Encryption: Change May Be Imposed
October 8, 2019
In our DarkCyber videos we reported about Australia’s efforts to obtain access to encrypted communications. We noted that other Five Eyes partners would pick up the idea and move it forward. “The Open Letter from the Governments of US, UK, and Australia to Facebook is An All-Out Attack on Encryption” from the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains that several countries have demanded access to secure messages. The EFF states:
This is a staggering attempt to undermine the security and privacy of communications tools used by billions of people. Facebook should not comply. The letter comes in concert with the signing of a new agreement between the US and UK to provide access to allow law enforcement in one jurisdiction to more easily obtain electronic data stored in the other jurisdiction. But the letter to Facebook goes much further: law enforcement and national security agencies in these three countries are asking for nothing less than access to every conversation that crosses every digital device.
The EFF states:
What’s more, the backdoors into encrypted communications sought by these governments would be available not just to governments with a supposedly functional rule of law. Facebook and others would face immense pressure to also provide them to authoritarian regimes, who might seek to spy on dissidents in the name of combatting terrorism or civil unrest, for example. The Department of Justice and its partners in the UK and Australia claim to support “strong encryption,” but the unfettered access to encrypted data described in this letter is incompatible with how encryption actually works.
DarkCyber wants to point out that flows of digital information work like sandblasters; that is, the data flows erode existing structures. When societal conventions are blasted by bits, the darker side of human nature has a new greenhouse in which to flourish.
DarkCyber believes that a new context exists in the digital environment. We understand what EFF says, but it seems clear that access to encrypted content is just one facet of other changes; for example, cutting off Internet access, censorship, and similar actions.
New world. Old arguments may not gain traction.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2019
Geospatial Innovation: SenSat
October 8, 2019
Last week, there was conference chatter about geo-spatial technology. The conference focused on LE and intel technology and knowing where an entity is remains an important capability for certain software systems.
There was also talk in one of my sessions about “innovation drift.” This is my way of characterizing the movement of “good ideas” from the US to other countries. “Drift” is inevitable: Economic, political, and social pressure ensures that digital ideas move.
I noted this morning (Sunday, October 6, 2019) the article “Tencent Leads $10 Million Investment in SenSat to Create Real-Time Simulated Realities.” The write up reported:
SenSat, a geospatial technology startup that digitizes real-world places for infrastructure projects, has raised $10 million in a series A round of funding led by Chinese tech titan Tencent, with participation from Russian investment firm Sistema Venture Capital.
SenSat processes satellite and other imagery. Then the company’s software constructs representations of what’s on the ground. The write up pointed out:
[SenSat] said it translates the real world into a version that can be understood by machines and is thus suitable for training artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
DarkCyber noted this statement in the write up:
SenSat constitutes part of another growing trend across the technology spectrum: the meshing of large swathes of disparate data to generate real and meaningful insights.
The technology developed by SenSat, founded in London in 2015, is interesting.
For DarkCyber, the most important information in the write up was the assertion that the company has obtained financial support from companies in China and Russia.
The idea, DarkCyber believes, is that the technological drift is not going to be left to chance. Reconstructions like the ones generated by SenSat, Cape Analytics, and others are likely to make the targeting options of nanodrones more interesting.
Drift is one thing; directed and managed technology drift is another.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2019
A List of Enterprise Search Vendors
October 7, 2019
DarkCyber does not follow the enterprise search sector. In fact, two of the flagships from the 2000s found themselves caught in embarrassing financial missteps. Why? It certainly suggests that making big bucks from a search and retrieval service is difficult.
We came across a Web site called Trust Radius. This site has a section devoted to enterprise search. What we found interesting is that the site lists what seem to be the key players in the sector today. With most LE and intel policeware platforms relying on open source search like Lucene, DarkCyber was quite surprised with the line up of systems and the information provided by Trust Radius.
Here’s the list of vendors in alphabetical order, a method of presenting information which is not in favor with some whiz kids:
3RDi Search
Aderant Handshake (knowledge management for law firms)
Agree Ya Site Administrator
Algolia
Amazon Cloud Search (Lucene)
Apache Lucene
Apache Solr
Expert Systems Cogito Discover
Constructor.io Search
Coveo
Customer Matrix (customer support)
Dassault Systems Exalead (Exalead)
Dieselpoint
Elasticsearch (Elastic)
Fabasoft Mindbreeze
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Inspire
Google Search Appliance (discontinued)
IBM Watson (once Omnifind)
IBM Watson Discovery for Salesforce
IBM Watson Explorer
IManage Insight (Interwoven, Autonomy, HP, now a standalone)
Inbenta Enterprise Search
Lookeen Desktop Search (listed as Enterprise Search however)
Lucidworks Fusion ($100 million in funding)
Maana
Microfocus IDOL (Autonomy to HP to HPE to Microfocus)
Microsoft Azure (Fast Search & Transfer)
Microsoft Bing Search
Perceptive Search (ISYS Search Software to Lexmark to Highland)
Rocket NXT Enterprise Search (Aerotext)
Rockset
Searchify
Search Spring (product search)
Search Tap
Search Unify
Sinequa
SLI Systems (e commerce)
Swiftype
Synacor Video Search & Discovery
TeraText Searchable Archive for Files and Email (SAIC)
Zakta
What DarkCyber finds interesting is the omission of outfits like Oracle Endeca, Antidot, and Blossom. Also, of this listing of 41 “search systems” there are multiple enterprise search products from single companies like IBM and Microsoft. There are also e-commerce search systems and systems which do not handle enterprise content because the service supports desktops. There are two “no longer around” products and a weird blend of search utilities with text processing features. In short, this list is illustrative of the chaos, confusion, and craziness that makes some information technology professionals to buy a solution that just delivers key word and some option features.
DarkCyber believes that Amazon’s approach is likely to gain traction. That’s bad news for most of the companies on this list, particularly search vendors who manage to confuse individuals or the smart software used to create this list at Trust Radius.
It seems that the message from this list is that search is a bit of a dog’s breakfast—just as it has been for decades.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2019
Open Source: Everything New Is Old Again
October 7, 2019
The Andreessen Horowitz open source info blitz contains some good stuff. You will want to read the essay “Open Source: From Community to Commercialization” and, if you qualify, download the pdf of lecture notes. We noted this statement from the essay about the SaaS open source business model:
In a SaaS model, you provide a complete hosted offering of the software. If your value and competitive edge is in the operational excellence of the software, then SaaS is a good choice. However, since SaaS is usually based around cloud hosting, there is the potential risk that public clouds will choose to take your open source code and compete.
Accurate.
We noted this statement at the end of the article:
I [Peter Levine / Jennifer Li?] believe Open Source 3.0 will expand how we think of and define open source businesses. Open source will no longer be RedHat, Elastic, Databricks, and Cloudera; it will be – at least in part – Facebook, Airbnb, Google, and any other business that has open source as a key part of its stack. When we look at open source this way, then the renaissance underway may only be in its infancy. The market and possibilities for open source software are far greater than we have yet realized.
Correct.
Years ago, the DarkCyber team undertook a study of a dozen open source software vendors specializing in search and retrieval. Today, most of those vendors have embraced “artificial intelligence”, “predictive analytics”, and “natural language processing”. That’s because search is a utility and the developers and vendors of general purpose open source software have to differentiate themselves. In the course of that research, DarkCyber noted several things.
- Big companies in 2008 were among the most enthusiastic testers and eventually users of open source software. Why? Our data suggested that open source allowed users of commercial proprietary software more freedom to make changes. Bug fixes would often arrive in a more timely way. Plus, the IBM- and Oracle-style license fees did not come along for the ride. That is probably true in some cases today.
- Open source was a free lunch. The developers often contributed for the common good; others created and made available open source software as a way to demonstrate and prove their capabilities. Translation, as one person told one of my researchers, “A job, man. Big bucks.”
- Monetization was mostly “little plays”; that is use our free stuff and then pay for support or proprietary extensions.
Flash forward to today. Some of these three decade old findings may still be in play, but the context is now very different.
What’s changed?
For the first time, meta plays are possible. Forget the investment, merger, and acquisition angles that motivate venture capital firms. Think in terms of just using Amazon and paying for what you need.
Start ups no longer just use Microsoft because it is available and works. Start ups use Amazon because it appears to be open source, cheap or subsidized, and available globally.
The challenge this presents to open source is significant. DarkCyber is not convinced that open source developers, users of open source software, analysts, and other professionals recognize what Amazon’s meta play and strategy is doing; that is, creating a new context of open source.
Want to learn more about Amazon’s meta play for open source? Write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com and inquire about our Amazon strategy webinar. Note: It’s not a freebie.
Everthing new is old again, including vendor lock in.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2019
Amazon AWS, DHS Tie Up: Meaningful or Really Meaningful?
October 7, 2019
In my two lectures at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics conference in San Antonio last week, my observations about Amazon AWS and the US government generated puzzled faces. Let’s face it. Amazon means a shopping service for golf shirts and gym wear.
I would like to mention — very, very briefly because interest in Amazon’s non shopping activities is low among some market sectors — “DHS to Deploy AWS-Based Biometrics System.” The deal is for Homeland Security:
to deploy a cloud-based system that will process millions of biometrics data and support the department’s efforts to modernize its facial recognition and related software.
The system will run on the AWS GovCloud platform. Amazon snagged this deal from the incumbent Northrop Grumman. AWS takes over the program in 2021. DarkCyber estimates that the contract will be north of $80 million, excluding ECOs and scope changes.
This is not a new biometrics system. Its been up and running since the mid 1990s. What’s interesting is that the seller of golf shirts displaced one of the old line vendors upon which the US government has traditionally relied.
DarkCyber finds this suggestive which is a step toward really meaningful. Watch for “Dark Edge: Amazon Policeware”. It will be available in the next few months.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2019
A Snowden Fave Has a Quirk
October 7, 2019
If you use Signal, a fave of Edward Snowden, there’s a possible security flaw. Signal is a messaging app with a charming feature if “Signal: Incoming Call Can Be Connected without User Interaction” is on the money. The write up asserts:
Using a modified client, it is possible to send the “connect” message to a callee device when an incoming call is in progress, but has not yet been accepted by the user. This causes the call to be answered, even though the user has not interacted with the device. The connected call will only be an audio call, as the user needs to manually enable video in all calls. The iOS client has a similar logical problem, but the call is not completed due to an error in the UI caused by the unexpected sequence of states. I would recommend improving the logic in both clients, as it is possible the UI problem doesn’t occur in all situations.
The article provides technical information about this issue.
DarkCyber Mr. Snowden has adjusted his secure messaging opsec when he is not seeking life in France or preparing for a for-fee lecture.
Stephen E Arnold, October 5, 2019
Thomson Reuters: Getting with the Conference Crowd
October 6, 2019
DarkCyber noted “Thomson Reuters acquires FC Business Intelligence.” FCBI, according the the firm’s Web site:
Founded round a kitchen table in 1990, originally with a focus on emerging markets, the company has grown organically in size and influence ever since.
We learned:
The business will be rebranded Reuters Events and will be operated as part of the Reuters News division of Thomson Reuters.
Thomson Reuters has not delivered hockey stick growth in the last three, five, eight years, has it?
Will conferences be the goose which puts golden eggs in the Thomson Reuters’ hen house?
What’s the motive force for a professional publishing outfit to get into conferences? DarkCyber hypothesizes that:
- Getting more cash from traditional professional publishing markets is getting more difficult; for example, few law firms have clients willing to pay the commercial online fees from the “good old days”
- Conferences, despite advances in technology, continue to give the Wall Street Journal and other organizations opportunities to meet and greet, generate revenue from booth rentals, and a way to hop on hot topics
- Respond to the painful fact that it is easier to make one’s own news instead of paying to just report the news, particularly if it comes from a high profile conference.
Will Thomson Reuters slice and dice the content outputs in as many ways as possible? Possibly.
Worth watching as Lord Thomson of Fleet probably is from his eye in the sky.
Stephen E Arnold, October 6, 2019
Have You Stopped Beating Your Puppy?
October 5, 2019
What’s your answer? If you stop, you were beating your puppy. If you say, “Yes,” you are a puppy beater. Simple.
I read “Mark Zuckerberg Promises Facebook Won’t Be Biased Against Elizabeth Warren.” Does this mean that Facebook has been biased in the past? Does this mean that Facebook will not fiddle with search and auto generated info feeds going forward? Either way, there is a bit of puppy beater in the headline.
I also like the notion of “promises.” For example, a bully tells a teacher, “I promise I won’t hit anyone and threaten their life again.” What’s missing is the word “honest.”
Okay, that’s a life moment.
The write up asserts:
Zuckerberg said the company had been surprised by the leak, as it has been the first time in company history that an all-hands meeting had been recorded and shared with the media. (“A blog,” as Zuckerberg called The Verge!) “I think a lot of us internally were pretty shocked by that,” he said. “We want to be able to continue doing these, and have them be open. But then we had the second reaction which is, hey, you know, all the content that’s in there — we stand behind. And maybe I said that in a little bit more unfiltered of a way than I would say it externally, but fundamentally we believe everything we said that was in there.”
Honest.
DarkCyber noted this scintillating bit of reporting:
To the employee who worried about this weekend’s New York Times report about the use of social platforms to spread child exploitation imagery, he explained the steps that the company has taken to address the problem so far and committed to doing much more before Facebook attempts to encrypt Messenger messages by default. Then someone asked him about Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who had gone after Zuckerberg after reading the remarks he made in our earlier report. How would Zuckerberg remain “impartial” given the dust-up? “God,” he said, laughing to himself. “Try not to antagonize her further.”
Honest.
No, honestly. A blog. The Verge is a blog?
Stephen E Arnold, October 5, 2019
MIT Thinks the Ideas of US Attorney General Are Not Good
October 4, 2019
Let’s put this article “Facebook Is Being Asked to Give Access to Encrypted Messages. It’s a Bad Idea” is perspective. First, a number of countries have taken steps to deal with the unexpected consequences of encrypted real time messages. Example? Australia. The issues range from the application of a non slick coating to routine criminal misbehavior to larger-scale actions. Example: Paris night club bombing.
MIT, as you may recall, tried to push under a mattress in Baker House, some interesting information; specifically:
- Gifts from Jeffrey Epstein. You can read the MIT president’s explanation in “Preliminary Fact Finding about MIT and Jeffrey Epstein”
- The Boston Globe’s characterization of the MIT Epstein tie up as sordid
- The alleged cover up the esteemed institution used to disconnect MIT from the interesting person Jeffrey Epstein.
As a result, I am not sure I am convinced that the arguments set forth in the “Facebook Is Being Asked” write up is in alignment of with my 76 year old ethical compass.
There are some involved in law enforcement and intelligence activities seeking ways to deal with the threats — yes, threats — from bright-as-a-button engineers’ innovation machines.
The problem is that when an institution aligned with Jeffrey Epstein suggests that the US Attorney General has a bad idea, why not focus on the processes which created the MIT-Epstein tie up. Once that’s fixed, maybe — just maybe — I will view MIT’s and its instruments’ pronouncements as objective, credible, and in the best interests of dealing with certain problems certain bright-as-a-button innovators have created.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2019
IBM Says Hub-and-Spoke Model Will Make Watson a Winner.. What about a Bottleneck?
October 4, 2019
Business Insider amuses me. It recycles IBM marketing material and slaps a paywall on collateral.
One possible example is the write up titled “The Head of IBM’s Watson Walks Us Through the Exact Model Tech Leaders Can Use to Build Excitement Around Any AI project.”
Not the word “exact.” Sounds like a winner. I like the “any AI project”, but I would wager a copy of the IBM PC 704 RAID documentation that if the AI project relied on Amazon, Google, or Microsoft technology, IBM might want to rethink that “any AI project” assurance.
DarkCyber noted this statement which is allegedly spontaneous, unedited, and prose worthy of Cicero, a wordsmith alive when the Romans were using the hub-and-spoke system to organize the Empire as the Barbarians destroyed what Rome built:
One way to ensure projects advance is to appoint leaders within each respective business unit to help support the chief technology, data, or innovation officers, argues IBM’s Rob Thomas, a system he refers to as the “hub-and-spoke” model because the structure resembles one in which a central point is connected to several secondary points. “You need somebody that has a seat at the table at the top that’s saying it’s important to the company,” he told Business Insider. Organizations also “need somebody in those business units that owns this day-to-day, but is accountable back to the company strategy.”
Now the hub-and-spoke analogy is different from the distributed information and computing model. The reason is visible when it snows in Chicago. Flights are delayed because the hub doesn’t work. Contrast that the architecture used by some of the Eastern European pirate streaming video sites.
A node dies and an origin server communicates with a control server to bring the node back up. What is an origin server is taken down? The smart software activates a hot spare origin server and the system comes back up. Magic? Nope, just side deals with some ISPs with interesting perceptions of right and wrong.
What will save IBM? The “thousands of O’Hare flights are cancelled approach” or the distributed system which cyber criminals have embraced enthusiastically.
The fact is that the hub-and-spoke model is unlikely to breathe much life into IBM. The top down approach is conceptually useful because it explains some of the issues arising from Industrial Revolution management: Blue suit, red tie, white shirt, etc.
Not only is the IBM solution unusual, it is not special content. What proof? Check out:
Microsoft’s 2009 encomium to SQLServer called “Using SQL Server to Build a Hub-and-Spoke Enterprise Data Warehouse Architecture.”
New? Yeah, well. Convinced? Nope. One could combine Microsoft AI with SQLServer in a corporation. Will IBM support that?
Let’s ask Watson.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2019
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