Critics Blast Zuckerbergs Free Internet
January 26, 2016
Mark Zuckerberg is giving the subcontinent India access to free Internet. In some eyes Zuckerberg is being generous, but his critics are saying he’s doing it to gain control of a 1.2 billion untapped market. The New York Post shares Zuckerberg’s magnanimous act in “Mark Zuckerberg Defends His Free Internet Bid In India.”
Zuckerberg’s free Internet in India is dubbed “Free Basics” and it offers full access to Facebook and other affiliated sites, while blocking access to Google, Twitter, and other rivals. Free Basics’s partner Indian telecom partner Reliance Communication was forced to temporarily shut down service.
Critics are angry with Zuckerberg, claiming he is violating net neutrality and it comes as a slap in the face after he defended it within the United States. Free Basics could potentially ruin Internet competition in India and gain an iron grasp on a developing market. An even more intriguing piece to the story is that Free Basics was formerly named Internet.org, but Zuckerberg was forced to change it so new Internet users would not think that Facebook and related Web sites were all that existed.
“The local tech entrepreneur warned that ‘the incentive to invest in better, faster and cheaper access to the entire Internet will be replaced with one of providing better, faster and cheaper access to [Facebook’s] websites and apps’…In his Monday op-ed piece, Zuckerberg at times sounded exasperated as he insisted that the limited access provided by Free Basics was better than no access at all.”
Free Basics has already been deployed in thirty-five countries and provides free Internet for fifteen million people.
What’s the problem with wanting one’s way like blocking our competitors’ services? Absolutely nothing, if you rule the world. If not, there may be push back. I learned this in kindergarten. Zuckerberg can expect lots of push back.
Whitney Grace, January 26, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Social Media Search: Will Informed People Respond?
January 19, 2016
I recall asking for directions recently. There were three young people standing outside a bookstore. I wanted to know where the closest ice cream shop was. The three looked at me, smiled, looked at one another, smiled, and one of them said: “No clue.”
I like the idea of asking a group of people for information, but the experiences I have suggest that one has to be careful. Ask a tough question and no one may know the answer. Ask a question in an unfamiliar way such as “shop” instead of Dairy Queen, and the group may not have the faintest idea what one is talking about.
These thoughts influenced my reading of “Social Media: The Next Best Search Engine.” The title seemed to suggest that I could rely on my old school tricks but I would be silly not to use Facebook and Twitter to get information. That’s okay, but I don’t use Facebook, and the Twitter tweet thing seems to be down.
Bummer.
The write up reports:
Many consumers skip right over Google or Yahoo when conducting a search, and instead type it into social media networks.
The approach may work for peak TV and Miley Cyrus news, but I find analysis of social media intercept data more helpful for some of my queries.
Here’s the trick, according to the article:
To make sure you are responding to this growing trend, be present on social media on the channels that best make sense for your company. …The best way to optimize your posts is through hashtags and the content itself. For Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram, be sure to include relevant hashtags in your posts so that users can find your posts. For sites such as LinkedIn and Yelp which don’t utilize hashtags, make sure that you fill out your profiles as completely as possible.
Okay, indexing and details.
Search? I don’t think I will change my methods.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2016
What Makes You Ill? Social Media? Nope
January 14, 2016
I read “Loneliness, Social Networks, and Health: A Cross-Sectional Study in Three Countries.” The study reveals that people who are unhappy also get sick.
Lots of effort went into this statement:
In all three countries, loneliness was the variable most strongly correlated with health after controlling for depression, age, and other covariates. Loneliness contributed more strongly to health than any component of the social network.
My hunch is that those who are believers in social media will be able to link Snapchat snaps and Reddit posts with feeling good and being healthy.
I have a different view of social media and its possible benefits: Social media posts are outstanding sources of data for those who want to predict where a Google Map thinks you will go. Other groups like social media data as well; for example, bad actors.
My thought is that heavy users of social media may find themselves making new friends. For example, when you get out of your autonomous vehicle and know no one, you can ask, “Yo, dude, where am I?” Then say, “Let’s be friends.” This is a great ice breaker in Woodlawn, for instance.
Another function is that your college roomie now supporting certain groups of interest may open some new “friendship doors.” For example, if an investigative group exploring relationships with certain tools, you will spend quite a bit of time with your new friends.
Social media, therefore, addresses loneliness. That leads to a healthier life. Obvious, no?
Stephen E Arnold, January 14, 2016
Magnetic Forensics Partners with In-Q-Tel to Battle Rising Cyber Crimes
January 6, 2016
The article on GCN titled In-Q-Tel Invests in Digital Forensics Firm discusses the recent addition of Magnetic Forensics to the In-Q-Tel investment portfolio. Digital forensics software is making large strides to improve the safety and security of data in a time when hackers seem unstoppable, and this is the area Magnetic Forensics’ applies expertise and innovation. In-Q-Tel is a technology investment firm that supports and coordinates with the CIA and Intelligence Community. The article explains,
Magnetic Forensics’ flagship product, Internet Evidence Finder, recovers unstructured data — such as social media, chat messages and e-mail from computers, smartphones and tablets — and structures the data for analysis and collaboration. It has been used by 2,700 public safety organizations in 92 counties to investigate cases related to cybercrime, terrorism, child exploitation and insider threats.
Given the almost daily reminders of the vulnerability of our data, investment in this sort of software is timely. Magnetic Forensics’ CEO Adam Belsher explained that IEF works by opening the pipeline of investigator workflow, organizing backlogs, and urgently absorbing the facts of the case to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand. Additionally, the partnership will enhance In-Q-Tel’s existing product line while allowing for the creation of new resources for cyber security.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Scientific Research Has Turned into a Safe Space
December 31, 2015
The Internet is a cold, cruel place, especially if you hang out in the comments section on YouTube, eBay forums, social media, and 4chan. If you practice restraint and limit your social media circles to trusted individuals, you can surf the Internet without encountering trolls and haters. Some people do not practice common sense, so they encounter many hateful situations on the Internet and as a result they demand “safe spaces.” Safe spaces are where people do not encounter anything negative.
Safe spaces are stupid. Period. What is disappointing is that the “safe space” and “only positive things” has made its way into the scientific community according to Nature in the article, “‘Novel, Amazing, Innovative’: Positive Words On The Rise In Science Papers.”
The University Medical Center in the Netherlands studied the use of positive and negative words in the titles of scientific papers and abstracts from 1974-2014 published on the medical database PubMed. The researchers discovered that positive words in titles grew from 2% in 1974 to 17.5% in 2014. Negative word usage increased from 1.3% to 2.4%, while neutral words did not see any change. The trend only applies to research papers, as the same test was run using published books and it showed little change.
“The most obvious interpretation of the results is that they reflect an increase in hype and exaggeration, rather than a real improvement in the incidence or quality of discoveries… The findings “fit our own observations that in order to get published, you need to emphasize what is special and unique about your study,” he says. Researchers may be tempted to make their findings stand out from thousands of others — a tendency that might also explain the more modest rise in usage of negative words.”
While there is some doubt associated with the findings, because it was only applied to PubMed. The original research team thinks that it points to much larger problem, because not all research can be “innovative” or “novel.” The positive word over usage is polluting the social, psychological, and biomedical sciences.
Under the table, this really points to how scientists and researchers are fighting for tenure. What would this mean for search engine optimization if all searches and descriptions had to have a smile? Will they even invent a safe space filter?
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Overhyped Science Stuff
December 30, 2015
After Christmas, comes New Year’s Eve and news outlets take the time to reflect on the changes in the past year. Usually they focus on celebrities who died, headlining news stories, technology advancements, and new scientific discoveries. One of the geeky news outlets on the Internet is Gizmodo and they took their shot at highlighting things that happened in 2015, but rather than focusing on new advances they check off “The Most Overhyped Scientific Discoveries In 2015.”
There was extreme hype about an alien megastructure in outer space that Neil deGrasse Tyson had to address and tell folks they were overreacting. Bacon and other processed meats were labeled as carcinogens and caused cancer! The media, of course, took the bacon link and ran with it causing extreme panic, but in the long run everything causes cancer from cellphones to sugar.
Global warming is a hot topic that always draws arguments and it appears to be getting worse the more humans release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Humans are always ready for a quick solution and a little ice age would rescue Earth. It would be brought on by diminishing solar activity, but it turns out carbon dioxide pollution does more damage than solar viability can fix. Another story involved the nearly indestructible tardigrades and the possibility of horizontal gene transfer, but a dispute between two rival labs about research on tardigrades ruined further research to understanding the unique creature.
The biggest overblown scientific discovery, in our opinion, is NASA’s warp drive. Humans are desperate for breakthroughs in space travel, so we can blast off to Titan’s beaches for a day and then come home within our normal Earth time. NASA experimented with an EM Drive:
“Apparently, the engineers working on the EM Drive decided to address some of the skeptic’s concerns head-on this year, by re-running their experiments in a closed vacuum to ensure the thrust they were measuring wasn’t caused by environmental noise. And it so happens, new EM Drive tests in noise-free conditions failed to falsify the original results. That is, the researchers had apparently produced a minuscule amount of thrust without any propellant.
Once again, media reports made it sound like NASA was on the brink of unveiling an intergalactic transport system.”
NASA might be working on warp drive prototype, but the science is based on short-term experiments, none of it has been peer reviewed, and NASA has not claimed that the engine even works.
The media takes the idea snippets and transforms them into overblown news pieces that are based more on junk science than real scientific investigation.
Whitney Grace, December 30, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Islamic State Is Now a Convenient App
December 28, 2015
It used to be that if you wanted to be an enemy of western civilization you had to have ties to a derelict organization or even visit an enemy nation. It was difficult, especially with the limits of communication in pre-Internet days. Western Union and secret radio signals only went so far, but now with the Internet insurgent recruitment is just a few mouse clicks away or even an app download. The Telegraph reports that the “Islamic State Releases Its Own Smartphone App” to spread propaganda and pollute Islam’s true message.
Islamic State (Isil) released an Android app to disseminate the terrorist group’s radical propaganda. The app was brought to light by hacktivist Ghost Security Group, who uncovered directions to install the app on the encrypted message service Telegram. Ghost Security says that the app publishes propaganda from Amaq News Agency, the Islamic State’s propaganda channel, such as beheadings and warnings about terrorist attacks. It goes to show that despite limited resources, if one is tech savvy and has an Internet connection the possibilities are endless.
” ‘They want to create a broadcast capability that is more secure than just leveraging Twitter and Facebook,’ ” Michael Smith of Kronos Advisory, a company that acts as a conduit between GhostSec and the US government, told CS Monitor.
‘[Isil] has always been looking for a way to provide easy access to all of the material.’ ”
Isil might have the ability to create propaganda and an app, but they do have a limited reach. In order to find this app, one has to dig within the Internet and find instructions. Hacktivist organizations like Ghost Security and Anonymous are using their technology skills to combat terrorist organizations with success. Most terrorist group propaganda will not be found within the first page of search results, one has to work to find them, but not that hard.
Whitney Grace, December 28, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Bye-Bye Paid Reviews
December 22, 2015
One has to admit that this sounds like a sweet way to make a few quick dollars: write a fake online review about a product or service highlighting good points and sellable features, post it on your social media accounts, Amazon, your blog, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and then collect a few bucks. While Twitter might slowly be losing the social media race against Facebook and Instagram, the UK Telegraph says that the social network has another useful purpose: “Has Twitter Finally Killed The Mess Of The False Online Review?”
Fake reviews cost consumers millions of dollars each year, because they believe that first hand accounts from regular people trump a corporate advertising account. However, it spawned a big market for people to spend a few dollars to pay someone write a fake review and give a product/service a positive spin. The consumer is getting tired of fake reviews, as are online retailers like Amazon and the US government, which has even drafted the Consumer Review Freedom Act.
Twitter is jumping into action using big data moves like real time data sentimental analysis, location-based apps that search social media content for content, and algorithms to analyze tweets
“Chief executive Giles Palmer believes that apps such as Twizoo are only the start of how products and businesses are evaluated, especially as social media continues to evolve. ‘Until recently, social media monitoring has been a listening business where companies and brands have kept an eye on what their customers are doing, but not doing too much about it…But with mobile customers are after products and goods where they want to make an instant decision based on instant data. What’s more they want that data to be reliable and to be truthful; Twitter provides that.’”
Consumers are being more discerning about the products and services they purchase, but they also trust reviews to help them evaluate them so they will not be duped. High praise for Twitter for proving how social media is valuable as a learning tool and also for proving it is still a worthwhile network.
Whitney Grace, December22, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Score One for Yandex
December 21, 2015
Russian search powerhouse Yandex has successfully sued Google, we learn from re/code’s article, “Meet the Russian Company that Got Its Antitrust Watchdog to Bite Google.” Reporter Mark Bergen interviewed Yandex’s Roman Krupenin, who has led this legal campaign. In his intro, Bergen relates:
“In October, Russia’s antitrust authority ruled that Google’s practice of bundling its services on Android handsets violated national law. The case’s lead complainant was Yandex, an 18-year old Web search and advertising company. It’s not a global name, but is big in Russia. Last quarter, Yandex raked in $233.1 million in revenue. (For context, Google averaged about $179 million in sales a day over the same period.) Most Russians use Yandex for Internet searches — an estimated 57 percent in the last quarter, though that share has slipped in recent years. The culprit? According to Yandex, it’s the favored position of Google’s apps, including its search one and its browser, on Android smartphones, which outnumber iPhones in Russia considerably. To fight it off, Yandex has pushed to cut handset agreements of its own: It finalized one with Lenovo last year, and paired with Microsoft last month to make Yandex’s homepage and search results the Russian default for Windows 10.”
Furthermore, we’re reminded, Yandex is also taking part in the EU’s latest antitrust investigation. Naturally, Google is appealing the decision. See the article for text of the interview, where Krupenin discusses the focus on Android over Search, the unique factors that made for victory over the notoriously slippery company, and the call for an end to Google’s service-bundling practices.
Cynthia Murrell, December 21, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Topsy: Good Bye, Gentle Search Engine
December 18, 2015
I used Topsy as a way to search certain social content. No more. The service, she be dead.
The money constrained Apple has shut down the public Topsy search system. “Social Analytics Firm Topsy Shut Down by Apple Two Years After Purchase.”
If you want a recommendation for an alternative, sorry, I don’t have one. There are some solutions that are not free to the general public. The gateways to social media content require money and a bit of effort. If you cannot search content, maybe the content does not exist? That’s a comforting thought unless one knows that the content is available, just not searchable by a person with an Internet connection in a public library, at home, or from the local Apple store.
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2015
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