A New Year Is Coming: Let Us Confront the New Reality
December 21, 2020
Nope, not Covid. Nope, not the financial crisis. Nope, not the social discontinuities. Nope, not the big technology monopoly clown show.
What then?
How about security insecurity. Do you like the phrase? I do because it communicates that users of online systems may never know if the system or systems are secure.
One can pretend, what I call security theater, of course.
The new reality is that an actor or actors has slipped in the stage door after driving a delivery van near the security theater and double parked for what may have been months. The individuals do not work according to New York City labor rules. Nope, these actors moved around, ordered takeout, and lounged on the sidewalks. People passing did not notice. You know the New York attitude: We are definitely with it. This is Broadway.
I read “A Hack Foretold.” I was not impressed. The reason is that the original Internet was technology Play-Doh. Who could imagine the parti-colored constructs blobs of red, blue, and yellow could become.
The write up states with the assured naiveté of a thumb typer:
The point is the authorities have known about hacking for a long time. Whole bureaucracies have been established, and presidential directives have been promulgated, to enhance cybersecurity—and some of their actions have been effective. Still, the contest between cyber offense and -defense is a never-ending race, where the offense has the advantage and, so, the defense must never let up its guard. While security is a lot better than it used to be, vast networks have been left exposed in one way or another, and dedicated hackers who very much want to get inside those networks—and who have the resources of a nation-state—figure out a way.
I want to point out that the cyber security industry has flowered into billions of dollars a year because home economics majors, working with MBAs, constructed a fantasy story about computer security.
Security insecurity is little more than another symptom of efficiency thinking. What can be done to reduce costs and maximize revenue. Oh, so some people lose their jobs in Canton, Illinois, when the John Deere factory goes away. “Tough cookies,” say the efficiency wizards.
We have created a situation in which security insecurity is going to become a digital Covid. I am delighted I am old, retired, and living in a hollow in rural Kentucky. Can you imagine the meetings, the memoranda, the reports, and the self-serving explanations of:
- Cyber security vendors
- Smart software which acts like an antibody to protect a system
- Individual security experts who did the “good enough” work to spoof the clueless lawyers, accountants, bureaucrats, and MBAs who manage technology operations
- Consultants like those who populate LinkedIn and BrightTALK with lectures about security
- Experts who assert that monitoring the Dark Web, Facebook, and chat provide an early warning of actions to come.
I could go on and toss in security appliance vendors, university professors who convert a clever workaround into a peer reviewed paper for IEEE or ACM, and former bad actors who see the light and become trusted advisors after serving jail time.
The New Reality is that I am not sure how one goes about determining the priorities for figuring out what was compromised, determining what other vulnerabilities have been installed, and bring up systems which do not have the charming characteristics of specialized software firms which have code that hides itself so that it can happily reinstall itself.
I spoke with a former CIA professional twice in the last 48 hours. He asked me, “What do I recommend to remediate the problem?” My answer was, “Investigate.”
The actors lounging in front of the security theater are not chatterboxes, and I have seen zero verifiable evidence that defines the timing, scope, and actions of these actors. Why guess then? Why look back and say “woulda, coulda, shoulda.” The time to embrace the New Reality is here.
The security theater has to go dark, and we need a new construct. Expensive, time consuming, and difficult for sure. Failure, however, means changes that those wrought by Covid are trivial. Thumb typers, are you confident your online activities are secure? In deference to the holiday season, here’s a modified carol: Deck the halls with boughs of folly, Tra la la, la la la la.
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2020
No Big Deal: Anyone Can Make a Mistake, Including the Gray Lady
December 21, 2020
Yes, I pay for a subscription to the tree killing, paper edition of the New York Times. No, I don’t listen to the New York Times’ podcasts and I pay less and less attention to the mewlings of their expert reporters who pop up on other outfits’ podcasts.
I do want to point out that the “new” New York Times with its cute use of hip new words like maskne made a very small, almost miniscule error. NBC New York’s article “New York Times: ‘Caliphate’ Podcast Didn’t Meet Standards” stated:
The New York Times admitted Friday that it could not verify the claims of a Canadian man whose account of committing atrocities for the Islamic State in Syria was a central part of its 2018 podcast “Caliphate.” The series had won a Peabody Award, the first ever for a podcast produced by the newspaper, but within hours administrators said the Times would return the award. The Overseas Press Club of America said it was rescinding its honor for “Caliphate.”
What’s the fix? Mea culpas and moving the reporter off the “terrorism beat.”
What about the boss of the podcast? What about the HR Department green lighting the hire? What about the senior management of the Gray Lady?
I don’t have answers to these questions, but for the Gray Lady, maybe it’s time to think about some special care for the elderly and actual newsroom management by the thumb typers who work at the outfit.
Stephen E Arnold, December 22, 2020
Sinequa: A Logical Leap
December 21, 2020
The French have contributed significantly to logic. One may not agree with the precepts of Peter Abelard, the enlightened René Descartes, or the mathiness of Jean-Yves Girard. A rational observer of the disciplines of search and retrieval may want to inspect the reasoning of “How Apple’s Pending Search Engine Hints at a Rise in Enterprise Search.”
The jumping off point for this essay is the vaporware emitted by heavy breathing thumb typers that Apple will roll out a Web search engine. The idea is an interesting one, but, as I write this, Apple is busy with a number of tasks. But vaporware is a proven fungible among those engaged in enterprise search. The idea of finding just the information one needs when working in a dynamic company is a bit like looking for the end of a rainbow. One can see it; therefore, there must be an end. Even better, mothers have informed their precocious progeny that there is a pot of gold at the terminus.
What can one do with the assumption that an Apple Web search engine will manifest itself?
The answer is probably one which will set a number of French logicians spinning in their graves.
According to the write up from an “expert” at the French enterprise search firm Sinequa:
So, if Apple is spending (most likely) billions of dollars recreating a tool that effortlessly finds us the global sum of human knowledge, then isn’t it about time we improve the tools that knowledge workers have to do their jobs?
That’s quite a leap, particularly for a discipline which dates from the pre-STAIRS era. But from a company founded in 2002, the leap is nothing out of the ordinary.
But enterprise search is a big job; for example:
The complication is that enterprise data is more heterogeneous in nature than internet data, which is homogeneous by comparison. As a result, enterprise data tends to reside in silos, so if we need to find a document, we can narrow down where we look to a couple of places – for instance, in our email or on a particular SharePoint. However. further complication arises when we don’t know where to look – or worse still, we don’t know what we’re looking for. A siloed approach works fairly well but at some point, we start to lose track of where to look. According to recent Sinequa research, knowledge workers currently have to access an average of around six different systems when looking for information – that’s potentially six individual searches you need to make to find something.
And why has enterprise search as a discipline failed to deliver exactly what an employee needs to do his or her job at a particular point in time?
That’s a good question which the logical confection does not address. No problem. Vendors of enterprise search have dodged the question for more than half a century.
Here’s how the essary nails down its stunning analysis:
It’s only a matter of time before enterprise search reaches a similar tipping point. There will be a time when the silos become too many or the time taken to search them becomes too great. The question is whether the reason for enterprise to take search seriously is because a lack of search is seen as an existential threat, or an opportunity to differentiate.
Okay, 50 years and counting.
Do you hear that buzzing sound? I surmise that it is René Descartes trying to contact Jacque Ellul to discuss how French logic fell off the wine cart.
My hunch is that Messrs. Descartes and Ellul will realize that providing access to information in response to a particular business need is a digital version of running toward the end of the rainbow. Some exercise, d’accord, but the journey may end in disappointment.
Par for the course for a company whose product pricing begins at $0.01 if Sourceforge is to be believed. Yep, $0.01. Logical? Sure. It’s marketing consistent with the hundreds of companies which have flogged enterprise search for decades.
Rainbows. Pots of gold. Yep.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2020
Fixing the Google: A Very Short List
December 21, 2020
I read and chortled at the recommendations in “From Whistleblower Laws to Unions: How Google’s AI Ethics Meltdown Could Shape Policy.” The title does not match what the write up actually presents. The article is a list of “should” recommendations.
You know. Your mom told you that you should clean up your room or your teacher told you that you should not cheat on a science test.
Remember?
How well did those “shoulds” work?
Just great I bet.
Now the write up from a “real” news outfit with strong Sillycon Valley tendencies offers there ideas to remediate the fine organization known as Alphabet Google:
- Get someone not working at Google to do an independent algorithm audit.
- Scrap self regulation.
- A worker union.
- Protect AI whistleblowers.
- Eliminate corporate funding of ethics research.
- Tax big tech.
- Require AI researchers to disclose financial ties.
- Separate AI ethics from computer science.
Yeah, brilliant stuff.
Perhaps the issues swirling around Googzilla have hardened like the crust on top of recently flowing lava? Talking about the crust is interesting but avoids the issue of the lava pouring into subdivisions, burning down houses, and generating new land. I want to point out that such new land can become the ideal location for a resort hotel.
I think it is a bit late to suggest that big tech must not police itself. In case some have not noticed, the large online monopolies are, in effect, quasi nation states. These outfits are doing the taxing, the regulating, the defining of ethics, and the organizing of workers.
Do I have some recommendations? Nope, I am going to be either 77 or 78. I forget because the vapidity and general craziness of thumb types short circuits my few remaining synapses.
Why not view these outfits as a consequence of the way certain societies function? Then the focus shifts from the symptoms to the root cause.
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2020
Zipper the SIPR: The SolarWinds Blow
December 18, 2020
I found this article interesting: “Pentagon Forces Emergency Shutdown of Computer Network Handling Classified Material.” Since I work in rural Kentucky, I have zero clue if the information in the write is accurate; nevertheless, let me highlight one of the statements in the write up:
An emergency shutdown of a classified internal communications network was ordered at the Pentagon Tuesday. The system, called the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, handles not only classified information but “up to the secret level”…
My hunch is that this is an “abundance of caution” move. Why caution? Why now?
Possibly the SolarWinds misstep is a reason?
At lunch today, a member of my team and I discussed the marketing of smart, 24×7 cyber security systems. Many companies engaged in this type of activity. But how secure are such security systems. Many are more alike than different; for example:
- Use of open source software
- Reliance upon standard and often manipulable statistical procedures
- Licensing tools and content from companies also in the cyber security business.
The result? Fodder for sales professionals and former art history majors now engaged in public relations, webinar production, and Madison Avenue style pitch writing.
Oh, one other result. The possible security thing at a number of US government entities, large corporations, and probably a handful of non governmental organizations.
Big deal? For some, yep, big deal. For others, what’s the hoo-hah about? Just close that deal, book the business, and collect the fees. What’s more important than cyber security? Revenue perhaps?
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2020
PimEyes Brings Facial Recognition to the Masses
December 18, 2020
If a search engine based on facial recognition is controversial when in the hands of law enforcement, it is downright scary when made available to the general public for free. However, it comes as no surprise to those of us who follow such things that PetaPixel reveals, “This Creepy Face Search Engine Scours the Web for Photos of Anyone.” Officially marketed as a way for users to protect their own privacy, PimEyes uses facial recognition technology to hunt down photos of anyone across the Web. The basic, one-time search is free, but for an extra $15 one can receive up to 25 alerts a month as the service searches perpetually. Reporter Michael Zhang writes:
“After you provide one or more photos of a person (in which their face is clearly visible), PimEyes compares that person to faces found on millions of public websites — things like news articles, blogs, social media, and more. Within a few seconds, it provides results showing other photos found that match the person and links to where those portraits were found. … Google’s popular reserve image search can find photos similar in appearance to images you provide, but PimEyes specifically uses facial recognition and can accept multiple reference photos to find images of specific individuals.”
The brief write-up cites this OneZero article. It also shares an example search featuring the lovely, and often photographed, Meghan Markle. Based in Poland, PimEyes was created in 2017 and commercialized in 2019.
Cynthia Murrell, December 18, 2020
Smart Software Can Find Different Points of View
December 18, 2020
All news outlets are dominated by one-sided rhetorics and dance to ratings and political tunes. The goal of news outlets is to sensationalize everything to generate profit and promote political agendas. It leaves viewers wanting more from news outlets, such as unbiased information. It is a sad time, indeed, when individuals long for news outlets of yesteryears because they had more diverse perspectives.
With today’s advanced technology one would think there would be a news search engine that rounded by articles of varying perspectives so individuals could come to their own opinions. Apparently such a search engine exists: https://articlefinder.org
Article Finder’s has a minimalist UI and uses colors to make people think about Google. The premise is simple:
“People will view the same story in different ways based on their priors. It’s important to understand how others view the same event to better understand how they think. Article Finder allows you to find articles of the same story from different sources so you can gain a holistic picture.”
After conducting a few searches, Article Finder does retrieve different articles about the same topics. It relies on a customizable Google search. The search results are returned in an organized list that states the title and news source. The minimalist style decreases distraction.
However, I wonder if Article Finder is any different from a regular Google news search? Google offers news from multiple sources and even customizable options through Google profiles. Article Finder serves a purpose but it seems unnecessary unless they add something new.
Whitney Grace, December 18, 2020
Plasmons: The Value of Pencil and Paper
December 18, 2020
I read “Physicists Solve Geometrical Puzzle in Electromagnetism.” I am not sure the title captures what the researchers discovered, but, hey, this is the era of the thumbtyper. Close enough for horse shoes. The technology focuses on the movement of electrons. The insights gleaned from the research will have some influence on new types of materials. But the write up contains a gem of an insight. Here’s the quote:
Guillaume Weick from the University of Strasbourg adds: “There is a trend for increasing reliance on heavy duty computations in order to describe plasmonic systems. In our throwback work, we reveal humble pen-and-paper calculations can still explain intriguing phenomena at the forefront of metamaterials research”.
Yes, indeed. Hands on, erasers, cross outs, and elbow grease have value.
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2020
Explaining the 2020 End of Year Cyber Hack of Big, Fat Targets of Opportunity
December 18, 2020
I know you have heard about the end of year cyber attack. The end of 2020 is a zinger. But what caused the problem? Who is responsible? Which cyber security expert is the one to believe? Beyond Search has located an explanation, courtesy of Lorem Ipsum Anything. We posed these questions to the smart software at this next generation thumb typing site and learned:
Security harm resilience change others Beneficiaries food security persons groups objects. Institutions ecosystems entity referent security freedom change forces resilience example. Absence good want presence phenomenon range protection senses foundations secrecy. damage term purpose systems acts guarding security systems security guard security forces security companies. Security cameras e.g. state of mind telephone line containment room cell.
Makes the uptown explanations from assorted experts wishing they could have explained the cyber kick in the ribs as well. Yep, 2020 is year to remember. “Absence good want presence.”
Well said.
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2020
Fixing the American Internet: Got the Plague? Burn Aromatic Herbs. Works Great, Right?
December 17, 2020
The underfed and poorly compensated research team upon whom I rely is beavering away on a pamphlet about my Arnold’s Laws of Online. Don’t worry. The pamphlet will be a freebie because as I approach 78 not too many people are into people like me who think thumb typing is genuinely stupid.
Here’s a preview:
Online presents the humans and systems using its functionality.
Those who know the difference between a high jumper and Heidegger are likely to want to argue. Spare me. I want to point out that online is not a cause; it is a part of the people and systems which use the technologies required to perform certain tasks. Yep, for those out of work due to disintermediation, you probably get the idea of “efficiency” intuitively.
In this context of this Arnold Law, I want to reference “In 2021, We Need to Fix America’s Internet.” The write up makes some remarkable statements in my opinion. As an old timer better suited to drooling in a long term care facility, I had to muster up the energy to identify this passage as interesting:
As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wrote for The Verge last March, as many as one in three US households doesn’t have broadband internet access, currently defined as just 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up — which feels like the bare minimum for a remote learning family these days. Even before the pandemic, that statistic might have been shocking; now, it’s the difference between whether millions of schoolchildren can attend classes and do their homework or not. Nearly 12 million children don’t have a broadband connection at home, the Senate Joint Economic Committee reported in 2017. And the “homework gap” hits harder if you’re poor, of course: only 56 percent of households with incomes under $30,000 had broadband as of last February, according to the Pew Research Center.
Let’s assume this paragraph is chock full of semi-real facts. What do we learn about the American Internet? How about these assertions:
- This is one more example of unethical behavior by a large outfit
- The Internet has become a way to split the population of the US into haves and have nots in a way which can limit learning, access to jobs, etc.
- This marketing approach to technology spawns a perception of one thing whilst the reality is quite another; for instance, the SolarWinds’ misstep which makes clear that security theater may be forced to shut down just like local Comedy Clubs.
Fix the American Internet? Why not consider that the “Internet” is a cultural manifestation, not a cause of the culture itself.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2020
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