Facebook: What Is a Threat to the Company?
October 29, 2019
I spotted a headline on Techmeme. Rewriting headlines is part of the Techmeme approach to communication. The link to which the headline points is this New York Times article. Here is the NYT headline:
Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads
This is the Techmeme headline:
Sources: over 250 Facebook employees have signed a letter visible on an internal forum that says letting politicians lie in ads is “a threat” to the company
The messages are almost the same: Staff push back is a problem. But isn’t it part of the current high-tech company ethos.
The threat is management’s inability to maintain control. Companies typically work toward a goal; for example, manufacturing video doorbells or selling asbestos free baby powder. (Okay, those a bad examples.)
Perhaps something larger is afoot?
The corrosion of a ethical fabric allows certain aspects of human behavior to move through a weakened judgmental membrane may be more significant. The problem is not Facebook’s alone.
Are there similarities between a company shipping baby powder with questionable ingredients and Facebook?
Interesting question.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2019
Sentiment Analysis: Still Ticking Despite Some Lickings
October 29, 2019
Sentiment analysis is a “function” that tries to identify the emotional payload of an object, typically text. Sentiment analysis of images, audio, and video is “just around the corner”, just like quantum computing and getting Windows 10 updates from killing some computers.
“The Best Sentiment Analysis Tools of 2019” provides a list of go-to vendors. Like most lists some options do not appear; for example, Algeion and Vader. The list was compiled by MonkeyLearn, which is number one on the list. There are some surprises; for example, IBM Watson.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2019
Economists: The Borjes Approach
October 28, 2019
Now this is a source among sources: Epoch Times. DarkCyber is not equipped to identify the information in “Krugman Admits He and Mainstream Economists Got Globalization Wrong.” One point in the write up evoked memories of a college course when I was a callow youth; to wit:
the consensus economists failed to measure adequately and properly account for the impact of globalization on specific communities, some of which were disproportionately hit hard. This despite the fact that models predicted, and figures later showed, that free trade was a net gain in terms of both jobs and wages in the broader American economy. Generalized gain but localized pain.
There you go. Better for everyone. Not so good for some others.
In business, the technology magnets are doing fine. Local retail shops, not so fine. Some countries are chugging along. Others seems to be shifting into riot mode. Planning a trip to Bogota, Lima, or Paris for a three day week end soon?
What about that college economics class through which I sat asking such questions as, “What is this professor talking about?” and “Have I awakened in a short story by Jose Luis Borges?”
Maybe the Epoch Times is neither wrong nor right about Paul Krugman? Paradoxical thoughts have legs in the online world. What’s real and what’s fake? Think of those riders in the wasteland in front of what seems to be a mountain range. Borges did and look what that earned him.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2019
Metasearch Engine Changes Hands
October 28, 2019
In 1998 a Wall Street professionals founded Ixquick. As I recall, the developer was David Bodnick. Like other search developers, selling was better than pumping ads and trying to compete in the world of the digital library card catalog. Ixquick’s buyer was Surfboard Holding BV.
Metasearch engines like DuckDuckGo sends queries to other search engines and present a list of semi-deduplicated results. Dogpile and Vivisimo were other metasearch engines. The Ixquick twist was privacy. I don’t want to go into the notion of privacy in an ad supported search system in this item.
DarkCyber noted a Reddit post that reveals System1 (Privacy One Group) now owns the service. Note the word privacy. As I said, I am not going to explain for the umpteenth time why free Web search or free services of any type may have a different notion of privacy than someone in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
Should I explain the issues related to metasearch systems? Nope. Just like the privacy thing. No one understands and no one cares.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2019
Dark Web Search: Beating a Small, Nearly Dead Horse
October 28, 2019
Despite popular opinion, search engines do not yield all the information on the Internet. Albrecht Ude recycles tips in Global Investigative Journalism Network’s article, “How To Become A Deep Web Super Sleuth” that only 4% of Internet content is shown in search results. The key to discovering information hidden on the Internet is not search for specific details, instead search for where that information should be. For example, if you are searching for someone’s email address, but cannot find it search instead for organizations related to the person. Digging through content and searching for clues is how to find the gold (aka the desired information).
The article also offers some advice how to become a super deep web sleuth. These tips are helpful for any type of information search, not only those linked to specific organizations or their databases usually not listed in search results.
Figure out who runs the database or organization, these will usually be individuals who would invest funds or stand to make a profit from the information. Interestingly enough databases can also be “hacked:”
‘Find databases by searching for your topic with “database OR directory OR catalogue OR registry” on a search engine. If you want some privacy, Dutch company www.startpage.com runs searches for you on Google, without giving the tech giant your information.”
As millions of students know, while you cannot use Wikipedia as a research tool, you can use the information they cite in their articles. Check out the external links in the bottom of articles as well as search for lists of academic or online databases. Do not forget to search Wikipedia in other languages for more diverse results.
Take advantage of what is available at your public or university library. Public and university libraries pay subscriptions for databases. They can be accessed on site or via a library card, generally these are free to local residents. The Wayback Machine and Archive.today are also great sources for Web site history, because sites disappear as quickly as they are made, but these archives store them.
Relying solely on search engines for research is a lazy move. Lazy.
Whitney Grace, October 28, 2019
Procurement Bias Alleged in Amazon Microsoft Procurement Competition
October 28, 2019
DarkCyber noted “Trump Ordered Mattis to “Screw Amazon” Out of Pentagon Contract, Book Alleges.” If the allegation is accurate, the Federal procurement process is not above influence. If the allegations are not accurate, firing people who get quoted may be a bad idea. Maybe both statements are accurate?
The write up reports second or third hand:
Trump called Mattis in the summer of 2018 and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of a chance to bid on a $10 billion cloud networking contract.
Interesting.
The shift to the cloud is an important step for the Department of Defense. An error might have a few minor downsides: Loss of life, intelligence failures, increased and unbudgeted triage expenses, and increased friction in data-centric processes.
The upside is that the Department of Defense has made a decision.
Several questions arise and may be worth considering:
First, will there be review processes? The allegation about instructions from the White House are, if true, reasonably clear.
Second, will Microsoft be able to deliver the cloud solutions the Department of Defense requires? There are a few—how shall I phrase it—impediments to effective use of information technology which must be addressed. These are a bit more challenging than shipping software updates which create problems for users.
Third, can Microsoft navigate around Amazon’s patent fences? Some of the functionality which seems to be important to the DoD are within an Amazon patent fence. If Microsoft crawls under one of these fences, Amazon may sue. The litigation and any penalties might chew into Microsoft’s profit from the hard-won deal. (Are there examples? Yes, and I address these in my chapter for a forthcoming book, but the information is not for a free blog post on a chill Sunday morning, gentle reader. Alas!)
Net net: DarkCyber has a premonition that the MSFT JEDI assertions may make Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis a best seller.
Intriguing. Mad Dog becomes a celebrity author.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2019
Google: The World of Borges Is Real
October 27, 2019
“Google CEO: The Company Is Genuinely Struggling with Transparency, Employee Trust” is paradoxical. Google has become similar to one of the imaginary confections of Jorge Luis Borges’ Shadows and fantasy are difficult to distinguish, even more problematic to understand.
The write up channels Bloomberg:
In early October, Google employees reportedly discovered a previously unknown team within the company that is building a surveillance tool to “monitor workers’ attempts to organize protests and discuss labor rights.
How can a company which asserts “Google understands your search requests better after altering its algorithm.”
DarkCyber wonders if Google’s senior management relies on the company’s “machine learning fairness” methods.
As Borges noted:
It only takes two facing mirrors to build a labyrinth.
Poor Google.
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2019
Amazon Loses JEDI: Now What?
October 26, 2019
Friday (October 25, 2019) Amazon and the Bezos bulldozer drove into a granite erratic. The Department of Defense awarded the multi-year, multi-billion dollar contract for cloud services to Microsoft. “Microsoft Snags Hotly Contested $10 Billion Defense Contract, Beating Out Amazon” reported the collision between PowerPoint’s owner and the killing machine which has devastated retail.
CNBC reports:
If the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure deal, known by the acronym JEDI, ends up being worth $10 billion, it would likely be a bigger deal to Microsoft than it would have been to Amazon. Microsoft does not disclose Azure revenue in dollar figures but it’s widely believed to have a smaller share of the market than Amazon, which received $9 billion in revenue from AWS in the third quarter.
The write up pointed out:
While Trump didn’t cite Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by name at the time, the billionaire executive has been a constant source of frustration for the president. Bezos owns The Washington Post, which Trump regularly criticizes for its coverage of his administration. Trump also has gone after Amazon repeatedly on other fronts, such as claiming it does not pay its fair share of taxes and rips off the U.S. Post Office.
There are other twists and turns to the JEDI story, but I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to determine if the Oracle anti-Amazon campaign played a role.
There are some questions which I discussed with my DarkCyber team when we heard the news as a rather uneventful week in the technology world wound down. Let’s look at four of these and the “answers” my team floated as possibilities.
Question 1: Will this defeat alter Amazon’s strategy for policeware and intelware business?
Answer 1: No. Since 2007, Amazon has been grinding forward in the manner of the Bezos bulldozer with its flywheel spinning and its electricity sparking. As big as $10 billion is, Amazon has invested significant time and resources in policeware and intelware inventions like DeepLens, software like SageMaker, and infrastructure designed to deliver information that many US government agencies will want and for which many of the more than 60 badge-and-gun entities in the US government will pay. The existing sales team may be juggled as former Microsoft government sales professional Teresa Carlson wrestles with the question, “What next?” Failure turns on a bright spotlight. The DoD is just one, albeit deep pocket entity, of many US government agencies needing cloud services. And there is always next year which begins October 1, 2020.
Question 2: Has Amazon tuned its cloud services and functions to the needs of the Department of Defense?
Answer 2: No. Amazon offers services which meet the needs of numerous government agencies at the federal as well as local jurisdictional levels. In fact, there is one US government agency deals with more money than the DoD that is a potential ATM for Amazon. The Bezos bulldozer drivers may be uniquely positioned to deliver cloud services and investigative tools with the potential payout to Amazon larger than the JEDI deal.
Google NLP Search: Fortune Loves It. Simple Queries Reveal Shortcomings
October 25, 2019
I read “Google Says Its Latest Tech Tweak Provides Better Search Results. Here’s How.” DarkCyber enjoys Fortune Magazine’s how to explanations. They are just. So. Wonderful.
We learned:
Google’s goal is to make it easier for users, who often don’t know how to enter queries for the information they want. Since its search engine debuted in 1997, Google has focused on getting its technology to better understand natural language to produce relevant results even in cases where users enter a misspelled word or a query that is off target. With the latest change, Google will also now consider the sequential order in which words are placed in a search, instead of returning results based on a “mixed bag” of keywords.
Yes, but what about tuning search to advertising? What about ignoring bound phrases? What about Boolean logic? What about words like “terminal” which have different, often difficult to disambiguate meanings?
Fortune jumps over these questions.
Try this query on the “new” Google?
What companies compete with Subsentio?
What about this one?
Amazon law enforcement products
Not what I had in mind. I was thinking about QLDB and digital currency deanonymization.
Sorry, Google. Not yet. Personalization does not work either, by the way. (You know. Examine the search history, etc. etc.)
Fortune, check out where Google’s ad revenue comes from. Just a small clue to put Google search in its context.
Stephen E Arnold, October 25, 2019
Amazon AWS Revenue
October 25, 2019
Amazon’s third quarter 2019 results revealed that net sales went up. The number of interest in Harrod’s Creek is AWS. The company’s data report:
- AWS revenue hit $9 billion, up from $6.7 billion in the third quarter of 2018
- Amazon rolled out a fully managed service for business forecasting
- The Quantum Ledger Database is now available as a fully managed service
- AWS cut prices of storage for several classes of service.
Net net: Plenty of cash but Microsoft’s cloud service may be nibbling at some service areas in which Amazon had minimal competition for a number of years.
Stephen E Arnold, October 25, 2019
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
