Social Media Versus a Nation State: Pakistan Versus the Facebook and Friends
February 29, 2020
DarkCyber believes that collisions of conscience and money will become more frequent in 2020. “Facebook, Twitter, Google Threaten to Suspend Services in Pakistan” explains that the Asia Internet Coalition does not want a nation state to get in the way of the standard operating procedures for US companies. Imagine. A country telling US firms what’s okay and what’s not okay. A mere country!
The government of Pakistan’s social media position is reflected in this passage from the article:
The new set of regulations makes it compulsory for social media companies to open offices in Islamabad, build data servers to store information and take down content upon identification by authorities. Failure to comply with the authorities in Pakistan will result in heavy fines and possible termination of services.
The consequences of ignoring the nation state’s approach to social media are not acceptable to the US companies. Pakistan’s ideas are easy to understand:
According to the law, authorities will be able to take action against Pakistanis found guilty of targeting state institutions at home and abroad on social media.
The law will also help the law enforcement authorities obtain access to data of accounts found involved in suspicious activities. It would be the said authority`s prerogative to identify objectionable content to the social media platforms to be taken down. In case of failure to comply within 15 days, it would have the power to suspend their services or impose a fine worth up to 500 million Pakistani rupees ($3 million).
DarkCyber finds it interesting that three high profile social media companies have formed some sort of loose federation in order to catch Pakistan’s attention.
Will the play work? Will other countries fall in line with the social media firms’ ideas of what’s acceptable and what’s not? Will China, Russia, and their client states for with the social media flow or resist? Are the US companies unreasonable?
Interesting questions.
Stephen E Arnold, February 29, 2020
Facebook PR: Lean In, Reframe, and Output Word Salad
February 28, 2020
“Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Defends Her Company and Her Reputation in Wide-Ranging Interview” is an interesting example of corporate PR, “running for office” preparation, and really heartfelt, super sincere explanations.
A techno journalist of significant stature wrote a book about Facebook. Allegedly the effort involved hundreds of interviews with Facebookers past and present. DarkCyber has not read Facebook: The Inside Story. DarkCyber does not use Facebook to locate “friends”—although one of our deceased dogs has a Facebook page.
This interview with an NBC journalist appears to be a little bit about the book, a little bit about Facebook; for example:
“I wish so much that the world could see the Mark I know,” Sandberg said. “Mark is an enormously, enormously talented guy. He has a great product sense. … People think he doesn’t understand people. That’s just clearly wrong.
Right, clearly wrong. Facebook is suing NSO Group. Facebook is suing a partner OneAudience. Facebook is using legal weapons to demonstrate how Facebook “understands people.” Right. DarkCyber thinks it recalls a bit of an issue with Cambridge Analytica, a zippy researcher, and a whistle blower with a keen fashion sense. But maybe that was a hallucination. People do have them. People also reshape facts into confections of delight.
We noted this statement from the NBC story:
Sandberg also offered her most robust defense to date of Facebook’s business model and its vast collection of personal data, which she said was necessary to offer users a better content and advertising experience. “There is growing concern, which is based on a lack of understanding, that we are using people’s information in a bad way. We are selling it. We are giving it away. We are violating it. None of that’s true. We do not sell data,” she said. “Here’s what we do: We take your information and we show you personalized ads … [to give you] a much better experience.”
Yep, experience.
Lean in. Be sincere. Deliver factoids. Let the lawyers do their work.
Mr. Zuckerberg understands people. Right.
Stephen E Arnold, February 28, 2020
Graph QL: The Future Five Years Later
February 28, 2020
Graph QL is “is a query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data.” The technology allegedly was a result of Facebook’s technical wizardry in 2012. The digital information weapon vendor released Graph QL to open source in 2015. You can get insights, links, and techno babble on the Graph QL Foundation Web site.
DarkCyber noted that Hasura snagged about $10 million to make Graph QL easier to use. The story appeared in TechCrunch on February 26, 2020. Is Hasura a frillback pigeon?
Or is the company one of those lovable creatures found in Washington Square Park in the spring?
As it turns out, Graph QL is becoming a mini boomlet in the database universe. There are the companies supporting the Graph QL Facebook innovation; for example:
Plus others like IBM and the PR world’s fave Twitter.
However, there are other companies in the “graph” business; for example:
Also, another dozen or so innovators.
Altexsoft asserts that GraphQL is that the technology is good for complex systems. Other upsides include:
- Retrieves data with a single call
- Delivers just what’s needed
- Permits validation and type checks
- Auto generates API documentation
- Supports rapid application prototyping (the move fast and break things approach perhaps?)
There are some downsides; for example:
- Complexity
- Performance
- The ever helpful a HTTP status code of 200 (helpful indeed)
- Complexity (Oh, sorry, I mentioned that).
Now back to the TechCrunch story about Hasura. The reason the company was funded may relate to the firm’s unique selling proposition: Our approach makes GraphQL easy.
Will easy sell? Worth watching in order to determine what breed of pigeon is flying through disparate sets of big data.
Stephen E Arnold, February 28, 2020
Financial Companies: Cloud Innovators?
February 28, 2020
An online information service called Channel Life published results of a survey related to financial services (mostly in Australia) and the hybrid cloud. The phrase “hybrid cloud” means combining AWS or Azure like services with an organization’s own private cloud. The buzzword is a typical meta notion; that is, as features fragment, another method comes along to roll up these diverse approaches into a single umbrella service. Word and Excel became Microsoft Office which morphed into a subscription umbrella service. Now the same approach is finding favor in financial services.
The write up “Financial Organizations Leading the Way for Hybrid Cloud, Nutanix Finds” presents the results of a research “study.” Here are a handful of factoids DarkCyber finds interesting:
60% of respondents state security is the single biggest influence on future cloud strategies. If accurate, regulations drive adoption of technology, not a customer centric focus.
39% of financial services companies reporting public cloud services were completely meeting their expectations. If verifiable, commercial cloud services may be failing to meet some customers’ needs, a situation not evident from the marketing collateral from major cloud vendors.
18% of financial companies have deployed hybrid cloud, while 51% plan to shift investment to hybrid cloud in just three to five years. If verifiable, there’s money to be made in meta software.
DarkCyber spotted minimal information about the sample selection process, sample size, and statistical procedures used. Nevertheless, one message is that bright sprouts may be able to make money providing an integration layer for multiple cloud systems. Is the era of the branded cloud ending? No, but the cloud business may be ripe for evolution…. if the data in the report are generally correct.
Stephen E Arnold, February 28, 2020
Google: Feeling the Competitive Heat
February 28, 2020
Google, DarkCyber assumes, thought that Microsoft’s decision to convert the Chrome browser into Credge was a victory. “Google Is Now Warning Millions Of Microsoft Edge Users To Switch To Chrome: Here’s Why” tries to explain Googley thinking.
We learn from the capitalist tool:
Google has been found “abusing user agents,” the identifying code that enables websites to identify the browser type and version, to detect and warn Microsoft Edge users visiting the Chrome web store that when it comes to extensions they should switch to Chrome. The reason for the warning is that Microsoft Edge doesn’t integrate with the Safe Browsing protections Google uses to remove threats—so when an extension presents a risk, Google can’t act in the same way to protect users.
Is this the only reason?
DarkCyber thinks a bit of context will explain some of the Googley thinking.
Consider Google and Amazon.
Google does not like Amazon, especially when Amazon stepped away from solely being a retailer to offering software services to customers. Google wants some of Amazon’s cloud business, so they are telling retailers to chuck Amazon and check out their tools. ZDNet rolls out the gossip in the article, “Google’s Pitch To Retailers: We’ll Help You, From Search To Supply Chain.”
At the National Retail Federation, Google introduced retailers to a new line of tools available via its cloud. The tools range from product discovery, supply chain optimization, and hybrid application management. Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO, explained that the retailers who innovate with their business plans are the most successful. Google wants to grab these forward thinking retailers with new tools like:
“Among the new offerings for retailers is a new tool called Google Cloud Search for Retail, which Google is piloting now and will introduce to the broader market throughout the year. The tool helps retailers improve search results for their own websites and mobile apps using cloud AI and Google Search algorithms.
Kurian’s blog post also served as a reminder to retailers that they can buy Google Ads to surface their products when customers use Google’s many consumer tools like Search, YouTube, Shopping, Google Assistant or Maps.
We noted:
Google also announced Google Cloud 1:1 Engagement for Retail, a set of best practices that can help retailers build data-driven strategies for personalized customer services. This should make it easier for customers to use Google’s BigQuery data analytics platform to build personalization and recommendation models.
That is just the beginning! Google is also developing a Buy Optimization and Demand Forecasting service that assisted retailers plan and manage supply changes. There is also a new retail version of Anthos, Google’s platform for managing services on site or the cloud environment. It will allow retailers to roll our and manage applications across all stores.
What happens if we try to add 1 + 1. DarkCyber thinks that the task reveals several facets of Googley thinking:
- Microsoft has lots of Windows 10 users who just use Credge. The browser works, is there, and why hunt for a different way to look at Web pages. But what if Credge gets traction on a mobile phone? What if Microsoft, the long time drone target of the Google, gets eyeballs on Android devices? Yep, those victory cheers are likely to become verbal and physical tics.
- Amazon is selling ads. Selling lots of ads is not good for the Google, a company for more than 20 years has had one revenue stream of significance. The Google wants to put some sand in the fuel tank of Bezos bulldozer. Thus, Googley behavior dictates action.
- Google itself faces a problem few companies have: Indexing the Web and changes to Web pages is expensive. How does one cut costs when Microsoft may blindly wreck havoc in the browser revenue flow or put a dent in the quite robust mobile ad business? How does Google protect existing ad revenue and possibly cause the Bezos bulldozer to go down for an engine overhaul? Aggressive actions seems to be the order of the day.
If DarkCyber steps back or in the lingo of a University of Chicago philosopher “go up a meta lever”, the actions of today’s Googlers reflect some changes which may give pause. Marketing has never been a Googley strength. Now it has to be competitive marketing. Is Google’s marketing elegant? Yeah, not too elegant.
Can Google control costs without further compromising its search service, its wonky innovations, and its increasingly contentious employee-management interactions?
DarkCyber finds the Credge and Bezos bulldozer “plays” interesting and entertaining.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2020
Friday Fiction Facts: Software Will Read Your Mind or What Did You Just Think, You Silly Customer?
February 28, 2020
Machines that can read a person’s thoughts and predict that individual’s actions has inspired many science fiction and fantasy fans, but technology has yet to become a rock solid reality like Captain Kirk’s communications device. Technology might have finally advanced enough to realize this idea says “New Software Agents Will Infer What Users Are Thinking.”
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is heading a DARPA project that will examine how AI can be designed to predict human thoughts. Katia Sycara from CMU’s Robotics Institute will lead the project (budgeted at $6.6 million) sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Neuroscientists and human factors expert from Northrop Grumman and the University of Pittsburgh will also work on the project.
The project’s aim is to see how machine social intelligence can help human/machine teams safety, efficiently, and productively work together. Sycara and her team hope to teach machines how to infer human behavior. Humans innately have this skill, but machines have a long way to go:
“Humans have the ability to infer the mental states of others, called theory of mind — something people do as part of situational awareness while evaluating their environment and considering possible actions. AI systems aren’t yet capable of this skill, but Sycara and her colleagues expect to achieve this through meta-learning, a branch of machine learning in which the software agent essentially learns how to learn….The research team will test their socially intelligent agents in a search-and-rescue scenario within the virtual world of the Minecraft video game, in a testbed developed with researchers at Arizona State University. In the first year, the researchers will focus on training their software agent to infer the state of mind of an individual team member. In subsequent years, the agent will interact with multiple human players and attempt to understand what each of them is thinking, even as their virtual environment changes.”
The project’s research focuses on software agents or digital assistants, which exist. Just try a smart customer support service. These are are limited in their actions and their intelligence. More autonomous, intelligent programs can work on complex tasks with their human partners. Self driving cars, like the Tesla, already use software agents as do pop up advertisements. The range of tasks software agents can do is endless, but some will be more beneficial to humans than others.
Mind reading? Venture capitalists, open your check books.
Whitney Grace, February 28, 2020
Publishing Desperation 101: Dark and Crafty Methods
February 27, 2020
DarkCyber noted a “dark” post on Ycombinator news. Here’s the zippy part: “I cannot cancel my NYTimes subscription online?” Options: Call or text. Yeah, those customer retention folks are available instantly… you wish.
No surprise. Dead tree publications want to attract and retain subscribers. Remember those magazines with the renewal notices which arrived a month after your first issue? Yeah, same thinking.
But the interesting part of the statement is that it is not as annoying as buying a print subscription and then having to call and obtain the online service as well. There is nothing like halving my support for the dead tree crowd and doubling the costs of “customer support.” Which wizardly outfit uses this method? Why the New York Times.
Navigate to the link above and read the comments. There are more examples of the dark arts of the dead tree brigade; for example:
This is a dark pattern that’s all too common on slightly sketchy small businesses. Slightly disappointed, but not terribly surprised, to see that it’s also common in “mainstream” newspapers.
or
If you actually want the subscription and are slightly stingy, this is also a good way to get a vastly reduced price. The people they make you phone to try get you to stay offer very different deals to what they display on pricing page. Definitely a really dark pattern though, and should be regulated against.
Does the dead tree world care? Not a whit. Desperation causes interesting behaviors.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2020
Hacked Personal Info: Seems Cheap
February 27, 2020
This comes as no surprise to us, but apparently it is news to some. The SmartDataCollective announces, “Terrifying Big Data Report Shows Anyone Can Get Your Info for $2.” Writer Matt James points to the recent case of WeLeakInfo as an illustration of how little it can cost to buy sensitive personal information online. He writes:
“The eerie fact that WeLeakInfo was selling access to private data for as little as $2 should leave everyone worried – could anyone with some loose change really have your password, social security number, home IP address or email? Yes, if you were a victim of any recent data leak or cyber attack. According to a source in the US Department of Justice, data sold through the site originated from leaks and cyber attacks affecting large online service providers like WeWork, Regus, and many more. Online travel agents and websites that store user information – particularly data about user credentials, payment details, and personal information – were the primary targets of attackers. The 12 billion items collected on the site was not an exaggeration. It seems that a common bot can scrape a huge volume of personal data in just a few hours. Coupled with more modern attack methods such as botnets and smart scrapers, the amount of data that a coordinated attack can collect is staggering. More importantly, there is no data not valuable enough to sell.”
Yes, we’re reminded, it is not just the obvious data like credit card info, addresses, and social security numbers we should be concerned about. Login information, for example, can be used to facilitate cyber-attacks. James runs through the measures one can take to keep data as secure as possible: limit what you share and review privacy policies when you do; use a VPN or proxy server; check in with sites like Have I Been Pwned now and then; and change your (strong) passwords every six months. A good password manager can securely generate and keep track of strong passwords.
Cynthia Murrell, February 27, 2020
Amazon Costs: Kubernetes to the Rescue
February 27, 2020
How much does an AWS customer pay for a specific service? DarkCyber knows that the taxi meter approach makes sense for the company that owns the medallions, the taxis, and possibly a few important people.
The taxi meter method in the cloud is a bit of a mystery — until the invoice arrives. “The Story Behind My Talk” explains a process which, according to Tuananh, can “reduce EC2 billing up to 80%.”
How does this money slip from the massive tractors of the Bezos bulldozer?
The article explains:
I started with a managed GKE at first using their free $300 credit, to learn the basic of Kubernetes; but then later on use kops to setup a production cluster with AWS.
Some of the changes I did for the production cluster is:
- Setup instance termination daemon to notify all the containers + graceful shutdown for all the apps.
- Setup multiple instance groups of various size and availability zone, mixing spot instances with reserved instances. This is to prevent price spike of certain spot instance group; and minimize the chances of all spot instances going down at the same time.
- Calculate and provision a slightly bigger fleet then what we actually need so that when there were instances shut off, there won’t be service downgrading. Because spot instances are so cheap, we can do this without worry much about the cost.
- Watch to see if there were scheduling failure to scale the reserved groups.
The payoff according to the article:
“The overall cost saving for EC2 was around 60-70% because we need to mix reserved instances in and provision a little higher than what we actually need. We were very happy with the result.”
Will AWS reconsider how it deals with EC2 billing? Does a bulldozer need diesel fuel?
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2020
Trellis Research Gets Money And New Technical Co-Founder
February 27, 2020
If there is one industry that needs a powerful and accurate search and analytics tool it is court systems. Los Angeles startup Trellis Research specializes in software for state court data, recently made news with a big fundraiser and addition to their team. TechCrunch explains the details in, “Building A search Tool For State Court Data And Analytics, Trellis Adds Alon Schwartz As Co-Founder.”
Trellis Research is a fire starter startup, known for designing analytics and search software for state legal systems. Their most famous products were Dostoc, an online store and electronic document depository for financial, legal, and professional documents and unGlue a startup that regulates screen time for families.
Craft Ventures recently raised $4.4 million in funding for Trellis. The company also added a new technical co-founder Alon Shwartz. Shwartz’s new role will be the chief product officer. He will work side by side with the company founder Nicole Clark
Trellis’s home office is in California, where they service the California Superior court records and judicial analytics. Wit the new round of funding, the company hopes to expand to Florida, Delaware, Texas, and New York. Clark founded Trelis when she discovered a need for better search and analytics software in the courts:
“ ‘I was customer one,’ says Clark of the product. A former litigator in Los Angeles, the entrepreneur developed Trellis to serve her own research needs. ‘I used this data for two years and during those years I won every motion that I had,’ says Clark. ‘It made it so obvious what a competitive advantage this was. It’s a way to analyze how a judge thinks about issues and a lawyer can draft their motions with a particular judge in mind.’”
Trellis offers a freemium service for state trial decisions and filings with search, but to access the actual documents people need to become paying users. There is an $100 fee for individuals and enterprise users are negotiable. Once beyond the paywall, users can file documents, download, print, and analyze them.
Clark promises that attorneys will double their win rate with Trellis Research software.
Whitney Grace, February 27, 2020
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