Google Australia: Whose Head Is in What Logical Pouch?
May 6, 2020
I spotted this story in my UK news stream this morning (May 6, 2020 at 0600 am): “Google Is Like a Poster in the Newsagent’s Window for Publishers, Tech Giant Says.”
Is this argument reminiscent to those of the first year high school debaters offer?
The write up reports with truth and accuracy that Google Australia’s managing director said:
“Publishers provide posters with headlines for newsagents to display in their windows to help draw customers to buy papers. In contrast, Google Search sends readers from Australia and all over the world to the publishers’ sites for free [Silva’s italics] – helping them to generate advertising revenues from those audiences and convert them into paying subscribers.”
The original Google blog post is at this link for now.
The write up noted:
Guardian Australia revealed last week that negotiations for the voluntary code had stalled over three main factors: the media’s access to data and notice of ranking changes, and stonewalling by Google and Facebook on payment for content.
The issue is that old school publishers have watched their world change. Google wanted to index information and really was not keen on paying for that action.
Due to the regulatory environment which allowed Google to do what it wanted for the last 20 plus years, it is clear that Google has the upper hand.
Australia wants money to keep its “old school” news businesses alive. Google doesn’t want to pay; Google’s business model is predicated on giving indexed information away in order to attract advertisers who want their message displayed when a person searches for something.
The model has worked well. Maybe it is not the integrated, diversified money machine that the Bezos bulldozer has rolled out, but Google does produce revenue, certainly more than “real” news outfits.
Google, in an alternate reality, might license the right to index “real” news, display ads when those results are displayed, and share — yes, share on an equitable basis — the revenue the Google system generates from the content.
Sure, and pigs can fly.
Google is doing some word painting. But this time, maybe the company is putting its Googley head in its sticky marsupial pouch. There Google can tell itself and others that its indexing of news content is just like a poster in a store front’s window.
But Google, with some help from Amazon, has put most of the store fronts out of business. Facebook is keeping people occupied with its social service.
Google is just providing a service. For free too. Plus, Google doesn’t sell ads on the Google News service. Is the reason that Google could not figure out how to do this without igniting yet another firestorm over its approach which is reminiscent of the activity described in “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” Instead of wolves, Google is going after publishing wallabies, creatures ill equipped to deal with the digital war machine:
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
Will the legal eagles in Australia buy the Google argument? Will a regulator explain that consuming news wallabies is prohibited? Will Australia set a precedent for others in the Five Eyes’ group? Will Google’s lawyers prevail at a time when no one really seems to care about the business practices of de facto US monopolies?
DarkCyber is not certain. Google has been masterful is slipping away from problems. But the argument that Google is the digital equivalent of an A4 printed posted taped to a window of an increasingly rare newsstand is remarkable.
Does Google have its head in its pouch? This is indeed possible. Google does not want to recognize that the attitude toward the fun and cheerful company has changed.
Why not ask Amanda Rosenberg? She may have some insight into metaphorical arguments offered by the Google.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2020
Virtue Signaling: A Covid Short Circuit
May 6, 2020
One of the DarkCyber team sent me a link to “COVID-19 & SEO: Why SEO Is More Important Now Than Ever.” The impact of the article was, “Befuddlement.” The phrase “more important than ever” assumes that search engine optimization was important in the first place.
I have long held the belief that online advertising vendors used search engine as mechanism to drive ad sales. Based on the research for Google Version 2: The Calculating Predator, it was clear that manipulating content could cause the “clever” Google PageRank method to boost pages with minimal intellectual value. Therefore, if you can’t stop weaponized, shaped, or malformed information, what is the benefit of search engine optimization?
The shift coincided with some of my work for the world’s largest source of Web indexed content. By encouraging SEO via an “ambassador” to SEO conferences, online advertising could be positioned as an essential service.
A new Web site is posted. The content is indexed and boosted in the search results. Then over time, the ranking of that “new” site begins to slip down the results page. Nothing the SEO expert does has an impact on the lost results. The customer becomes frustrated and may try another SEO expert. But the site is now essentially not findable.
What’s the solution?
The fix is to purchase online advertising and then traffic returns. Is this magic?
No, it illustrates an aspect of misinformation that gets little purchase in today’s world.
The article “COVID-19 & SEO: Why SEO Is More Important Now Than Ever” illustrates the effort optimization experts expend trying to get a free boost on ad supported “free to use” Web indexes. The word “covid” is lashed to SEO. The argument, noted above, is that SEO is important.
I circled this passage in the write up:
While ecommerce businesses are seeing unmatched results from SEO at the moment — Adobe reports an almost 200% increase in toilet paper purchases alone — companies outside the ecommerce sector are still benefiting from their investment in SEO.
This is interesting logic. Adobe is a word which is used to locate information about Photoshop and other applications. The bound phrase “toilet paper” is a word used frequently on Amazon. (Amazon attracts more product searches now than Google.) But the statement ignores the fact that similar interest in toilet paper occurred in Russia. Perhaps something about the product is causing the searches? Is that something a factor other than SEO?
The search engine optimization sector uses whatever words are needed to generate a boost. Then when the customer finds the SEO less effective, the customer is softened up to buy online ads.
The free Web search systems are under increasing pressure to generate financial returns. This means that the claims of SEO will pay off for those who sell online ads. When the SEO ministrations fail to work, what’s a company to do?
Answer: Buy online ads. Those are going to work.
Why’s this important? Three reasons:
- The symbiosis between SEO and online advertising is not widely discussed.
- Content, even if it is wonky, is needed to give the illusion that an online indexing system is timely and comprehensive. They are neither timely nor comprehensive, but those are separate topics.
- Companies are becoming more and more desperate to make sales. That means that high value information is going to get lost in the barrages of dross.
Are there examples of this activity? Yes, there is the high profile issue between what’s displayed, what’s available, and what’s shown. Navigate to “How Google Search Results Shape, and Sometimes Distort, Public Opinion – and Why You Should Care.”
And there are other examples as well. Take a look at LinkedIn and run a query for “search engine optimization.” You will find a number of experts. At least one of these experts uses an alias. Why? Who is this? We’ll try to answer these questions. Watch for our new feature about SEO deception.
Remember this assertion:
No matter your industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented your business with a slew of challenges and difficult decisions, especially when it comes to how you’ll market your company. Compared to other marketing options, SEO offers far more stability and security. It’s a great option for businesses focusing on long-term growth during tenuous times.
One question: “Are the statements accurate?” or are they the shibboleths of the hustler.
Looking for our search engine optimization hustling coverage, click this link.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2020
Looking for more SEO fancy dancing, read this DarkCyber story at https://wp.me/pf6p2-gdY
Search Engine Optimization: Content Misinformation Is the New Norm
May 5, 2020
Jacque Ellul wrote Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes in the early 1960s. Ellul was a theologian and a close observer of social behavior. Propaganda remains an important book, and it is more important than ever in our era of fake news. I am not sure that the Global Disinformation Index will be sufficient to deal with today’s content realities.
Ellul did not live to experience the wonders of free Web search engines, funded by advertisers. However, his insights provide a number of useful touchstones for anyone trying to determine if there are ways to remediate the present situation in the era of technology monopolies.
He observed:
When there is propaganda, we are no longer able to evaluate certain questions or even to discuss them.
Today content engines generate massive amounts of information. The volume of Facebook posts, Tweets, live streams, and other digital emissions are so massive, that the numbers used to convey the scale of the content flows are meaningless. Are you able to convert the estimate for the the World Economic Forum explains the data in terms of zettabytes and 2020 will output 44 zettabytes of information. Here’s a zettabyte in plain old numbers:
1000000000000000000000
Yottabytes are next.
The options for publishing and disseminating digital content continue to expand. Unhappy with Facebook, there’s Mastodon. Don’t like Google Blogger. There’s WordPress. Don’t like Twitch. There’s Periscope.
Not surprisingly search engine optimization experts have seized upon these rich, real time digital distribution systems to create “content marketing.”
The idea is simple. Write, podcast, or video a statement, fictional tale, or “news” program and distribute the information. The single story can be diffused with Tweets, Instagram posts, updates to a Facebook page, and maybe a 30 second TikTok video.
In the world of SEO, there are some individuals who operate with a moral compass aimed at verifiable information, facts, and what might be called “old fashioned ethical behavior.” With the tools plentiful and almost no editorial control, other individuals find a way to use content to deliver “shaped” information. This “shaping” has long been a part of public relations and marketing.
DarkCyber has been exploring the world of digital propaganda, and there are numerous examples. These range from Covid19 information to less high profile manipulations; for example, a member of Nextdoor, a local information service, pitching used dining room chairs; for example, “perfect, no scratches.” Of course, perfect.
One interesting explanation of content marketing appears in the YouTube video called “How to Generate Leads Through Content Marketing – How We Get 300+ Leads Every Month.” The video appeared as part of a YouTube channel called “Hustle.” Content was discontinued one year ago. The reasons are not clear, but it appears that the content marketing expert lost interest or the methods set forth in the programs failed.
Let’s take a look at the content marketing information conveyed by a person (Christian Arriola), a self-professed SEO expert (SEO is the acronym search engine optimization experts created for the propaganda mechanism.
The video begins with the question, “How does one get leads from content marketing?” The idea is that if one generates one’s own leads, the leads are not shared with anyone else. Control is a strong idea in sales. At about the 45 second mark, the “content” of the YouTube video is information about Mr. Arriola’s consulting business. Thus, the initial message is: “This is an infomercial.” After the commercial the video states, “I am not trying to get anything out of this video…. I am not looking to do anything in particular with you. I am just trying to help you.” At the 90 second mark, Mr. Arriola defines content as “all this information you create that provides value to someone.” The content captures attention and builds a relationship when someone needs the content. Content marketing means a person does not have to buy advertising. Content marketing can give you a strategy, asserts Mr. Arriloa. At the 2.42 mark, Mr. Arriola hopes his video has helped.
This is an example of content marketing, and I think it reveals several characteristics of content marketing:
- It is propaganda. Talking about content marketing becomes difficult as Ellul pointed out decades ago.
- The “content” of content marketing does not have to have substance. Writing something is what’s important and then writing more. Quantity equals quantity seems to be the message.
- The free Web indexing systems ingest “content marketing” and match ads to key words. Clicks are what matter.
To sum up, content marketing is public relations, marketing, sales, and messages. Hustle is an excellent way to describe Mr. Arriola’s approach to faux information value.
SEO is a unregulated discipline. Fraud is highly likely. The quest for clicks is now essential to the survival of a business. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Content marketing is tailor made for today’s business climate. For more on this subject, see “SEO: Let Us Hustle Everyone.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2020
Remote Work and Enterprise Search: Implement Now!
April 28, 2020
The US and other countries has been shut down for more than a month. Companies of all sizes are struggling for revenue. The shift to WFH (work from home) is not exactly going on as smoothly as paint at a pre lockdown Peugeot plant.
The enterprise search idea articulated by a person once affiliated with IBM Watson is a stunner. You can get the full scoop in the online publication RTInsights. (No, this RT is not part of the Russian propaganda system.)
“Making Remote Work More Effective with Enterprise Search” argues that the WFH crowd can be productivity pythons. Forget the kids, the loneliness, the hassles with shopping, the security goblins, and the fear of losing one’s job. Put them out of your mind, WFH’ers. You can be a productivity python.
Sort of.
First, your employer — assuming you have one — must have an enterprise search in place. Failing that, your employer must spend money to license a suitable service. Hey, why not Sinequa, the French system which also does Big Data, analytics, and phenomenal marketing.
Now there are a couple of very minor issues to address; for example:
- Conducting a content inventory, determining what information can be accessed by an authorized WFH’er.
- The security and access controls must be defined, put in place, tested, and deployed.
- The indexing cycles must be determined because WFH’er presumably put in their 12 hour days across time zones, from a variety of computing devices, and in chunks. (Someone has to remove the Amazon packages from the door step before a bad actor removes the inviting parcels with a smile logo.)
- A workflow for getting employee generated content into the system and then getting the “real time indexing” which vendors stress their system performs to index in a reliable manner.
- Assisting employees who use the WFH system and cannot find the document a colleague said was in the system on the Zoom call that ended five minutes ago. The basic questions are, “Where is the document? When will it be available? Who’s in charge of this clown car?
Second, candidate information must be located, vetted, and converted to a format that the enterprise search system can process. Videos, audio files, images, and proprietary file formats may be a bit of a challenge in terms of time and resources.
Third, the system must be made to work. No, I mean it, deliver results employees or authorized users need. How many enterprise search systems deliver on this final point?
The write up explains:
Almost all knowledge-intensive organizations have a digital workplace that includes enterprise search, which connects employees to the content they need to complete a given task. Companies typically either deploy a rudimentary open-source kit that relies on search queries using keywords or a larger ecosystem like Microsoft, Google, or IBM, which tend to exclude content and data stored outside of the ecosystem.
What?
Oh, here’s the point:
Now is the time for organizations to think about the way employees access content platforms and how that is impacting employee productivity, knowledge sharing, and competitive advantage.
Based on the research Martin White and I did for oru book Successful Enterprise Search Management, the time required to deploy an enterprise search system was measured in months, often years. Tossing in the WFH requirement is going to add more time and cost to those sensitive to data access, indexing cycles, optimization, and other easy-to-ignore factors.
The benefits of providing enterprise search for WFH’ers remind me of the IBM Watson promises about smart software: Failure and massive costs, a loss of stakeholder value, and the distinction to be removed from Houston’s cancer hub.
To sum up, Sinequa’s sales pitch wrinkled the DarkCyber forehead a tiny bit:
- Glittering generalities about off site access to certain content is not something one just “thinks about.” Real management effort is required to avoid loss of trade secrets, sensitive information, and data which may be subject to government restrictions.
- The data supporting the assumption “better, faster, cheaper search yields more productivity (whatever that is). There is zero evidence that WFH’ers will be more or less productive if enterprise search is available. Right now, finding information is more like a Zoom call, not a session online hunting through results lists and waiting for results lists to appear.
- Phishing and other exploits. Security is not automatic. Security takes work. Oracle tried to sell its search system with Oracle security. No one in my experience was prepared to go through the hoops necessary to implement secure search. The result silos. What’s the cost for the WFH cohort? Probably more than some organizations are able to pay. (The May 12, DarkCyber video news program profiles a free-for-now open source solution to certain types of exploits. That’s a solution for those with handy infosec skills.)
Most applications used by WFH’ers include some type of search function. When information is not available, send an email or, better yet, hop on a Zoom call. And don’t forget Google, the millennials’ Swiss Army knife for information, or some social media scanning.
Enterprise search has not created productivity pythons in the more than 50 years information retrieval systems have been available.
Net net: Using Covid, WFH, and rusted buzzwords like enterprise search may not move the revenue meter. Invoking the tired, cheers-for-hire outfits like Gartner and IDC won’t do the job either. New types of information access systems are available. For examples, check out CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access. Even millennials will find some of these newer systems a refreshing findability option. As for enterprise search, its day in the sun faded with vendors’ inability to deliver results for licensees. Don’t believe me? Just ask former customers of Delphis, Entopia, Fast Search & Transfer, and the other precursors of today’s laborers in the search-and-retrieval Incan potato terraces.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2020
Google Cloud: Thinner and Wispier?
April 20, 2020
The Murdoch paywall notwithstanding, DarkCyber was able to read “Google May Let Some Air Out of Its Cloud.” (My dog Tibby subscribes to the dead tree edition. DarkCyber is running an on going experiment to find out if the dead tree and the online units of the WSJ coordinate. So far the answer is “No.” How long has the experiment been running? More than 10 years.
The write up reveals that the Google will spend less on data centers. Why?
Fallout from coronavirus
The real news article points out that if Google slows down its spending, the impact on outfits lower down the food chain will be negative.
Okay, but let’s consider another angle.
Advertising is slowing down. The costs for indexing for the Google search engine are going up. Google has been struggling with cost control even with the hard eyed CFO the company has counting beans.
What’s this mean?
Google will automate more, index less, and hunt for money by providing “We’ll do the ad allocation for you” type services. Imitating Zoom’s interface signals that me-too is more important than applying the Google magic wand to products and services.
Net net: The company’s showing that it has feet of clay-based silicon. After 20 years, these feet should be resistant to perturbations in the humanoid aspect of the firm’s business.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2020
Google and Its Warm Relationship with France
April 10, 2020
We noted the trusted (honest) news story “French Regulator: Google Must Pay French News and Publishing Firms for Using Their Content.” The write up notes in a trusted way:
“Google’s practices caused a serious and immediate harm to the press sector, while the economic situation of publishers and news agencies is otherwise fragile, and while the law aimed on the contrary at improving the conditions of remuneration they derive from content produced by journalists,” the watchdog said in a statement.
Anyone indexing information or writing blog posts like this one should immediately stop pointing to content. It may have been a progressive act to burn the library in Alexandria. Monks at Mont St Michel? Wrong doers. No food and thorns under the cowl. And Google. Oh, Google will have its day in a French court. Hint: Bring a checkbook. Mais oui.
Stephen E Arnold, April 10, 2020
Some No Cost Electronic Scholarly Books
April 7, 2020
Finding books for many people is a virtual stroll through Amazon. Outfits like Ebsco and other commercial database companies don’t do a very good job of indexing books. When it comes to locating a copy, some of the readers journey to Google Books. That Google project remains controversial and a disappointment. The Internet Archive offers books, but it is remarkable that the effort required to find a book is fascinating.
What do you do if you want to locate a copy of a book published by a university press? Instead of flailing through the sources I mentioned or your favorite bookfinder, navigate to Publicbooks.org. The service provides a catalog of books which are “freely accessible online.”
Continuing the tradition of making books difficult to find, we did not spot a search function. Books are listed by university press. These books are offered through Project MUSE. (Project Muse is located at https://muse.jhu.edu/.)
Most of the titles are scholarly. Some warrant wider readership. Others are the ravings of a PhD desperate to get a book on his or her cv.
Enjoy free books at least through the end of June.
Stephen E Arnold, April 7, 2020
Techspert: Search and Experts
April 6, 2020
“How Our AI Search Technology Finds Experts Others Can’t” provides a crunchy description about an application of artificial intelligence. Techspert.io provides a diagram of its approach:
The idea is that the approach operates with pinpoint precision. Then a semantic search engine is used to identify context. The old school lingo was Endeca’s Guided Search or maybe side search. Then a social graph is generated. That’s a relationship map like those used by i2 Ltd’s Analysts Notebook in the early 1990s. The i2 Ltd outfit had some Cambridge grads on its team. Finally the system can identify candidates.
What’s interesting is that the pinpoint angle appears to focus on a narrow domain; that is, individuals in STM with a focus on the M (medicine, biotechnology, etc.). This approach reduces the difficulty of indexing for any business or technical discipline. Focus means that descriptive terms are narrower than general business lingo. Second, the crawling for specialized personnel becomes somewhat easier because many sites can be ignored because they are not related to medicine and related fields; for example, the garden gnome site www.designsoscano.com. Plus, the social graph complexity can be reduced by applying qualifiers that NOT out individuals and other entities unrelated to the focus of Techspert.io; for example, David Drummond and Jennifer Blakely.
Several observations are warranted:
- The implemented method is useful when deployed in a focused way; that is, vertical search for different “terminologies”.
- Scaling the approach across different content domains may require innovative engineering. And the engineering solutions will be expensive to implement, update, and enhance.
- Generating market magnetism will require effective marketing and sales programs. Business development must generate sufficient revenue because once certain hires are made by a company, the recruiting service is put on ice; and sustainable revenues will have to come from recruiting services which offer lower costs, perquisites to customers, etc. These factors may inhibit some venture cash investments.
Worth monitoring this firm. A pivot may be necessary due to the uncertain economic environment.
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2020
Clearview: More Tradecraft Exposed
March 26, 2020
After years of dancing around the difference between brain dead products like enterprise search, content management, and predictive analytics, anyone can gain insight into the specialized software provided by generally low profile companies. Verint is publicly traded. Do you know what Verint does? Sure, look it up on Bing or Google.
I read with some discomfort “I Got My File From Clearview AI, and It Freaked Me Out.”
Here are some factoids from the write up. Are these true? DarkCyber assumes that everything the team sees on the Internet meets the highest standards of integrity, objectivity, and truthiness. DarkCyber’s comments are in italic:
- “Someone really has been monitoring nearly everything you post to the public internet. And they genuinely are doing “something” with it. The someone is Clearview AI. And the something is this: building a detailed profile about you from the photos you post online, making it searchable using only your face, and then selling it to government agencies and police departments who use it to help track you, identify your face in a crowd, and investigate you — even if you’ve been accused of no crime.”
- “Clearview AI was founded in 2017. It’s the brainchild of Australian entrepreneur Hoan Ton-That and former political aide Richard Schwartz. For several years, Clearview essentially operated in the shadows.”
- “The Times, not usually an institution prone to hyperbole, wrote that Clearview could “end privacy as we know it.” [This statement is a reference to a New York Times intelware article. The New York Times continues to hunt for real news that advances an agenda of “this stuff is terrible, horrible, unconstitutional, pro anything the NYT believes in, etc.”]
- “the company [Clearview] scrapes public images from the internet. These can come from news articles, public Facebook posts, social media profiles, or multiple other sources. Clearview has apparently slurped up more than 3 billion of these images.” [The images are those which are available on the Internet and possibly from other sources; for example, commercial content vendors.]
- “The images are then clustered together which allows the company to form a detailed, face-linked profile of nearly anyone who has published a picture of themselves online (or has had their face featured in a news story, a company website, a mug shot, or the like).” [This is called enrichment, context, or machine learning indexing and — heaven help DarkCyber — social graphs or semantic relationships. Jargon varies according to fashion trends.]
- “Clearview packages this database into an easy-to-query service (originally called Smartcheckr) and sells it to government agencies, police departments, and a handful of private companies….As of early 2020, the company had more than 2,200 customers using its service.” [DarkCyber wants to point out that law enforcement entities are strapped for cash, and many deals are little more than proofs-of-concept. Some departments cycle through policeware and intelware in order to know what the systems do versus what the marketing people say the systems do. Big difference? Yep, yep.]
- “Clearview’s clients can upload a photo of an unknown person to the system. This can be from a surveillance camera, an anonymous video posted online, or any other source.”
- “In a matter of seconds, Clearview locates the person in its database using only their face. It then provides their complete profile back to the client.”
Now let’s look at what the write up reported that seemed to DarkCyber to be edging closer to “real news.”
This is the report the author obtained:
The article reports that the individual who obtained this information from Clearview was surprised. DarkCyber noted this series of statements:
The depth and variety of data that Clearview has gathered on me is staggering. My profile contains, for example, a story published about me in my alma mater’s alumni magazine from 2012, and a follow-up article published a year later. It also includes a profile page from a Python coders’ meet up group that I had forgotten I belonged to, as well as a wide variety of posts from a personal blog my wife and I started just after getting married. The profile contains the URL of my Facebook page, as well as the names of several people with connections to me, including my faculty advisor and a family member (I have redacted their information and images in red prior to publishing my profile here).
The write up includes commentary on the service, its threats to individual privacy, and similar sentiments.
DarkCyber’s observations include:
- Perhaps universities could include information about applications of math, statistics, and machine learning in their business and other courses? At a lecture DarkCyber gave at the University of Louisville in January 2019, cluelessness among students and faculty was the principal takeaway for the DarkCyber team.
- Clearview’s technology is not unique, nor is it competitive with the integrated systems available from other specialized software vendors, based on information available to DarkCyber.
- The summary of what Clearview does captures information that would have been considered classified and may still be considerate classified in some countries.
- Clearview does not appear to have video capability like other vendors with richer, more sophisticated technology.
Why did DarkCyber experience discomfort? Some information is not — at this time or in the present environment — suitable for wide dissemination. A good actor with technical expertise can become a bad actor because the systems and methods are presented in sufficient detail to enable certain activities. Knowledge is power, but knowledge in the hands of certain individuals can yield unexpected consequences. DarkCyber is old fashioned and plans to stay that way.
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2020
Facebook: Another Innovation and Maybe Unforeseen Consequences
March 21, 2020
DarkCyber heard that Google was indexing then not indexing WhatsApp group information. Are other indexing outfits (some we know and love like Bing and others of which few know)?
The purpose of Facebook is for people to share information about themselves publicly or privately. One pull for Facebook is the group chat application WhatsApp that similarly allows users to make groups public or private. If you are a skilled Google searcher, however, some of the private WhatsApp groups are discoverable and joinable says Vice in the article, “Google Is Letting People Find Invites To Some Private WhatsApp Groups.”
To be the best and most competitive search engine, Google crawls the Web and indexes information it finds. Among the information Google is indexing are invite links to WhatsApp group chats. The WhatsApp administrators for those chats probably does not want them publicly shared. There are currently 470,000 results for a Google search of “chat.whatsapp.com.” Most of the private groups are innocuous and/or are for people sharing porn. One link did yield a WhatsApp group for accredited United Nations NGOs and their contact information.
The problem is when WhatsApp users publicly share a private group:
“A WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement, ‘Group admins in WhatsApp groups are able to invite any WhatsApp user to join that group by sharing a link that they have generated. Like all content that is shared in searchable, public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users. Links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website.’”
DarkCyber thinks there is a fix because Facebook is an interesting company. Governments, including the US government, is nudging forward legislation for backdoors. China and Russia have adopted quite specific tactics to try to make sure that when information is needed, access to those data is available without hurdles, hassles, and techno-bluster.
“Whatsapp Could Soon Get Self-Destructing Messages” may or may not be accurate. The write up articulates an interesting “idea” for Facebook:
Whatsapp has been experimenting with a ‘Delete messages’ feature that allows users to set a self-destructing timer for all of their individual chats and have them removed automatically.
A government cannot request access to data which no longer “exist.”
Some Whatsapp users are likely to greet this “idea” with enthusiasm. Some of that enthusiasm may not influence government officials.
What are some hypothetical unintended consequences of this “idea” set forth in the cited article? Here are three:
- Criminals step up their usage of Whatsapp
- Intercept methods expand
- Controls over what is collected may be relaxed.
Net net: Changes may be upon some sectors.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2020
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