Amazon: Why Support Blockchain? To Chase IBM? Wrong.
April 30, 2018
In June 2018, I will describe Amazon’s lynch pin approach to intelligence analysis. The “play” has been ignored or overlooked by those who monitor the next generation information access market. At the Telestrategies ISS conference, I will report the DarkCyber and Beyond Search analysts’ assessment of this important Amazon service. The audience for the Telestrategies ISS programs are law enforcement and intelligence professionals. We have developed a for fee webinar which provides details of the Amazon “swing for the fences” approach to a number of intelligence-related services. Personally I was surprised by the audaciousness of the Amazon approach.
In this context, I noted a report in “Amazon’s New Blockchain Service Could Hurt IBM” which misses the main point of the Amazon “invention.” Yes, there is a patent as well as publicly accessible data about this data management play.
The write up explains that Amazon is offering BaaS or Blockchain as a Service. The spin in the write up is the threat which Amazon poses to IBM. From my analysts’ viewpoint, this is just a tiny piece of a much larger story.
What if Amazon is interested in a far larger market than one envisioned by IBM with its arm waving?
Assessing Amazon’s “invention” on the basis of this type of data might be misleading:
Amazon’s decision to launch both the Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric services means that it wants to straddle the public and private cloud markets with its blockchain services. IBM has a firm grasp of the private on-premise cloud market, but AWS has been gaining ground with Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) services, which isolate sections of AWS’ public cloud for private use. The CIA, for example, already uses a “secret region” of AWS to host its classified data. Therefore, deploying Fabric on AWS’ VPCs could counter IBM’s deployment of Fabric on its on-premise private clouds.
Hmm. Quite a mishmash of assertions and services.
For a different point of view, catch my sessions at the Prague Telestrategies ISS program in Prague. If you want the information now, write benkent2020 at yahoo.com and request information about our online webinar. Coincident with my presentation, my team will release a story in Beyond Search, and we will post a brief video highlighting some of the main points of my presentation.
Oh, with regard to IBM, that company hired an Amazon executive to help IBM catch up. That’s more than worry. That’s reaction to a system which has been under construction since 2011. With a seven year head start, big time vendors involved, and contracts in negotiation, IBM has to do more than poach a manager.
Amazon sells books, right?
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2018
Scrubbing Terrorists: No Magic Mr. Clean
April 30, 2018
Removing terror suspects from Facebook and other social media outlets seems like it should be a cut and dry job, from the outside. However, doing so while not infringing on others’ rights gets very tricky. We learned just how tricky from a recent Telegraph article, “Facebook Reinstated Account for Terror Suspect Nine Times After He Complained They Were Stifling His Free Speech.”
According to the story:
“The social media giant suspended Abdulrahman Alcharbati’s account on nine occasions after he posted sickening Isil propaganda videos, but reinstated it each time when he complained….“Emails between the 31-year-old and Facebook’s moderators were read out to the jury at Newcastle Crown Court, where? he ?is standing trial accused of terror offences.”
This is a difficult position, since social media outlets claim they want to respect free speech on one hand, but not encourage violent and hurtful speech on the other. Even Mark Zuckerberg has addressed the issue of removing terrorists from his site. This speaks to how prevalent the issue is and how difficult it is, as well. Don’t expect the elimination of dangerous actors from social media any time soon. There are just too many loopholes.
Patrick Roland, April 30, 2018
Fake News: Magnetic Content with Legs
April 30, 2018
The fake news phenomenon might be in the public eye more, thanks to endless warnings and news stories, however that has not dulled its impact. In fact, this shadowy form of propaganda seems to flourish under the spotlight, according to a recent ScienceNews story, “On Twitter, The Lure of Fake News is Stronger than Truth.”
According to the research:
“Discussions of false stories tended to start from fewer original tweets, but some of those retweet chains then reached tens of thousands of users, while true news stories never spread to more than about 1,600 people. True news stories also took about six times as long as false ones to reach 1,500 people. Overall, fake news was about 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than real news.”
That’s a shocking set of statistics. However, anyone quick to blame spambots for this amazing proliferation of fake news needs to give it a second look. According to research, bots are not as much to blame for this trend than humans. This is actually good news. Ideally, changes can be made on the personal level and we can eventually stamp out this misleading trend of fake news.
Patrick Roland, April 30, 2018
Rust Belt Looks Pretty Good Right Now
April 29, 2018
The rising cost of living and doing business in the San Francisco area, along with diminishing returns, is leading many to claim that Silicon Valley’s bubble has burst. In its place, some interesting alternatives are cropping up. But is it possible, old rust belt cities could be the new hip area for startups? According to the New York Times, the answer is “Yes,” at least in its recent article, “Silicon Valley is Over, Says Silicon Valley.”
The story follows a bus tour of venture capitalists going to Detroit, South Bend, IN and elsewhere.
“In recent months, a growing number of tech leaders have been flirting with the idea of leaving Silicon Valley. Some cite the exorbitant cost of living in San Francisco and its suburbs, where even a million-dollar salary can feel middle class. Others complain about local criticism of the tech industry and a left-wing echo chamber that stifles opposing views. And yet others feel that better innovation is happening elsewhere.”
It certainly seems possible, with a cheap cost of starting up and a serious desire to rise, like in Detroit. Some are even calling the Motor City the new “Mobile City” calling it the new Silicon Valley of smart mobile tech. But there is a lot more to it than this and we can’t see the tent poles coming down from the Silicon Valley circus any time soon. There is too much money and too much talent in one place for a mass exodus. Sorry, Detroit.
Patrick Roland, April 29, 2018
Access Free and Lower Cost DNA Data Analytics
April 28, 2018
Short honk: Do you want to do some DNA matching? There is a free source of some DNA data. Navigate to https://www.gedmatch.com. You will need to register and provide your own DNA sample. Once you are registered there are some free data available plus for-fee services. For a good run down of some DNA analytic options, Ahmed El-Kalliny provides a useful run down plus links at this Quora location. Many of the listings are 23 and Me centric, but some of the services can provide helpful for-fee analytics. If you want to spoof, GEDmatch, you will need to find an individual will to provide the bio sample. Verification strikes Beyond Search as somewhat relaxed.
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2018
Goggle Works to Understand Language
April 27, 2018
Back in the day, Google used to do this annoying thing that if you were searching in a foreign language it would translate the word into English. It was difficult to search for foreign language Web sites using Google, unless you went to one of the foreign language Web site endings. Google eventually fixed the “feature”, but the search engine giant is doing something new with searches and translation. Google Translate now tries to understand query text meanings and build responses using natural language.
Forward.com has more information on the new development in the article, “Google Translate For Yiddish? It Ain’t Work Bupkis.” After a brief history lesson about psychologist Frank Rosenblatt and how an AI finally beat world go champion Ke Kie, we finally get into the how of the new Google Translate. The new neural network is a great upgrade, but here are the bugs:
“Although Google Translate’s new approach sounds like a giant leap forward it creates all sorts of problems. To begin with every text must first be translated into English before it can be rendered into another language. Secondly, instead of warning that it doesn’t recognize a certain word the new system automatically inserts its own “creative” meanings in a second-rate imitation of human neural processing.”
In other words, Google Translate still does not have the human comprehension necessary to translate words and sentences accurately to the satisfaction of a person familiar with a language’s nuances. The human mind is still the better language tool and if you are translating using Google Translate, especially Yiddish, keep a dictionary on hand.
Whitney Grace, April 27, 2018
LucidWorks Has a Search App for That. What?
April 27, 2018
Is there life in enterprise search after many years of hype, razzle dazzle, and over the top marketing?
Maybe?
Lucidworks announced that they have a brand new search tool for enterprise business systems, says Global Newswire in the article, “Lucidworks Launches AI-Powered Site Search App For Enterprise.” The new application is dubbed Lucidworks Site Search and it is an easy configurable, embeddable site-based application.
Lucidworks Site Search uses workflows that optimize natural language processing and machine learning for users to personalize their search results. The application uses rich faceting and filtering to drill down for the most accurate results. Users will be able to access content and insights quicker than older applications.
The Lucidworks CEO said,
“‘Developing a website’s search with both a powerful backend and an elegant UI can be an arduous process. We’ve created Site Search to empower more teams to get site search apps done and out the door,’ explains Lucidworks CEO Will Hayes. ‘By increasing the usability through an applications-based approach, we’re able to bring Lucidworks’ operationalized AI to more customers.’”
We enjoy terms like “operationalize.” Do we understand these MBA inspired noun to verb arabesques? Not really.
Key word search is a useful utility. The new Lucidworks Site Search scans through every document, allows quick configuration, and has an attractive user interface. Elasticsearch does this as well.
We believe the future belongs to vendors with a more comprehensive next generation information access system. In short, more like Palantir Gotham or BAE NetReveal and less like the mainframe centric IBM Stairs approach.
Whitney Grace, April 27, 2018
Removing Drug Information from Social Media May Be Difficult
April 27, 2018
There is an opioid dealer nearby. In fact, this drug kingpin is not standing on the corner or lurking on college campuses, this supplier is right at your fingertips. Thanks to a recent article, the plague of drug sales through popular and public social media platforms has caught the attention of some powerful people. We learned about these developments in a recent Wired article, “One Woman Got Facebook to Police Opioid Sales on Instagram.”
While it’s a little confusing, the basic story goes that one woman who discovered opioid sales on Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) reached out to Facebook, urging them to take action, through a rival social platform, Twitter. The tactic worked, even getting the FDA involved.
According to the story:
“It shouldn’t take this much effort to get people to realize that you have some responsibility for the stuff on your platform…A 13 year old could do this search and realize there’s bad stuff on your platform — and probably has — you don’t need the commissioner of the FDA to tell you that.”
However, the act of policing drug sales on social media platforms and the dark web is not as easy as one might think. Yes, they shut down offending accounts, but beyond that there is little that can be done. According to the story, it outlawed certain hashtags, like it had done before. “Instagram previously restricted the drug-related hashtags, #Xanax and #Xanaxbar and banned #weedforsale and #weed4sale.”
It’s a small step, but hopefully one that will lead to greater and greater progress. For more information, learn more about CyberOSINT (the Dark Web) here.
Patrick Roland, April 27, 2018
Text Classification: Established Methods Deliver Good Enough Results
April 26, 2018
Short honk: If you are a cheerleader for automatic classification of text centric content objects, you are convinced that today’s systems are home run hitters. If you have some doubts, you will want to scan the data in “Machine Learning for Text Categorization: Experiments Using Clustering and Classification.” The paper was free when I checked at 920 am US Eastern time. For the test sets, Latent Dirichlet Allocation performed better than other widely used methods. Worth a look. From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, automated processes, regardless of method, perform in a manner one expert explained to me at Cebit several years ago: “Systems are good enough.” Improvements are now incremental but like getting the last few percentage ticks of pollutants from a catalytic converter, an expensive and challenging engineering task.
Stephen E Arnold, April 26, 2018
Does Smart Software Understand Kid Vids?
April 26, 2018
The growth of AI and predictive analytics across the spectrum has become a universal rah rah. Super powered computers and their data crunching power is being utilized by industries great and small. However, the producers of AI technology might not be getting rich off this revolution. We learned more from a recent Market Watch story, “IBM Earnings Show AI is Not Paying Off Yet.”
According to the story:
“’The bulls were hoping for a clean modest beat on this key growth segment, which represents the underpinnings of the IBM turnaround story in 2018 and beyond,’ Ives said in a note to clients. In an email, Ives said he does not have an estimate for Watson itself. ‘It’s a major contributing factor to strategic imperatives and helping drive double-digit growth…’”
Despite these less than stellar results, the big names in tech aren’t getting scared away by AI yet. In fact, it is still a boom investment time. Intel, for one, is betting a large chunk on cash on AI. We will be watching this development closer, since we all know that AI can be the greatest product in the world, but if it keeps losing money it might just end up in the graveyard. (Unlikely, we know.)
But—and there seems to be a “but” when it comes to the capabilities of smart software—we noticed that Google seems to be relying on humans to make sure that children’s videos are not violent, chuck full of objectionable material, or inappropriate for kiddie viewing. According to “For the First Time, Parents Will Be Able to Limit YouTube Kids to Human-Reviewed Channels and Recommendations,”
The new features will allow parents to lock down the YouTube Kids app so it only displays those channels* that have been reviewed by humans, not just algorithms. And this includes both the content displayed within the app itself, as well as the recommended videos. A later update will allow parents to configure which videos and channels, specifically, can be viewed.
A few observations seem to be warranted:
- Google’s vaunted smart software cannot determine what’s appropriate for children. Therefore, Google is now assuming the role that old school, chain smoking, ink stained editors once performed. Back to the past?
- If the smart software cannot figure out what video is okay for children, how accurate is Google’s ad matching software. Is it possible that the ad matching system is able to perform in a “good enough” manner? Will advertisers lose confidence that their money is putting messages in front of the “right” eye balls?
- Perhaps Google has caught the same case of sniffles that IBM Watson has been suffering? The failure of smart software with regard to kid vids suggests that hyperbole is not the same as actual performance.
The kid vid matter is as significant as the Facebook Cambridge Analytica matter. Could these be different facets of the same assumption that technology is a go getter?
Stephen E Arnold, April 26, 2018
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