Factualities for September 12, 2018
September 12, 2018
Believe ‘em or not. The “facts”, that is.
- $7,800 per month and up for the cloud version of IBM Information Server. Source: Datamation
- 280,000. The number of routers infected with crypto jacking. Source: Next Web
- 250 million. The number of Pinterest users. Source: Engadget
- $131 trillion. The amount of money artificial intelligence will add to global production. Source: Axios
- 44 percent. The number of people who have deleted the Facebook app this year. Source: Reddit
- Less than one percent of start ups fail due to competition. Source: Techcrunch
- Five times an hour. How often Americans check their mobile phones. Source: San Francisco Chronicle
- Zero percent. The use of open source in 1993. Source: Silicon Angle
Stephen E Arnold, September 12, 2018
Financial Tremors?
September 12, 2018
The folks with crypto currency may be having a bit of a thrill. The volatility suggests that bits and bytes may not be as stable as owning a chunk of real estate in Tokyo.
We have also noted rumblings elsewhere. Smart software, for example. Many hopes, of course, but there may be some downstream consequences. Salmon finding life difficult may be one metaphor.
It has become a weekly, maybe even daily, routine: some alarmist talks about the dangers of AI on a particular industry, we get scared, the news cycle moves on, and everyone forgets. However, a warning is lurking that has the potential to have some staying power. We learned more from a recent Technology Review story, “The World Economic Forum Warns That AI Might Destabilize The Financial System.”
We learned:
[A]rtificial intelligence will disrupt the industry by allowing early adopters to outmaneuver competitors. It also suggests that the technology will create more convenient products for consumers, such as sophisticated tools for managing personal finances and investments.
We also noted:
But most notably, the report points to the potential for big financial institutions to build machine-learning-based services that live in the cloud and are accessed by other institutions.
This is a very volatile situation, especially as so much finance is starting to hinge on machine learning. For example, many retirement plans are shifting funds around based on AI insights. But take hope for what it is. Quantum computing may be just around the corner.
Patrick Roland, September 13, 2018
DarkCyber for September 11, 2018, Now Available
September 11, 2018
DarkCyber for September 11, 2018, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com .
Stephen E Arnold’s DarkCyber is a weekly video news and analysis program about the Dark Web and lesser known Internet services.
This week’s program covers four Dark Web and security related stories.
The first story reports that cybercrime has increased by 32 percent in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the first quarter of 2017. The most popular malware is for covert crypto currency mining and for Trojan software that can entice a user to download a document or video. DarkCyber reveals an easy way to locate malware using Bing.com and the Pastebin.com service. The easy access to potentially harmful software presents an increasing risk for many Internet users.
The second story explains that a citizen attempted to research a Dark Web murder-for-hire site. After engaging law enforcement, the individual used malware to create a disturbance on the Dark Web site. What happened next surprised the citizen hacker. The police picked up the individual and held him for 36 hours. The incident makes clear that law enforcement has the technical capabilities to monitor Dark Web access and identify individuals who perform certain online actions. The Dark Web and access to it can present some interesting challenges to those who assume that the Dark Web access is secret.
The third story explores the capabilities of SpyCloud, a fast-growing start up based in Austin, Texas. The company has amassed billions of items of information related to passwords, users names, and other types of high-value information. The firm’s system makes it possible for the company to identify a data security problem, often before it poses a problem for the organization. The company recently raised an additional $5 million in Series A funding, bringing the total funding to about $8 million.
The final story reports that the Australian government wants access to computing devices protected by a password. Pending legislation provides for a sentence of 10 years in jail for an individual who refuses to comply with a government request to unlock devices or decrypt encrypted data.
Kenny Toth, September 11, 2018
Smart Software: Just Keep Adding Layers between the Data and the Coder
September 6, 2018
What could be easier? Clicking or coding.
Give up. Clicking wins.
A purist might suggest that training smart software requires an individual with math and data analysis skills. A modern hippy dippy approach is to suggest that pointing and clicking is the way of the future.
Amazon is embracing that approach and other firms are too.
I read “Baidu Launches EZDL, an AI Model Training Platform That Requires No Coding Experience.” Even in China where technical talent is slightly more abundant than in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, is on the bandwagon.
I learned:
Baidu this week launched an online tool in beta — EZDL — that makes it easy for virtually anyone to build, design, and deploy artificial intelligence (AI) models without writing a single line of code.
Why slog through courses? Point and click. The future.
There’s not much detail in the write up, but I get the general idea of what’s up from this passage from the write up:
To train a model, EZDL requires 20-100 images, or more than 50 audio files, assigned to each label, and training takes between 15 minutes and an hour. (Baidu claims that more than two-thirds of models get accuracy scores higher than 90 percent.) Generated algorithms can be deployed in the cloud and accessed via an API, or downloaded in the form of a software development kit that supports iOS, Android, and other operating systems.
Oh, oh. The “API” buzzword is in the paragraph, so life is not completely code free.
Baidu, like Amazon, has a bit of the competitive spirit. The write up explains:
Baidu’s made its AI ambitions clear in the two years since it launched Baidu Brain, its eponymous platform for enterprise AI. The company says more than 600,000 developers are currently using Brain 3.0 — the newest version, released in July 2018 — for 110 AI services across 20 industries.
What could go wrong? Nothing, I assume. Absolutely nothing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 6, 2018
Semantic Video Search Engine
September 2, 2018
I saw a link to a Semantic Video Search Engine” with the logo of MediaMill attached. Curious I did a bit of exploring and noted a video at this link. I learned that MediaMill is the name of the multimedia search engine. The system “watches” or “processes” a video and then assigns an index term or category to the subject of the video scene; for example a scene with a boat is tagged “boat.”
The function is to identify specific video fragments. The system provides automatic content detection. The goal is to make huge amounts of video data accessible. The video i watched was dated 2009. I located the MediaMill Web site and learned:
MediaMill has its roots in the ICES-KIS Multimedia Information Analysis project (in conjunction with TNO) and the Innovative Research Program for Image processing (IOP). It blossomed in the BSIK program MultimediaN the EU FP-6 program VIDI-Video, the Dutch/Flemish IM-Pact BeeldCanon project, and the Dutch VENISEARCHER project. The MediaMill team is currently funded by the Dutch VIDI STORYproject, the Dutch FES COMMIT program, and the US IARPA SESAME project.
The project’s news ended in 2015. Bing and Google searches turn up a significant amount of academic-oriented information. TREC data, technical papers, and links to the MediaMill Web site abound.
The question becomes:
Why has video search remained a non starter?
Since we started our DarkCyber video series, available on YouTube and Vimeo, we have had an opportunity to monitor how these two services index videos. YouTube, for example, makes the video available in the YouTube index in about a day, sometimes more. Vimeo does not index DarkCyber on a regular schedule. We provide an explicit link to the Vimeo video in our Beyond Search announcement of each week’s video.
It is possible to get a listing of DarkCyber videos on the not-well-known Google Video search service. You can find this index at www.googlevideo.com. Run the query “arnold darkcyber” and you will see a list of DarkCyber videos. Note that these are not in chronological order. In fact, running the “arnold darkcyber” query at different times generates results lists with different items and a similarly jumbled or non chronological order. Why? Google search does not handle time in its public facing services. For high accuracy time based queries, you will have to use the commercial Google technology. Check out Recorded Future for some additional details.
Searching for video is a difficult task. YouTube search is quirky. For example, search for “hawaii volcano live shipley” and one does not get a link to the current live stream. YouTube provides links to old videos. To find the live stream, one has to click on the picture of Mr. Shipley and then select the live stream. Vimeo has its oddities as well. When I post a DarkCyber to Vimeo, I cannot search for it. The new video just sort of shows up on my Vimeo dashboard but I cannot locate the most recent video with a query. So much for real time.
Exalead tried its hand at video search, enlisting a partner for the effort. The test was interesting, but I heard chatter that the computational demand (think expense) made the project less than attractive.
My hunch is that video search is lousy because of the costs associated with processing video. Even basic rendering is a slog. Imagine the expense of grinding through a day’s worth of YouTube or Vimeo output?
To sum up, nifty video search ideas abound. Academics have a treasure trove of opportunity. But despite the talk about the cloud and the magic of modern technology. Video search remains difficult and mostly unsatisfying.
Maybe that’s why social media sites rely on those posting the video to tell friends where the content resides? Searching for a snippet of video is almost as difficult as wrestling with a Modern Talking Pictures catalog.
Stephen E Arnold, September 2, 2018
DarkCyber for August 28, 2018, Now Available
August 28, 2018
DarkCyber for August 28, 2018, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/286743860.
Stephen E Arnold’s DarkCyber is a weekly video news and analysis program about the Dark Web and lesser known Internet services.
This week’s program covers five Dark Web and security related stories.
The first story address Microsoft’s acquisition of Hyas, a Canadian cyber intelligence company. DarkCyber believes that Microsoft is making an effort to close the gap between its cloud capabilities and those of Amazon. Policeware appears to be a key strategic capability of Amazon, and Microsoft has found that more than in-house innovation may be necessary to close the gap. Stephen E Arnold, producer of DarkCyber and author of CyberOSINT (2017) said: Amazon’s policeware has helped the company make progress with its US government cloud services. Microsoft’s acquisition of Hyas adds an important cyber analytic capability to the Azure system.”
DarkCyber reports the newly-released details about two Dark Web operations. The Dutch police methods used to take down the Hansa contraband-focused ecommerce site complements new information about the arrest of eight individuals involved with the Rex Mundi hack-and-extort spin on ransomware. Both operations involved investigators from multiple countries, advanced analytics, and traditional investigative techniques. The success of these two operations makes clear that use of software to create hidden Internet sites and services is not as effective as some individuals believe.
DarkCyber reports that draft legislation in Australia may be a different way to force companies to provide decryption backdoors to messaging applications. The Australian government can request decryption assistance or decryption keys. If the company does not comply, the firm may be fined up to seven million dollars for each failure to cooperate. The proposed legislation is accepting public comments and further action will be taken on this proposal later this year.
The final DarkCyber report shares some findings from a yet-to-be-released report about the Asian Dark Web. The report is a work product of IntSights, a cyber intelligence firm. The key finding in the report is that each country takes a unique approach to the Dark Web. Cultural considerations require the use of the country’s language and the jargon used to prevent outsiders from making sense of the content.
Kenny Toth, August 28, 2018
New Technology: A Problem Solver or Problem Generator?
August 23, 2018
Noodling about the k-epsilon model is probably not popular at most cocktail parties. In brief when flows occur, chaos usually turns up at the party.
Consider a large company anchored in technology from IBM, SAP, and some home brew applications. Toss in a mainframe, an AS/400 legacy system, and run-of-the-mill desktops.
Technological change is difficult, and when a switch is needed from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95, the shift may take years. The mainframe keeps on chugging along with CICS, MVS TSO, and green screens. The SAP system gets updated, but after a three year install process, who wants too make changes.
Today, the world of enterprise computing is different. Even the US government wants to move to the cloud. Virtualization is the big thing, not hardware down the hall behind a keycarded door.
When I read “Fragmenting Budgets and Rapid Pace of Change Creates Perfect Storm for IT Decision Makers.” The write up explains a situation which I thought most computer centric folks knew and understood.
The write up explains:
IT decision-makers are increasingly tasked with the difficult decision of choosing technology within business operations and finding the correct IT solutions for business needs. This extra link in the chain combined with the ever-accelerating pace of technological development is creating a perfect storm. In fact, a recent survey of IT decision-makers found that more than half are struggling to keep up with the pace of new technology. Most (84 per cent), acknowledge that they are not currently running the most optimum IT systems and significantly, 28 per cent admit that their organization has actually fallen behind the rate of technological change.
Nothing is as compelling as fear in an organization.
What’s happening is that the friction brakes of old school systems and methods are being replaced with the equivalent of dragging a sneaker on the pavement to slow down a bicycle. For some young at heart managers, the sneaker brake is great fun.
The downside is what I call a chaos problem. Semi stable flows become chaotic or, in more colloquial language, pretty darned crazy.
IT managers now find themselves in a technology environment less stable than those that existed a scant 10 years ago. The decision to embrace fast changing innovations can be a significant. Not only will the competitiveness of the organization be affected but the work environment may no longer match what must be accomplished to remain a viable entity.
Examples include the well publicized engineer revolts at Facebook and Amazon. The technical waffling from chip vendors when flaws are discovered. The presence of point of sale units at fast good chains and grocery stores which employees cannot operate.
The write up documents an accelerating opportunity for consultants. For those crushed with the fragments from technical chaos, the future may require rehab.
Stephen E Arnold, August 23, 2018
Technology and Government: A Management Challenge for the 21st Century
August 15, 2018
Throughout history, government funding has led to some of the greatest technological advances known to man. Thank NASA next time you strap on your Velcro shoes or sip some Tang. Recently, some voices in Silicon Valley spoke out to try and repair the rift among tech and government. We learned more from a recent Washington Post Op-Ed, “Silicon Valley Should Stop Ostracizing the Military.”
According to the story:
“The world is safer and more peaceful with strong U.S. leadership. That requires the U.S. government to maintain its advantage in critical technologies such as AI. But doing so will be difficult if Silicon Valley’s rising hostility toward working with Washington continues. In June, Google…announced that it would not renew a Pentagon contract for an AI program called Project Maven when it expires next year.”
The biggest concern is that Russia and China are rapidly advancing their AI weaponry and leaving behind the US. This, they argue, weakens the freedom-loving world, so it is time for these often diametrically opposed organizations to make up for the good of the planet.
With the Department of Defense moving toward a decision about the $10 billion cloud procurement, Beyond Search anticipates more employee-management tension at the high technology giants jockeying for US government contracts.
Should employees expect a company’s Board of Directors and senior management to go in the direction employees want?
MBAs and high school math club thinking may create administrative friction. Whom does a tech slow down benefit? Electric scooter riders?
Patrick Roland, August 15, 2018
Google Contributes to the History of Kubernetes
August 15, 2018
It is time for a history lesson; the Google Cloud Platform Blog proffers, “From Google to the World: The Kubernetes Origin Story.” Anyone curious about the origins of the open source management system may want to check it out. The post begins with a description of the 2013 meeting at which the Kubernetes co-founders pitched their idea to executive Urs Holzle, which only happened because one of those founders (and author of the post) Craig McLuckie found himself on a shuttle with the company’s then-VP of Cloud Eric Brewer. To conclude the post, McLuckie notes Kubernetes is now deployed in thousands of organizations and has benefitted from some 237 person-years’ worth of coding put in by some 830 contributors. In between we find a little Star Trek-related trivia; McLuckie writes:
“In keeping with the Borg theme, we named it Project Seven of Nine. (Side note: in an homage to the original name, this is also why the Kubernetes logo has seven sides.) We wanted to build something that incorporated everything we had learned about container management at Google through the design and deployment of Borg and its successor, Omega — all combined with an elegant, simple and easy-to-use UI. In three months, we had a prototype that was ready to share.
We also noted this statement:
“We always believed that open-sourcing Kubernetes was the right way to go, bringing many benefits to the project. For one, feedback loops were essentially instantaneous — if there was a problem or something didn’t work quite right, we knew about it immediately. But most importantly, we were able to work with lots of great engineers, many of whom really understood the needs of businesses who would benefit from deploying containers (have a look at the Kubernetes blog for perspectives from some of the early contributors).”
McLuckie includes links for potential users to explore the Kubernetes Engine and, perhaps, begin a two-month free trial. Finally, he suggests we navigate to his Kubernetes Origins podcast hosted by Software Engineering Daily for more information.
History is good.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2018
Amazon and Special Data
August 6, 2018
Amazon Web Services is ubiquitous with cloud computing and big data power. We all know dozens of companies use these tools, but until recently it was all a little hazy as to who was and how. But, a Silicon Angle gives us some tea leaves to read. According to the story, “In Conversation With: AWS Serverless Chief Tim Wagner Peers at the Future of Cloud Computing:”
“If you have traded any stocks, or had any stocks traded in your behalf, FINRA processes those stock trades at the end of the closing day using Lambda, so there’s a big chance here that the trade you made was evaluated and validated by FINRA using Lambda. Thomson Reuters does four thousand transactions every second with it, Fannie Mae runs its 20 million mortgage calculations through there. So these are not ancillary, some line-of-business, or over-in-the-marketing-department kinds of pieces These are mission-critical software that is now tied at the hip to a serverless architecture.”
This is significant, because we get a little first hand confirmation of AWS client base. Doing a little more research, it suddenly comes as no shock that Fannie Mae reported big earnings in its last quarter and Thomson Reuters is venturing into new territories. It’s fascinating to finally get to put a story to AWS’ offerings and it would not shock us if more big name corporations jump on board.
Quick question: What new revenue opportunities do these data create?
Patrick Roland, August 6, 2018
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