department of Homeland Security is migrating the system it uses to search for people using biometric data to Amazon’s cloud….
The system is a catchall for fingerprints, iris scans, images of faces, and other information collected by the agency’s various departments, like TSA, FEMA, and ICE. It allows officials to scan a database and quickly identify undocumented immigrants, terrorist suspects, and other people of interest. The database is used by “DHS, other Federal agencies, State and local law enforcement, the intelligence community, and international partners to support counterterrorism, immigration and law enforcement, and credentialing efforts pertaining to identity services.”
You may be able to ferret out more clues in this RFI. Keep in mind that if the link goes dead, complain to USA.gov, DHS, or your favorite citizen services office, not DarkCyber.
Is this important? On a par with Bebo, the defunct social network company Amazon bought as most people read about Facebook’s sovereign currency play.
Ring May Amazonify Itself
Quartz reports that the Ring doorbell may undergo what MBAs call “ product extension.” What can Amazon do with Ring beyond connecting a Ring to Amazon’s connected lock service? There’s the sharing of video footage with neighbors and others, including “more than 50 police departments.” According to the “real” news outfit:
Amazon is apparently not stopping there with its one-stop viewing. The company recently received trademarks, uncovered by Quartz, for multiple products that bear the Ring name, including Ring Beams, Ring Halo, and Ring Net. All three trademarks are listed as covering a range of uses, many matching what Ring products currently offer, including internet-connected security cameras, alarm systems, lighting, and cloud video storage. They also mention new applications, such as cameras intended to be mounted on motor vehicles, electronic locks, indoor cameras like pet and baby monitors, and “home and business surveillance systems.” All three trademarks even suggest the marks should cover “navigation software for use with smart, autonomous vehicles and mobile machines for use in connection with internet of things (IoT) enabled devices.”
DarkCyber is disappointed that no “Ring a Dinga Ding Dong” was mentioned.
Amazon Twitch: Copyright Issues and Porn
Most of the people with whom I speak in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, think a twitch is what grandpa’s leg does when he wants to go to the tavern and grandma won’t let him. Twitch is Amazon’s “game” streaming service. The Verge reported “Twitch sues to unmask trolls that posted violent and pornographic streams.” DarkCyber noted this statement:
The videos were posted last month by an organized group of trolls in Twitch’s Artifact category, who are named in the lawsuit as John and Jane Does 1-100. Aside from the video filmed by the Christchurch shooter, trolls also streamed porn, copyrighted movies and television shows, and other illegal and harmful content.
Is the issue one that took place in the past, or is the problem of copyright violation and questionable content a “here and now” issue? I cover several facets of the Twitch service in terms of law enforcement and intelligence matters in my Dark Web 2 lectures. The reality of Twitch is not well understood.
Has someone like the Verge asked, “If it is your platform, how can you not know the identity of a user?” The answer is, “What?”
Amazon Is a Domain, Not a Jungle, a River, or a Region
We learned from the Conversation (a sort of one way thing) that Dot Amazon is a reality. How happy will be the countries bordering the region, the jungle, and the river? Probably happy enough to order products, buy ebooks, and learn about the AWS cloud. The article “Amazon Wins Amazon Domain Name, Aggravating South American Region and Undermining Digital Commons” reports:
Under international human rights law, the indigenous peoples in the region should have been consulted. Exclusive use of “.amazon” will deprive them of using it for economic opportunities in their historical lands, such as eco-tourism.
Amazon wants “amazon” to do many positive, US company things. The write up states:
The implications for the future of the internet are troubling.
DarkCyber is not sure the real Amazon cares or if the jungle, river, and governments bordering what is real estate care. Navigate to www.amazon.amazon, Amazonians around the world and in the area once uniquely named “Amazon.”
Amazon Bashing?
Fox News ran a story about the Amazon JEDI contract competition. “Amazon, Pentagon Accused of Swampy Dealings over $10B Contract” reported:
Amazon is poised to receive a lucrative government contract with the Pentagon, but a competitor is arguing it’s nothing more than a prime example of D.C. swamp politics.
That’s an interesting bit of prognostication. The Fox report then recounts the claims made by firms likely to be pushed to the gutter if Amazon wins the deal.
The write up points out:
The JEDI Contracting Officer said in a court document that a July 2018 review of potential conflicts of interest related to Ubhi and four other government employees with ties to AWS showed that they did not “negatively impact the integrity of the JEDI procurement.”
But predicting the outcome of a horse race with some of the jockeys wearing the logos of Amazon competitors? Interesting.
Amazon Poster Person
The Wall Street Journal on June 22 or 23, 2019 (love that precision in metatagging, don’t we?) published an encomium to Amazonian Nancy Nims. According to the glowing semi-interview, mostly rah rah rah:
…Nancy Nims pitches in on everything from blank screens to burst pipes.
You can find the story online at wsj.com (paywall) or snag a dead tree edition of the newspaper if you can find one on either June 22 or June 23, 2019.
Amazon Alexa and Yamaha TV Add Ons
Don’t have an Amazon device in your home? Just buy the Yamahas YAS-109 and the YAS-209 TV sound bars, and you have the problem solved. According to Slashgear:
Yamaha has introduced two new home sound bars, the YAS-109 and YAS-209. Both models feature native Alexa voice control, enabling users to directly access Amazon’s voice assistant and its various control functions. In addition, both new models pack wireless connectivity, support for various music streaming services, a discreet design, and more.
“Alexa, what’s the weather?”
Who Sponsored the AWS Public Sector Summit?
That’s a good question. Here’s the list. Where are the presentations? Well, that’s another good question to which DarkCyber does not have the answer. There are some PR type speeches available on YouTube plus the often opaque Amazon blog entries.
Look Out, NYT Best Sellers’ List
Amazon has announced the best books of 2019 “so far”. Yeah, it is June 2019, but this is a real time, year to date, Amazon analytics output. None of that checking with bookstores in places like Charlottesville, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts, where people still read old fashioned books. Digital Reader reports:
“We love selecting the Best Book of the Year So Far,” said Sarah Gelman, Editorial Director, Amazon Books. “We’ve read so many great books this year – a heart-wrenching memoir of loss, an intoxicating novel of a ’70s rock band, a psychological thriller worthy of Agatha Christie comparisons, and so much more. But one book stood out for us, Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls. It has so many elements that make reading fun – the sparkle of youth, indiscretions, sassy characters, and freedom in a city that doesn’t sleep – perfect summer reading in our book.”
And the top book? City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert (Riverhead Books). And where can one acquire this big dog? Did you guess Amazon? If so, you may be Jeopardy material.
Amazon Reveals How to Implement AI
CTOVision explains the ins and outs in “Amazon on How Businesses Can Implement AI.” The method is revealed in an AWS video, a “succinct video” because, as you know, artificial intelligence is really easy using Amazon’s software and its platform. Here’s an example of an explanation in the video:
Yep, easy.
Amazon Is More Than a Bookstore
Amazon is on a PR blitz. The BBC snagged an interview with the former Cornell professor and now big tech person at Amazon. There were some gems in “Amazon’s Next Big Thing May Redefine Big.” The first “big” thing is that DarkCyber must learn a new definition of “big.” Okay, what else? These are items extracted from the Beeb’s somewhat uncritical article:
- Only “mortal humans” ever saw Amazon as merely a retailer.
- Its big data capabilities are now the tool of police forces, and maybe soon the military.
- New Amazon could make today’s Amazon look quaint in both scale and power.
- AWS accounts for most of Amazon’s profits.
- Amazon provides the infrastructure backbone for major firms such as AirBnB and Netflix, as well as more than one million other clients who collectively give Amazon “control” of large swathes of the web.
- Amazon Rekognition can scan video footage and, for example, pick up people’s faces that can then be checked against a client’s database.
- Amazon will need to answer continued questioning about how it handles user privacy, and whether it is being entirely up-front with users when it comes to how data is stored and analyzed.
Interesting stuff. But the police and military? DarkCyber theorizes that these entities will buy something other than boots and tactical vests.
Amazon’s Choice: An Evaluation
Leave it to the real news outfit Buzzfeed. Its story “Amazon’s Choice Does Not Necessarily Mean a Product Is Good.” Shocker. The write up reveals:
A review of dozens of Amazon’s Choice products by BuzzFeed News found listings with troubling product defects and warnings, as well as review manipulation.
DarkCyber’s hunch is that “quality” is defined in terms of revenue and margin. The notion about “troubling” is probably not high on the list of considerations. We noted this passage:
But “Amazon’s Choice” isn’t that at all, and here’s the disappointing news: It’s a label automatically awarded to listings by an algorithm based on customer reviews, price, and whether the product is in stock. And those choices Amazon’s software makes aren’t always reliable — in fact, sometimes they’re Amazon-recommended crap.
We highlighted this snippet as well:
But what consumers are finding is that while a product that performs well on key marketplace metrics might get an “Amazon’s Choice” label, it isn’t necessarily a good product. There are many examples. A forehead-and-ear thermometer with a 3.6-star average rating over 1,509 reviews is distinguished as Amazon’s Choice for an “infant thermometer.” Yet the product description from the manufacturer itself said, “Widely inaccurate and the results could be found from the comments by yourself.” (After BuzzFeed News reached out to the company for comment, that description was removed from the Amazon listing.)
Interesting, if true.
Amazon Fights Human Trafficking
Here’s another example of Amazon PR and a less than obvious reminder of the company’s push into policeware. Quartz’s story “Amazon’s AI Is Being Used to Rescue Children from Sex Trafficking.” We learned:
The nonprofit Thorn, founded by actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore in 2009, wants to help to find these children and bring them to safety. To do so, it’s looking to AI… DetectText quickly extracts this information from the images, allowing Thorn to work backwards to find children from their last known number. IndexFaces, meanwhile, detects and matches faces to images of missing and exploited children from open web data sources, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s register of missing children.
Another message is, “Facial recognition is a pretty good thing.”
Now It Is Amazon Reinforcement Learning
Forbes is, it seems, an Amazon believer. “Amazon Dives Deep into Reinforcement Learning” explains:
The company [Amazon] applies RL in combination with other ML methods to optimize its warehouse and logistics operations, and assisting with automation in its various fulfillment facilities. The company has also applied RL to solving supply chain optimization problems and helping to discover optimal paths for delivery.
RL is an acronym for “reinforcement learning.” Useful when talking about ML and AI and APR (Amazon public relations).
The capitalist tool added:
the company has applied RL and other ML approaches to help create the latest iteration of its autonomous drone delivery device.
Okay, drones. What about those drones and RL?
Amazon used machine learning to iterate and simulate over 50,000 configurations of drone design before choosing the optimal approach.
Working at Amazon Twitch
SFGate, which is a bit rah rah for the Silicon Valley thing, published “Here’s What It’s Like to Work at Twitch, One of the Hottest Gaming Companies in the US.” Here’s a snapshot of the main point: Fun, food, autonomy, choice at an entertainment revolution.
Sounds like heaven or a bizarro world, almost the inverse of working at an Amazon warehouse.
Want to work in this paradise digital? I learned:
People who can show that they’re unabashedly passionate about something they do, whether it’s for fun or work, is a really nice cultural fit for us. We think that passion translates to your work, ultimately.—Alleged live streamed statement from a Twitch University Recruiter Gina Greenwalt.
Nothing about the streams which contain commercial TV shows (Russian streamers pump out US TV shows with dubbed Russian), movies (Pokémon is a fave), and the interesting pay-me-to have a private chat services. Odd that.
Next time around maybe SFGate will dig a bit deeper than free donuts. Plus a comparison with an Amazon warehouse job would be quite interesting. Perhaps free adult diapers instead of bagels?
Amazon: PR Diversity or Child Labor?
DarkCyber believes this is a PR play. Amazon is doing a lot of PR it seems. A 10 year old is now working alongside Amazonians who are young at heart if not in years. NBC Washington reports that Karthick Arun will enter the fifth grade. He will also work on robots because he is the youngest person to pass the Amazon AWS Cloud Practitioner examination. Will he take the now retired Google Labs Aptitude Test or GLAT? I once sent a page to an investment banker who told me he was good at math. I never heard a peep from this fellow after the snail mail was delivered to him. Arun would probably ace that confection. Too bad Google dumped its robotics company. You remember the one with the terrifying reindeer wandering the company’s front lawn. Arun wants to build a robot dog. Sorry, Arun, already done.
Amazon: More Planes Because…
DarkCyber’s answer is, “FedEx and UPS are like old, rotting trees to the gleaming blade on the front of the Bezos bulldozer.”
“Amazon Prime Air Gets More Planes to Boost One Day Shipping to You” offers a different explanation. To wit:
Amazon said it agreed to lease 15 more Boeing cargo planes from GE Capital Aviation Services, helping the e-commerce titan continue growing its air fleet so it can speed up Prime deliveries.
FedEx and UPS will take heart with this statement:
Pilots working for Prime Air have regularly complained about poor pay and lousy working conditions.
Hmmm. Different from Twitch working conditions perhaps?
DarkCyber understands the Prime delivery notion. Customers are number one. However, DarkCyber believes the motivation is to leverage Amazon’s infrastructure and robots, a white elephant airport, and the loose regulatory environment to become the same-day delivery giant, none of this overnight, three day, or seven day approach.
Amazon Connect Lex Speech Recognition
Here’s a link to a news story titled “Amazon Connect Lex Speech Recognition advanced Configuration.” The short write up is duplicated plus there’s a link to a video. Lex is Amazon’s speech recognition system. You will have to navigate to the link and figure out what DrVoIP on Collaboration is trying to communicate.
The real news is that Amazon Connect has launched AI powered speech analytics. The idea is to capture speech, convert to text, add metadata, and run numerical recipes across the content. Who is excited about this? Well, marketers, of course. We noted this statement in the write up:
The solution combines Amazon Transcribe to perform real-time speech recognition and create a high-quality text transcription of each call into text; Amazon Comprehend to analyze the interaction, detect the sentiment of the caller, and identify keywords and phrases in the conversation; and Amazon Translate to translate the conversation into an agent’s preferred language. To learn more about AI Powered Speech Analytics for Amazon Connect, see the solution webpage.
Want more? You can read marketing detail in Martech Advisor.
Amazon Partners, Resellers, Innovators
Summer is approaching in rubber boots and with a brolly here in Harrod’s Creek. There was some partner and reseller news. We’ve tossed in innovators because there are some interesting rumblings in the Amazonian digital jungle.
- Datacal supports AWS databases. Source: SD Times
- Digital Asset Partners puts smart contracts on AWS. Source: Coin Telegraph
- Domo has launched Domo on AWS. “Domo for AWS is a new purpose-built package that gives AWS customers an easy way to make data from nearly two dozen AWS services securely accessible to virtually anyone across the company to drive new business value.” Here’s another baffler: “to drive new business value.” Source: MarketWatch
- FINEOS is now competent in AWS financial services. Did you forget that Amazon is into finance but in a different way than privacy-centric Facebook? Source: Digital Journal
- HaTech is named an AWS advanced partner. We’re not sure what it means, but you can read more in the Yahoo write up. Only 10 percent have reached this tier. We have to ask, “10 percent of how many?”
- iBaset, a manufacturing services outfit, is using AWS for aerospace and defense applications. Source: Yahoo.
- IEEE and Amazon are teaming up to encourage entrepreneurs in the IEEE community. Would Amazon invest in a promising start up? Would Amazon encourage a promising start up to use Azure, Google, or another cloud? Source: Business Insider (a source which really wants money)
- SenecaGlobal is now an Amazon EC2 partner for Microsoft Windows Server. Strange bedfellows perhaps? Source: Host Review
- Smartsheet is now AWS government competent. Smartsheet is in the “work execution business.” No, we don’t understand the phrase either. Workflow, project management, and the like we get. But not work execution. Source: Bakersfield Californian
- Solodev is using Amazon AWS as a customer experience platform. We think this means customer service. Source: EContent What’s this have to do with electronic content? [a] Self help Web site, [b] search FAQs, [c] another publication jumping on the Amazon bandwagon for content, [d] who knows. Pick one, please.
- Tripwire signs up for Amazon AWS. Tripwire provides security and compliance services. Source: Host Review
- Legal and General will use AWS’s blockchain service. Source: Forbes
- ZeroNorth is now an Amazon advanced technology partner. Source: Digital Journal
Stephen E Arnold, June 24, 2019
Amazonia for June 17, 2019
June 17, 2019
With travel and a crazy eye doctor appointment, Amazonia snagged a handful of highlights. Enjoy the bulldozer’s path from 30,000 feet.
Amazon Is Okay with a Break Up
DarkCyber noted an interesting report from CNBC. One DarkCyber research professional thought this announcement was a green light for regulators to create one or more additional Fortune 100 companies by dismantling some of the Bezos bulldozer’s accessories. CNBC reported as “real” news:
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon’s cloud business, said Monday that, although he doesn’t see clear benefits for Amazon Web Services spinning off from the rest of the company, if the U.S. government were to force that move, then Amazon would have to comply.
The information flowed from an interview with talk overs from Kara Swisher, who has become the “voice” of Silicon Valley deep thinkers. The story also included these statements:
Jassy has often been asked if Amazon could be planning to separate AWS and turn it into its own business. Historically, Jassy has said no. On Monday he said he still felt there were no major obvious advantages to such a move. He added that customers should not want it to happen because having to do things like hold earnings calls could distract from more important tasks such as keeping cloud services functioning at a high level.
Does Amazon Record Children via Alexa?
An interesting write up appeared in Gizmodo. Online news, of course, may not be “real,” but you can decide for yourself. Just read “Lawsuits Claim Amazon’s Alexa Voice Assistant Illegally Records Children Without Consent.” The write up states:
the complaint argues that Amazon saves “a permanent recording of the user’s voice” as well as records and transmits clips of anything said after Alexa’s “wake word” is uttered. It also claims that Alexa neither informs users that these permanent recordings will be created nor bothers to ask for their consent beforehand…
DarkCyber will monitor this allegation.
Amazon Is Fine with Regulating Facial Recognition
Phys.org reported:
Amazon has joined the ranks of other technology companies, including Microsoft and Google, in acknowledging the risks of facial-recognition software and calling on the federal government to impose national regulations on the technology.
Amazon Financial Shifts into Low Gear
In my Amazon Policeware lectures, I talk about the way in which financial information “snaps in” to services for government authorities. Think in terms of IRS investigations, credit and background checks, and similar services delivered from GovCloud. Against this background, consider Amazon’s new credit card. The Amazon bulldozer’s push is for people with poor credit who want and need an Amazon credit card. Once the territory of the Vanilla pre-paid bank card and similar “financial” services, the Amazon offering is significant. Marketwatch stated:
Like many other retail cards, however, the Amazon Credit Build card can only be used for Amazon purchases, making it a “closed-loop” card.
Seems like a drawback, right? Maybe not. Individuals with poor credit are often difficult to profile like a high net worth Silicon Valley one percenter. The card has hooks to Amazon Prime, a useful way to obtain information about certain card users’ video viewing preferences.
The article points out:
“Secured credit cards are my favorite cards for folks who are getting started with credit or rebuilding it,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst at CompareCards.com. “They’re a great training-wheels card because there’s so little risk involved. After all, with typical credit lines of $200 or $250, there’s only so wild you can go with your spending.”
DarkCyber sees this one more interesting option bolted to the Bezos bulldozer. Unlike some of Amazon’s efforts in food delivery and operating in a “green” manner, this credit card play will be a useful probe for Amazon. If successful, perhaps after the bulldozer blazes a new trail, additional financial services will take root?
Amazon’s Blink XT2 Goes Dark
The Verge reported that the Amazon phone’s demons haunt the XT2. The XT2 is a video camera which garnered “mixed reviews.” Amazon wants love, gentle reader. As a result:
Amazon has temporarily stopped taking orders for the Blink XT2 smart camera that it launched last month. The XT2, which is Blink’s first new camera since Amazon acquired the company, is listed as “currently unavailable” for purchase. That applies to all configurations, including the single camera and multicamera kits. The Verge has reached out to Amazon for comment. Best Buy, which also carries the new camera, simply lists it as “coming soon”online, but some people have been able to buy it at their local stores.
The Blink XT2 may return. Amazon is still selling the Amazon Cloud Cam to Ring’s smart camera lineup. And DeepLens? Not mentioned in the write up.
Amazon’s Food Home Delivery Choked Out
Geekwire reported that Amazon has shut down its food delivery business. DarkCyber has never used Amazon’s or another other food delivery service. The fact that Amazon has offered the service since 2015 was “real” news for us. The service started in Seattle and then became available in more than 20 US cities and London, according to Geekwire. The write up points out:
The closure of Amazon Restaurants after investing serious time and money in the service is a rare retreat from the e-commerce behemoth.
As Amazon “dabbled,” Geekwire notes:
Uber Eats, which launched more than three years ago and is live in 500 cities globally, generated $1.46 billion in revenue last year, up from $587 million in 2017, and brought in $536 million during the first quarter of 2019…. Grubhub, meanwhile, saw revenues reach $324 million for the first quarter, up 39 percent year-over-year, though its operating margin dipped by more than 10 percent, The Motley Fool noted.
For Amazon’s competitors failure may be a delightful Amazon take away.
Amazon Personalize for Everyone
ClickZ likes Amazon’s personalize service. The article “Amazon’s Famed Recommendation Service Personalize Now Available to Every Application” uses the adjective “famed.” Famed? The write up states:
To utilize this personalization-as-a-service, a publisher provides an activity stream from an application, which can include such data as clicks, page views, signups or purchase history – along with info on the products to be recommended, such as products, videos, songs or articles. Additional user info, including demographic or geographic data, can also be included. AWS said the supplied data is kept private and secure, and only used for that application’s recommendations. The service selects the most appropriate algorithms, trains a personalized machine learning model that is designed for the data, and then hosts and manages the model as it provides the recommendations via an API call. Application owners can control the service through the AWS console, and billing is only for the amount of the service used, with no minimums or upfront fees.
If you want to read Amazon’s own explanation of its announcement, navigate to this link.
But “famed”?
Amazon and Blockchain
The UK insurance outfit Legal and General will use Amazon’s blockchain system for its bulk annuities business. Bulk annuities are what makes some UK pensions tick. “UK Insurer Legal & General Picks Amazon for First Pensions Blockchain Deal” reported:
L&G is only launching the blockchain platform for bulk annuity business outside its core markets of Britain and the United States, although an L&G spokesman said the platform could be extended to those two markets in future.
Amazon’s unique selling proposition is that the insurance company can focus on building new business, not keeping a blockchain up and running.
Another brick in the Amazon bulldozer policeware parking garage? Maybe?
George Mason, Yep, George Mason’s Cloud Degree
DarkCyber thinks this news story, overlooked by “real” media,” is important. The Business Journals reported on June 11, 2019, that the Bezos bulldozer dropped off some Amazon professionals at George Mason University. After talk and pizzas, the university favored by some government types, and Amazon had a deal. Student can enroll in George Mason (for example, some Department of Defense professionals, and after four years of study emerge with a four year cloud computing degree. Some of these cloud savvy professionals will return to the US government and others will join the consulting firms which serve the US government. DarkCyber believes that the cloud service the graduates will be able to make work is AWS. “Amazon Web Services Partners with George Mason on 4 Year Degree Program” states:
The announcement comes a year after AWS rolled out a cloud curriculum-based associate degree program at Northern Virginia Community College.
Amazon is also pumping in $3 million for housing.
Amazon explained it this way:
NOVA and Mason faculty worked with AWS Educate curriculum designers to create a BAS degree path that will equip students with technical skills and hands-on experiences to help prepare them for careers in cloud architecture, cybersecurity, software development, and DevOps. The degree pathway will be launched in fall 2020 as part of the ADVANCE program, the NOVA/Mason partnership that streamlines the path to a four-year degree and entry into the workforce by eliminating traditional transfer obstacles, providing students with additional coaching and financial incentives, and highlighting pathways to high-demand careers. The degree program will be backwards-mapped to in-demand skills along with competency-based credentials required by AWS and other cloud employers. All students will receive membership in the AWS Educate program and gain hands-on, real-world experience with leading cloud technology and tools.
As Yoda may have said, “Plan ahead, young JEDI. Cyber warriors need we soon.”
DarkCyber expects similar deals with NOVA and other nearby universities. We also want to point out that the bulldozer is pushing AWS cloud into community colleges and pre-college education. Computer Weekly reports:
Amazon Web Services joins forces with Career College Trust to create cloud course that will prepare students for entry-level tech jobs or further education at university
And if the money and support are insufficient, Amazon rolled out new badges for student who learn AWS RoboMaker, AWS Sumerian, and AWS Deep Racer. The RoboMaker badge is for creating robots to replace inefficient humanoids. the Sumerian badge is a virtual reality play. The DeepRacer badge is for racing virtual cars on virtual tracks. The game angle is a good way to interest young, hungry minds.
Amazon AWS Fees: Know Before You Sign
DarkCyber wants to point out that the complexity of Amazon’s services are equaled and perhaps outdone by Amazon’s pricing structures. “AWS Costs Every Programmer Should Know” is a useful write up. The article includes information for compute and storage, which often comprise the bulk of the customer attention. DarkCyber believes that similar analyses would be useful for the numerous other services Amazon makes available. Amazon’s pricing complexity and its different approaches to assigning fees to services is a bit of digital left overs. Like the company’s “two pizza teams,” the pricing appears and becomes part of the system. It is possible for a customer to sign up for a service and then forget to disable or simply forget that it was a for fee deal. The Amazon billing system keeps on chugging along. Thus, scope out the costs and think about the bumps in fees when thresholds for data, transaction, or some other operation are crossed. Like the AT&T of old, certain thresholds can add significant amounts to a monthly invoice. And like Ma Bell, the time machine approach to bill adjustments is not 100 percent efficient.
Partners and Resellers
The companies may not be household names, but Amazon is signing up partners and resellers. Selected deals this week:
Information Builders will create and deliver health care data management from the AWS cloud. Source: Yahoo
Pulumi has set up shop to selling “how to” services to future AWS customers. Source: Geekwire
SAIC is now a premier consulting partner for Amazon AWS.
VMware and AWS continue their UK push. The NHS deal is one facet of the plan. The article said: “Last year, VMware extended its public sector commitment by announcing VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud, a hybrid cloud service designed to enable public sector agencies in the U.S. to leverage a common cloud infrastructure.” Source: Silicon Angle
Stephen E Arnold, June 17, 2019
Amazonia for June 10, 2019
June 10, 2019
Grind. Grind. Grind. This is the sound of the Amazon bulldozer. It complements the buzz of the Amazon delivery drone. Enjoy news of the world’s favorite online book store.
FedEx Express: Not for Amazon
Jeff Bezos got fired. by FedEx. A tough message to accept from FedEx’s MBAs.
FedEx, despite its confidence in Amazon as a customer, seems to be doing a rethink. “FedEx Will No Longer Provide Express Shipping for Amazon in the US” revealed that the company conceived in an MBA class:
decided not to renew its express U.S. shipping contract with Amazon. The company said in a statement that it was a “strategic decision” and that the change won’t affect other existing contracts with Amazon, including international shipping.
With Amazon refurbing the Cincinnati / Covington airport (a bit of a white elephant), FedEx is edging toward the realization that Amazon wants some or all of FedEx’s business. DarkCyber once used FedEx several times a week. I can’t recall the last time I sent or received a FedEx envelope. The deal affects air deliveries, but when Amazon rolls out its smart electric delivery devices, FedEx may have to check out another MBA class, but even these are becoming unattractive. Students find that many courses are taught by worn shoe types or are no longer offered. Imagine. An MBA taking a class in ethics. When it has to absolutely, positively get there overnight, we use email or just wait for the Amazon delivery. We received a surprise same day delivery. That’s speedy. DarkCyber has to instruct Amazon to deliver on certain days to make sure there is someone around to collect the box. The cute but invasive magic door bell does not ding dong for us.
Amazon Usurps the Sidewalks of Suburbia
Not really. More accurately, not yet. “How Amazon’s Delivery Robots Will Navigate Your Sidewalk” explains that cute, rolling breadboxes with six wheels, will delivery products to customers. How the little cute breadboxes will get up steps, enter apartments, avoid testosterone fueled teens, street robbers, old people who push the machines into the gutter with their electric wheelchairs, and other assorted actions is not clear. Assume that the breadbox does trundle up in front of a dwelling. How does the package get from the Amazon wheeled vehicle to the consumer. Will a couple of disgruntled youth baseball players carrying aluminum bats vent their frustration on the cute but smart vehicles? Interesting idea. I wonder if Amazon spends much time checking out the real world.
Amazon Embraces Diversity
CNBC, a surprising news source, revealed that the “elite S Team” has a new member. Before you ask, “Who?”, it is Rick DeSantis. Mr. DeSantis has worked in the jungle for more than 20 years. DeSantis has held various engineering positions, but he’s best known for helping launch Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the cloud service that lets other businesses offload much of their data center needs to Amazon. He joins 18 other Amazon chieftains. This band of elite individuals make key business decisions. How many women are members of the S team? Guess. [a] one, [b] one, [c] one. Time’s up. Amazon suggests that it is into diversity. There are, after all, four women among the top 48 Amazon executives.
Amazon Telephone & Telegraph
NoJitter provides more information about Amazon’s communications initiative. “AWS Gets Serious about Cloud Communications” explains that Chime unified communications or UC in phone lingo is getting more beef. Among the enhancements are speech analytics, including translation capabilities. The article explains:
The Amazon Chime updates revolve around broader voice capabilities. Chime already has rich chat, meetings, and collaboration features. Now AWS is adding two new features. The first is business calling capabilities that enable users to place and receive calls and text messages in more than 100 countries directly from the Chime desktop application, mobile client, or Web interface. Callers can use the integrated keypad or click or tap to call on a Chime contact. Incoming calls will ring wherever a user is logged in, so if a worker has the desktop app and mobile client logged in, it will simultaneously ring on both devices. The addition of native calling puts AWS in the competitive crosshairs of all the UCaaS vendors. In addition, the company is trying to disrupt the market by changing the pricing model. Instead of pre-paying per user, businesses only pay for the minutes used. Administrators can provision as many phone numbers as they need to but only pay for calls made. If a worker makes no calls on a number in a particular month, the business isn’t charged. There are no minimum fees or long-term contracts.
Are AT&T, T Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon listening? Why should they? The Motley Fool has spelled out four reasons why Amazon is not into the telephone business. And the reasons? Well, being a phone company is expensive. Second, Amazon will focus on drones autonomous vehicles. Third, telcos are low margin businesses. (Groceries apparently are not, DarkCyber concludes.) Finally, the crack regulatory legal eagles would block that sort of move. NoJitter? Obviously unrelated.
UAW Banking Work: Off the Radar for a Reason
Amazon Teams with Emirates NBD to streamline banking services. This is an important announcement. Amazon is applying its technology outside the US. At some point, the services will find their way to other countries. What services can Amazon offer as a financial partner? Credit checks, anyone? Supplementary data for tax purposes? Source: Marketwatch
High Street Could Become Low Street
“Amazon Sellers to Hit UK High Streets in Year Long Pop Up Pilot” makes it clear that Amazon is testing the robustness of High Street vendors. A “high street” is a row of shops selling everything from UK food faves like McVitie’s biscuits to a washing machine the size of a bread box in my grandmother’s kitchen.
According to the write up:
Internet shopping has been blamed for boarding up high streets across the UK. So it looks politically judicious for Amazon, the original ecommerce behemoth, to now be attaching its brand name to a pilot project aimed at sparking a little commercial life in denuded UK towns and cities by parachuting online SMEs into pop-up shops around the country.
DarkCyber sees the test as way for Amazon to figure out how to capture more UK shoppers’ money. If the test works, the high streets may be renamed Baja Close. Will an Amazon pop up merchant offer gilded lilies?
Amazon Channels Sears’ DIY Houses
“Amazon Is Selling Entire Houses for Less than $20,000 — with Free Shipping” reports that Amazon is embracing the past. Even though the Bezos bulldozer crushed dear, old Sears & Roebuck, Amazon’s canny executives flipped through a dead tree catalog from the now moribund mail order company and found inspiration.
This is the Amazon five star Allwood Avalon Cabin Kit | 540 SQF + Loft (Triple Glass Windows and Doors) for $33,990 and free shipping. Like the original Sears’ customers are do it yourselfers. But some people will want to have expertise in handling trivial tasks like plumbing, electrical work, and the site preparation. Basic skills.
Amazon’s search system makes it tough to locate these products. Persevere or write us at darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. We can help, but we do charge money. Payment in Amazon fractional “points” is not accepted at this time. In case you don’t recall the printed Sears’s catalog from 1908, here’s what one of its house ads looked like:
What happens if Amazon bundles a house building service with its kit? Sounds like a possible play if the tiny houses sell.
Vroom. NASCAR Selects the Amazon Cloud: No Rain Days
Yahoo, a go to source for big time news, reported that NASCAR picked Amazon as its cloud provider. DarkCyber learned:
AWS has been selected by National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) as its cloud-based machine learning and artificial intelligence workload provider. This highlights the power and reliability of AWS services.
NASCAR and artificial intelligence plus automobile racing videos. What will SageMaker discover?
Ama-Drones Aloft
Techcrunch reports:
It’s an ingenious hexagonal hybrid design, though, that has very few moving parts and uses the shroud that protects its blades as its wings when it transitions from vertical, helicopter-like flight at takeoff to its airplane-like mode.
DarkCyber call it an Ama-Drone. Some may prefer this type of design dating from the mid 2000s, however.
Snap and Buy
Fancy someone’s duds? Now you can take a picture on your mobile phone and Amazon will find the product or a near match. You can then buy it. Why spend time selecting clothes or doing the hunter-gatherer procedure. Source: The Verge
Alexa: Talk and Apps
Why search? Talk and use Alexa apps. Typing is so yesterday. Smart software and speech recognition with a dash of personalized data analysis. Magic. Source: Wired
Amazon: A Top Artificial Intelligence Company
According to Datamation, Amazon is the number four AI company. Keep in mind that this is an alphabetical list. The write up states:
The online retail giant offers both consumer and business-oriented AI products and services and many of its professional AI services are built on consumer products. Amazon Echo brings artificial intelligence into the home through the intelligent voice server, Alexa. For AWS, the company has three primary services: Lex, a business version of Alexa, Polly, which turns text to speech, and Rekognition, an image recognition service.
Partners and Integrators
- AnythingIT. We’re not sure we know how one recovers cloud assets. Nevertheless, the company doe it with Amazon. Source: Finanzen
- CrowdMachine offers ASW to its customers. CloudMachine eliminates complexity and brings data to life. Source: Host Review
- Cruz Street is an Amazon QuickSight provider. Source: Digital Journal
- Ricoh has expanded its relationship with Amazon. Source: Business Insider’s Market Insider. (Note that you may have to pay to read the story.)
- ScaleGrid can now handle “bring your own cloud” to the new computing paradigm which is timesharing sort of. Source: Yahoo
- Lemongrass Consulting is able to do SAP things in the Amazon cloud. Source: Virtual Strategy
- McAfee (not the fellow staying out of the spotlight except when he is not) will add security to the Amazon AWS cloud. Not a moment too son, we think. Source: Yahoo
- Modiface allows a mobile user to try on a new lipstick. Source: Chain Store Age
- Tripwire is in the Amazon jungle. Source: Yahoo
- Northwest Vista College is an Amazon “teach ‘em to code the Bezos way.” Move along, code doggies. Source: Yahoo
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2019
Enterprise Search and Grease Management
June 7, 2019
I see some crazy stuff. Every once in a while, a really crazy item crosses my desk. The example I wish to highlight today is called “Enterprise Search Software Market to depict huge growth, Key Methodologies, Top Players: SharePoint, IBM, Lucidworks, Microsoft FAST, Oracle, Amazon CloudSearch, Apache Lucene, Attivio.” My hunch is that rolling in Amazon and Microsoft cloud revenues will make almost any market look like Popeye the Sailor Man. The reality is that enterprise search came and went in a blaze of litigation and embarrassment. Some of the exhaust seems to be emanating from the Hewlett Packard litigation related to the former medical device maker’s acquisition of an enterprise search vendor.
Enterprise search has overpromised and under delivered for about 50 years. Elsewhere I have recounted the adventures of services which most people don’t recall or simply knew nothing about. Remember InQuire, the service with forward truncation? A more recent fumble is the disappearance of those cheerful yellow Google Search Appliances, its staff, and the marketing collateral promising an end to the misery of traditional enterprise search solutions.
The buzz has not died down at at Reports Monitor. You can read their remarkable news release at this link. Forget the incredible hyperbole of “huge growth.” Hello, Reports Monitor, one can download a perfectly good enterprise search system from open source repositories. There are low cost systems available from outfits like Funnelback. You can get a next generation system from vendors of intelware. Don’t recognize the term? Don’t worry. These vendors don’t know what enterprise search means. And there are some companies which this report does not list as players. Want these names? Sorry, that’s information for which I charge a fee. Believe me. Reports Monitor and perhaps you, gentle reader, don’t know about these companies either.
What causes me to write about a report which is a bit on the wild side? How about this passage:
Key Insights:
- Complete in-depth analysis of the Grease Management in Commercial Kitchens
- Important changes in market dynamics.
- Segmentation analysis of the market.
- Emerging segments and regional markets.
- Historical, on-going, and projected market analysis based on volume and esteem.
- Assessment of niche industry players.
- Market share analysis.
- Key strategies of major players.
Yep, grease management. Now we’re getting to the heart of slippery data and even more slippery reports about enterprise search. The report provides region-wise data. Great stuff.
News flash: Enterprise search left the dock and took on water. Some outfits torpedoed their investors, customers, and partners. Others have tried to become business intelligence, analytics, even customer service support systems. Did not work too well.
Why?
Enterprise search is not a general purpose application. Significant work is necessary to make it possible for employees to find information in what are silos or in oddball lingo. Furthermore important people like lawyers, product researchers, and big wheels like to keep their information secret. An enterprise search system has failure baked in unless it is tailored to a quite specific problem. But at that point why not buy an eDiscovery system, a lab notebook system, or a niche solution for the eager beavers in marketing?
Maybe I am too harsh on the grease management angle. That may be closer to the truth than Reports Monitor realizes.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2019
Microsoft and Oracle: Fear Helps Make New Friends
June 6, 2019
I found “Microsoft, Oracle Team Up on Cloud Services in Jab at Amazon” amusing. The real news outfit Thomson Reuters reported this unusual big company relationship when I was making my way through torrential rain in lovely West Virginia coal country. The mist did disguise the land renewal, but this Microsoft Oracle relationship is going to make for a nifty road trip video.
Imagine. The elegant Larry Ellison and the sleek Satya Nadella explaining how old school databases are the pajamas made for the cool cats. Amazon and Google will pay attention to this odd couple because it makes very visible the fear which both companies have for their database futures. Forget the cloud. We’re talking databases anywhere: On premises, hybrid, in the cloud, or residing in some wonky quantum storage thing yet to be made stable, affordable, and usable by a normal rocket scientist.
The news report does not wax poetic, nor does it offer much in the way of addressing the fear thing. I did note this statement:
The two companies said the high-speed link between their data centers would start with facilities in the eastern United States and spread to other regions. They will also work together to let joint users log into to services from either company with a single user name and get tech support from either company. The move comes as both Oracle and Microsoft are courting large businesses and government customers considering moving computing tasks currently handled in their own data centers to cloud providers.
I would point out that Oracle has chosen to add its legal pointy stick to its approach to database efficacy. Microsoft, on the other hand, is working overtime to explain that it is the solution to a range of data management issues. If one does not think about Microsoft’s struggles to update its Windows operating system, the PR sounds darned convincing.
I wish to offer a couple of observations:
First, Amazon and Google continue to capture the attention of the next generation of innovators. Oh, I know that there are clever Microsoft and Oracle wizards inventing the future at this very moment. But let’s be real: Amazon has an innovation ecosystem. Google may not have the perseverance to make its products work and then “put wood behind” some to make them competitive, but the Google does have a low cost phone and the ability to go off line because of configuration errors. Amazon, on the other hand, is evolving into an innovation platform. I am not sure the database technologies are what makes Amazon attractive to smaller firms and specialists, but Amazon is revving the bulldozer’s engine.
Second, Microsoft and Oracle are “look back” technology providers. I think both companies share many of the adorable traits of Hewlett Packard (any flavor) and IBM. In today’s business environment, which is similar to the weather around Oklahoma City, being old is not what I interpret as a plus.
Third, the two besties have somewhat different personalities. Microsoft wants to be a do gooder. Oracle wants to fly its fighter jet over the San Jose suburbs. Microsoft wants to be the big dog in Seattle. Oracle wants to be relevant. Microsoft wants to avoid the fate of Vista. Oracle wants to keep the myth of the structured query language alive. Amazon and Google, on the other hand, just want to avoid regulation and emulate the business success of pleasant people like JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and a couple of other “good business men.”
To sum up, fear is tough to explain away. The exchange of fraternity rings and an appearance at the fraternity party or the high school reunion is in the future. Town & Country material I believe. Will the two parties dance each dance together at these shindigs?
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2019
Googley Things
June 5, 2019
I wanted to write about Google’s recent outage. But the explanations were not exciting. That’s too bad. Configuration problems are what bedevil careless or inexperienced technicians. The fact that Google went down speaks volumes about what happens when the whizzy cloud technology is disrupted by the climate change Google faces. Are there storms gestating in Washington, DC?
The more interesting news, if it is indeed accurate in a boom time for the faux, appeared in “YouTube Says Homophobic Abuse Does Not Violate Harassment Rules.” The write up states:
In a compilation video Maza created of some of his mentions on Crowder’s show, the host attacks Maza as a “gay Mexican”, “lispy queer” and a “token Vox gay atheist sprite”.
DarkCyber assumes that Google has “data” to back up its decision. The company’s smart software and exceptional engineers do not make judgment calls without considering statistical analyses of clicks, word counts, and similar “hard” facts.
With these data, it seems to me that Google has put to rest any mewing and whimpering about the reason it was able to differentiate between abuse and debate.
This is the Google, not some liberal arts magnet. Logic is logic. Oh, about that outage and the quality of the Google technical talent? Well, that is just an outlier.
Stephen E Arnold, June 5, 2019
Factualities for June 5, 2019
June 5, 2019
Numbers are fascinating. DarkCyber is impressed with percentages, digits, and outputs from smart analytics systems. Here’s a selection of the juicy bits from the past week.
2019. Year in which the famous Google PageRank patent expired. Is this significant? Nope. Partially funded by the NSF, the “clever” patent has been a happy hunting ground for innovators for years. Source: Google Patents
1 million. Number of older Windows devices vulnerable to a known exploit. Seems a bit low, doesn’t it? Source: Security Week
3. The number of six second ads which generate a higher purchase rate. Source: The Media Online (South Africa)
350 billion. The desired size of the US Navy’s social media archive for about 24 months. Source: Bleeping Computer
Minus 3. The decline in daily time spent of Facebook by US users in 2018. Source: Mashable
4. The number of triggers required to addict a person to a smartphone. Source: Metro Newspaper
$5.5 billion. The amount spent on artificial intelligence in the Asia Pacific region in the last 12 months. Source: IDC
11. The number of cross border GDPR violations involving Facebook now underway. Source: BBC
93 percent. Percentage of organization committed to smart software but a skills shortage holds these outfit back. Source: The Money Cloud
90 percent. Probability that an artificial intelligence system will catch you. Source: Phys.org
2.2 billion. Number of fake Facebook accounts terminated so far in 2019. Source: Yahoo
1. Rank of Huawei as America’s technology enemy. Source: Quartz
$4.6 billion. Cost each year of physician burnout. Source: Time
Minus 7.1 percent. Decline in eBook sales in Germany in the first quarter of 2019. Source: Digital Reader
1 billion. Number of bubble gum cards Recorded Future has available. Source: Recorded Future
5 percent. Percentage of people between 15 and 120 who do not have a mobile phone. Source: Ben Evans (No, DarkCyber does not know this expert.)
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2019
DarkCyber for June 4, 2019, Now Available
June 4, 2019
DarkCyber for June 4, 2019, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://www.vimeo.com/339717881 .
The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold. It is the only weekly video news shows focusing on the Dark Web, cybercrime, and lesser known Internet services.
This week’s story line up includes: A look at SafeSkyHacks; cyber crime data from the Global Drug Survey; bad actors shift to closed chat service; the real threat of GozNym malware; LookingGlass and GoldmanSachs announce cyber intelligence deal.,
This week’s feature is a look at the broader implications of the GozNym malware. This series of attacks netted the bad actors more than $100 million from 41,000 businesses and financial institutions. The malware was a combination of code, operating by deploying numerous exploits. As damaging as GozNym was, it signals a phase change in how modern digital attacks operate. DarkCyber identifies three key characteristics of GozNym. First, it was a multi-national force. Second, the hackers met and communicated via social media and chat. Third, the hackers operated like Amazon the AWS cloud, offering Crime as a Service. Attackers needed little or no technical expertise.
Stephen E Arnold, producer of DarkCyber and author of “The Dark Web Notebook,” said in his lecture on June 4, 2019, at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference: “The law enforcement crackdown on the Dark Web has been effective. The unanticipated consequence has been a shift to decentralized operations delivering Crime as a Service.” Point-and-click is now point-and-attack.”
Other stories covered in the June 4, 2019, DarkCyber video include:
First, a review of the software and services available on a hacker forum available to anyone with a standard browser. SafeSkyHacks provides free information about hacking, stolen data sets, and information about exploits. A members-only section of the Web site makes it possible to locate hackers with specific skills, services, software, and data. The DarkCyber video segment takes a close look at the profile posted by one of SafeSkyHack’s’ members. Hackers offer a number of services which may cross the boundary between general information and illegal activity.
Second, the Global drug survey for 2019 contains a wealth of information about the illegal use of narcotics available from the Dark Web and other sources. DarkCyber extracts items which reveal the countries which are now experiencing sharp increases in the use of controlled substances. The United States, for example, is at the top of the list of countries for opioid abuse. Another significant finding in the 2019 report links drug abuse with sexual assault. Assaults often happen when other people are nearby and reports of these attacks are rarely, if ever, reported to the police.
Third, DarkCyber reports about Stephen E Arnold’s remarks about the technology being adopted by bad actors. With information about distributed system widely available and the willingness of criminal elements to pay as much as $1 million for technical talent, law enforcement faces a new challenge. Services like illegal online gambling and video streaming services are becoming difficult to stop. When authorities seize one server, the bad actors deploy a replacement system at a different hosting location with a different Internet address. The new location for the illegal service is disseminated via closed chat and online forums. Often the access information is available on public content hosting sites like Pastebin.com. In some countries, the technical resources needed to disable an illegal online service structured like Netflix is a new challenge.
The final story is a report about the transfer of GoldmanSachs’ Sentinel cyber security software to LookingGlass, a cyber intelligence firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. LookingGlass is likely to integrate the Sentinel system into the LookingGlass services for financial institutions. Sentinel was recognized for excellence by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Kenny Toth, June 4, 2019
Amazonia for June 3, 2019
June 3, 2019
Many companies are shifting down for the summer months. Not Amazon. The online bookstore slowed its flow of announcements about often confusing Amazon Web Services. DarkCyber noted a few interesting announcements in the last week.
Amazon’s Net Nanny
According to Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, Jeff Bezos will have a net nanny. The idea is that the Federal Trade Commission will keep its eye on the Bezos bulldozer’s GPS coordinates. “Amazon Could Face Heightened Antitrust Scrutiny Under a New Agreement Between U.S. Regulators” reported:
The FTC’s plans for Amazon and the Justice Department’s interest in Google are not immediately clear. But the kind of arrangement brokered between the Justice Department and the FTC typically presages more serious antitrust scrutiny, the likes of which many Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have sought out of fear that tech companies have become too big and powerful.
The lobbyists may have some inputs to provide to assorted government and Beltway professionals. Plus, there’s that JEDI contract. DarkCyber will monitor this interesting, but long-time-coming activity. European regulators have been a bit more spry.
Zero Gravity, Zero Friction: The Payoff from Amazon Advertising
What’s cheaper to deliver now that most of the digital infrastructure is in place? [a] Merchandise or [b] Advertising? The correct answer is [b] Advertising. How does Amazon move in to the ad territory occupied by a soon-to-be-investigated Google? [a] Chop merchants who don’t make Amazon a hefty profit or [b] Buy a company with better ad tech than Amazon currently has? The correct answer is [b] Buy a better ad mousetrap. The tip off is Amazon’s alleged purchase of Sizmek, a hippy dippy spelling of “seismic.” Very hip. According to this report from the surprisingly useful CNBC Web site:
The deal will bring an ad server, which is a tool to actually place advertisements around the web, to Amazon. It will also give Amazon “dynamic creative,” which is an industry term for ads tailored to a consumer’s data. For instance, it could help make ads that are tailored depending on geographical region, stock prices or even the local weather. Sizmek filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March.
Amazon knows how to chase down a deal. Ah, the GOOG. After years of unfettered excitement, the machinery in Washington lurches forward.
Amazon Telephone & Telegraph
Item is in the Friday, May 31, 2019, DarkCyber at this link.
Amazon’s Clever Little Pre Wake Word
Does Amazon listen to what ifs smart home devices capture? Not sure, but we do know that Amazon wants to have the ability to turn its smart home devices into bugs (listening and surveillance devices). The idea matches seamlessly with the company’s recruiting of a local news editor and some other bits and pieces of the Amazon policeware system. You can read “Pre Wake Word Processing” (US20190156818) at this link. DarkCyber loves the use of the phrase “pre wake” for surveillance.
Amazon’s Smart Software
Amazon has smart software. One chunk is SageMaker. The fact that some of Amazon’s artificial intelligence cannot spot illegally streamed commercial films and TV shows suggests that artificial intelligence is more easily marketed than implemented in an effective way. Nevertheless, Amazon has added Textract, a name which actually makes it possible to associate the service with its moniker. SageMaker and other smart software needs properly structured content to teach the numerical recipes how to be smart. The idea behind Textract is a, according to Analytics India:
service said to be more than just an optical character recognition algorithm, as it can parse data tables, whole pages, forms, scans, PDFs, photos, and more. Moreover, it also identifies fields and tables, so as to contextualize the data and allow for the collection of cleaner datasets with deeper insights.
Google has filed patents for its smart content acquisition system. Just run queries for R. Guha and A. Halevy (now a Xoogler). Why’s this important? Perhaps Amazon is eager to reduce the cost and time required to make smart software smarter and build the type of datasets which the US Navy covets; for example, 350 billion social media and open source content objects. That’s just for two years of data? There are more years of data to acquire, extract, and analyze. Sounds like something that GovCloud might provide its users.
Amazon’s Smart Software
Amazon’s head of Amazon’s marketing talked about artificial intelligence at an Informatica conference. (I know marketing.) We noted this statement in Silicon Angle: “What we’re trying to do is communicate to the world how our customers are being successful using our technology, specifically machine-learning and AI. It’s one of those things where so many companies want to do it, but they say, “Well, what am I supposed to use it for?” If you dumb down what marketing is at AWS, it’s inspiring people about what they can run in the cloud with AWS. What use cases they should consider us for, and then we spend a lot of energy giving them the technical education they need, so they can be successful using our products. At the end of the day, we make money when our customers are successful using our products.” Yep, marketing.
Amazon Twitch
News is becoming to find its way into open sources. The game video streaming service appears to be struggling with governance. Specifically, individuals are using the service to post content which is protected by copyright. Amazon’s smart software and its professionals are working overtime to get the real time streaming under control. For more information, you can contact us at darkcyber333 at yandex dot com or read this Verge story.
Mai Oui, Amazon
According to Data Center Dynamics, Amazon is gearing up to put a data center in Brétigny-Sur-Orge, France. If you are not up to speed on French towns soon to be absorbed into Paris, the data center will be about 15 miles from the Louvre. For the rush hour commuter, this translates to about one hour by automobile. Yes, the traffic is bad.
Amazon: Real Time Communications
Ribbon is a company selling software which performs a number of functions once exclusively the domain of the “old” AT&T. The company announced that its Session Border Controller Software Edition (SWe) is available via the Amazon Marketplace. The AWS Quick Start for Ribbon SBC SWe has been built specifically for AWS. What does SBC do? The company said: “The Ribbon SBC SWe has been optimized for AWS to provide advanced security, while supporting high capacity requirements, for real-time, multimedia Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) traffic. Additionally, Ribbon’s SBC SWe delivers carrier-class redundancy to ensure service continuity; is deployable on multiple cloud environments; provides industry-leading media transcoding using GPUs to scale for high-density transcoding; and is certified for Microsoft Phone System Direct Routing, Skype for Business, Lync 2013 and Lync 2010.” To simplify, think telephone company services via Amazon. Source: PRNewswire
Amazon Financial
Few people think about Amazon in the context of banking. No problem, but DarkCyber believes that Amazon may have designs on some traditional financial services as it expands its crypto currency capabilities. Cryptonewsz reported that Amazon has extended its support for Amazon Aelf Enterprise, which is the alleged “first cross chain blockchain.” The idea is that blockchains are data silos. Aelf and Amazon are changing that. The service is likely to be of interest to companies like Netflix which seeks to ensure user privacy and limit piracy. The service may appeal to vendors of policeware who want a way to make sense of multiple blockchains used by a single bad actor. Are there implications for other Amazon financial services? Good question.
Amazon and Manufacturing
Amazon sells electronic books and it enables traditional manufacturing. The Bezos bulldozer can pull some different loads in its AWS tractor-trailer. Arcweb reports that Amazon has showcased more than two dozen manufacturing services available on AWS. “Amazon Web Services (AWS) Showcases 25 Products & Services for Manufacturing” states: “Is AWS in manufacturing? Yes, they are.” The write up lists the services, so you will have to consult the source for the other 20:
- Amazon Kinesis lets you easily collect, process, and analyze video and data streams in real time
- Amazon Timestream is a fast, scalable, fully managed time series database service for IoT and operational applications that makes it easy to store and analyze trillions of events per day at 1/10th the cost of relational databases.
- Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed application streaming service. You centrally manage your desktop applications on AppStream 2.0 and securely deliver them to any computer.
- Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.
- Amazon QuickSight is a fast, cloud-powered business intelligence service that makes it easy to deliver insights to everyone in your organization.
There’s a useful diagram as well.
Partners and Resellers
DarkCyber wants to point out that Computer Reseller News, now CRN, published a slideshow with each slide providing a thumbnail about products and services from 20 Amazon AWS partners. No, we did not make it through the 20 slides, but we did deduce that there are AWS partners who want media coverage even if it is in the form of a clunky slideshow. See the show at this link.
Interesting tie ups appeared this week:
- Clevertap is now an Amazon digital customer experience provider. Source: Business Insider
- Dash Solutions has achieved AWS healthcare competency status. Source: Business Insider
- Infocyte. This vendor of proactive threat detection and instant incident response announced the availability of Infocyte HUNT Cloud for Amazon Web Services . The company says that it agentless deployment through AWS APIs and artificial intelligence by leveraging AWS CloudTrail, Source: Dark Reading
Need Help Migrating an App to AWS?
Help is available. Navigate to “So You’re Thinking about Moving a Legacy Application to AWS.” The write up explains the process. You may need to do some additional research if the breezy list of things to think about does not help you.
Amazon Policeware Conference
A glimpse of some of Amazon’s policeware capabilities will make their appearance at the Re:Inforce conference. More details about this event are at this Amazon link. There will be partners doing demonstrations. Attendees can play capture the flag Amazon style. Hydration breaks will be available. Some Amazon warehouse workers may be pleased to note.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2019
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