Factualities for April 17, 2019
April 17, 2019
Some of the data facts which caught my attention. My goodness. Believe ’em or not.
0. Number of Alexa killer apps out of the 80,000 apps available for the smart speaker. Source: Computerworld
5. Average number of mobile apps a person uses each day. Source: ZDNet
10 percent. The increase in distracted driving in 2019. Source: Road Show
35. The number of the IMDB top 250 available for streaming. Source: Streaming Observer
38 percent. The percentage of abusive tweets Twitter’s smart software stops. So only 62 percent get pumped out. Source: Engadget
48. Number of months a project lives before Google terminates it. Source: Next Web
50 percent. Number of records in Google local business listings with error. Source: Search Engine Journal
67 percent. The percentage of corporations not using blockchain technology. Source: Next Web
100. Number of pounds of iron the Titanic loses to hungry micro organisms. Source: Forbes
400. Number of people one can follow on Twitter. Source: CNet
$600. Cost of YouTube TV per year. Source: Engadget
5,860. Number of Amazon patent filings. Source: Failed Architecture
$50,000. Amount PewDiePie contributed in crypto currency to Alex Jones. Source: Next Web
200,000. Number of US government data sets available for free. Source: CIO
$4 million. Amount Goggle will pay for terminating the Google Fiber project. Source: Slashdot
$22.6 million. Facebook’s security bill for protecting Mark Zuckerberg. Source: Guardian
$58 million. Amount Uber paid Google for Maps between January 1, 2016, and December 2018. Source: Android Authority
1 billion. Number of records a hacker dumped in eight weeks. Source: Slashdot
$1.8 billion. Uber’s loss in 2018. Source: CNBC
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2019
Facebook: Technical Challenges Arise
April 17, 2019
I read “Facebook Suffers Blackout Again but the Hackers Have Nothing to Do with It.” What struck me and one member of the DarkCyber team as interesting was the tiny hint of Facebook’s technical ineptitude. The word “again” and then the reminder that the service flop was not caused by “hackers” sticks the point of the reportorial spear into Facebook.
We noted this statement:
Earlier in March when Facebook was down for hours some experts had pointed towards DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) which can sometimes cripple businesses. However, Facebook denied it and said in tweet that the outage was “not related to a DDoS attack”. It had blamed the server configuration change for the outage.
A technical glitch or a distracted technical management team?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2019
Google and Identity Management
April 17, 2019
Google kills products. More than 100 since I did my last count. With that fact in mind, I read a second time “Google, Hyperledger Launch Online Identity Management Tools.” At first glance, the idea of a slightly different approach to identify management seems like a good but obvious idea. (Does Amazon have thoughts about identify management too?)
The write up explains:
Google unveiled five upgrades to its BeyondCorp cloud enterprise security service that enables identity and access management for employees, corporate partners, and customers.
Google wants to be the go to cloud provider of identity management services. Among the capabilities revealed, Google’s Android 7 and higher can be used as a two factor authentication dongle.
However, in the back of my mind is the memory of failed products and Google engineers losing interest in certain projects. No promotion, no internal buzz, then no engineers. The Google Search Appliance, for example, was not a thriller.
The idea that Google can and does lose interest in projects may provide a marketing angle Amazon can exploit. If Amazon ignores this “short attention span” issue, perhaps other companies will be less reluctant to point out that talk and a strong start are not finishing the race.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2019
Facebook: Friends Are Useful
April 16, 2019
I read “Mark Zuckerberg Leveraged Facebook User Data to Fight Rivals and Help Friends, Leaked Documents Show.” I must admit I was going to write about Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind’s smart software which classified the fire in Paris in a way that displayed links to the 9/11 attack. I then thought, “Why not revisit Microsoft’s changing story about how much user information was lost via the email breach?” But I settled on a compromise story. Facebook allegedly loses control of documents. This is a security angle. The document reveal how high school science club management methods allegedly behave.
According to CNBC:
Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. In other cases, it would deny user-data access to rival companies or apps.
If true, the statement does not surprise me. I was in my high school science club, and I have a snapshot of our fine group of outcasts, wizards, and crazy people. Keep in mind: I was one of these exemplars of the high school.
Let’s put these allegedly true revelations in context:
- Facebook has amassed a remarkable track record in the last year
- Google, a company which contributed some staff to Facebook, seems to have some interesting behaviors finding their way into the “real news” media; for example, senior management avoiding certain meetings and generally staying out of sight
- Microsoft, a firm which dabbled in monopoly power, is trying to figure out how to convert its high school science club management methods in its personnel department to processes which match some employees’ expectations for workplace behavior.
What’s the view from Harrod’s Creek? Like the Lyft IPO and subsequent stock market performance, the day of reckoning does not arrive with a bang. Nope. The day creeps in on cat’s feet. The whimpering may soon follow.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2019
Business Intelligence: Some Worst Practices
April 16, 2019
AI has the business intelligence field booming, but not every company uses these tools as well as they could. ITWeb shares a white paper titled, “The Top Five Worst Practices in Business Intelligence,” produced by Information Builders. We wonder—why only five? Oh well, perhaps there will be a sequel. The paper’s introduction states:
“Companies of all sizes suffer from countless oversights and poor judgment calls during planning, tool selection, and rollout – mistakes that can be detrimental to BI success. Even the smartest, best-run businesses in the world commit the common missteps that doom BI projects to shelfware and failure.
The worst practices have been shaped by subjective methods. Accurate? Judge for yourself.
The first worst practice listed is Depending on Humans to Operationalize Insights; be sure analytics are embedded alongside insights, we’re warned. Next is Expecting Self-Service BI to Address All Your Needs. Though some users can make use of self-service BI, advanced users need more flexibility, while executives require summaries and alerts. Then we have Underestimating the Importance of Data Preparation, which we agree cannot be over emphasized. (The old adage garbage-in-garbage-out comes to mind.) At number four is Using Tactical BI Tools to Support Broad BI Strategies—a hodgepodge of specific tools will fail to address the needs of the larger organization; both discovery tools and summary apps are required. Finally, Ignoring Important Data Sources rounds out the list; specifically, we’re told:
“BI initiatives tend to focus on the information contained in ERP and CRM applications, relational databases, data warehouses and marts, and other enterprise systems. However, important other data sources, such as machine-generated, mobile, location, social media, and web monitoring data, which contain a wealth of crucial insight, have emerged. Today, IDC estimates that as much as 90 percent of available content is unstructured, residing in various formats and places.”
See the white paper, downloadable for free here, for more details on each point. It is worth noting the paper concludes by promoting Information Builders’ own platform, WebFOCUS, to guard against such mistakes. Still, the list could be helpful if taken with that salt grain.
Is business intelligence an oxymoron?
Cynthia Murrell, April 16, 2019
DarkCyber for April 16, 2019, Now Available
April 16, 2019
DarkCyber for April 16, 2019, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://www.vimeo.com/330298628 .
The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold. It is the only weekly video news shows focusing on the Dark Web, cybercrime, and lesser known Internet services.
This week’s story line up includes… The LAPD’s review of Palantir Technologies; Australia’s forceful social media crackdown; Russia blocks virtual private networks; and X1 offer social eDiscovery.
This week’s feature continues DarkCyber’s review of the Los Angeles Police Department’s audit of its data-driven policing programs. In the second part of this series we look at the LAPD’s assessment of Palantir Technologies’ platform. The Palantir system provides a platform for integrating and analyzing data for the department’s identification of chronic offenders. The audit revealed that the program provided officers with a useful tool for reducing certain types of crimes. However, the challenge for the department is to provide the Palantir platform with more accurate and consistent data.
Other stories in the DarkCyber video include:
Australia’s crack down on US social media companies continues. In addition to fines, the country proposes mandatory three-year prison terms for offenders. The country, like New Zealand, is a member of the Five Eyes’ intelligence sharing group. Legislation in Australia often provides a model for similar legislation in Canada, Britain, and the United States.
Russia’s government has taken steps to prohibit the use of virtual private networks. This technology makes it more difficult for law enforcement and intelligence professionals to monitor Russian citizens’ communications. More than a half dozen VPN providers have been blocked by Russian Internet Service Providers. Crackdowns on obfuscation technologies is another example of the “Chinafication” of communications and privacy.
Software designed to compromise adults’ and children’s mobile phones is being distributed via the Google Play store. The mechanism Google uses to prevent compromised software or malware from being available on its electronic store for Android users has allowed thousands of individuals to install these programs. One government is alleged to have used the Google Play Store as a way to gain access to personal contacts and confidential information.
X1, a vendor of keyword search and retrieval, has introduced a version of its software tailored to social media eDiscovery. Founded in 2003, X1 allows a lawyer or investigator to search for people, places, events, and other content across a collection of open source data provided by X1 for a starting fee of $2,000. The eDiscovery product joins a growing list of investigative tools, including the personal investigative tool Hunchly which starts at $129 per year.
Kenny Toth, April 16, 2019
Amazonia for April 15, 2019
April 15, 2019
An interesting week in Amazon’s ebookstore. Jeff Bezos’ annual shareholder letter contains many nuggets. The one DarkCyber found thought provoking was also noted by ZDNet. “In Amazon Shareholder Letter, Bezos Says AWS Targeting Specialized Databases for Specialized Workloads”, I noted this passage:
AWS itself – as a whole – is an example. No one asked for AWS. No one. Turns out the world was in fact ready and hungry for an offering like AWS but didn’t know it. We had a hunch, followed our curiosity, took the necessary financial risks, and began building – reworking, experimenting, and iterating countless times as we proceeded.
ZDNet’s story adds:
From there, Bezos drops a few lines that make AWS a bit of an obsession for Oracle, a database giant. Bezos said the AWS army of databases has been informed by enterprise customers “constrained by their commercial database options and had been unhappy with their database providers for decades.
The idea is that outfits like Oracle Database, IBM DB2, and to some degree Microsoft with its SQLServer construct have offered an engine. Happy licensees and database administrators would dutifully write scripts and use vendor-certified tools.
The future, as DarkCyber understands it, is many different databases, each with different capabilities. Once these are in the AWS environment, AWS developers and their customers can pick a tool and get on with real work.
Want SQL? Amazon has Aurora. Want to make Elasticsearch grunt through log files? AWS can do that with its own stretchy search engine and log file tools. Want to do Googley-things? AWS offers DynamoDB.
Other points:
- Third party resellers are making money even though Amazon could fall behind in the revenue and profit department
- Amazon wants, needs, has to fail
- Pesky customers don’t know what they want
- Amazon is not big in retail
- Amazon has raised its minimum wage so the competition can follow the leader.
Chug, chug, chug goes the Bezos bulldozer. Like some big machines, sometimes ants, jaguars, and the odd competitor gets crushed.
JEDI Squash Game: Final Match
Amazon and Microsoft are the finalists in the squash game for the JEDI contract. Microsoft got some love with its virtual reality award. Plus many DoD professionals cannot live without PowerPoint. Amazon has some government work too. GeekWire reports:
it will be interesting to see how public the companies are willing to be in pursuit of the deal.
Yes, it will be interesting. For the government, for the companies, and for the lawyers representing the outfit which loses the contract.
AWS Deep Learning Containers
Containers make it easy to put related stuff in one place. The holiday ornaments go in Box A, and the old kitchen items go in box 2. Amazon’s deep learning containers are smarter. InfoQ reveals:
AWS DL [Docker] Containers were created by Amazon to remove the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” for customers who regularly use Amazon EKS and ECS to deploy their TensorFlow workloads to the cloud. Amazon has also optimized the images for use on AWS to reduce training time and increase inferencing performance.
You can read the Amazon write up at this link. The main idea is that setting up and doing smart software is getting easier, better, faster, cheaper (allegedly). Just fill in the blanks:
Want more? Search Amazon for cloud. Helpful tip.
Building Bridges to Oman
Amazon visited Oman.The subject of the visit was sales and probably some chatter about other Amazon services. Was policeware on the agenda? DarkCyber does not know. According to Zawya, the reason for the meeting was:
to explore the investment opportunities in the field of information and communication technology and eCommerce as well as identifying the promising markets in the Sultanate.
Ecommerce was a focal point. Policeware? Not mentioned in the source report.
First, It Was Hollywood. Now It Is Big Oil
The Brownsville Herald reported:
Amazon is getting cozy with the oil industry — and some employees aren’t happy about it…
The company is now courting oil producers to Amazon Web Services, which offers cloud computing services to government agencies and major companies, such as video-streaming service Netflix and digital scrapbooking site Pinterest. AWS is one of Amazon’s biggest money makers, accounting for more than 70% of Amazon’s total profit last year.
What’s the angle? Amazon sells its data analytics and other services to Shell and BP. Amazon wants more big oil customers. Is an employee protest percolating?
More Robotics
Business Insider, an outfit seemingly desperate for email addresses and money, reported that Amazon acquired Canvas Technology. The Colorado robot shop makes a robot cart. The cart “carts”. Robots do not require bathroom breaks, meals, or psychological counseling yet.
Amazon Employees Want Climate Change Policies
Herald and News reported that Amazon is into wind energy. But Amazon employees want more climate action from Amazon. This is not save Amazon the company. This is save Amazon the jungle. The newspaper said:
In an unprecedented public push to change Amazon policies, nearly 4,500 employees have put their names to a letter asking CEO Jeff Bezos and the commerce giant’s board of directors to become global leaders in fighting climate change.
Now about the big boxes to send little products? No information, but Amazon has signed three wind farm deals. Those megawatts come online by 2021, In the meantime, chug chug chug does the bulldozer which runs on diesel fuel.
Partner and Developer Quick Clicks
Some items which provide some information about the growing reach of Amazon is the community of vendors of which most people have never heard:
- Napatech. A line of FPGA (floating point gate array) hardware for Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. The “solution” provides network encryption and description. Source: PR Newswire
- Prancer. A new cloud validation framework. This is a connector to make it possible to check up on Amazon AWS if you are a client of the bulldozer. Source: Yahoo Finance
- ZephyrTel. A strategic collaboration with Amazon AWS. Source: Business Wire on Yahoo
Amazon Cash Pivot
The no people, no cash approach may not be working. Pesky humans and their resistance to change. Yahoo reported that Amazon’s automated stores may start accepting cash. Soon. Source: Yahoo
Amazon: Now a VC Broker
CNBC reported in “AWS Bets on Services Portfolio Amidst Increasing APAC Cloud Competition”:
Amazon is testing a new way to bolster its relationship with start-ups and possibly bring in more capital to the ecosystem. The fledgling effort, known as the Amazon Web Services Pro-Rata Program, is designed to link private investors with companies that use AWS, as well as venture funds whose portfolios are filled with potential cloud customers. Amazon is not investing money through the program.
Didn’t Mr. Bezos work on Wall Street? He probably is no longer influenced by that work. What do you think?
One More Thing…
Apple Insider reports that Bezos bulldozer operators listen to Echo audio. For the allegedly true real news story navigate to “Thousands of Amazon Workers Are Listening In On Echo Audio, Report Says.” We believe reports.
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2019
Where Can AI Get Its Smarts? How about Prison?
April 15, 2019
The DarkCyber team did not fabricate the story “Inmates Are Training AI As Part Prison Labor Tasks.” I noted this passage:
An unusual type of prison labor has been introduced for inmates in Finland’s jails: training artificial intelligence. This is based around categorizing data which is used to train artificial intelligence algorithms for a startup company.
Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2019
Microsoft: More Security Excitement
April 15, 2019
I read “Microsoft Informs Hackers Had Accessed Some Outlook Account Emails for Months.” The write up reports:
Microsoft has revealed that a hacker had access to the email addresses, folder names, and subject lines of emails, but not the content of emails or attachments of the Outlook users for three months.
That’s 90 days. Windows Defender was, I assume, on the job. The good news is that the bad actor was not able to read emails. The hacker wasn’t able “to steal login details of other personal information.” That’s good news too. Plus, Microsoft has “disabled the credentials used in the hack.”
Whoa, Nellie.
Windows Defender and presumably one or more of the companies offering super smart, super capable security services were protecting the company. I am besieged each week with requests to read white papers, participate in webinars, and get demonstrations of one of the hundreds of cyber security systems available today. These range from outfits which have former NSA, FBI, and CIA specialists monitoring their clients’ systems to companies that offer systems based on tireless artificially intelligence, proactive, predictive technology. Humans get involved only when the super system sends an alert. The idea is that every possible approach to security is available.
Microsoft can probably afford several systems and can use its own crack programmers to keep the company safe. Well, one caveat is that the programmers working on Windows 10 updates are probably not likely to be given responsibility for mission critical Microsoft security. Windows 10 updates are often of questionable quality.
A handful of questions occur to me:
- Perhaps Microsoft’s security expertise is not particularly good. Maybe on a par with the Windows 10 October 2018 update?
- Maybe Windows Defender cannot defend?
- Perhaps the over hyped, super capable cyber security systems do not work either?
Net net: With many well funded companies offering cyber security and big outfits entrusted by their customers with their data, are the emperors going to their yoga classes naked? Ugh. Horrible thought, but it may be accurate. At least put on some stretchy pants, please.
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2019
Google and Kiddie Data Allegations
April 15, 2019
I read a compelling essay published in TribLive. The title? “Protect Kids from Google Predators.” The short write up does a good job of identifying the basic mechanism for collecting information about students. Here’s a passage I noted:
Google now has 80 million educators and students around the world using G Suite for Education, 40 million students and teachers in Google Classroom and 30 million more using Google Chromebooks inside and outside the classroom.
The data collection is ubiquitous, just like other Google functions. These intercept and logging functions are baked into the system. As Google staff turns over, the specifics of some of these fundamental plumbing and utility services are like services buried in Windows 10 and Word. Fish don’t understand water; users don’t understand a non-Google environment.
The write up adds:
K-12 children in tens of thousands of schools began the academic year by lining up at the library to create Gmail accounts and Google Classroom logins without parental notification or permission. There’s no escape: No Google, no access. No access, no education. “Hell, some of the teachers don’t even teach the kids,” one parent complained to me. Instead, they “watch videos on Canvas or on their Chromebooks. Canvas (by Instructure) is one of myriad “learning management systems” that stores students’ grades, homework assignments, videos, quizzes and tests — all integrated with almighty, all-powerful, omniscient Google. Google apps such as ClassDojo collect intimate behavioral data and long-term psychological profiles encompassing family information, personal messages, photographs and voice notes. The collection of such data is a nanny state nightmare in the making, as a new Pioneer Institute report on “social, emotional learning” software and assessments outlined this month. Meanwhile, preschoolers are being trained to flash “Clever Badges” with QR codes in front of their Google Chromebook webcams. These badges “seamlessly” log them into Google World and all its apps without all the “stress” of remembering passwords. Addicted toddlers are being indoctrinated into the screen time culture without learning how to exercise autonomy over their own data.
DarkCyber believes that more attention to this Google “feature” may be warranted. I know an apology from Google may be forthcoming, but perhaps parents are tiring of apologies and having their children tracked and their privacy compromised?
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2019
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