Spies, Intelligence, and Publisher Motives
December 31, 2019
We are getting close to a new decade. This morning DarkCyber’s newsfeed contained two stories. These were different from the Year in Review and the What’s Ahead write ups that clog the info pipes as a year twists in the wind.
Even more interesting is the fact that the stories come from sources usually associated with recycled news releases and topics about innovations in look alike mobile phones, the antics of the Silicon Valley wizards, and gadgets rivaling the Popeil Pocket Fisherman in usefulness.
The first story is about Microsoft cracking down on a nation state which appears to have a desire to compromise US interests. “Microsoft Takes Down 50 Domains Operated by North Korean Hackers” states that:
Microsoft takes control of 50 domains operated by Thallium (APT37), a North Korean cyber-espionage group.
The write up added:
The domains were used to send phishing emails and host phishing pages. Thallium hackers would lure victims on these sites, steal their credentials, and then gain access to internal networks, from where they’d escalate their attacks even further.
DarkCyber finds this interesting. Specialist firms in the US and Israel pay attention to certain types of online activity. Now the outfit that brings the wonky Windows 10 updates and the hugely complex Azure cloud construct is taking action, with the blessing of a court. Prudent is Microsoft.
The second write up is “‘Shattered’: Inside the Secret Battle to Save America’s Undercover Spies in the Digital Age.” The write up appears to be the original work of Yahoo, a unit of Verizon. The article explains a breach and notes:
Whether the U.S. intelligence agencies will be able to make these radical changes is unclear, but without a fundamental transformation, officials warn, the nation faces an unprecedented crisis in its ability to collect human intelligence. While some believe that a return to tried and true tradecraft will be sufficient to protect undercover officers, others fear the business of human spying is in mortal peril and that the crisis will ultimately force the U.S. intelligence community to rethink its entire enterprise.
Note that the Yahoo original news story runs about 6,000 words. Buy a hot chocolate, grab a bagel, and chill as you work through the compilation of government efforts to deal with security, bad actors, bureaucratic procedures, and assorted dangers, clear, unclear, present, and missing in action. On the other hand, you can wait for the podcast because the write up seems to have some pot boiler characteristics woven through the “news.”
Read the original stories.
DarkCyber formulated several observations. Here they are:
- Will 2020 be the year of intelligence, cyber crime, and government missteps related to security?
- Why are ZDNet and Yahoo (both outfits with a history of wobbling from news release to news release) getting into what seems to be popularization of topics once ignored. Clicks? Ad dollars? Awards for journalism?
- What will stories like these trigger? One idea is that bad actors may become sufficiently unhappy to respond. Will these responses be a letter to the editor? Maybe. Maybe not. Unintended consequences may await.
This new interest of ZDNet and Yahoo may be a story in itself. Perhaps there is useful information tucked into the Yahoo Groups which Verizon will be removing from public access in a couple of weeks. And what about that Microsoft activity?
Stephen E Arnold, December 31, 2019
Blockchain: A Loser in 2020?
December 31, 2019
I recently completed a report about Amazon’s R&D work in blockchain. If you want a free summary of the report, write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. If not, no problem. You will want to read “Please Blockchain, Prove Me Wrong.” The author likes to use words on some online services stop list, but that’s okay. The writer is passionate about the perceived failings of blockchain.
Blockchain is, according to the write up:
a solution looking for a problem.”
More proof needed, you gentle but skeptical reader? How about this?
According to Gartner’s Hype Cycle, blockchain is still “sliding into the trough of disillusionment,” meaning the technology is struggling to live up to the expectations created by the hype around it.
There you go. Proof from a marketing company.
DarkCyber’s view is that encryption is likely to continue to toddle forward. Also, the charm of the distributed database continues to woe some people’s attention.
There may be hope, and perhaps that is why Amazon has more than a dozen patents related to blockchain technology. We learn from the impassioned analysis:
Blockchain’s purported promise is such that everyone is willingly taking a multi-faceted approach, not giving much thought to the possibility that its potential may, in fact, be limited. Or maybe blockchain is just the first iteration of something far more powerful, a base we can build on to restore our faith in decentralized systems.
To sum up, for a dead duck, there are some feathers afloat. And there are those Amazon patents? Maybe Mr. Bezos is just off base and should stick to bulldozing outfits like mom and pop stores and outfits like FedEx?
Stephen E Arnold, December 31, 2019
Facebook: Chock Full of Good Ideas
December 31, 2019
Investigators are not a priority for Facebook. How does DarkCyber know this? “WhatsApp to Add ‘Disappearing Messages’ Feature Soon” explained a function that may make those managing interesting groups to have more control over content.
Here’s the statement which caught the attention of our alert service:
With the ‘Delete Messages’ feature, group admins will able to select a specific duration for messages on the group and once a message crosses the duration, it will be automatically deleted, news portal GSMArena reported recently. Initially, the new feature was expected to be available for both individual chats and group chats, but now the report claims that the feature will be limited to group chats only. The ‘Delete Messages’ feature for group chats will make it easy for the admins to manage old messages and chats.
How many coordinators will find this new feature helpful? Too many.
Stephen E Arnold, December 31, 2019
Emergent Neuron Network
December 31, 2019
I want to keep this item short. The information in “Brain-Like Functions Emerging in a Metallic Nanowire Network” may be off base. However, if true, the emergent behavior in a nanowire network is suggestive. We noted this statement:
The joint research team recently built a complex brain-like network by integrating numerous silver (Ag) nanowires coated with a polymer (PVP) insulating layer approximately 1 nanometer in thickness. A junction between two nanowires forms a variable resistive element (i.e., a synaptic element) that behaves like a neuronal synapse. This nanowire network, which contains a large number of intricately interacting synaptic elements, forms a “neuromorphic network”. When a voltage was applied to the neuromorphic network, it appeared to “struggle” to find optimal current pathways (i.e., the most electrically efficient pathways). The research team measured the processes of current pathway formation, retention and deactivation while electric current was flowing through the network and found that these processes always fluctuate as they progress, similar to the human brain’s memorization, learning, and forgetting processes. The observed temporal fluctuations also resemble the processes by which the brain becomes alert or returns to calm. Brain-like functions simulated by the neuromorphic network were found to occur as the huge number of synaptic elements in the network collectively work to optimize current transport, in the other words, as a result of self-organized and emerging dynamic processes.
What can the emergent nanowire structure do? The write up states:
Using this network, the team was able to generate electrical characteristics similar to those associated with higher order brain functions unique to humans, such as memorization, learning, forgetting, becoming alert and returning to calm. The team then clarified the mechanisms that induced these electrical characteristics.
DarkCyber finds the emergent behavior interesting and suggestive. Worth monitoring because there may be one individual working at Google who will embrace a nanowire implant. A singular person indeed.
Stephen E Arnold, December 31, 2019
Another Google Gaffe?
December 30, 2019
Censorship is an intriguing job. A human — chock full of failings — has to figure out if an object is offensive, defensive, or maybe-sive.
If true, the BBC story “YouTube Admits Error over Bitcoin Video Purge” documents a misstep. DarkCyber loves the GOOG, and the research team doubts any anecdote suggesting a Google gaffe took place. For example:
Many video-makers have complained that YouTube’s current systems let so-called “copyright trolls” make false claims on their videos, while its automated detection tools often fail to understand when material has been legally used.
The BBC reports:
YouTube said in a statement that it had “made the wrong call” and confirmed that any content mistakenly removed would be restored. “With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call,” it said.”When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.” It said there had been no changes to its polices, and insisted there would be “no penalty” to any channels that were affected by the incident.
I liked the idea that Googzilla is an it, very 2020. And the individuals who depend on YouTube for some money.
Yeah, well, you know, err.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2019
Did You Know This Barn Burned 20 Years Ago?
December 30, 2019
Now let’s be positive. One can play games any time, any place. One can broadcast one’s thoughts any time, any place. One can find objective information any time, any place. What’s not to like?
Quite a bit, according to a newspaper which has tried for years to embrace zeros and ones. No, not embrace, love those zeros and ones. Navigate to “We’ve Spent the Decade Letting Our Tech Define Us. It’s Out of Control” and relive the old news: Barn burned. Horses killed or rustled. Amazon warehouse built on the site.
Yep, old news.
The write up states:
What this decade’s critiques miss is that over the past 10 years, our tech has grown from some devices and platforms we use to an entire environment in which we function. We don’t “go online” by turning on a computer and dialing up through a modem; we live online 24/7, creating data as we move through our lives, accessible to everyone and everything.
Obviously the newspaper continues to write about what happened quite a while ago. The history of online was set when online databases crushed traditional print indexes. Online outfits like Dialog, SDC, and even Dialcom for goodness sakes changed research and journal publishing. Did anyone notice? Sure, those disintermediated. But the nature of online information was evident by 1980. Let’s see, wasn’t that about 40 years ago.
But now we have a decade to consider.
The newspaper notes, almost with a little surprise:
We’ve spent the last 10 years as participants in a feedback loop between surveillance technology, predictive algorithms, behavioral manipulation and human activity. And it has spun out of anyone’s control.
The datasphere surprises, it seems. The basic law of online is that a monopoly structure is the basic protein structure of the digital world. It’s a surprise that once data flow through a system, those data must be logged. Logged data have to be analyzed. More data begets additional data. And there are other “laws” of online.
The venerable newspaper, with its begging for dollars please rendered in #ffff00 is reporting the news.
One problem: The news is really old. The new year is almost upon us. Maybe old news is just safer, easier, and more clickworthy than what is actually scrolling and swiping to the future.
Keep in mind that that Amazon delivery will arrive today.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2019
Amazon UK Delivery: Maybe Headed for a Tailback on the M5?
December 30, 2019
CNN is signaling how it will approach Amazon in 2020. The online bookstore everyone loves is finding that its half billion dollar Deliveroo play might be caught in a traffic snarl in the UK. “Amazon’s Big Bet on UK Food Delivery Is in Jeopardy” reported:
Britain’s competition regulator is escalating its investigation into whether Amazon’s planned investment in UK food delivery company Deliveroo would reduce competition and harm consumers. The Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement Friday that it had opened a “phase 2” probe after the companies failed to address its concerns about how the deal would affect the market for online deliveries of restaurant meals and groceries.
Maybe dealing the UK regulators has the same priority as training Amazon delivery drivers?
We noted this statement:
The Competition and Markets Authority ordered Amazon to pause its investment in July while it investigated whether the deal amounted to a takeover. Earlier this month, the regulator said that it was also concerned that the deal would discourage Amazon from re-entering the online food delivery market as a competitor to Deliveroo in the future. The companies fought for the same customers before Amazon shuttered its Amazon Restaurants business last year.
Stepping back from the bangers and beans delivery to your flat in Kensington, DarkCyber perceives the harsh approach of the UK and CNN’s enthusiastic reporting of a meeting in a room painted with a weird green and yellow motif as signals that 2020 may not be kind to the Bezos bulldozer.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2019
Cambridge Analytica: Maybe a New Name and Some of the Old Methods?
December 29, 2019
DarkCyber spotted an interesting factoid in “HH Plans to Work with the Re-Branded Cambridge Analytica to Influence 2021 Elections.”
The new company, Auspex International, will keep former Cambridge Analytica director Mark Turnbull at the helm.
Who is HH? He is President Hakainde Hichilema, serving at this time in Zambia.
The business focus of Auspex is, according to the write up:
We’re not a data company, we’re not a political consultancy, we’re not a research company and we’re not necessarily just a communications company. We’re a combination of all four.—Ahmad *Al-Khatib, a Cairo born investor
You can obtain some information about Auspex at this url: https://www.auspex.ai/.
DarkCyber noted the use of the “ai” domain. See the firm’s “What We Believe” information at this link. It is good to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Stephen E Arnold, December 29, 2019
Intellisophic: Protected Content
December 28, 2019
Curious about Intellisophic? If you navigate to www.intellisophic.com, you get this page. If you know that Intellisophic operates from www.intellisophic.com, you get a live Web site that looks like this:
No links, and there is no indication who operates this page.
You persevere and locate a link to the “real” Intellisophic. You spot the About page and click it. What renders?
Yep, protected information.
Even companies providing specialized services to governments with “interesting” investors and solutions, provides a tiny bit of information; for example, check out https://voyagerlabs.co/.
DarkCyber finds it interesting that a company in the information business, does not provide any information about itself.
Stephen E Arnold, December 28, 2019
Online Consumption of Data: A Mental Architecture Built on Inherent Addictive Patterns??
December 27, 2019
Two items caught my attention. The first explains that more than 80 percent of a sample group use a “second screen” when watching television. Yep, the boob tube and the vast wasteland. Marshall McLuan, a controversial figure, explained that TV is a kick back and vegetate medium. Punching buttons and formulating a thought for a tweet is hot. The article “88% of Americans Use a Second Screen While Watching TV. Why?” references the factoid that humans are not very adept at multi tasking. Interesting because humans can walk and chew gum, breathe, and think about crossing the street at the same time. But whatever. Also, the write up ignores the McLuhanesque approach that each type of media has its own “construct” or “mental evocation.”
The answer to “Why?” may be as simple as, “Addiction. Just a TV and a computing device.” Can one get the monkey off one’s back? Not easily.
Who can assist another? Consider if this item of information is correct: “70% Parents Cannot Control Their Own Online Activity.” This write up reports:
Around 70 per cent of parents admit that they themselves spend too much time online and 72 per cent feel that internet and mobile device usage in general is impeding family life…
Net net: No wonder information has to be crunchy. Easy to use is becoming a strategy for control. Interesting implications for 2020 and beyond if these two reports are mostly accurate.
Stephen E Arnold, December 27, 2019
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