Amazon ARM: We Are Just Being Efficient. Absolutely.
September 17, 2020
The Register published “AWS Is Bursting with Pride for Its Arm CPU Cores – So Much It’s Put Them behind a Burstable Instance Type.” The main point is that certain AWS uses cases will be less expensive. Good. However, the most interesting facet of the write up is this comment from an individual who uses the handle “Anonymous Coward”; to wit:
ARM servers in the datacenter are not going to be a Thing until there is a sufficiently common systems architecture that important software can be portable between different vendors’ implementations without a massive conversion and optimization effort. Compare for example AWS ARM instances and the Fujitsu ARM compute nodes. The market today is a lot like the desktop computer world before the IBM PC (which, incidentally, is the direct ancestor of the Lintel server of today). Contrast the rapid adoption of GPUs for compute, which is facilitated enormously by Nvidia driving a standardized API across a broad range of cards. The worst case scenario for ARM servers is that the market remains an archipelago of incompatible implementations. The second worst is that AWS ARM instances become the de facto standard by sheer weight of market presence, and everybody else is left trying to “do what AWS does” by inspection, much like S3.
DarkCyber believes that Anonymous Coward has nailed the AWS tactic. Competitors have to be more like Amazon AWS. The long term objective, in DarkCyber’s opinion, is to implement an updated version of IBM’s “lock in tactics.” Pretty savvy for an online vendor of digital books.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2020
Amazon Cares and Helps Small Business
September 16, 2020
DarkCyber noted “Amazon to Invest $18 Billion This Year to Help SMBs.”
“SMB” means small and mid sized businesses. These are the companies that are going out of business because some of the digital monopolists do not care.
The write up states with enthusiasm:
In the next 12 months, the ecommerce behemoth will provide more than 500,000 SMBs in the US currently selling on Amazon, with online selling guidance, education, and support and the company plans to onboard an additional 100,000 US businesses as new sellers in its store.
But that is not all:
Amazon has launched more than 135 new tools and services this year to help sellers manage and grow their businesses, including new ways to connect brands with customers. The company said it will spend an additional $100 million this year to promote small businesses during Prime Day and through the holiday season. Last year during Prime Day, third-party sellers – mostly SMBs – exceeded $2 billion in global sales.
Definitely significant because if it works, Amazon wins. That’s the way it is supposed to be when the Bezos bulldozer drives along the Information Superhighway. That road may feature billboards which say, “We are helping.” Impressive.
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2020
Amazon and Its Next Leader According to Bezos Owned AMZ Paper
September 14, 2020
Modern “real news.” Definitely interesting most of the time. I read “Bezos’s Likely Amazon Successor Is an Executive Made in Bezos’s Image.” (I know the story is objective because the page displayed “Support journalism you can trust when it matters most.” Thomson Reuters uses the trust thing too. Okay, trust. The write up is notable because one syllable words ending in “s” require an apostrophe s when used in a possessive structure; for example, Bezos’s newspaper or Bezos’s billions.)
The main point is that the head of Amazon Web Services could take over when Mr. Bezos drives the Bezos bulldozer (no apostrophe because the noun is used as an adjective) into / over another challenge.
I learned:
the company still values high-risk, high-reward bets and is less defined by online shopping than some might think.
Plus, there’s a rare pothole in the Amazon autobahn:
Even in the cloud business, Amazon has had to confront a newly vigorous rival, Microsoft, which has won contracts — including a massive one from the Defense Department — that Amazon might have handily taken just a few years ago.
Are there key points about the possible Bezos replacement? Perhaps:
- Harvard
- Ideas, not operations
- Onliney, not retaily.
This statement seems important:
While retail drives Amazon’s revenue, the cloud business fuels Amazon’s bottom line. AWS generated $3.4 billion in net income in the most recent quarter, about 64 percent of Amazon’s total profit, even though the business accounted for just 12 percent of Amazon’s sales.
Several questions:
- Why the profile now?
- Why emphasize the anti-administration angle?
- What’s the plan for AWS?
I know that the Bezos newspaper is objective. And trust. Yep, the trust thing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 14, 2020
Amazon and Halliburton: A Tie Up to Watch? Yep
September 11, 2020
DarkCyber noted “Explor, Halliburton, AWS Collaborate to Achieve Breakthrough with Seismic Data Processing in the Cloud.” The write up explains that crunching massive seismic data sets works. Among the benchmarks reported by the online bookstore and the environmentally-aware engineering and services companies are:
- An 85% decrease in CDP sort order times: Tested by sorting 308 million traces comprising of 1.72 TB from shot domain to CDP domain, completing the flow in an hour.
- An 88% decrease in CDP FK Filtering times: Tested with a 57 million-trace subset of the data comprising 318 GB, completing the flow in less than 6 minutes.
- An 82% decrease in pre-stack time migration times: Tested on the full 165 million-trace dataset comprising of 922GB, completing the flow in 54 minutes.
What do these data suggest? Better, faster, and cheaper processing?
We noted this paragraph in the write up:
“The collaboration with AWS and Explor demonstrates the power of digital investments that Halliburton is making, in this instance to bring high-density surveys to market faster and more economically than ever before. By working with industry thought leaders like Explor and AWS, we have been able to demonstrate that digital transformation can deliver step-change improvements in the seismic processing market.” – Philip Norlund, Geophysics Domain Manager, Halliburton, Landmark
Keep in mind that these data are slightly more difficult to manipulate than a couple hundred thousand tweets.
Stephen E Arnold, September 11, 2020
Amazon: Nope, We Do Not Have an Interest in Intelware
September 10, 2020
A number of individuals have informed me that Amazon has zero interest in what I call “intelware.” The term refers to services, features, and information products designed to meet the needs of certain government agencies. These individuals are convinced that Amazon sells online books and discounted wireless headphones.
I would point out that there are some who do not accept this denial. One example appears in the “real news” outfit The Verge’s article titled “Former NSA Chief Keith Alexander Has Joined Amazon’s Board of Directors.” General Alexander is a capable individual, and he can share his experience and wisdom to refine the process of selling electric toothbrushes and other fungible oddments. After retiring, he founded IronNet Cybersecurity. Kindles can never be too secure.
As for intelware, Amazon is not in that business. At least, that’s what I have been told. Are there challenges beyond JEDI? Obviously not.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2020
Amazon: Employee Surveillance and the Bezos Bulldozer with DeepLens, Ring, and Alexa Upgrades
September 4, 2020
Editor’s Note: This link to Eyes Everywhere: Amazon’s Surveillance Infrastructure and Revitalizing Worker Power may go bad; that is, happy 404 to you. There’s not much DarkCyber can do. Just a heads up, gentle reader.
The information in a report by Open Markets called Amazon’s Surveillance Infrastructure and Revitalizing Worker Power may be difficult to verify and comprehend. People think of Amazon in terms of boxes with smiley faces and quick deliveries of dog food and Lightning cables.
Happy Amazon boxes.
The 34 page document paints a picture of sad Amazon boxes.
The main point is that the Bezos bulldozer drives over employees, not just local, regional, and national retail outlets:
A fundamental aspect of its power is the corporation’s ability to surveil every aspect of its workers’ behavior and use the surveillance to create a harsh and dehumanizing working environment that produces a constant state of fear, as well as physical and mental anguish. The corporation’s extensive and pervasive surveillance practices deter workers from collectively organizing and harm their physical and mental health. Amazon’s vast surveillance infrastructure constantly makes workers aware that every single movement they make is tracked and scrutinized. When workers make the slightest mistake, Amazon can use its surveillance infrastructure to terminate them.
Several observations:
- Amazon is doing what Amazon does. Just like beavers doing what beavers do. Changing behavior is not easy. Evidence: Ask the parents of a child addicted to opioids.
- Stakeholders are happy. Think of the the song with the line “money, money, money.”
- Amazon has the cash, clout, and commitment to pay for lobbying the US government. So far the President of the United States has been able to catch Amazon’s attention with a JEDI sword strike, but that’s not slowed down Darth Jeff.
Net net: After 20 plus years of zero meaningful regulation, the activities of the Bezos bulldozer should be viewed as a force (like “May the force be with you.”) DarkCyber wants to point out that Amazon is also in the policeware business. The write up may be viewed as validation of Amazon’s investments in this market sector.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2020
Amazon UAS: What Other Applications Exist?
September 4, 2020
Amazon has been poking around unmanned aerial systems (aka drones) for years. According to “Amazon Wins FAA Approval to Deliver Packages by Drone,” some drones will be avoiding part-time drivers, grousing third-party services, and people who allegedly hang phones in trees to get a jump on other drivers. Traffic jams? Not a problem? Jamming and kinetic take downs? What is this a war zone?
The write up states:
Amazon unveiled self-piloting drones that are fully electric, can carry 5 pounds of goods and are designed to deliver items in 30 minutes by dropping them in a backyard.
Perhaps Amazon will market the Ring and DeepLens devices as must-have security mechanisms.
Some questions arose from the DarkCyber team after we learned about the FAA okay:
- Can Amazon equip its drones with high-resolution surveillance cameras?
- Can Amazon geo fence and area in order to obtain footage of a specific object or person of interest?
- Can Amazon modify its UAS technology to compete with companies like Anduril?
Worth monitoring?
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2020
No Return of the JEDI for Amazon
August 31, 2020
i read “Conflict of Interest? We’ve Heard of It. AWS on Selection Panel to Choose UK.gov’s Chief Digi [sic] Officer.” The main point of the article, which I assume is accurate, is that AWS UK top dog Doug Gurr will sit on a committee responsible for choosing the UK’s next chief digital officer. The Register article provides links and contextual information. Helpful.
However, the write up does not address what DarkCyber’s research team is the reason for the SugarDaddy.com approach to providing input. Is it possible that Amazon’s top dogs remember the significant and somewhat humiliating defeat delivered right between the eyes of the tag team of Jeff Bezos and Teresa Carlson, world’s richest human and former head of Microsoft governmental sales respectively?
Losing that work has already had a negative impact on Amazon’s policeware business and dims its hoped for incursions into adjacent services; for example, processing IRS tax returns to identify possibly fraudulent claims. Microsoft has had the original idea of stepping up competitive pressure in Middle Eastern countries which AWS has worked hard to move to these nation states’ technological futures. Yikes.
Net net: Amazon is doing what it can to make sure there will be no return of the JEDI.
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2020
Amazon Data: Yes, There Is a Good Reason
August 28, 2020
About three years ago, I gave my first lecture about Amazon’s streaming data marketplace. The audience was about 150 law enforcement and intelligence professionals. My goal was to describe some technical capabilities Amazon had set up since 2006. I stumbled upon the information reading through AWS public sector information available from open source; for example, patent documents and Amazon’s blog posts.
I was greeted with “We buy quite a bit from Amazon, but policeware?” I have included a description of the streaming data marketplace in my talks and posted some information in this blog. I was interviewed by reporters from Le Monde, the New York Times, and a couple of other “real news” outfits. Like those engaged in law enforcement and intelligence, no one cared.
One company developing specialized software expressed surprise when I recommended taking a look at what capabilities resided in the Amazon Web Services’ construct. The reaction was, “Everyone uses Microsoft Azure.” Most recently I gave three lectures at the 2020 National Cyber Crime Conference. One of them was about Amazon. I have about 250 people at my talks about investigative software and alternatives to the Dark Web. I still don’t know who listened to my Amazon lecture. I assume not too many people.
I read “Kindle Collects a Surprisingly Large Amount of Data.” The write up makes a single point. Reach a book or some other text on an Amazon Kindle and data flows to Amazon. There’s no awareness of the online book store’s streaming data marketplace or any of the related technology, features, and functions. Well, there is one article. That’s a start.
I scanned the comments and noted one which struck me as interesting:
There’s definitely no good reason why it should be sent to Amazon at all.
A good reason exists. Amazon is poised to provide a number of useful services to government agencies. Let me spark thinking with some questions:
What’s the value of a service which can generate a “value” score or “reliability” score or a “credibility” score for an individual?
Answer these and one is well on the way to grasping the Amazon policeware and intelware construct in my opinion. You can learn more by writing benkent2020 at yahoo dot com and inquiring about our Amazon for fee reports.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2020
Amazon and Toyota: Tacoma Connects to AWS
August 20, 2020
This is just a very minor story. For most people, the information reported in “Toyota, Amazon Web Services Partner On Cloud-Connected Vehicle Data” will be irrelevant. The value of the data collected by the respective firms and their partners is trivial and will not have much impact. Furthermore, any data processed within Amazon’s streaming data marketplace and made available to some of the firm’s customers will be of questionable value. That’s why I am not immediately updating my Amazon reports to include the Toyota and insurance connection.
Now to the minor announcement:
Toyota will use AWS’ services to process and analyze data “to help Toyota engineers develop, deploy, and manage the next generation of data-driven mobility services for driver and passenger safety, security, comfort, and convenience in Toyota’s cloud-connected vehicles. The MSPF and its application programming interfaces (API) will enable Toyota to use connected vehicle data to improve vehicle design and development, as well as offer new services such as rideshare, full-service lease, proactive vehicle maintenance notifications and driving behavior-based insurance.
Are there possible implications from this link up? Sure, but few people care about Amazon’s commercial, financial, and governmental services, why think about issues like:
- Value of the data to the AWS streaming data marketplace
- Link analytics related to high risk individuals or fleet owners
- Significance of the real time data to predictive analytics, maybe to insurance carriers and others?
Nope, not much of a big deal at all. Who cares? Just mash that Buy Now button and move on. Curious about how Amazon ensures data integrity in such a system? If you are, you can purchase our 50 page report about Amazon’s advanced data security services. Just write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com.
But I know first hand after two years of commentary, shopping is more fun than thinking about Amazon examined from a different viewshed.
Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2020
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