There Is No Avoiding the Cloud for Aspiring IT Pros—For Now
February 15, 2022
Every business is different, allows ZDNet contributor Joe McKendrick. Some eagerly update to the latest technologies while others still rely on legacy systems and software. This means IT workers must tailor their skillsets to their specific organizations. Nevertheless, a recent interview with AWS’s director of learning products Scott Barneson suggests, “For Technology Skills, Cloud Is the Common Denominator.” The write-up quotes Barneson:
“There are the three areas where we hear strong need for upskilling from our customers: migration, as CIOs want to make sure their team is prepared to migrate workloads to the cloud; cloud fluency, as CIOs want all functions to have a baseline understanding of the cloud, the taxonomy, and the core benefits to help build common taxonomy and remove unnecessary friction; and AI/ML [Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning], as we shift from the experimentation phase to production use cases. CIOs are looking to equip their teams, from decision makers to practitioners, with the baseline skills to identify use cases that have positive customer and business impact. We regularly hear from our enterprise customers a desire to increase cloud fluency throughout their organizations – from individuals in technical and non-technical roles alike. That’s a desire we hear mirrored from individuals too. Our own research shows that the need for digital skills training has increased due to the pandemic with 85% of workers reporting that they now need more technical knowledge to do their jobs. The study also found that the use of cloud-based tools is the top-most in-demand skill employers will need by 2025.”
The AWS guru shares some advice for IT professionals looking to get ahead. For one thing, they should focus more on quickly getting customers what they need and less on growing their org charts. It is important to measure teams’ impact on customer satisfaction, he adds. Reducing complexity is also suggested to help organizations move swiftly and be ready to embrace opportunities. Naturally, he recommends taking advantage of relevant learning opportunities, like the (free) AWS course “Machine Learning Essentials for Business and Technical Decision Makers.” Though Mr. Barneson understandably has a bias toward AWS, would like to remind out dear readers that several other cloudy alternatives exist.
Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2022
Coinbase and the Super Bowl: How About Seamless Scaling
February 14, 2022
I read “Crypto Exchange Coinbase’s Website Crashes After Screening QR-Code Super Bowl Ad.” Apparently the Coinbase Super Bowl ad worked. Lots of clicks made it clear that the chatter about scaling resulted in the firm’s Web site falling over. But there’s good news. According to the article:
However, Coinbase Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee announced Monday that the platform is now up and running. “Coinbase just saw more traffic than we’ve ever encountered, but our teams pulled together and only had to throttle traffic for a few minutes. We are now back and ready for you at http://drops.coinbase.com. Humbled to have been witness to this,” Chatterjee said in a tweet.
Yep, the cloud is magic. I am tempted to mention the misstep related to the theft of billions in Bitcoin. You can read the wordy New Yorker explanation at this link.
Does this build confidence in cloud computing? Sure.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2022
Praise and PR for Google and Its AutoML Push
February 14, 2022
I read the explainer PR essay called “The Data Scientist of the Future, According to Google.” The author is not a real Googler. He/it/her is a Googley contractor. No skin in the game of course. A one sentence summary is:
Become and expert and use Google machine learning tools.
This is okay, but Google wants to make darn sure that squeaky wheels like those who criticize Google’s approach either get greased or changed at the next conference stop.
The write up says:
With Google’s investment in industry-leading products such as Vertex AI, I believe Google has demonstrated a realization in the value of coupling sophisticated Auto ML products with domain knowledge experts, and abstracting away much of the programming and statistics required by the Data Scientist of yesterday. Domain knowledge will rule the future. Understand the relationship between inputs and outputs in human-interpretable ways, and having the skills to communicate this knowledge is the most important input to predictive modeling.
PR or objective praise. Both share the two letters “PR.”
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2022
Google: Maximizing Profit via Education Policy?
February 14, 2022
A few days ago, I summarized one of the policy changes which benefit Google, put academic researchers in a budget pickle, and change the rules for certain types of university-type research. A year ago, Google wrote a chipper Googley blog post letting those in academia know that the institutions would have to pay up for storage after crossing the 100 terabyte boundary. You can read that Beyond Search essay at this link.
I spotted on the blog alternative service Medium (as in medium when ordering a grilled mushroom sandwich) this article “Learn from Google’s Data Engineers: Dimensional Data Modeling Is Dead.” If Google wants something dead, Google delivers.
You can grind though this essay with interesting sentences like this one: “In early days of computing, storage cost a premium; as much as $90,000 in 1985.” Helpful, right?
Here’s the meatiest statement in the write up by an honest-to-goodness Googler:
The cost of 1gb of Google Cloud storage per month is just 2 cents.
Let’s assume that this metric is on the money. What about those fees Google will charge or plans to charge the colleges and universities disabused of the “free” storage. When one is faced with losing irreplaceable or uncopyable volumes of data in the time available before deletion, what does one do?
Answer: Probably pay up.
How much money will Google make? I am not sure. Why not use some downtime to figure out how the one gigabyte to $0.02 works out? Start your calculations using these helpful parameters. Be Googley, of course. And remember Google explained what would happen a year ago in a nifty and smiley-face type essay. Helpful? For sure.
Will this move be profitable? Yep. Yep.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2022
Beyond Search and Dark Cyber Changes
February 14, 2022
Okay, I will be 78 in 2022. I have to be pragmatic about the content I have generated and posted without ads, commercial support, or compensation of any type since 2008. If you are a fan of Beyond Search, you will notice that we have removed the images, charts, graphs, and other visual accoutrements which we included in some blog posts. Why? I worked in online databases and publishing for many years before I retired. I operated within the boundaries of my understanding of fair use. I am now receiving machine generated allegations that I have not followed the definition of fair use now in play. Because I am creeping up in years, I don’t want to leave content online which can spawn assorted claims. Accordingly, we will be removing content. There are more than 12,000 posts in Beyond Search. Some of these contain obscure information about online search and retrieval. The illustrations in these were created by me. Nevertheless, these illustrations are goners as well.
And what about Dark Cyber? We have removed the videos posted as Honkin’ News and Dark Cyber from public access. If you want to view a video, you will have to go through a process which I have to determine. You can always ask about a video by writing benkent2020 at yahoo dot com.
Since I retired and stopped running around, giving lectures, and talking to people intrigued by my contrarian approach — traffic and viewership has slowly decreased. Now with the advent of artificially intelligent systems which proactively seek opportunities to assert that an entity has knowingly operated outside the boundaries of fair use, I am making these changes.
I will produce a new video series called “Stephen E Arnold’s OSINT Radar.” The illustrations in that series will come from the open source Web sites I talk about. In theory, this type of content will be within the boundaries of the fair use concept. If not, well, I am not sure what a person of my age can do. Die, for sure. Stop creating free, unsponsored, unbiased information, maybe.
One problem: With the online information I created over the years, those who are misinformed about certain aspects of search and the behavior of online information will never know how off base some of their systems, methods, and concepts are.
That’s the normal trajectory of the US democracy. As Alexis de de Tocqueville observed, average is just average.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2022
Google: More PEZ Dispensers for Alphabet Cash?
February 14, 2022
I read a rather odd ball New York Times’ story today. “Google Vanquished a Rival in Prague. Payback Could Hurt” explains the alleged action of Google to achieve search market share in the Czech Republic. [Yes, you will have to pay or chase down a dead tree version of the write up.] The story reminds me of the Foundem claim about alleged Googley behavior. The PEZ angle is that a legal action can be undertaken. A victory for the plaintiff can cause the Google to emit a chunk of money. Hence, the PEZ dispenser for Alphabet cash.
Here’s the PEZ dispenser idea:
The new antitrust law, the Digital Markets Act, would speed up tech-related competition investigations and require tech companies of a certain size to give users access to rival services. The penalties could be up to 10 percent of a company’s global revenue, worth about $18 billion for Google. On new Android smartphones, users would be able to choose an alternative search engine or browser to use, a remedy that was also included in the 2018 penalty against Google in the Android case.
Will it work? Russia is testing its own PEZ dispenser with a nifty brown bear head now.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2022
Another Hopeful Tap on the PEZ Dispenser Outputting Google Bucks
February 11, 2022
Click, click, click. The clicks on the PEZ dispenser with the Googzilla decoration keep on coming. “Google Hit with $20 Million Verdict in Nest Thermostat Patent Trial” reports as “real” news:
“The only place in the world that a small-but-innovative company like EcoFactor is on equal footing with Google is inside a courtroom, in front of a jury,” Mirzaie [an EcoFactor professional] said.
If those courtroom visits in West Texas deliver the cash, will others follow this tactic. Asserting that Google was a bad actor and getting paid could become more popular. France is now employing the tactic after finding the Google trampling on data protection policies.
Click, click, click.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2022
Microsoft: Engineering Insecurity
February 11, 2022
I read the happy words in “Former Amazon Exec Inherits Microsoft’s Complex Cybersecurity Legacy in Quest to Solve ‘One of the Greatest Challenges of our Time.’”
Bringing together existing groups from across the company, the new organization numbers 10,000 people including existing and open positions, representing more than 5% of the tech giant’s nearly 200,000 employees.
Microsoft has 200,000 employees and 10,000 of them are working to deal with the “greatest challenge” of our time. How many might be willing to share information with bad actors for cash? How many might make a coding error, plan to go back and fix it, and then forget? How many are working to deal with the security issues which keep Steve Gibson chortling when he explains a problem for a listener to the Security Now podcast?
Now that macros have been disabled a massive security issue has been addressed. Quick action which took more than two decades to wrestle to the ground. Plus, there’s the change in what one can permit Defender to defend. This is an outstanding move for those who locate and test specialized service software. Helpful? Well, sort of.
But the big things to me are update processes, Exchange, the the MSFT fluggy clouds. For me, no answers yet.
Some of the security issues are unknown unknowns. I am not sure there is a solution, but a former Amazon executive is on a quest just like those described by the noted futurist Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra who described the antics of an individual with certain firmly held ideas about windmills.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2022
Google Has Competition: Little Outfit? Nah, a Country-Linked Company
February 11, 2022
For many years, my personal view of Google is that it has operated as a nation state. I have pointed out in my essays and lectures that Google lacks only an army. I suppose if the online advertising company needed a kinetic arm, the Wagner Group would be available.
Due to its perception of itself as a servant of its users (regular people, companies, and governmental entitites), Google has mostly operated with the spirit of the American Wild West. You know. Shooting buffalo from trains, doing the treaty bait-and-switch, and doing what was necessary to capture mother lodes.
I read “TikTok Takes on YouTube with 10-Minute Videos – But Will People Watch?” The write up states:
10-minute videos may be a stretch. We’re getting perilously close to the range of a web movie or TV show. The 2003 series Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a good example here, where episodes could range between three and twelve minutes. To be fair, we rather enjoyed that series. With the new 10-minute-range, TikTok could start bringing more episodic series to the platform. In the near term, though, TikTok’s new competitor is clearly YouTube, a platform that’s already attracting some TikTok creators anxious for more time on the digital stage. TikTok creeping in on YouTube territory can now upload videos up to 10 minutes long.
My thought was that Google has some competition, and that competition not only can make rules like Google, deal in high value transactions with few limitations, and has a loyal (witting and unwitting) “community” of billions.
If anyone can make Google feel a bit of competitive pressue, it may be the China-linked TikTok outfit. If TikTok is successful in nibbling on the big toe of Google, that in video eCommerce might catch the increasingly unreliable delivery king nervous as well.
Is it a good idea to have a company so large that only a real nation state can mount a challenge to the outfit which once said it would try to solve death? By the way, how it that going?
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2022
NSO Collateral Damage: Is an Intelware Bug Zapper at Work
February 11, 2022
I have shared my view about NSO Group: The company’s conversion from secret specialized services vendor to publicity magnet will have downstream consequences. If the information in “Another Israeli Firm Caught Selling Pegasus Hacking Tool for Exploiting iPhone Flaw to Shut Down” is accurate, the knock on effect or some type of advanced bug zapper has killed another intelware vendor. (A bug zapper is a device which is technically a system or device which uses a brief electrical pulse to incinerate insects. I do not own a bug zapper because the little critters deserve to live happy lives despite the chemicals the lawn care company dumps on the yard every couple of weeks.)
The zappers come in a variety of form factors. There are bug zappers which look like pickle ball rackets. These are loved by the over 65 crowd. Some look like 1950s spaceships (pictured below), and others are like big toasters with wires and a weird blue glow.
The write up offers some factoids about the QuaDream intelware vendor zapping:
- QuaDream could compromise iPhones in the manner of NSO Group’s Pegasus system. (Does this suggest that NSO Group’s systems and methods may have been shared in the specialized services’ technology community making QuaDream a reseller?)
- The app was called “Reign” as in “reign of terror” perhaps?
- The Reign solution cost upwards of $2.0 million US, excluding maintenance.
- Reign allegedly could turn on a compromised iPhone’s camera and microphone. (Be sure to look for the small colored dots, iPhone user.)
I have noticed that some Israeli specialized software vendors are forming partnerships with firms providing services to financial institutions, law firms, and other commercial outfits. This is a mad scramble for cover in my opinion. The problem is that when the systems’ functions are explained some executives get cold feet despite the appeal of the specialized systems’ functionality.
This must be quite thrilling for the investment firms who have bet that the market for intelware and policeware was large and going to grow, as Ed Sullivan used to say, “really big.”
A high stakes game is underway and now there’s the mysterious bug zapper at work.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2022
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