Amazing Moments in Cyber Security: The SolarWinds Awards
May 5, 2021
Believe it or not.
In a gem of an understatement, SolarWinds’ Sojung Lee called 2020 a “challenging year.” Lee made this assessment at his company’s recent APJ Q2 Virtual Partner Briefing where, as ChannelLife reports, “SolarWinds Celebrates Channel Partners in APJ Channel Awards.” Yes, that company gives out awards. We’re told:
“The awards recognize SolarWinds’ partners and distributors for their achievements in delivering services and expertise to customers. SolarWinds Asia Pacific and Jap vice president sales, Sojung Lee, says that 2020 was a challenging year but SolarWinds partners remained resilient.”
Resilient—yes, they would have to be. Readers can navigate to the brief write-up for the list of recipients, if curious. We just find it remarkable this list even exists at this point in time. What about these “winners’” security? We don’t know and maybe SolarWinds does not either. Sales, not security, could be job one.
Cynthia Murrell, May 5, 2021
Content Bot Employs Powerful OpenAI Tech for Marketing Content
May 4, 2021
Great news. Now companies can launch spam fiestas, no humans required, for as little as $29 per month. Content Bot offers tools to generate persuasive marketing copy, powerful slogans, smooth landing pages, improved blog posts, and even something it calls “automated inspiration.” The site promises “human-like text.” If that sounds familiar, it should—the site’s developers must have scored one of the coveted OpenAI beta API slots, as its FAQ reveals:
“We make use of a variety of AI models, with the main model being GPT-3 by OpenAI. GPT-3, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 is an autoregressive language model which uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It’s a game changer for content creators.”
Indeed it is. This is exactly the sort of thing we expected to see when OpenAI began releasing its API to a select few last year. Well, one of the things—the fake news will likely be less publicized. Content Bot’s FAQ also specifies:
“95% of the content generated by the AI is unique and original. We also provide a uniqueness score for longer form content generated so you can have peace of mind to know that the content you have received is unique.”
So one must trust their metric to verify their promise of uniqueness. Interesting. We also learn the platform is relying on Google Translate as a stopgap measure:
“We currently support all languages supported by Google Translate. We understand that although Google Translate may not be the best translation for your needs, we are currently exploring other options such as IBM Watson and OpenAI to provide better, or multiple translations at once.”
Will the price go up if they find a better translation option? The service currently costs $29 per month for the basic version, $79 for the one geared toward agencies—the latter generates three times as many blog posts and supplies a “paraphrase rewriter.” There is a free trial available, and non-profits are invited to write in for a discount. It was no surprise to learn Content Bot workers are fully remote, but the company maintains licenses and operating addresses in Florida and in South Africa. Who will be next to launch a product based on GPT-3?
Cynthia Murrell, May 4, 2021
You Know about CDPs, Right? Good, These Are the In Thing
April 28, 2021
A CDP is a customer data platform. The jargon embraces the idea of a customer list, information about those who are spending money and who might spend money, and the myriad software utilities which are desperate to reimagine themselves as digital tigers, not kitty cats.
Years ago, Vivisimo or another IBM entity, came up with the V idea. Big Data is fast which became velocity. Big data became big which morphed into volume. Big Data is a confection which variety. But three Vs were not enough. Former physical training majors combined with some art history grads and added value and veracity. Data quality became veracity. Yeah, got it.
Now the sales crowd is in the game with CDPs.
ZDNet discusses “The Five Vs of Customer Data Platforms.” Quite a coincidence to me. For the ZD professionals, this overlap with the Vs of Big Data is logical, possibly brilliant.
Research from CRM platform vendor Salesforce indicates customer data platforms were a high-priority investment for marketing executives last year. To describe the unique challenges of wrangling data from multiple channels for these systems, Writer Vala Afshar quotes from the book Customer Data Platforms by Martin Kihn and Salesforce’s Chris O’Hara:
“When it comes to marketing, customers expect the interactions they have on a company’s website to translate to their mobile app experiences and even in-store visits. The problem is that, for most companies, those environments operate off of different datasets—even though the customer is the same. Customers also expect their experiences as they move from channel to channel to be consistent, and ‘in the moment.’ Most customer journeys involve over three different channels (e.g., email, web, and mobile app), and customers tend to move seamlessly and quickly between these channels. Most companies, however, don’t have these data environments connected in real-time. The result is disconnected experiences for consumers and the lack of a single source of truth about customers for the marketer.”
Benefits of gathering all this data and putting it at the fingertips of customer service include more personalized interactions and the ability to prioritize calls from the most loyal buyers, for example. We learn:
“The good news is that this is happening today. Large enterprises with sophisticated IT departments, in-house developers, and large software budgets are connecting these systems to create such results. The bad news is that it’s very expensive, requires constant vigilance and development to keep it working, and its dependent upon licensing solutions from dozens of software vendors for data ingestion to data activation, and everything in between.”
This is where Afshar’s version of the five Vs comes in. For more insight into original thinking, please, see the write-up for his suggestions on how to use those as guidelines for more efficiently creating a comprehensive customer data platform.
Cynthia Murrell, April 28, 2021
Google Ad Auctions: An Interesting Phrase
April 16, 2021
I am no legal eagle. I don’t do online advertising. I don’t care too much about the antics of art history majors laboring in the vineyards of pay to play.
I did read “When Google’s Fancy Lawyers Screw Up and Jeopardize Sheryl Sandberg, at $1500/Hour.”
Here’s the passage I found suggestive:
… now we know a few important new details about the Texas adtech case. This case includes an allegation that Google’s large online advertising marketplace – think stock market but instead of stocks they trade ad slots – is riddled with secret rigged auctions.
And what, pray tell, was the phrase which snagged my attention? Here she be:
secret rigged auctions
Why is this interesting?
- The phrase resonates with me because “secrecy” and algorithmic, objective methods are trustworthy. But then there’s the word “rigged.” Yikes!
- The assertion backed by legal documents with faulty redaction makes clear that getting useful information is a pretty complicated process. Who did what, when, and why?
- Online advertising is big money for some outfits. Could the information widen cracks in the digital foundation?
Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2021
Checklist of Shady Digital Marketing Tactics
April 13, 2021
I think the author of “The Problem With Digital Marketing” wanted to make a positive contribution to the art and science of paying to get attention. The write up identifies four categories of marketing wizards which may cast a shadow over the well intentioned efforts of companies desperate for revenue.
The four buckets of bad things are:
- Gunning for a quick payoff
- Thinking about money now
- Shady search engine optimization methods
- Unprofessional behavior or what I call MBA ethical practices.
These four groups of activities are interesting for three reasons. First, the mixture of big things like the lack of an ethical command center and tiny thinks like using Dark Patterns to snooker a Web site visitor into spending money when the user thought he/she was NOT making a purchase are jarring.
The lack of the ethics thing opens the door to many activities not included in the three other buckets; for example, apps which are designed to snag a user’s financial information or the use of email to lure the recipient into divulging access credentials.
Items one and two are essentially the fabric of anyone who has bills to pay, a habit to feed, or a keen desire to ride to the bank in a new Bronco with an M1 MacBook under his/her arm.
Item three is actually the focal point of the write up. If an entity is not in the Google and easily findable by those with a limited vocabulary, that entity does not exist. The same need for findability applies to tweet things, Facebook craziness, and even the hopelessly weird Microsoft LinkedIn.
Distorting relevance, using assorted tricks like buying backlinks from clueless Web site owners, and dabbling in the sale of endorsements from YouTube influencers are probably not helpful to someone looking for an objective results list in response to a query.
So what do I make of this write up?
First, it makes clear that SEO is the way to go.
Second, the use of Dark Patterns or closely allied methods work and often work quite well.
Third, payoffs come when ethics are kicked into the trash surrounding the youth soccer field and email (phishing), apps (vectors of malware), and rhetorical tricks are used. The problem with digital content is a combination of tricks and bad content.
What works is buying Google online ads or becoming famous on YouTube or TikTok. Twitter is a minnow compared to the Google thing.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2021
The Alphabet Google YouTube Thing Explains Good Old Outcome Centered Design
April 8, 2021
If you have tried to locate information on a Google Map, you know what good design is, right? What about trying to navigate the YouTube upload interface to add or delete a “channel”? Perfection, okay. What if you have discovered an AMP error email and tried to figure out how a static Web site generated by an AMP approved “partner” can be producing a single flawed Web page? Intuitive and helpful, don’t you think?
Truth is: Google Maps are almost impossible to use regardless of device. The YouTube interface is just weird and better for a 10-year-old video game player than a person over 30, and the AMP messages? Just stupid.
I read “Waymo’s 7 Principles of Outcome-Centered Design Are What Your Product Needs” and thought I stumbled upon a listicle crafted by Stephen Colbert and Jo Koy in the O’Hare Airport’s Jazz Bar.
Waymo (so named because one get way more with Alphabet Google YouTube — hereinafter, AGYT)technology — is managed by co-CEOs. It is semi famous for hiring uber engineer Anthony Levandowski. Plus the company has been beavering away to make driving down 101 semi fun since 2009. The good news is that Waymo seems to be making more headway than the Google team trying to solve death. The Wikipedia entry for Waymo documents 12 collisions, but the exact number of smart errors by the Alphabet Google YouTube software is not known even to some Googlers. Need to know, you know.
What are the rules for outcome centered design; that is, ads but no crashes I presume. The write up presents seven. Here are three and you can let your Chrome browser steer you to the full list. Don’t run into the Tesla Web site either, please.
Principle 2. Create focus by clarifying you8r purpose.
Okay, focus. Let’s see. When riding in a vehicle with no human in charge, the idea is to avoid a crash. What about filtering YouTube for okay content? Well, that only works some of the time. The Waymo crashes appear to underscore the fuzz in the statistical routines.
And Principle 4. Clue in to your customer’s context.
Yep, in a vehicle which knows one browsing history and has access to nifty profiles with probabilities allows the vehicle to just get going. Forget what the humanoid may want. Alphabet Google YouTube is ahead of the humanoid. Sometimes. The AFYT approach is to trim down what the humanoid wants to three options. Close enough for horse shoes. Waymo, like Alphabet Google YouTube, knows best. Just like a digital mistress. The humanoid, however, is going to a previously unvisited location. Another humanoid told the rider face to face about an emergency. The AGYT system cannot figure out context. Not to worry. Those AGYT interfaces will make everything really easy. One can talk to the Waymo equipped smart vehicle. Just speak clearly, slowly, and in a language which Waymo parses in an acceptable manner. Bororo won’t work.
Finally, Principle 7: Edit edit edit.
I think this means revisions. Those are a great idea. Alphabet Google YouTube does an outstanding job with dots, hamburger menus, and breezy writing in low contrast colors. Oh, content? If you don’t get it, you are not Googley. Speak up and you may be the Timnit treatment or the Congressional obfuscation rhetoric. I also like ignoring the antics of senior managers.
Yep, outcome centered. Great stuff. Were Messrs. Colbert and Koy imbibing something other than Sprite at the airport when possibly conjuring this list of really good tips? What’s the outcome? How about ads displayed to passengers in Waymo infused vehicles? Context centered, relevant, and a feature one cannot turn off.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2021
HPE Machine Learning: A Benefit of the Autonomy Tech?
April 8, 2021
This sounds like an optimal solution from HPE (formerly known as HP); too bad it was not available back when the company evaluated the purchase of Autonomy. Network World reports, “HPE Debuts New Opportunity Engine for Fast AI Insights.” The machine-learning platform is called the Software Defined Opportunity Engine, or SDOE. It is based in the cloud, and will greatly reduce the time it takes to create custom sales proposals for HPE channel partners and customers. Citing a blog post from HPE’s Tom Black, writer Andy Patrizio explains:
“It takes a snapshot of the customer’s workloads, configuration, and usage patterns to generate a quote for the best solution for the customer in under a minute. The old method required multiple visits by resellers or HPE itself to take an inventory and gather usage data on the equipment before finally coming back with an offer. That meant weeks. SDOE uses HPE InfoSight, HPE’s database which collects system and use information from HPE’s customer installed base to automatically remediate infrastructure issues. InfoSight is primarily for technical support scenarios. Started in 2010, InfoSight has collected 1,250 trillion data points in a data lake that has been built up from HPE customers. Now HPE is using it to move beyond technical support to rapid sales prep.”
The write-up describes Black’s ah-ha moment when he realized that data could be used for this new purpose. The algorithm-drafted proposals are legally binding—HPE must have a lot of confidence in the system’s accuracy. Besides HPE’s existing database and servers, the process relies on the assessment tool recently acquired when the company snapped up CloudPhysics. We learn that the tool:
“… analyzes on-premises IT environments much in the same way as InfoSight but covers all of the competition as well. It then makes recommendations for cloud migrations, application modernization and infrastructure. The CloudPhysics data lake—which includes more than 200 trillion data samples from more than one million virtual machines—combined with HPE’s InfoSight can provide a fuller picture of their IT infrastructure and not just their HPE gear.”
As of now, SDOE is only for storage systems, but we are told that could change down the road. Black, however, was circumspect on the details.
Cynthia Murrell, April 8, 2021
Alphabet Google YouTube: We Are Doing Darned Good Work
April 7, 2021
I read a peculiar item of information about the mom-and-pop outfit Alphabet Google YouTube. You may have a different reaction to the allegedly accurate data. Just navigate to “YouTube Claims It’s Getting Better at Enforcing Its Own Moderation Rules.” The “real news” story reports:
In the final months of 2020, up to 18 out of every 10,000 views on YouTube were on videos that violate the company’s policies and should have been removed before anyone watched them. That’s down from 72 out of every 10,000 views in the fourth quarter of 2017, when YouTube started tracking the figure.
Apparently the mom-and-pop outfit calculates a “violative view rate.” This is a metric possible only if a free video service accepts, indexes, and makes available “videos that contain graphic violence, scams, or hate speech.”
The system, the write up reports that :
YouTube’s team uses the figure internally to understand how well they’re doing at keeping users safe from troubling content. If it’s going up, YouTube can try to figure out what types of videos are slipping through and prioritize developing its machine learning to catch them.
A few questions spring to mind:
- What specifically is “violative” content. An interview I conducted with a former CIA operative was removed a year after the interview appeared as a segment in my 10 to 15 minute twice monthly video news program. An interview with a retired spy was deemed violative. I hope YouTube learned something from this take down. I remain puzzled.
- How does content depicting graphic violence, scams, and hate speech get on the YouTube system? After I upload a video, a message appears to tell me if the video is okay or not okay. I think Google’s system is getting better from the mom-and-pop outfit’s point of view. From other points of view? I am not sure.
- Why trust metrics generated within the Alphabet Google YouTube outfit? By definition, the data collection methods, the sample, and the techniques used to identify what’s important are not revealed. FAANG-type outfits are not exactly the gold standard in ethical behavior for some people. I, of course, believe everything I read online like transcripts of senior executives’ remarks to Congressional committees?
- Why release these data now? What’s the point? Apple is tossing cores at Facebook. Alphabet Google YouTube is reminding some that Microsoft’s security is interesting. Amazon wants to pay tax. Maybe these actions and the violative metric are PR.
The write up contains charts. Low contrast colors show just how much better Alphabet Google YouTube is getting in the violative content game. I love the violative view rate phrase. Delicious.
Stephen E Arnold, April 7, 2021
Google: Fighting the Fake News Fight. Err. Where Is YouTube in This Altercation?
April 6, 2021
I read a short item with the snappy title “Google to Contribute $29 Million to New EU Fund to Fight Fake News.” The hook is a big number for a mom-and-pop, online ad outfit, $29 million.
Where is the money going? The write up says:
The European Media and Information Fund, launched by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute last week, aims to enlist researchers, fact-checkers, not-for-profits and other public interest-oriented bodies to help in the fight against fake news….The fund has a duration of five years. The European Digital Media Observatory, which is a European Commission project set up last year and whose members include fact checkers and academic researchers, will evaluate and select the projects.
Will YouTube become a focal point? My thought is that YouTube is not news, certainly not news in the sense of the Facebook- or Twitter-type of service. Should YouTube become a focal point? That’s a different question. What about informational ads which surf on a timely topic? Are those advertisements news? Obviously an advertisement cannot be news generated by an objective entity like Forbes Magazine. Wait. Hold that statement. Forbes, the capitalist’s tool, does run pay-to-play essays.
Without a definition of news, how can one determine what’s accurate, what’s fake, and what’s just business? Perhaps that is why the mom-and-pop online ad service is contributing a PR worthy sum to an European effort.
Is there any correlation to the EU’s legal probe of Google?
That’s a hard question just like, “Is YouTube a deliverer of fake news?”
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2021
How about That 5G?
March 26, 2021
Here we have some premium marketing hoo hah from Digital Trends, “8 Exciting Use Cases that Show What 5G Can Really Do.” In our experience, most people find 4G,LTE, and ATT DSS-fake-5G to be faster than 5G. The write-up seems to presage a time when 5G Ultra Wideband networks have expanded much farther than they have. Writer Jacob Kienlen envisions:
“Like any upgrade to our mobile network infrastructure, the most exciting aspect is the speed and consistency it brings. That, combined with latency reductions, is enough to start predicting some of the opportunities 5G will provide in the coming years. Some of the most obvious 5G use cases are related to technologies that can only really be made better by an improved mobile network. These are things like smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and businesses. The difference between 4G and 5G in that regard is the sheer improvement to consistent high-speed internet on the go. That improvement will bring with it a slew of improvements to existing technologies, but also spark entirely new ones that couldn’t exist with 4G or 3G networks. Here are some of the most exciting 5G cases you can look forward to.”
Can we, really? Right now people are turning off the 5G service on their mobile phones because it is too slow and unreliable. Let us play along, though, and picture a world where 5G has engulfed us coast-to-coast. The eight use cases described here include better home internet; better communication, with both voice and video calls; more viable autonomous vehicles; improved video-streaming quality; advanced agriculture technologies; the rise of more smart cities; a refined Internet of Things; and advances in healthcare, from faster and easier remote diagnoses and operations to health-monitoring smart watches for all.
Keinlen does paint an exciting picture, and perhaps it will come to pass someday. For the foreseeable future, though, these visions remain illusory for most of us.
Cynthia Murrell, March 26, 2021
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