Facebook Finds an Angle
April 23, 2018
I read “Americans Want Tougher Rules for Big Tech Amid Privacy Scandals, Poll Finds.” Polls are easy to shape. I did note one comment about this insight into what “Americans want”:
83% of Americans call for companies like Facebook to face harsher penalties for breaches.
Remarkable consensus.
Calling is different from “doing.”
In fact, Facebook seems to have found a way to finesse at least some of the European Union’s privacy protection requirements. “Facebook to Put 1.5 Billion Users out of Reach of New EU Privacy Law” states that Facebook “is keen to reduce its exposure to GDPR.”
The alleged desire for tougher rules may not apply to some Americans. Furthermore, Facebook wants to continue on the path which minimizes the impact of regulations on the firm’s operations.
Clever beats what those in the survey sample say they want it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, April 23, 2018
An Interesting Use of Instagram
April 22, 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 21, 2018
Seeking Sound FX
April 21, 2018
Short honk: Searching for sounds is not the smoothest experience. If you are into clicking and listening, check out the Beeb’s collection of sound effects. There is a license, and there are conditions.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2018
Online Shopping: Held Back by HTML and Google. Hmmm.
April 20, 2018
e-Commerce has certainly marginalized some traditional retail stores. But, Main Street still exists and so do the some shops. What works in Silicon Valley, does not work very well in some cities. Think Peoria, Illinois.
The new monopolists have found their niche. The question becomes, “Why are there some functions and businesses which have not be more dramatically changed by online?” We were surprised to read the views of one expert who claims two reasons: HTML and Google. According to a Tech Crunch piece, “The Sudden Death of the Website.” The reason is that HTML is not robust enough to handle e-Commerce’s demands, but also Google is the problem:
“The second problem with the Web is Google. When we started to build websites in the ’90s, everyone was trying to design their virtual stores differently. On one hand, this made them interesting and unique; on the other, the lack of industry standards made them hard to navigate — and really hard to “index” into a universal card catalog.”
Hardly convincing stuff. But according to other experts, search isn’t the only thing slowing down e-commerce. The big data powering Amazon and others has allowed for fast shipping and hassle-free returns. According to Forbes, that’s actually what will take down e-commerce. They describe the return policies as a ticking time bomb and use LL Bean’s recent decision to stop no-questions asked returns as an example.
There you have it: HTML and Google. Unfortunately the Beyond Search goose is not convinced. Some digital magic does not make sense in rural Kentucky. Walking to the local store works pretty well because what works in San Mateo does not work in Harrod’s Creek.
Cynthia Murrell, April 20, 2018
French Report: Demographics of Bad Actors
April 20, 2018
If this report is to be believed, a demographic segment may come under increased scrutiny, online and offline. The Local lays out the results of a recent study from the director of publications at the French Institute of International Relations, Marc Hecker, in the write-up, “Aged 26, Poor, and Already a Criminal: Who Is the Typical French Jihadist?” The sample size was not large—137 people who had been convicted of Islamist- or jihad-related terror offences in France, most of whom were French nationals. The write-up shares a number of specific findings, including this bit of interest to IT folks: Though jihadists do use the internet extensively for networking and coordination, most become radicalized through extensive in-person contact; they have not been enticed simply by material found online. The article also reports:
“Out of the 137 cases, 131 were men and six were women. The average age of those at the time they were charged was 26, with 90 percent of them coming from large broken families and 40 percent coming from poor backgrounds. Of the 137 jihadists looked at by the study, some 74 percent were born Muslim while the remaining 26 percent converted during their lifetime. Although in general the study found there was a low level of religious knowledge among the individuals. Some 47 percent of the 68 French jihadists whose education records were available left school with no qualifications while 26 percent passed their baccalaureate and 11 percent graduated from university. Some 36 percent were unemployed at the time of arrest while another 22 percent were in low-paid unstable jobs (emploi précaire). More than half of those charged with Islamist terror offences were in a couple (57 percent). IFRI says the study shows “that these individuals are distinguished by a lower level of education and professional integration, a higher degree of poverty, a greater involvement in crime and a closer relationship to North and sub-Saharan Africa than the average population of France.”
One more key statistic—about 40 percent of respondents had already been convicted of at least one crime, while another 8 had been reported to police with no conviction. So, those already inclined toward criminality may be more likely to see violence as a viable tool for change; imagine that. The study also found that the process of radicalization takes months or, in 30 percent of cases, several years. A preview of Hecker’s study can be found here.
Cynthia Murrell, April 20, 2018
Palantir: Cambridge Analytica Secondary Shock Wave
April 19, 2018
Data analysis firm Palantir has come under scrutiny after it was learned that one of its employees contributed to Cambridge Analytica’s acquisition of private data back in 2013 and 2014. Now BuzzFeed News emphasizes, “Palantir Had No Policy on Social Media Data Collection Prior to 2015.” The company was used to working with internal data for organizations like the FBI and JPMorgan Chase, to name just a couple big-name examples, where the data is clearly their clients’ property. When Palantir began working with social-media data, it seems they failed to anticipate the need for a comprehensive policy. Reporter William Alden writes:
“Palantir insiders felt that the company’s ‘ad hoc’ approach to handling social media data for customers in general was ‘becoming unworkable,’ a senior engineer said in an October 2014 memo not related to Cambridge Analytica. Palantir took steps to develop a social media data policy in early 2015, soliciting input from employees who’d worked on customer accounts involving the use of such data, an email from that time shows. Palantir has said previously that its employee, Alfredas Chmieliauskas, advised the Cambridge Analytica team in ‘an entirely personal capacity’ from 2013 to 2014, and that Cambridge Analytica was never a Palantir customer. There is no indication in the documents seen by BuzzFeed News that the push by Palantir to develop the social media policy had anything to do with Cambridge Analytica. Rather, the push was tied to requests by Palantir’s customers to mine social data during a time when Facebook’s restrictions on accessing and gathering data were much looser.”
The article reveals a few more details about Palantir’s internal discussion, and reminds us that the prevailing attitude toward social-media data was much more relaxed then than it is today. We trust that the company has tightened up their policy since. Founded in 2004, Palantir is based in Palo Alto, California, and has offices around the world.
This alleged interaction may cause a gentle breeze or a cyclone. Stay tuned.
Cynthia Murrell, April 19, 2018
Blockchain: A Database Tooth Fairy?
April 19, 2018
Writer Kai Stinchcombe at Medium understands why so many people want to believe blockchain technology will cure the ills of society, he really does. However, he is compelled to burst that bubble in the piece, “Blockchain Is Not Only Crappy Technology but a Bad Vision for the Future.” Most advocates of Bitcoin and other blockchain products proclaim the value of “a tamper-proof repository not owned by anyone” (his words). That would be great, he acknowledges… but that is not what we have here. He explains:
“You actually see it over and over again. Blockchain systems are supposed to be more trustworthy, but in fact they are the least trustworthy systems in the world. Today, in less than a decade, three successive top bitcoin exchanges have been hacked, another is accused of insider trading, the demonstration-project DAO smart contract got drained, crypto price swings are ten times those of the world’s most mismanaged currencies, and bitcoin, the ‘killer app’ of crypto transparency, is almost certainly artificially propped up by fake transactions involving billions of literally imaginary dollars. Blockchain systems do not magically make the data in them accurate or the people entering the data trustworthy, they merely enable you to audit whether it has been tampered with. A person who sprayed pesticides on a mango can still enter onto a blockchain system that the mangoes were organic. A corrupt government can create a blockchain system to count the votes and just allocate an extra million addresses to their cronies. An investment fund whose charter is written in software can still misallocate funds. How, then, is trust created?”
See the post for more about the technical limits of blockchain technology, as well as Stinchcombe’s philosophy on the role of trust in a connected society. In a nutshell, he thinks we should stop trying to avoid it and start working to build it. Sounds ideal to me.
Cynthia Murrell, April 19, 2018
MailChimp Swings Away from Cryptocurrency
April 19, 2018
Marketing automation platform MailChimp has made some customers very unhappy with a recent decision. Future Society declares, “MailChimp is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails, and People Are Freaking Out.” Though one user charged the company with exercising “centralized capricious power,” MailChimp points to its (updated) Acceptable Use Policy, which does prohibit processing cryptocurrency transactions across their platform. Writer Foster Kamer tells us:
“We asked a few more questions about how MailChimp can actually delineate between emails from people involved in the shilling and profiteering of blockchain and ICOs versus people having news-related discussions of blockchain and ICOs (because, LOL, in the current moment, most non-algorithmic humans have a justifiably tough time distinguishing between the two). We’ll update here if they respond. In the meantime, it’ll be a hell of a lot of fun to watch (1) which companies follow MailChimp’s lead, (2) which companies capitalize off of the fact that they nixed this entire segment of people from their platform and go all in on blockchain, sweeping ’em up in MailChimp’s place, and (3) watching all of blockchain and ICO Twitter collectively lose their minds about feeling censored and repressed.”
Kamer has little sympathy for those objecting to MailChimp’s move, and points out they are free to take their email marketing needs to another business. We wonder, though, whether this action signifies a trend. Founded in 2001, MailChimp is based in Atlanta, and they happen to be hiring for several positions as of this writing.
Cynthia Murrell, April 19, 2018
Blockchain as a CP Delivery System
April 18, 2018
With the rise of Bitcoin’s profile the encryption platform, Blockchain, used to keep things so secret has also seen a rise in its profile. But just like Bitcoin’s scrutiny under the spotlight, Blockchain’s less savory side is being exposed. We learned more from a recent CoinCenter story, defending the encryption, called “Addressing The Concerns of Illicit Images on Public Blockchains.”
According to the well thought out editorial,
“Bitcoin transactions allow one to add to them a short text memo. What some have done is to include encoded text in transaction memo fields and these are recorded in the Blockchain. Some of these encoded surprises on the blockchain include wedding vows, Bible verses, the Bitcoin logo and white paper, and quotes from Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, some sick individuals have also added encoded images of child abuse.”
This is, however, not a new problem for the dark web. In fact, three years ago Forbes pointed out that Blockchain was a potential safe haven for malware and child abuse. That doesn’t erase the problems, though. The CoinCenter piece points out that a majority of interactions through Blockchain are on the up-and-up and that many legitimate businesses are investigating its uses. So, it’s safe to say this encryption tool is not going anywhere. We just wonder how it can ethically be policed.
Patrick Roland, April 18, 2018
IBM and Investor Patience
April 18, 2018
Why have investors apparently lost patience with IBM?
Many reasons. We suggest that Watson and its smart software hyperbole may be contributing factors. To cite one example:
It appears Watson is like a Barbie doll. Barbie is notorious for her numerous careers and varied skilled set from working on the space shuttle to expert fashionista to a school teacher. Watson has a similar career trajectory, simply inject glitter and pink into its motherboard. Watson has now entered the VR/AR game word, says The Next Web in the article, “IBM And Unity Are Teaming Up To Bring Watson’s AI To VR And AR Games.”
IBM and Unity have teamed up to bring Watson’s AI capabilities to the popular gaming engine. Unity is mostly known for Pokemon Go and Star Trek Bridge Crew, but now developers will be able to download the IBM Watson Unity SDK for free. The IBM Watson Unity SDK gives users free access to Watson’s AI suite. The biggest problem with Unity based games is that other than Pokemon Go and Star Trek Bridge Crew most of them have not broken into the mainstream, but Watson’s AI suite could change that.
The potential Watson’s AI brings to Unity goes beyond basic augmented and virtual reality gaming:
“…practicing surgeon could stay immersed in a surgery simulator by using voice control. It’s an immersion breaker for a user to have to turn and either wait for menu popups or stop what they’re doing and grab a game pad to access menus and change ‘tools’ during an exercise.With Watson on board the same hypothetical surgery simulator would function much more like the real world. The user could simply say “Hand me a sponge” and the game engine could process that command using Watson’s speech processing ability.Watson’s voice recognition, speech-to-text, and image recognition features make for a promising addition to the Unity game engine and will, hopefully, propel VR/AR into the mainstream.”
Will this type of assertion get IBM back in the good graces of stakeholders? Watson might or could deliver better games, but revenue, not marketing, is the measure of success.
No success, no patience.
Whitney Grace, April 18, 2018
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