Stratifyd: Marketing Push
August 6, 2020
Stratifyd or Taste Analytics competes in the analytics sector. The company has raised about $55 million since it opened for business in 2015. I read “Stratifyd Launches Next Generation Data Analytics Platform.” The write up confused me. The company’s Web site clear: “Blazing fast data insights that reveal your hidden story.”
The article about Stratifyd says:
Stratifyd, a technology company that democratizes data science and artificial intelligence (AI) through self-service data analytics, today announced a revolution in data analytics with the launch of its next generation platform. This powerful analytics engine was re-designed from the ground up to be intuitive and easy-to-use, enabling business users – regardless of education, skill, or job function – to harness the power of proprietary and third-party data to easily reveal and understand hidden stories represented within the data, thus delivering the benefits of a data science team to every organization.
The write up reports this:
The Stratifyd platform now provides the functionality to meet the demanding data science needs of an organization, but is specifically designed to be easy to use for those with limited data analytics experience. It empowers users of all skill levels to connect data sources to the platform, perform in depth analysis and data modeling, and discover insightful stories faster and more easily than previously possible. Through a graphical user interface, pre-built and customizable data analytics models, and simplified dashboards, the platform enables business users to extract insights (i.e., stories) that are hidden in the data and essential in helping companies improve customer service, better understand customer requirements, deliver product enhancements that address gaps in the market, solve problems experienced by customers, rollout new product and service offerings that deliver a competitive advantage, and more.
DarkCyber’s view is that one click access to data can lead to interesting decisions even for a company with “data science in its DNA.” We also noted that, like Amazon, Stratifyd has a “flywheel.” Instead of a business model which generates new businesses by selling online products, Stratifyd’s approach is providing a “data storytelling flywheel.”
Yep, stories and lots of buzzwords.
Stephen E Arnold, August 6, 2020
Bitcoin ATMs
August 5, 2020
Last year I was in Prague and I wanted to see if Bitcoin automatic teller machines were still in operation. I located three in 2016, and I was curious. There were some ATMs I could locate, but the 2016 gizmos were gone. According to CoinATMRadar, there are several in Louisville, Kentucky. I thought about digital currency after I read “Bitcoin ATM Locations Reaching 9,000 Worldwide.” The write up reports:
There are currently 8,947 crypto currency ATMs and 211,239 non-ATM locations you can buy or sell crypto currencies at across 71 countries, according to crypto currency ATM tracking website Coinatmradar. In July, the number of crypto ATMs rose from 8,490 to 8,919, the site revealed Monday. While there were 544 new bitcoin ATMs, 115 machines were shut down during the month, leaving a net growth of 429 machines. The U.S. continues to lead in the number of bitcoin ATMs (BTMs). At the time of this writing, there are 6,879 machines in the U.S., most of which are located in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.
Several questions:
- If you had your taxes prepared by a CPA in the US, were you asked, “Do you have a digital currency account?”
- If you have a digital currency account, did you report the transactions per US tax regulations?
- Does possession of a digital currency account provide a signal about one’s honesty or dishonesty?
- What percentage of Bitcoin transactions are related to a criminal activity?
DarkCyber thinks that digital currency ATMs provides some helpful insight into the behaviors of their users.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2020
Google: Buying Before Getting Regulated?
August 5, 2020
DarkCyber noted that Google is borrowing $10 billion. Yep, the Google. You can get some info in this article. The Google may be lined up to buy ADT, a home security outfit, and other acquisitions are likely to be in the works. Will the money be used to improve search and retrieval, invest in staff to reignite innovation, or wordsmithing.
DarkCyber noted that the online ad giant has spawned a new buzzword: Quantum AI. DarkCyber is not exactly sure what “quantum” means. DarkCyber is not exactly sure what “AI” or artificial intelligence means. That’s irrelevant.
According to “Google Scientist Hartmut Neven Coined the Term Quantum AI. This Year, He Achieved His Biggest Breakthrough Yet”:
The quantum project has posed new challenges, such as how to cool a processor to near absolute-zero temperatures using liquid helium. But Neven has always thrived on the edge. He was among the first to connect the AI revolution currently in full swing and quantum advances yet to come. “I’m guilty of having popularized the terms quantum machine learning and quantum AI,” he says. “Now there are whole sections of departments at universities that do quantum machine learning.”
Yep, Google’s ability to craft jargon and generate clicks has nosed ahead of relevance and organic innovation.
Amazon and Facebook are likely to be looking in their rearview mirrors to make sure Google’s headlights are still receding. Yep, Google is slowing down to gather up companies before the regulators put sleeping police on the information highway’s acquisition collectors.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2020
Tick Tock Becomes Tit for Tat: The Apple and Xiao-i Issue
August 5, 2020
Okay, let’s get the company names out of the way:
- Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Company is known as Zhizhen
- Zhizhen is also known as Xiao-i
- Apple is the outfit with the virtual assistant Siri.
Zhizhen owns a patent for a virtual assistant. In 2013, Apple was sued for violating a Chinese patent. Apple let loose a flock of legal eagles to demonstrate that its patents were in force and that a Chinese voice recognition patent was invalid. The Chinese court denied Apple’s argument.
Tick tock tick tock went the clock. Then the alarm sounded. Xiao-i owns the Chinese patent, and that entity is suing Apple.
“Apple Faces $1.4B Suit from Chinese AI Company” reports:
Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co. said in a statement on Monday it was suing Apple for an estimated 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in damages in a Shanghai court, alleging the iPhone and iPad maker’s products violated a patent the Chinese company owns for a virtual assistant whose technical architecture is similar to Siri. Siri, a voice-activated function in Apple’s smartphones and laptops, allows users to dictate text messages or set alarms on their devices.
But more than the money, the Xiao-i outfit “asked Apple to stop sales, production, and the use of products fluting such a patent.”
Coincidence? Maybe. The US wants to curtail TikTok, and now Xiao-i wants to put a crimp in Apple’s China revenues.
Several observations:
- More trade related issues are likely
- Intellectual property disputes will become more frequent. China will use its patents to inhibit American business. This is a glimpse of a future in which the loss of American knowledge value will add friction to the US activities
- Downstream consequences are likely to ripple through non-Chinese suppliers of components and services to Apple. China is using Apple to make a point about the value of Chinese intellectual property and the influence of today’s China.
Just as China has asserted is cyber capabilities, the Apple patent dispute — regardless of its outcome — is another example of China’s understanding of American tactics, modifying them, and using them to try to gain increased economic, technical, and financial advantage.
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2020
Fordham University Professor Makes Startling Assertion about FAANG
August 5, 2020
In an online publication called Chron.com, a startling assertion was made. “The Legal Fight Against Big Tech Is Like the Fight Against Organized Crime” states:
There are more than a few similarities between the organized crime and these four companies. Like the Mafia, the threats that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google pose to American democracy flow from the power they have over key services (from email to social media to music and film), the way they use dominance in one area to achieve dominance in others and their ability to use fear to stop challenges to their control.
The author points out:
Like the Mafia, they are a resilient, surveillance-based shadow government. So citizens are dual subjects – of the country, and of the flawed online markets created by these companies. Like the mob, big tech has friends in very high places. Likewise, big tech is an oligarchy with several bosses, who compete in some territories but generally divide power among themselves, without consulting elected officials. Obviously, I am not saying Facebook and Google murder and kneecap their opponents, or burn down businesses that refuse to play by their rules; I am not equating tech companies with the mob.
DarkCyber is not sure if this lawyerly statement will assuage the Big Four. Who will step forward and suggest that these firms are the Gang of Four reincarnated in bro cloths in Silicon Valley type endeavors?
Interesting: Mob, threats, surveillance, and money. Sounds like a tasty mob polenta.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2020
Spearphishing: The Pursuit of an Elusive Dorsey?
August 5, 2020
I read “Twitter Says Hack Targeted Employees Using Spearphishing.” Yep, spearphishing. That’s jargon for sending a person email and using words to obtain access. Here’s what a digital spear gun looks like:
Click away.
The write up states:
Twitter said in a security update late Thursday that the July 15 incident by bitcoin scammers stemmed from a “spear phishing” attack which deceived employees about the origin of the messages.
A bad actor, allegedly a teen, jumped in the digital ocean, carrying a mobile phone and a digital spear fishing device:
Once the target was in sight, the teen released the pointy digital stream.
The result?
The remarkable Dorsey fish appears to have been targeted by the teen.
High-tech? The write up reports:
John Dickson of the security firm Denim Group said the latest disclosure does not necessarily suggest a sophisticated attack from a nation-state. “They conned people over the phone,” Dickson said, saying it may have been possible to find targets through research on LinkedIn or Google. “This is like the original hackers from the 1980s and 1990s; they were very good at conning people and getting them to give their credentials.”
Has the Dorsey fish been beached? Did the Dorsey fish swim away? Did the Dorsey fish notice the digital attack?
No answers which satisfy DarkCyber have been forthcoming. There’s no visual evidence of the succulent Dorsey fish being steamed and served to the Twitter Board of Directors:
Looks tasty. Speared phish steamed for two minutes and then sautéed with cyber veggies.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2020
TikTok: Our Way or the Huawei
August 4, 2020
Excitement ahead. There’s nothing like the Rona and a financial crisis to catch attention. But these may be also ran topics if the trade tension between China and the US is cranked up.
“China Accuses US of Outright Bullying over TikTok” reports that Wang Wenbin (Chinese official) allegedly said:
“The US, without providing any evidence, has been using an abused concept of national security… unjustifiably suppressing certain non-US companies.”
To add some zest, President Trump wants Microsoft to know that its okay to buy TikTok comes with a price tag? The figures are not available. Whatever the amount, a piece of the action goes to the US government.
That angle is likely to put some on edge. Yep, it seems that the US wants one way or its the Huawei for the only app in several years which may have a chance to generate traction in the wonderlands of Facebook and YouTube.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2020
Amazon Policeware: Fraud Detection
August 4, 2020
We spotted “Fraud Detector Launched on AWS Platform.” As one pre pandemic, face-to-face conference organizer told me, “No one cares about Amazon policeware. The future is quantum computing.”
Yeah, okay.
Amazon does not buy big booths at law enforcement and intelligence conferences. For now, that’s the responsibility of its partners. No booth, no attention at least for one super charged quantum cheerleader.
The write up states:
With Amazon Fraud Detector, customers use their historical data of both fraudulent and legitimate transactions to build, train, and deploy machine learning models that provide real-time, low-latency fraud risk predictions. To get started, customers upload historical event data (e.g. transactions, account registrations, loyalty points redemptions, etc.) to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), where it is encrypted in transit and at rest and used to customize the model’s training. Customers only need to provide any two attributes associated with an event (e.g. logins, new account creation, etc.) and can optionally add other data (e.g. billing address or phone number). Based upon the type of fraud customers want to predict, Amazon Fraud Detector will pre-process the data, select an algorithm, and train a model.
And what does an Amazon person whom remains within the Amazon box with the smile on the side say? The write up reports:
Customers of all sizes and across all industries have told us they spend a lot of time and effort trying to decrease the amount of fraud occurring on their websites and applications. By leveraging 20 years of experience detecting fraud coupled with powerful machine learning technology, we’re excited to bring customers Amazon Fraud Detector so they can automatically detect potential fraud, save time and money, and improve customer experiences—with no machine learning experience required.
Several observations:
- Combined with “other” financial data available within the AWS system, Amazon’s fraud detection system may be of interest to some significant financial services firms.
- The technology provides a glimpse of what AWS can support; for example, matching tax returns to “other” financial signals in order to flag interesting returns.
- The technical widgets in the AWS structure makes it possible for a clever partner to reinvent a mostly unknown financial task: Identification or flagging of medical financial data for fraud. Subrogation with the point-and-click Amazon interface? Maybe.
To sum up, we offer a one hour lecture about Amazon’s policeware initiative. I know “free” is compelling, but this lecture costs money. For details write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. Note: The program is different from our Amazon lecture for the 2020 US National Cyber Crime Conference.
No, it is not about the Quantum Computer Revolutions, but we do discuss Amazon’s Quantum Ledger Database. It works. Some quantum computing demonstrations do not.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2020
Tech Downturn May Boost the Spirits of Criminal Combines
August 4, 2020
DarkCyber noted “Developer, Data Science Jobs: US Tech Is Taking a Worse Hit Than Other Sectors.” The write up reports:
New US tech job postings started to fall behind other sectors in mid-May and have slowed down even more since then, according to Indeed. Overall job postings, as expected are down too, but only by 21% year on year versus 36% for the tech sector.
DarkCyber wants to point out that when legitimate technology jobs disappear, the technical professionals turn to gig sites to drum up business.
However, the unsuspecting professional seeking a job in networking, cyber security, or video streaming may accept a project from a company outside the US. That job, however, may be for an illegal video streaming operation run out of a store front in another country.
How does a US technical professional avoid doing work which may be ultimately to the benefit of a bad actor? Research and judgment.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2020
Google Intern: Be Alone and Be Pushy. Charming Advice from a Digital Ms Manners
August 4, 2020
Working for the GOOG does not involve being “there.” Nor does working from the GOOG require getting paid anything or very much. What else does a Google intern have to do to be an apprentice?
“To Be a Google Intern in 2020” explains the Google’s blog that writing about being an intern is part of the deal. Thus, the explanation of working from home, over communicating, running a personal PR program, and demonstrating “initiative” are Google-certified ingredients.
The article explains how different Google interns experience interning. Among the highlights are:
- Friendliness. “Everyone is super friendly.”
- Video chat. “Sometimes a three minute video chat can be ore useful than… email.”
- Knowing “you.” According to an MBA intern, “Google really wants to get to know the full you.”
Are interns better than full time equivalents? Maybe. Since Alphabet Google has come in last in the financial horse race among Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, interns may be the next big cost reduction thing at the online ad company. An intern at the Google can earn the equivalent of $80,000 per year, according to Business Insider.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2020
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