Social Media: Some Influence, Some Impacts
June 17, 2018
Many experts have been calling for the death of mainstream media for years—with newspapers and televised news in a strange downturn in impact—a new mainstream media is arising. We learned more about how social media isn’t the death of the old guard, but actually a new wrinkle in that world from a Los Angeles Times story, “Stop Calling Them ‘Social’: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Et al Are The New Mainstream Media.”
According to the story:
“In the new mainstream media, there is no context, and you are always on the record — to your own followers, the potential millions of those who retweet you and any other media outlet, whose members are constantly scanning social platforms for sources, announcements, trends, feel-good moments, spats and offensive statements.”
This logic has been supported recently, by reports that most adults in the US get their news from a social media source. According to these numbers 62% of adults get their news from social media. This is a staggering number that spells out just how much power the platform has.
We noted USA Today’s analysis of falling IQs. The culprit according to the newspaper is schools and nutrition. (See “IQ Scores Have Been Falling for Decades, and a New Study Blames Schools and Nutrition.”) Television, broken families, digital distractions—not a problem.
The article itself illustrates the trend.
Patrick Roland, June 17, 2018
Google: The Maven Tactic
June 16, 2018
Google’s focus on AI is undergoing some very interesting evolutions right out in plain sight. It just so happens to be of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it variety. A recent government contract gone south has refocused the search giant’s energy in a surprising place, according to a recent American Spectator article, “In Abandoning Project Maven, Google Put Self Over Country.”
The story revolves around Google backing out of a partnership with the Department of Defense over Project Maven.
“Project Maven is an AI-imaging project intended to improve the military’s ability to process images and videos taken by drones. In doing so, drones will be better able to collect information, be more accurate, and thus reduce collateral damage from drone strikes significantly.”
The rub comes from the fact that Google is dropping out of this deal with the US government, but is maintaining its AI programs with China. However, this might not be a case of money over country, as the American Spectator claims. Instead, this could be a shrewd move to actually improve Google’s ethical standing, since it recently promised not to help use AI as a form of weaponry. If that is the case, Google’s tactical move may neutralize its employee-management situation.
Patrick Roland, June 16, 2018
Real of Fake News: Did the NSA Help Develop Bitcoin?
June 15, 2018
Here in Harrod’s Creek, one can buy corn meal and squirrel meat using the barter method. Put that quart jar of moonshine on the counter and pick up your vittles. No digital currency here.
Therefore, the assertion in “The NSA Helped to Invent Bitcoin, Founder of World’s Second Largest Cryptocurrency Ethereum Claims” puzzles the Beyond Search and DarkCyber research team. The source is impeccable: The UK tabloid Metro.
We learned:
Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-born creator of Ethereum, suggested the National Security Agency (NSA) was involved in the development of the virtual currency.
With Amazon on the Ethereum bandwagon, we think that currency and transaction platform is worth monitoring.
But did a US government agency create Bitcoin? Metro reports:
Earlier this year, it was reported that a boss of the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky made a similar claim. ‘Bitcoin is a project of American intelligence agencies, which was designed to provide quick funding for US, British and Canadian intelligence activities in different countries,’ she said, according to Sputnik News. ‘[The technology] is privatized just like the Internet, GPS and TOR. In fact, it is dollar 2.0. Its rate is controlled by the owners of exchanges.’
We’ll stick to old fashioned currencies and the staple one of our contract workers manufactures in another hollow. White lightning can change one’s perception of reality. A reporter, for example, hot on the trail of Satoshi Nakamoto might have taken a slurp.
Stephen E Arnold, June 15, 2018
Could Ma Bell Get Her Old Mojo Back?
June 15, 2018
Many years ago I worked on projects for the original AT&T, also Bellcore, and USWest. I am not a bell head, but I understand some of the Maslovian forces at work. Telecommunications utilities want to be monopolies. It seems to be a genetic law embedded in former members of the Young Pioneers and in the bricks and electronics of the Piscataway data center and the Cherry Hill labs.
I want to point out the write up “AT&T completes Acquisition of Time Warner, Inc.” The deal may not be for copper wire and 5ESS switches, but Ma Bell may be gathering her skirts and getting ready to rumble.
The write up states that AT&T has communications, media, international services, and advertising.
What’s missing?
From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, AT&T is one acquisition away from bring back Ma Bell. Either AT&T buys Verizon or Verizon buys AT&T and all will be right with the world. Another angle for revivifying Ma Bell is for an investment bank to purchase both companies and merge them.
Why?
Digital services are more efficient and effective when they operate as single source providers.
Judge Green went against the natural order of digital services, and now Bell Telephone is one acquisition away from a most auspicious return. Will that happen? Could that happen?
AT&T just bought Time Warner. Why not deliver a true Bell head solution?
Even Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft would have to rethink their business plans.
One other benefit: Phone calls would connect more quickly and certain types of oversight become much simpler.
I will have to look around for my Young Pioneers baseball cap. I think I had a red, white, and blue one with a Bell logo. None of that death star iconography.
Stephen E Arnold, June 15, 2018
Artificial Intelligence and the New Normal: Over Promising and Under Delivering
June 15, 2018
IBM has the world’s fastest computer. That’s intriguing. Now Watson can output more “answers” in less time. Pity the poor user who has to figure out what’s right and what’s no so right. Progress.
Perhaps a wave of reason is about to hit the AI field. Blogger Filip Piekniewski forecasts, “AI Winter is Well on its Way.” While the neural-networking approach behind deep learning has been promising, it may fall short of the hype some companies have broadcast. Piekniewski writes:
“Many bets were made in 2014, 2015 and 2016 when still new boundaries were pushed, such as the Alpha Go etc. Companies such as Tesla were announcing through the mouths of their CEO’s that fully self-driving car was very close, to the point that Tesla even started selling that option to customers [to be enabled by future software update]. We have now mid 2018 and things have changed. Not on the surface yet, NIPS conference is still oversold, the corporate PR still has AI all over its press releases, Elon Musk still keeps promising self driving cars and Google CEO keeps repeating Andrew Ng’s slogan that AI is bigger than electricity. But this narrative begins to crack. And as I predicted in my older post, the place where the cracks are most visible is autonomous driving – an actual application of the technology in the real world.”
This post documents a certain waning of interest in deep learning, and notes an apparently unforeseen limit to its scale. Most concerning so far, of course, are the accidents that have involved self-driving cars; Piekniewski examines that problem from a technical perspective, so see the article for those details. Whether the AI field will experience a “collapse,” as this post foresees, or we will simply adapt to more realistic expectations, we cannot predict.
Cynthia Murrell, June 15, 2018
Self Regulation: How Does That Work for Teen Aged Science Club Members?
June 15, 2018
I like the Platonic ideal of self regulation. Better yet let’s try for crowd sourced regulation. Tie dye T shirts are cool too.
Sometimes, it seems, humans are the answer. Unpaid, helpful humans. Motherboard profiles the little-sung YouTube “super users” in, “‘Are You Batman?’: How YouTube’s Volunteer Army Gets Channels Undeleted.” Writer Adrianne Jeffries opens with an anecdote in which an individual known as @Contributors_YT may have helped an unfortunate YouTube broadcaster get his channel back. She then explains:
“Increasingly, YouTube creators are getting help from anonymous YouTube super-users, including @Contributors_YT, who have access to a backchannel that allows them to escalate complaints to YouTube employees and sometimes get mistaken channel deletions or ‘false strikes’ against videos reversed. These super-users volunteer for YouTube through a company initiative that used to be called ‘YouTube Heroes’ but is now known as two separate programs, Trusted Flaggers and YouTube Contributors. They patrol the official YouTube Help Forum and social media, where many of them use TweetDeck to sift for keywords that signal distressed YouTubers. Most of the time, the volunteers simply add expertise, offering advice on everything from how to get more subscribers to technical support. They know YouTube’s Community Guidelines inside and out, and can usually figure out why action was taken and help fill in the gaps around YouTube’s notoriously poor communication with creators. Sometimes they pass along messages from YouTube staffers related to specific cases. But lately, as YouTube ramps up enforcement due to negative press coverage about the prominence of violent videos and conspiracy theories on the platform, they’ve been intervening more and more when videos or channels are incorrectly penalized. For YouTubers who get wrongly caught up in the company’s enormous, faceless content moderation machine, these volunteer crusaders are their last hope.”
See the article for several more examples of these YouTube do-gooders helping those who have been wronged by the zealous algorithm. It is worth remembering that, by now, some of these broadcasters have put years of work into their YouTube presences, and many rely on them for income. Should social media sites embrace the old school notion of editorial control and responsibility?
Nah. Nothing is more satisfying than watching self regulation in action. From Amazon reviews to comments offered to viewers of a live stream of the Hawaii volcano eruption, good judgment is on display.
Cynthia Murrell, June 15, 2018
Does Security Sell? Will Security Provide Revenue Lift?
June 14, 2018
Years ago Oracle positioned its enterprise search system as more secure than any other information access available at that time. How did that work out? Do you use SES? Why did Oracle buy Endeca, ostensibly an enterprise search system of sorts? What happened to Triple Hop? Artificial Linguistics? The other search systems Oracle has acquired? My hunch is that security did not sell.
Now Apple is betting that its secure Apply phone will cruise along, sucking up the majority of the profits from mobile phones. The company has determined that engineers working for vendors focused on law enforcement and intelligence agencies will no longer be able to use the connection and charging port to hack into a mobile device.
Who knows? Maybe Apple can make security generate big revenue flows and juicy profits?
“Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Police Use to Crack Devices” explains that Apple will close a “technological loophole.” The move may rekindle the push from some law enforcement and intelligence professionals for a way to unlock bad actors’ iPhones.
Our weekly video DarkCyber described products available from Grayshift and has mentioned Cellebrite in our weekly reports.
Our view is that considerable discussion and legal fireworks will ensue. Compromise? Nope, that’s an approach not too popular in some circles. Are companies governments? Can governments impact how companies do business.
This is a major issue, and the outcome is not as clear as the information about China’s surveillance actions. How has Apple adapted to China’s rules? How is Apple adapting the US laws?
Interesting days ahead.
Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2018
Phrase of the Day: Collateral Damage
June 14, 2018
The phrase “collateral damage” means, according to the Cambridge Dictionary:
during a war, the unintentional deaths and injuries of people who are not soldiers, and damage that is caused to their homes, hospitals, schools, etc.
Cambridge University itself may be touched by blowback from the antics of one of its professors and a company which shares the name of the town on the River Cam. Twitch the mantle blue, of course.
The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal has rightly been scrutinized by everyone from individual users to entire government bodies. As could be expected when the players are this large, what people are finding links together unlikely suspects and victims in this data breach. One such surprise popped up this week when we read a Gizmodo report, “Facebook ‘Looking Into’ Palantir’s Access to User Data.”
According to the story:
“The inquiry was led by Damian Collins, chair of Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee. According to CNBC, Collins asked if Palantir was part of Facebook’s “review work…. While it’s unclear if it gained access to the Facebook user data that Cambridge Analytica harvested, Palantir’s connection to the social network extends beyond any potential collaboration with Cambridge Analytica. Peter Thiel, a Facebook board member, is a Palantir co-founder.”
We aren’t sure what the big data powerhouse Palantir knew or didn’t know, but so far the company has been outside the blast zone.
Take for example, the recent news that Cambridge Analytica’s data seems to be out of business or in business under a different name.
Keep that ceramic plate on. The dominoes may continue to fall.
Patrick Roland, May 13, 2018
Tipping Point: 25 Percent
June 14, 2018
i read an interesting article which contains an item of information related to social change. The question is, “When does social change occur?”
“Research Finds Tipping Point for Large-scale Social Change” is 25 percent of a population. The source of the datum is research from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
The write up reports:
Acknowledging that real-life situations can be much more complicated, the authors’ model allows for the exact 25% tipping point number to change based on circumstances. Memory length is a key variable, and relates to how entrenched a belief or behavior is.
The article quotes the study director as saying:
“Our findings present a stark contrast to centuries of thinking about social change in classical economics, in which economists typically think a majority of activists is needed to change a population’s norms,” says Centola [key researcher]. “The classical model, called equilibrium stability analysis, would dictate that 51% or more is needed to initiate real social change. We found, both theoretically and experimentally, that a much smaller fraction of the population can effectively do this.”
The datum, if accurate, suggests that Cambridge Analytic-type activities could have considerable influence.
Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2018
Is Real News Synthetic?
June 13, 2018
There are new artificial intelligence algorithms being designed to develop new security measures. AI algorithms “learn” when they are fed large datasets to discover patterns, inconsistencies, and other factors. It is harder than one thinks to generate large datasets, so Google has turned to fake…er…synthetic data over real. Valuewalk wrote more about synthetic data in, “Why Facebook Now Uses Synthetic (‘Fake’) Data.”
Facebook recently announced plans to open two new AI labs to develop user security tools and the algorithms would be built on synthetic data. Sergey Nikolenko, a data scientist, complimented the adoption of synthetic data, especially since it would enable progress without hindering user privacy.
“ ‘While fake news has caused problems for Facebook, fake data will help fix those problems,’ said Nikolenko. ‘In a computing powerhouse like Facebook, where reams of data are generated every day, you want a solution in place that will help you quickly train different AI algorithms to perform different tasks, even if all the training data is. That’s where synthetic data gets the job done!’ “
One of the biggest difficulties AI developers face is a lack of usable data. In other words, data that is high-quality, task-specific and does not compromise user privacy. Companies like Neuromation nabbed this niche, so they started creating qualifiable data.
Facebook will use the AI tools to fight online harassment, political propaganda from foreign governments, fake news, and various networking tools and apps. This might be the start of better safety protocols protecting users and preventing online bullies.
Perhaps “real news” is synthetic?
Whitney Grace, June 13, 2018
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