About Microsoft Exchange Security?
November 12, 2021
I spotted “Microsoft urges Exchange Admins to Patch Their On-Prem Servers Now.” I like the “now.” I interpret this suggestion to mean, “Well, our much hyped security enhancements… are sort of not enough.”
The write up asserts:
[“November 2021 Exchange Server Security Updates” goes on to add that the bug only impacts on-premise Microsoft Exchange servers, including those used by customers in Exchange Hybrid mode.
With Microsoft telemetry, smart updates, and remote access controls to Microsoft systems — why are licensees hanging in the digital wind?
Net net: This type of “bulletin” is catnip to bad actors. Perhaps it is too expensive to do more than issue PR about security.
Stephen E Arnold, November 12, 2021
Quote to Note: A Guarantee to Remember
November 12, 2021
From my vantage point in rural Kentucky, I see what might be called corruption. I have noted corruption everywhere: From road repairs which last a few weeks to reports about Covid charge back fraud. Pretty common and routine I think.
I read “Google’s ‘Be Evil’ Business Transformation Is Complete: Time for the End Game.” You can work through the write up and agree or disagree as you deem appropriate. One statement caught my eye. Here’s a passage I noted. It’s a quote to note in my book:
Without journalism, you get guaranteed corruption…
Death is guaranteed. Taxes — at least for some people — are not guaranteed. My hunch is that journalism overlooks some of its flaws. I don’t want to dredge through beating up news boys so broadsides could not be sold or the excitement of US yellow journalism.
Corruption is part of the moral fabric. When that frays, corruption is like weeds growing in freshly seeded field. Time for 24D or good old Roundup.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2021
Survey Says: Facebook Is a Problem
November 11, 2021
I believe everything I read on the Internet. I also have great confidence in surveys conducted by estimable news organizations. A double whammy for me was SSRS Research Refined CNN Study. You can read the big logo version at this link.
The survey reports that Facebook is a problem. Okay, who knew?
Here’s a snippet about the survey:
About one-third of the public — including 44% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats — say both that Facebook is making American society worse and that Facebook itself is more at fault than its users.
Delightful.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2021
The Business Intelligence You Know Is Changing
November 11, 2021
I read “This Is the Future of Intelligence.” I have been keeping my researchers on their toes because I have an upcoming lecture about “intelligence,” not getting grades in schools which have discarded Ds and Fs. The talk is about law enforcement and investigator centric intelligence. That’s persons of interest, events, timelines, and other related topics.
This article references a research report from a mid tier consulting firm. That may ring your chimes or make you chuckle. Either way, here are three gems from the write up. I leave it to you to discern the wheat and the chaff.
How about this statement:
Prediction 1: By 2025, 10% of F500 companies will incorporate scientific methods and systematic experimentation at scale, resulting in a 50% increase in product development and business planning projects — outpacing peers.
In 36 months half of the Fortune 500 companies! I wonder how many of these outfits will be able to pay for the administrative overhead hitting this target will require. Revenue, not hand waving strike me as more important.
And this chunky Wheaties flake:
By 2026, 30% of organizations will use forms of behavioral economics and AI/ML-driven insights to nudge employees’ actions, leading to a 60% increase in desired outcomes.
If we look at bellwether outfits like Amazon and Google, I wonder if the employee push back and internal tension will deliver “desired outcomes.” What seems to be delivered are reports of management wonkiness, discrimination, and legal matters.
And finally, a sparkling Sugar Pop pellet:
By 2026, advances in computing will enable 10% of previously unsurmountable problems faced by F100 organizations to be solved by super-exponential advances in complex analytics.
I like the “previously unsurmountable problems” phrase. I don’t know what a super-exponential advance in complex analytics means. Oh, well. The mid tier experts do, I assume.
Read the list of ten findings. I had a good chuckle with a snort thrown in for good measure.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2021
A Meta Variant: Creating Distraction
November 11, 2021
Is this play a trial balloon?
India is one of the growing hotbeds for technology innovation. Google has business interests in India and Daily Hunt explains that, “Google’s Recent Move To Cut Play Store SubscriptionFees A ‘Distraction Tactic’: ADIF.” The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) says Google’s reduction on Play Store commissions from 30% to 15% is a tactic to “deflect and distract.”
The ADIF is an organization interested in protecting Indian digital startups from unfair practices. The plan to drop commissions on January 1, 2022 only happened, because developers pressured Google. Developers criticized Google for its steep fees. ADIF Executive Director Sijo Kuruvilla George claims Google lowering the commission rate is not an act of kindness, but only an attempt to distract developers from the lack of fair competition in India’s app market:
‘As long as Google gets to unilaterally dictate prices and people don’t have choices, it’s still a Lagaan – be it 30, 15 or even 2, the percentages do not matter. Deflect and distract seems to be what’s in play here. The portrayal and grandstanding, as a measure that fully acknowledges and addresses the concerns of developers, is misleading and objectionable,’ he said.”
Google also requires Indian app developers to adopt their billing system in March 2022. System integration and re-onboarding customers creates more work for the developers and their profits would diminish even with the drop to a 15% commission. The ADIF wants fair market competition and Google to allow alternate distribution of apps other than Google Play on Android OS.
Whitney Grace, November 11, 2021
Prevarication: Part of the Global Game?
November 11, 2021
TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. China is infamous for its Big Brother tactics on its citizens and enemies. It is reasonable to assume China is using TikTok to spy on Americans. Gadgets 360 reports, “TikTok Tells US Lawmakers It Does Not Give Information To China’s Government.” Michael Beckerman is TikTok’s executive of public policy for North and South America. He assured the US Congress the video sharing platform safeguards US data.
Congressmen from the Republican and Democratic parties are concerned about TikTok’s influence in the US and what data is potentially fed to China. Republicans pressured Beckerman for more information about user data than the Democrats. Both parties are worried how TikTok encourages negative and harmful behavior in young people:
“Executives from YouTube and Snapchat also testified. In a show of bipartisanship, senators of both parties, including Democratic panel chairman Richard Blumenthal, accused the three companies of exposing young people to bullying and sometimes steering them to information that encouraged harmful behaviors such sexualized games or anorexia. The executives responded that their companies have sought to create a fun experience and to exclude dangerous or unsavory content.”
Former President Donald Trump sought to ban TikTok in the US, because he believed it collected data on US citizens that was shared with China. Trump said this was a threat to the US’s safety. Current President Joe Biden rescinded the proposed ban, but he did seek to review foreign-controlled apps.
Does anyone truly believe TikTok? If the company succeeds in converting short videos into a super app, what’s going on behind the digital smokescreen?
Whitney Grace, November 11, 2021
Reigning in Big Tech: Facebook May Be Free to Roam
November 10, 2021
I noted that Google was, in effect, not guilty of tracking Safari users. You can read the the UK court decision here. Sure, Google has to pay a $3 billion fine for abusing its control over search, but there are appeals in the future. Google can afford appeals and allow turnover in the EU staff to dull the knife that slices at Googzilla.
I found “Why the Rest of the World Shrugged at the Facebook Papers” more interesting. The main point of the write up is, “Meh, Facebook.” Here’s a passage I noted:
Even many in civil society have barely registered the leaks.
Facebook may be able to do some hand waving, issue apologetic statements, and keep on its current path. Advertisers and stakeholders are like to find the report cited above reassuring.
Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2021
Meta: A Stroke of Genius or a Dropout Idea from a Dropout
November 10, 2021
I read an article called “Thoughts on Facebook Meta.” The main idea of the essay surprised me. Here’s the passage which caught my attention:
I think the metaverse will be massive not so much because gaming and VR will be big, but because gaming and VR will be the only avenue to thrive for the bottom 80% of people on the planet.
I also circled in red this passage:
Anyway, this is a smart move by Face-meta. It allows Zuckerberg to dodge the scrutiny bullets and become a quixotic futurist, and at the same time build the reality substrate for 80% of the planet.
Net net: The Zuck does it again. He likes old-school barbeque sauce, not New Coke. The question is, “What will government regulators like?”
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2021
Disrupting Commercial Sci-Tech Indexes
November 10, 2021
Pooling knowledge is beneficial for advancing research. Despite the availability of digital databases on the Internet, these individual databases are not connected. Nature shares that an American technologist created a, “Giant, Free Index To World’s Research Papers Released Online.”
Carl Malamud designed an online index that catalogs words and short phrases from over one hundred journal articles, including paywalled papers. Malamud released the index under his California non-profit Public Resource. The index is free and its purpose is to help scientists discover insights from all research, even if stuck behind paywalls. Technically Malamud does not have the legal right to index the paywalled articles. However, the index only contains short sentences less than five letters long from the paywalled articles. It does not violate copyright. Publishers may still argue that the index is a violation.
The index is a major innovation:
“Malamud’s General Index, as he calls it, aims to address the problems faced by researchers such as Yadav. Computer scientists already text mine papers to build databases of genes, drugs and chemicals found in the literature, and to explore papers’ content faster than a human could read. But they often note that publishers ultimately control the speed and scope of their work, and that scientists are restricted to mining only open-access papers, or those articles they (or their institutions) have subscriptions to. Some publishers have said that researchers looking to mine the text of paywalled papers need their authorization.”
Some publishers, like Springer Nature, support open source development projects like the Malamud General Index. Springer Nature said open source projects do encounter problems when they do not secure proper rights.
Publishers do not have a case against Malamud. The index does not violate copyright and full text articles are not published in it. Instead the index pools a wealth of information and exposes paywalled articles to a larger audience, who will purchase content if it is helpful to research.
Publishers, however, may need convincing of this perspective.
Whitney Grace, November 10, 2021
Elastic CEO on New Products and AWS Battle
November 10, 2021
Here is an interesting piece from InfoWorld about a company we have been following for years. Elastic is the primary developer behind the open source Elasticsearch and made its money vending managed services for the platform. Lately, though, the company has been expanding into new markets—application performance management (APM), observability, and security information event management (SIEM). The company’s CEO discusses this expansion as well as its struggle with Amazon over the use of Elasticsearch in, “Elastic’s Shay Banon: Why We Went Beyond our Search Roots—and Stood Up to ‘Bully’ AWS.”
First, reporter Scott Carey asks about the move into security. Banon admits Elastic was late to the SEIM game, but that timing gave the CEO a unique perspective. He makes this observation:
“When I got into security, I really didn’t understand why the market is so fragmented. I think a big part of it is top-down selling. It’s not like CISOs [Chief Information Security Officers] aren’t smart, but they’re not practitioners, so you can go in and more easily communicate to them that they need certain protection. I could see that there was tension between the security team and developers, operations, devops teams. Security didn’t trust them, and it was the same story as before with operators and developers. This is where I think our biggest opportunity is in the security market. To be one of the companies that brings the trends that caused dev and ops to come together and bring it to security.”
See the write-up for more of Banon’s observations on security, APM, and observability. As for the licensing battle with Amazon, that began in 2015 when AWS implemented its own managed Elasticsearch service without collaborating with Elastic. Carey notes both MongoDB and Cloudflare had similar issues with the mammoth cloud-services vendor. Elastic ultimately took a controversial step to deal with the problem. We learn:
“In a January blog post, Banon outlined how the company was changing its license for Elasticsearch from Apache 2.0 to a dual Elastic License and Server Side Public License (SSPL), a change ‘aimed at preventing companies from taking our Elasticsearch and Kibana products and providing them directly as a service without collaborating with us.’ AWS has since renamed its now-forked service as OpenSearch.”
Banon states he did not really want to change the license but felt he had to take a stand against AWS, which he compared to a schoolyard bully. The CEO has some sympathy for those who feel the decision was unfair to developers outside Elastic who had contributed to Elasticsearch. However, he notes, his company did develop 99% of the software. See the article for more of his reasoning, his perspective on Elasticsearch’s “very open and very simple” new license, and where he sees the company going in the future.
Cynthia Murrell November 10, 2021
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