Twitch: Semantic Search Stream to Lure Gamers, Trolls, and Gals?
July 31, 2020
Amazon Twitch may be more versatile than providing the young at heart with hours of sophisticated content. There are electronic games, trolls (lots of trolls armed with weird icons), and what appear to be females.
Now Twitch will be moving along the content spectrum with the addition of a stream about semgrep. If you are not on a first name basis, semgrep is a semantic search thing. You can join in for free, no waiting rooms, and no big technical hurdles. I suppose one could create a lecture about semantic methods in TikTok 30-second videos which might be a first for the non-invasive, controversial app. Nah, go for Twitch. Skip YouTube and Facebook. Go Bezos bulldozer.
Navigate to https://twitch.tv and go to the jeanqasaur stream. The time on July 31, 2020? The show begins at 4 pm US Eastern time.
The program is definitely perceived by some as super important. A motivated semantic wizard posted a message on the TweetedTimes.com semantic page. Here’s what the message looks like:
DarkCyber’s suggestions:
- Do not become distracted by Raj recruiting, Bad Bunny, or Celestial Fitness. Keep your eye on the grep as it were.
- Sign up because Amazon wants you to be part of the family. Prime members may receive extra Bezos bucks somewhere down the line
- Exercise good grammar, be respectful, and keep your clothes on. Twitch banned SweetSaltyPeach who reinvented herself as RachelKay, Web developer, fashion model, and gamer icon. You may have to reincarnate yourself too.
- Avoid the lure of Animal Crossing Arabia II.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
Messaging: Pushing the Envelope
July 31, 2020
In my lectures for the 2020 National Cyber Crime Conference, I discussed messaging as a rapidly evolving mechanism. Simple text has morphed into a viable alternative to a traditional Dark Web site. Via encrypted messaging services, individuals can join groups, locate products and services, and pay for them often with bitcoin or other digital currency. Although it is possible to compromise encrypted messages, the volume poses a significant problem for law enforcement. I pointed out that the developers of Telegram reached an agreement with Russia in order to prevent their messaging service from being blocked.
Another messaging service warrants some attention. The service is called Element. Element was formerly known as Riot and Vector, according to some individuals. The system is based on Matrix; that is, an open source protocol for real time communication. Element, like other modern messaging systems, encrypts data.
In an email from an individual who wishes to remain anonymous, the Element messaging service can interact with with other services, including the aforementioned Telegram. Is Element an alternative to Slack and similar programs like Microsoft Teams?
The answer is, “Could be.”
Slack and Teams are widely known and engaged in what may become an interesting legal tussle. Facebook, however, continues to push toward a unified messaging platform, offering features that make finding, buying, selling, and communicating a mostly one click process.
Element has the potential to become an open source alternative to encrypted messaging solutions from vendors like Facebook and Telegram.
In light of the capabilities of the US National Security Agency and the continuing efforts of the European Union to force providers to allow instream decryption, the resolution is likely to be political.
Until users of encrypted messaging services demand government respect for privacy, which is a Fourth Amendment issue in the US, governments will continue to pressure and possibly resort to what some may characterize as blackmail. The pressure may be unconstitutional in some countries and unwarranted in others.
Encrypted messaging has become the “new” Dark Web if the DarkCyber research team’s analysis is accurate. The issue is yet another one to add to the pile of contentious services for ubiquitous mobile devices.
For more information about the chat service, navigate to the Element information page.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
European Union Tries Panenka to Score Against Encrypted Data
July 31, 2020
Let’s assume this write up is accurate: “EU Plans to Use Supercomputers to Break Encryption But Also Wants Platforms to Create Opportunities to Snoop on End-to-End Communications.”
The “going dark” argument is not moving fast enough for European Union regulators. The fix is a “decryption platform.” The idea is to decrypt certain messages. The interesting part of the tactic is summarized in this passage:
Internet service providers such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are to create opportunities to read end-to-end encrypted communications. If criminal content is found, it should be reported to the relevant law enforcement authorities. To this end, the Commission has initiated an “expert process” with the companies in the framework of the EU Internet Forum, which is to make proposals in a study. This process could later result in a regulation or directive that would force companies to cooperate.
The article points out:
There’s no way to “create opportunities” to read end-to-end encrypted communications without weakening the latter.
Worth monitoring the idea and its implementation and its opportunities.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
The Gray Lady: A New Approach to Real News
July 31, 2020
DarkCyber wants to capture a couple of quotes from “Newsonomics: The New York Times’ New CEO, Meredith Levien, on Building a World-Class Digital Media Business — and a Tech Company.”
The first thing DarkCyber noted is that the NYT will pivot from “real” news to a different business: Technology. Publishing companies have a long track record of innovation in technology. The pivot, therefore, is going to be a continuation of this success trend line, right?
We noted this statement:
The publisher [40-year-old A.G. Sulzberger] is a decade younger than me. The thing that I’ve always said about him, which I think is true about both of us, is that we’re both wired as old souls. Most of what we’re both trying to do is to think what this is going to feel like three years from now, five years from now. And I think he thinks, as the whole family thinks, what’s this going to mean 10 years from now, 20 years from now? We might not have the years, but we’re certainly pushing ourselves to have that mindset. It’s been my experience that everybody in the Sulzberger family has that mindset.
Remarkable a techno-news outfit thinking in terms of decades. How long is that in Wall Street time? How long in Internet time?
And a final quote:
Engineering now is the second largest functional area at the New York Times, only behind journalism, and the largest function by far on the business side.
How will the NYT deal with technical debt? Will the NYT emulate Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google?
And what about objectivity?
Technology is objective. It is the use of technology which has political, social, and economic consequences. And what about the two decade view?
Wall Street and TikTok types have a somewhat more truncated view of “time” as well. The NYT’s digital history seems to be forgotten. The LexisNexis “exclusive,” the Jeff Pemberton Times Online thing, the indexing operation in New Jersey, etc. etc.
Today’s revolution has taken about 50 years to arrive. The result? A newspaper company becoming a technology company. And technical debt? Right.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2020
Catch Up on Physics for Free
July 31, 2020
Navigate to this github link. You will find hot links to the full text of some physics books. Included is the thrilling A first Introduction to Quantum Physics (2018) and Quantum Mechanics (2000). The books are part of Springer’s Covid “support everyone” initiative. After viewing and downloading your faves, hit Home and peruse the categories for other free books from this publisher.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
Intel: Code Name? Horse Feathers?
July 31, 2020
After Intel’s track record of manufacturing excellence, the company moved into a “breakthrough” in quantum computing. What you don’t know about Horse Ridge? Oh, right, the company’s inability to produce chips designed to put AMD in the revenue dumpster are delayed for — what? — the second, third time? But who is counting?
“Intel Researchers Create AI System That Rates Similarity of Two Pieces of Code” reports another gigantic breakthrough:
In partnership with researchers at MIT and the Georgia Institute of Technology, Intel scientists say they’ve developed an automated engine — Machine Inferred Code Similarity (MISIM) — that can determine when two pieces of code perform similar tasks, even when they use different structures and algorithms. MISIM ostensibly outperforms current state-of-the-art systems by up to 40 times, showing promise for applications from code recommendation to automated bug fixing.
Okay, this is another corporate innovation with some modest, probably inconsequential assistance, from two big name universities. Plus the technical matching seems similar to the approach described in “MIT Algorithm Finds Subtle Connections between Art Pieces.” Interesting perhaps?
How does this Intel innovation work? Sussing. Yep, that’s the word:
MISIM works because of its novel context-aware semantic structure (CASS), which susses out the purpose of a given bit of source code using AI and machine learning algorithms. Once the structure of the code is integrated with CASS, algorithms assign similarity scores based on the jobs the code is designed to perform. If two pieces of code look different but perform the same function, the models rate them as similar — and vice versa.
DarkCyber has a couple of questions:
- Will the method be used to address certain flaws in the Intel security used in its long-in-the-tooth processors?
- Will the “novel” invention be patented? If yes, will the graduate students and university professors be listed as inventors?
- Will the procedure be used to determine if another firm has used Intel code?
Worth monitoring because one of the schools contributing time, talent, and resources to the Intel invention is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yep, the outfit that accepted funds from everyone’s favorite socialite Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Epstein had an interesting background. MIT allegedly zipped its lips about this luminary’s financial support. I am tempted to saddle up and ride the Horse Ridge to enlightenment, but I shall refrain from equine antics.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
Funding Open Source: Saddle Up, Don Quixotes
July 30, 2020
I read “A New Funding Model for Open Source Software.” The main idea is that the current approach to financial “support” of open source software is broken. I agree, particularly if one looks at the problem from the developer or developers in the “community.”
The fix, according to the write up, is “sponsor pools.” Here are the details:
Every month, you donate some amount into a “wallet”. Your funds are then distributed to the projects in your “sponsor pool”. Your sponsor pool is just the set of open-source projects you want to support. Adding new projects to your pool should require one click — as easy as starring the repo on GitHub. That’s it. It’s hardly ingenious, which is why it’s surprising that no major player in OSS has implemented it for facilitating open source donations.
The comments to the post at this link are interesting and raise a number of points, both pro and con.
I noticed that none of the comments pointed out that open source has become the hunting ground for certain large technology companies. Github is owned by Microsoft; Amazon is ferrying open source code into its proprietary AWS walled garden; Google is “contributing to the community” and then using the community as a recruiting supply line. Other techniques are in play as well.
Also, open source is more attractive to large established companies. These firms have the staff and financial resources to make chunks of open source play nicely together. The goal is to eliminate dependence on proprietary solutions, restrictive license agreements, and those necessary maintenance and engineering services deals. Smaller outfits often find Microsoft a convenient way to solve a database problem. Why? It’s available and semi-reliable. Keep in mind that Microsoft bought Github for control and revenue opportunities.
Finally, a number of the comments suggest, “Let Github do it.” Yeah, I really think Microsoft has open source software love as a business motivation. But that’s just my view.
My view is that open source, like other nifty things associated with the “old days” of the Internet may be facing some challenges and not just from Rona.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2020
A Recipe for Thinly Sliced Technology: Is the Pizza Still a Pizza?
July 30, 2020
I don’t want to wax philosophical. Amazon is associated with the concept of the two-pizza team. The idea is that when something crashes, get two people to fix it. Amazon is a two-pizza company, and it works well enough to make Mr. Bezos a star among stars when it comes to cash and risk of government regulation.
The write up “Many Small Teams” seems to be about an idea and a general business practice.
I noted this passage in the article:
Somewhere along the line, we forgot about “reducing communication” just started fixating on assigning independent teams to problem statements that were essentially tiny slices of business problems. As the problem space gets more finely sliced in hopes of achieving scale at each step, so does the number of teams. e.g. What might have been a “Data Delivery Team” charged with delivering fresh data to customers unfortunately becomes “Data ingestion Team”, “Data processing Team” and “Data Release Team” (real world example).
Is the author describing an Amazon vulnerability? When a pizza is sliced into thin pieces, is it still a pizza? What if the approach creates a dog’s breakfast?
Interesting question? The essay points out that an organic process takes place: Small teams grow. Then teams split. What’s the chief indicator of this condition? Perhaps documentation like Amazon’s explanations of its myriad cloud services. Little slices of pizza with more slicing taking place?
The author of the article works at Uber. Pizza delivery I get. But tiny pizza slices for a gig economy delivery outfit? Like I said philosophy.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2020
Stunning NIST Report: Who Knew?
July 30, 2020
Years ago I did some work for the US government. Nothing much. In the course of the work, I learned about some interesting US government reports; for example, some Library of Congress public documents which are not available to the public and a couple of studies whose subjects baffled me.
Kid Durango as a masked bank robber. Who knew that a mask would make it difficult to recognize the bad hombre?
I read “NIST Launches Investigation of Face Masks’ Effect on Face Recognition Software.” The write up reports:
Now that so many of us are covering our faces to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, how well do face recognition algorithms identify people wearing masks? The answer, according to a preliminary study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is with great difficulty. Even the best of the 89 commercial facial recognition algorithms tested had error rates between 5% and 50% in matching digitally applied face masks with photos of the same person without a mask.
Facial recognition works in a couple of basic ways. A system can convert a face to ovals, take calculations of the eye areas, the snoot, and the mouth. Measurements are made and the system looks for matches. As some may know, recognition accuracy can vary widely. When an artificial intelligence, super duper program is used, the oval idea is supplemented with pattern recognition. Most of the systems with which I have modest familiarity use both methods and then display possible to an investigator.
What did the NIST study conclude? Face masks reduce accuracy. Face masks cause FR systems to not recognize the face as a face. The nose plays a big part in accuracy. No nose, reduced accuracy.
The study seems well intentioned. But didn’t bank robbers in the 1840s wear masks? From my point of view, the study validates what most people already know. A person wearing a mask is harder to identify.
What’s that error rate and false positive rate again, partner?
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2020
Hippy Dippy New Age Insight: Ads Are Numerous
July 30, 2020
I want to keep this brief. The number of ads is increasing. Avoiding them is difficult. Why? Zero controls, zero social responsibility, and zero regulatory oversight.
“I Was Horrified at How Many Ads the New Brave Browser and VPN for iOS Blocked” is amusing because it reveals the lack of awareness of the zip zip mobile world in which some hippy dippy New Age “real” news publications thrive.
The article states:
I visited a few of my favorite sites and then was promptly horrified when it told me that in about 3 minutes of browsing, it had blocked 107 ads and trackers and given me 2 HTTPS upgrades. Supposedly, this saved me five seconds of my life.
Not for long. Online advertisers share some DNA with bad actors creating novel malware. One difference: Law enforcement pursues the malware wizards. Online advertising outfits get invited to testify to a Congressional committee.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2020
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
