The Duck Confronts Googzilla
March 18, 2021
You have heard of David and Goliath? What about the duck and Googzilla? No. Navigate to “DuckDuckGo Calls Out Google over User Data Collection.” The metasearch engine wants everyone to know that Google does not define “privacy” the way the duck crowd does. The write up states:
DuckDuckGo says Google tried its best to hide its data collection practices, until it was no longer possible for them to keep it private. ‘After months of stalling, Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome and the Google app. No wonder they wanted to hide it,’ DuckDuckGo said in a series of tweets. ‘Spying on users has nothing to do with building a great web browser or search engine. We would know (our app is both in one).’
Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
However, it is interesting to consider the question, “What happens next?”
- Google can ignore the duck. Eric Schmidt is no longer explaining that Qwant keeps him awake at night because that service is a heck of a threat. So, meh.
- Google takes steps to make life slight more interesting for the DuckDuckGo. There are some possibilities which are fun to ponder; for example, hasta la vista to links from the GOOG to the duck or Google works its magic within its walled garden. There’s a lot of content that lives within the Google ecosystem and when it is blocked or gifted with added latency, the scope may be a surprise to some.
- Google goes on the offensive just as it has with Microsoft. Imagine Google’s CEO suggesting that Microsoft’s CEO is dragging red herrings to the monopoly party. What could Google’s minions identify as information of value about DuckDuckGo, its traffic, and its index coverage? Interesting to ponder.
The tale of David and Goliath is an enduring one. The duck versus Googzilla might lack legendary status of brave David, but the confrontation might be a surprising one. Ducks are fierce creatures, but may have to punch above their weight to cause Googzilla pain.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2021
The Google: Disrupting Education in the Covid Era
March 15, 2021
I thought the Covid thing disrupted education. As a result, Google’s video conferencing system failed to seize an opportunity. Even poor, confused Microsoft put some effort into Teams. Sure, Teams is not the most secure or easy to use video conferencing service, but it has more features than Google has chat apps and ad options. Google also watched the Middle Kingdom’s favorite video service “zoom” right into a great big lead. Arguably, Google’s video conferencing tool should have hooked into the Chromebook, which is in the hands of some students. But what’s happened? Zoom, zoom, zoom.
I read this crisp headline: “Inside Google’s Plan to Disrupt the College Degree (Exclusive). Get a First Look at Google’s New Certificate Programs and a New Feature of Google Search Designed to Help Job Seekers Everywhere.”
Wow. The write up is an enthusiastic extension of Google Gibru-ish. Here’s why:
- Two candidates. One is a PhD from Princeton with a degree in computer science. The other is a minority certificate graduate. Both compete for the same job. Which candidate gets the job?
- One candidate, either Timnit Gebru or Margaret Mitchell. Both complete a Google certification program. Will these individuals get a fair shake and maybe get hired?
- Many female candidates from India. Some are funded by Google’s grant to improve opportunities for Indian females. How many will get Google jobs? [a] 80 to 99 percent, [b] 60 to 79 percent, [c] fewer than 60 percent? (I am assuming this grant and certificate thing are more than a tax deduction or hand waving.)
High school science club management decisions are fascinating to me.
Got your answers? I have mine.
For the PhD versus the certificate holder, the answer is it depends. A PhD with non Googley notions about ethical AI is likely to be driving an Uber. The certificate holder with the right mental orientation gets to play Foosball and do Googley things.
For the Gebru – Mitchell question, my answer is neither. Female, non-Googley, and already Xooglers. Find your future elsewhere is what I intuit.
And the females in India. Hard to say. The country is far away. The $20 million or so is too little. The cultural friction within the still existing castes are too strong. Maybe a couple is my guess.
In short, Google can try to disrupt education. But Covid has disrupted education. Another outfit has zoomed into chinks in the Google carapace. So marketing it is. It may work. Google is indeed Google.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2021
T-Mobile: Privacy Is a Tough Business
March 12, 2021
Just a bit of mobile phone experience this morning. T Mobile (the magenta or pink outfit) notified me I could opt out of its forthcoming “sell your data” initiative. I dutifully clicked on the link to something which appeared in an SMS as t-mo.com/privacy12. Surprise. The page rendered with a notice that it was a new domain. I fiddled around and was able to locate the page via the search box on T-mobile.com. I filled in the data, including a very long Google ad tracker number. I clicked the submit button and nothing happened. I spotted an email address which was “privacy@tmobile.com.” Guess what? The email bounced. I called 611, the number for customer service. I was told that T Mobile would call me back in 30 minutes. Guess what? No call within the time window.
Privacy is a tough business, and it is one which amuses the marketers and thumbtypers who work with developers to create dark patterns for paying customers. Nice work.
Nifty move. Well, the company is magenta or pink. It is dark, however. Very dark and quite sad.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2021, 435 pm US Eastern
Funding Terrorism with Information about Wretched Situations
March 2, 2021
People often try to help. I recall talking to a street person in San Francisco in the chocolate chip cookie shop near the Diva Hotel on Geary. The chocolate chip shop is, I believe, long gone. I asked the person which cookies he liked the best. He said, “I buy them every day for my family. I get a dozen or so. I eat one on the BART to Daly and then take the rest to the family.” I asked, “What do you do?” He said, “I beg. It works really well. People are very generous.”
“Funding the Needy or Funding Terror?” reminded me of this little life lesson from the 1980s. What looked like a person who was down on his luck was a hard working exploiter of people’s desire to help others. None of those Berkeley coupons for the beggar in the cookie store. Now the stakes are higher.
The article reports:
Last year, online fundraisers began to appear on behalf of al-Hol residents. Many were seeking to finance escapes, others to pay for food and supplies. (While some donations have likely gone toward terrorism, the campaigns are careful to avoid mentioning violence.) The petitions spread via social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and often involved PayPal and other payment systems as well as messaging apps, like WhatsApp and Telegram. Before long, intelligence and law enforcement agencies began to monitor them.
The idea is that money flows in and some of it goes to fund activities not included in the video, the email, or the TV commercial.
How do social media platforms police this allegedly fraudulent activity?
Well, that’s a good question.
The write up reports:
he architects of these networks tailor their messages and methods to geography, specific donors and goals, and national laws and platform regulations. Of the Facebook accounts identified by Rest of World that claim links to al-Hol, only some explicitly asked for donations. Others disseminated pictures or news from the camp in different languages, alongside Islamic scripture and memes. A few users fondly reminisced about their time in the caliphate. Facebook disables and deletes accounts that share terrorist propaganda, so ISIS was never explicitly mentioned. Instead, references to the organization were camouflaged by alternative spellings. “I miss the Dawl@,” one said, with a crying emoji, referencing the Arabic word for “state” in ISIS’s full name.
Again. What are social media platforms doing to address this issue?
Outputting words, forming study teams, and hand waving.
Is this a problem? Not if there are cookies at the meeting. No faux street people needed.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2021
Google: The Curse of Search
March 2, 2021
Remember when Eric Schmidt objected to information about his illustrious career being made available? I sure do. As I recall, the journalist used Google search to locate interesting information. MarketWatch quoted the brilliant Mr. Schmidt as saying:
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
Nifty idea.
Forbes, the capitalist tool I believe, published “Google Issues Quality Warning For Millions Of Google Photos Users.” That write up pivots on using information retrieval to illustrate that Google overlooked its own “right to be forgotten” capability.
The capitalist tool states:
At its 2015 launch, Google Photos creator Anil Sabharwal promised that High Quality uploads offered “near-identical visual quality” when compared to your original photos. But now Google wants us to see a seemingly huge difference in quality between the two settings and to be willing to pay extra for it. It seems “Original Quality” is now suddenly something for which we should all be willing to pay extra.
So what?
Google, which is struggling to control its costs, wants to generate money. One way is to take away a free photo service and get “users” to pay for storage. And store what, you ask.
Google is saying that its 2015 high quality image format is no good. Time to use “original quality”; that is, larger file sizes and more storage requirements.
The only hitch in the git along is that in 2015 Google emitted hoo-hah about its brilliant image method. Now the Google is rewriting history.
The problem: Google’s search engine with some coaxing makes it easy to spot inconsistencies in the marketing spin. Nothing to hide. Words of wisdom.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2021
Microsoft on Security
February 25, 2021
I think that some believe the SolarWinds’ misstep should be called surfing the Microsoft access control process.” I may be wrong on that, of course. I did find some of the statements and quotations in an article called “Microsoft CEO For Global Rules On Data Safety, Privacy.” On the same day that another Microsoftie was explaining the security stumble which has compromised systems at Microsoft itself and a few minor US government agencies, the CEO of the outstanding software company allegedly said:
One thing I hope for is that we don’t fragment, that we are able to, whether it’s on privacy or data safety, bring together a set of global rules that will allow all of us to both comply and make sure that what we build is safe to use.
He allegedly noted:
One of the things we are trying to ensure is how do we have that design principles and engineering processes to ensure that the products and the services are respecting privacy, security, AI ethics as well as the fundamental Internet safety but beyond that there will be regulation.
With some of the source code for Azure, Exchange, and Outlook on the loose, one hopes that those authentication and access control systems are indeed secure. One hopes that the aggressively marketed Windows Defender actually defends. That system appears to have been blind to the surfing maneuvers executed by bad actors for months, maybe a year or more.
Microsoft’s core methods for granting efficient access to trusted users or functions with certifying tokens were compromised. At this time, the scope of the breached systems and the existence if any of sleeper code is not yet quantified.
Assurances are useful in some circumstances. Foundational engineering flaws are slightly more challenging to address.
But “hope” is good. Let’s concentrate security with Microsoft procedures. Sounds good, right? Talk is easier than reengineering perhaps?
Stephen E Arnold, February 25, 2021
What Threats Does Cyber Security Software Thwart?
February 19, 2021
I asked myself this question, “What threats does cyber security software thwart?” The SolarWinds’ misstep went undetected for months, maybe a year or more. I read “France Agency ANSSI Links Russia’s Sandworm APT to Attacks on Hosting Providers.” Reuters ran a short news item as well. You can read the report via this link. I don’t want to wade through the cyber security jargon in this post. Instead I want to highlight one fact: The “intrusions” dated back to 2017. Okay, this is another time block in which cyber security systems operated and failed to detect the malicious behavior.
The vector of attack was software used by Centreon. What’s Centreon do?
What’s ANSSI?
The French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems or Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information.
What’s Centreon? LinkedIn says:
Centreon is a global provider of business-aware IT monitoring for always-on operations and performance excellence. The company’s holistic, AIOps-ready platform is designed for today’s complex, distributed hybrid cloud infrastructures. Privately held, Centreon was founded in 2005 as an open source software framework. Today, Centreon is trusted by organizations of all sizes across a wide range of public and private sectors. Centreon is headquartered in Paris and Toronto, with sales offices in Geneva, Luxembourg and Toulouse.
What’s Hub One?
It is a subsidiary of Aéroports de Paris. Hub One provides high speed radio networks and services to outfits like Air France and the French government.
What’s an APT?
An advanced persistent threat. The idea is that malware is inside a system or software and is able to remain undetected while it follows instructions from a bad actor.
Now back to the 2017 date.
The point is that current cyber security systems may not be able to provide the defenses which marketers tout.
We’re talking years which strikes me as very SolarWinds-like. Then there is the persistent question: What’s up with the commercial cyber security systems?
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2021
Intel: Outputting Horse Hooey (Translation for Thumbtypers: Nonsense)
February 16, 2021
I read “Intel Mocks Apple’s M1 MacBooks in Grudge-Bearing Ad Campaign.” Let’s assume that the information in the Tech Radar article is spot on. I learned:
Intel is back to mocking Apple, having posted a series of tweets highlighting the shortcomings of Apple’s M1 processors.
Yep, Intel and the tweeter thing.
The article points out that Apple divorced Intel from its M1 computers. But there are visitation writes for some Apple computers I think.
The write up points out:
Intel’s tweets link to a video from YouTuber Jon Rettinger, that compare laptops equipped with Intel chips to Apple’s ?M1? Macs. “If you’re looking for a good laptop in 2021, there are many things to consider, but processor choice might be more important than you think,” a description on Rettinger’s video reads. “You might be considering Apple’s new M1-based laptops, but before you hit the buy button, let me show you what Intel’s new Evo laptops can offer you!” Intel’s aggressive tweets come just days after the company posted a series of cherry-picked benchmarks designed to provide that its 11th-generation processors are better than Apple’s ARM-based M1 chips.
I have pointed out that Intel’s Horse Ridge announcement struck me as horse feathers. If Intel is using the tweeter to output negative vibes and fiddling benchmarks, is it possible that Intel has moved from horse ridge to horse feathers?
I prefer innovation, demonstrations of technical competence
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2021
Intel Speed Data: Horse Feathers from the Horse Ridge Gang
February 12, 2021
Intel is an interesting example of paranoia forgotten. One of the Intel wizards pointed out in a meeting, “I’m paranoid because everyone is out to get me.” I think this expert wrote a book based on this quip. Paranoid outfits have to try harder. Why? Others want to take them out.
AMD has not nailed the pin on the Horse Ridge Gang’s donkey—yet. Intel has managed to flub its fabbing. This failure to be afraid and thus work harder and smarter resulted in the company losing out in the Great CPU Race. Along the way, the company asserted that it had achieved something every quantum computing wannabe needed: A quantum controller chip. At the same time, AMD was putting in long hours trying to figure out how to go smaller, deliver more bang for the computer buck, and reduce its CPUs’ power consumption.
Whilst engaged in the quantum computing gold rush and fab flubbing, Apple did the M1 thing. How does Intel respond to a hippy dippy Silicon Valley outfit? The best way possible for an outfit which had lost the ability to fear what its competitors can do. Intel points out that Apple is pretty much a not-so-serious technology outfit.
You can get the details of this interesting explanation of fab flubbing, missing mobile, and finding itself trying to deal with AMD and Apple. It will be a while before the Horse Ridge thing produces Apple-scale revenues in my opinion.
The write up “Intel Swipes at Apple Silicon with Selective Benchmark Claims” states:
The [Intel presentation] slides generally appear to show Intel’s chip as being either comparable or superior to the M1 in various tasks, though with major caveats. For a start, the benchmarks use Intel’s “Real-world usage guideline” tests, a collection of trials that don’t seem to be actively followed by most other testers.
The article runs through some performance results showing the Horse Ridge Gang has fast horses. I then noted this passage:
While a company aims to present itself and its products in the best light, and potentially in a way that brings competitors down in comparison, Intel’s presentation indicates it is doing so by jumping through hoops. Cherry-picking test results and using more obscure testing procedures than typical suggests Intel is straining to paint itself in the best light.
I know that one can put lipstick on a pig. I was not aware that the Horse Ridge Gang decorated its performance data with stage make up and horse feathers.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2021
IBM: Emphasizing the Big in Big Blue Quantum Computing
February 12, 2021
Did you know a small outfit in China is selling a person quantum computer. Discover Magazine reveals this in “A Desktop Quantum Computer for Just $5,000.” This means quantum computers will be crunching Excel spreadsheets for those with terminal spreadsheet fever.
But one must think big. I read “IBM Promises 100x Faster Quantum Computers through New Software Foundations.” The write up explains that Big Blue has gone big, quantumly speaking, of course:
IBM unveiled on Wednesday improvements to quantum computing software that it expects will increase performance of its complex machines by a factor of 100, a development that builds on Big Blue’s progress in making the advanced computing hardware. In a road map, the computing giant targeted the release of quantum computing applications over the next two years that will tackle challenges such as artificial intelligence and complex financial calculations. And it’s opening up lower level programming access that it expects will lead to a better foundation for those applications.
Imagine how much better Watson will perform with more quantum horsepower at its disposal.
But there’s more. The write up explains in a content marketing manner:
IBM is working on increasing the number of qubits in its quantum computers, from 27 in today’s “Falcon” to 1,121 in its “Condor” systems due in 2023. IBM expects in 2024 to investigate a key quantum computing technology called error correction that could make qubits much more stable and therefore capable, Jay Gambetta, IBM’s quantum computing vice president, said in a video.
And the source of this revelation? IBM, of course. The future is just two years away. Sounds good. Now how about revenue growth, explaining how the Palantir tie up will work, and when Watson will deliver on that promise of a billion in revenue from cognitive computing?
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2021
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