Amazon: A Burr under a Presidential Saddle?
August 14, 2020
This may just be an example of how a national scheme plays out on the local level. The Portland Press Herald reports, “Amazon Gets Priority While Mail Gets Delayed, Say Letter Carriers.” Mark Seitz, a Portland postal service veteran and president of the Maine State Association of Letter Carriers and the National Association of Letter Carriers Local 92, filed a complaint on July 13 with the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. Corroborated by two colleagues, Seitz alleges Portland’s Postmaster James Thornton deliberately delayed first-, second-, and third-class mail by ordering Amazon’s fourth-class packages be sorted first. Willfully delaying mail, it turns out, is a federal offense. Interesting.
Reporter Reuben Schafir informs us:
“Seitz’s complaint says that Thornton had done so on June 29, July 6 and July 13, all Mondays when the volume of mail is especially challenging. Two other carriers say it happens even more frequently. … According to three letter carriers working out of the Portland office, enough mail to fill four to five ‘shark cages’ – 4-by-5-foot bins containing mail – have been left in each of the office’s five units overnight multiple days per week. Carriers estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 first-class and priority packages were delivered late each time this happened. Typically, letter carriers sort a small amount of mail in the morning before they begin their routes. If mail isn’t sorted by the time carriers leave, they return midday to collect it or an assistant carrier would step in and ensure that all the mail is delivered on time. Now, according to letter carriers inside the Portland post office, clerks are told to stop sorting by 8:30 a.m., an hour and a half before most carriers leave for their routes, and are then sent home to cut costs, leaving first-class parcels unsorted in the office overnight.”
See the article for more details. Could this be part of a national effort to slow down the mail for political gain? Some believe so. The agency is already struggling with staff shortages accompanied by delayed route reviews, meaning fewer workers are expected to deliver more and more mail. Another factor is Amazon’s 2013 lopsided contract with the USPS. Through rain, sleet, and bureaucracy, the Amazon packages get through. Will Thornton be held accountable? Will anyone? Will the burr be barred?
Cynthia Murrell, August 14, 2020
Fordham University Professor Makes Startling Assertion about FAANG
August 5, 2020
In an online publication called Chron.com, a startling assertion was made. “The Legal Fight Against Big Tech Is Like the Fight Against Organized Crime” states:
There are more than a few similarities between the organized crime and these four companies. Like the Mafia, the threats that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google pose to American democracy flow from the power they have over key services (from email to social media to music and film), the way they use dominance in one area to achieve dominance in others and their ability to use fear to stop challenges to their control.
The author points out:
Like the Mafia, they are a resilient, surveillance-based shadow government. So citizens are dual subjects – of the country, and of the flawed online markets created by these companies. Like the mob, big tech has friends in very high places. Likewise, big tech is an oligarchy with several bosses, who compete in some territories but generally divide power among themselves, without consulting elected officials. Obviously, I am not saying Facebook and Google murder and kneecap their opponents, or burn down businesses that refuse to play by their rules; I am not equating tech companies with the mob.
DarkCyber is not sure if this lawyerly statement will assuage the Big Four. Who will step forward and suggest that these firms are the Gang of Four reincarnated in bro cloths in Silicon Valley type endeavors?
Interesting: Mob, threats, surveillance, and money. Sounds like a tasty mob polenta.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2020
Amazon Policeware: Fraud Detection
August 4, 2020
We spotted “Fraud Detector Launched on AWS Platform.” As one pre pandemic, face-to-face conference organizer told me, “No one cares about Amazon policeware. The future is quantum computing.”
Yeah, okay.
Amazon does not buy big booths at law enforcement and intelligence conferences. For now, that’s the responsibility of its partners. No booth, no attention at least for one super charged quantum cheerleader.
The write up states:
With Amazon Fraud Detector, customers use their historical data of both fraudulent and legitimate transactions to build, train, and deploy machine learning models that provide real-time, low-latency fraud risk predictions. To get started, customers upload historical event data (e.g. transactions, account registrations, loyalty points redemptions, etc.) to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), where it is encrypted in transit and at rest and used to customize the model’s training. Customers only need to provide any two attributes associated with an event (e.g. logins, new account creation, etc.) and can optionally add other data (e.g. billing address or phone number). Based upon the type of fraud customers want to predict, Amazon Fraud Detector will pre-process the data, select an algorithm, and train a model.
And what does an Amazon person whom remains within the Amazon box with the smile on the side say? The write up reports:
Customers of all sizes and across all industries have told us they spend a lot of time and effort trying to decrease the amount of fraud occurring on their websites and applications. By leveraging 20 years of experience detecting fraud coupled with powerful machine learning technology, we’re excited to bring customers Amazon Fraud Detector so they can automatically detect potential fraud, save time and money, and improve customer experiences—with no machine learning experience required.
Several observations:
- Combined with “other” financial data available within the AWS system, Amazon’s fraud detection system may be of interest to some significant financial services firms.
- The technology provides a glimpse of what AWS can support; for example, matching tax returns to “other” financial signals in order to flag interesting returns.
- The technical widgets in the AWS structure makes it possible for a clever partner to reinvent a mostly unknown financial task: Identification or flagging of medical financial data for fraud. Subrogation with the point-and-click Amazon interface? Maybe.
To sum up, we offer a one hour lecture about Amazon’s policeware initiative. I know “free” is compelling, but this lecture costs money. For details write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. Note: The program is different from our Amazon lecture for the 2020 US National Cyber Crime Conference.
No, it is not about the Quantum Computer Revolutions, but we do discuss Amazon’s Quantum Ledger Database. It works. Some quantum computing demonstrations do not.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2020
Funding Open Source: Saddle Up, Don Quixotes
July 30, 2020
I read “A New Funding Model for Open Source Software.” The main idea is that the current approach to financial “support” of open source software is broken. I agree, particularly if one looks at the problem from the developer or developers in the “community.”
The fix, according to the write up, is “sponsor pools.” Here are the details:
Every month, you donate some amount into a “wallet”. Your funds are then distributed to the projects in your “sponsor pool”. Your sponsor pool is just the set of open-source projects you want to support. Adding new projects to your pool should require one click — as easy as starring the repo on GitHub. That’s it. It’s hardly ingenious, which is why it’s surprising that no major player in OSS has implemented it for facilitating open source donations.
The comments to the post at this link are interesting and raise a number of points, both pro and con.
I noticed that none of the comments pointed out that open source has become the hunting ground for certain large technology companies. Github is owned by Microsoft; Amazon is ferrying open source code into its proprietary AWS walled garden; Google is “contributing to the community” and then using the community as a recruiting supply line. Other techniques are in play as well.
Also, open source is more attractive to large established companies. These firms have the staff and financial resources to make chunks of open source play nicely together. The goal is to eliminate dependence on proprietary solutions, restrictive license agreements, and those necessary maintenance and engineering services deals. Smaller outfits often find Microsoft a convenient way to solve a database problem. Why? It’s available and semi-reliable. Keep in mind that Microsoft bought Github for control and revenue opportunities.
Finally, a number of the comments suggest, “Let Github do it.” Yeah, I really think Microsoft has open source software love as a business motivation. But that’s just my view.
My view is that open source, like other nifty things associated with the “old days” of the Internet may be facing some challenges and not just from Rona.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2020
Oracle and Blockchain
July 28, 2020
Amidst the angst about US big technology companies, Rona, and Intel’s management floundering, Oracle blockchain is easy to overlook. “Oracle Updates Blockchain Platform Cloud Service.” The title alone invokes the image of Amazon’s blockchain platform and its associated moving parts.
The write up focuses on Oracle as if the Amazon and other options do not exist. But the parallels with Amazon’s blockchain services are clearly articulated. The article reports:
Blockchain Platform Cloud Service features stronger access controls for sharing confidential information, greater decentralization capabilities for blockchain consortiums, and stronger audibility when rich history database feature is used in conjunction with Oracle Database Blockchain Tables.
Even more Amazon envy seems to have influenced this “new” feature:
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Availability Domains (and in the regions with a single Availability Domain, three Fault Domains) to provide stronger resilience and recoverability, with the SLA for the Enterprise SKUs of at least 99.95%.
The line up of services strikes me as having been developed after reading Amazon’s blockchain documentation; for example:
- On demand storage
- Spiffed up access controls
- Workflow functions.
There is one difference, however. It appears that Oracle wants to tackle Amazon blockchain at a weak point: Price. Oracle is not likely to be significantly cheaper than AWS blockchain. Oracle wants to make its pricing more or less understandable to a prospect.
Will clarity allow Oracle to compete with Amazon blockchain?
After losing Amazon as a customer and watching the online book store pump out blockchain inventions for several years, Oracle hopes its approach will prevail or at least catch up with the Bezos bulldozer.
Stephen E Arnold, July 28, 2020
Alleged Business Practices of the Rich and Worshipped or Ethics R Us
July 28, 2020
DarkCyber spotted two separate stories which address a common theme. The write ups are “new age” news, so allegations, speculation, and political perspectives infuse the words used in each of these. Nevertheless, both write ups merit noting because two points are useful when a trend line may lurk in the slope between the dots.
The first article is “Google Spying on Users’ Data to Learn How Rival Apps Work: Report.” The article asserts:
Google is reportedly keeping tabs to how its users interact with rival Android apps, selectively monitoring how the users interact with non-Google apps via an internal program to make its own products better.
The article jumps to Google’s unique ability to see lots of data from its privileged position of being involved in each facet of certain markets: Channel, partner, vendor, developer, and customer. The operative word in the title is “spying,” but the issue is ethical and socially responsible behavior. Some science club members want access to the good stuff in the electronics supply door. Hey, cool.
The second write up is about everyone’s favorite online retailer, cloud vendor, and services firm. DarkCyber thinks the logo of Amazon should be the Bezos bulldozer. It landscapes the way it wants. “Amazon Reportedly Invested in Startups and Gained Proprietary Information before Launching Competitors, Often Crushing the Smaller Companies in the Process” is one of those stories whose title is the story. We noted this passage in the write up as additive:
Amazon met with or invested in their companies, only to later build its own products that directly competed with the smaller company.
Let’s assume that these write ups are mostly accurate. The behaviors are untoward because those duped, bilked, fooled, or swindled assumed that those across the table were playing with an unmarked deck and wanted an honest game.
DarkCyber sees the behavior as similar to a “land grab.” As long as there is minimal anti monopoly enforcement and essentially zero consequences in a legal process, the companies identified in these write ups can do what they want. DarkCyber thinks that the behaviors are institutionalizes; that is, even with changes in senior management and regulatory oversight, the organizations will, like a giant autonomous mine truck, just keep rolling forward. When the truck rolls over a worker, collateral damage. That’s how life works in the gee whiz world of high technology.
Stephen E Arnold, July 28, 2020
A Twitch Tale: Modern Life, a Debit Card, and Cluelessness
July 21, 2020
DarkCyber spotted an item in one of our feeds because the word “fraud” appeared in the document. The content object was “Teenager Takes $20,000 of Parents’ Money, Gives It to Twitch Streamers.” The write up explains:
the minor spent years of savings in just 17 days using a debit card. The boy paid for subscriptions, which can go as high as $24.99 per month, bought Bits—virtual goods used to Cheer in chat messages—and made uncapped donations to various streamers. Speaker to Dot Esports, the mother said that $19,870.94 was charged to a debit card between June 14 and 30.
Banks view this type of activity as a type of chargeback fraud. A consumer makes a purchase and then requests a chargeback after receiving the product or service.
One question is, “What about those parents?” Another is, “Should Twitch have a more fine grained system in place to prevent those under a certain age from spending above a threshold?”
The Twitch question could be answered with an algorithm or a simple rule based system. The gain for the Twitchers who received some financial love from a follower is good news… for them. For the parents, bad news. Perhaps the alleged adults should look into the concept of a pre-paid debit card with a hard limit? For now, it is hasta la vista $20K. For the teen? Probably back online and absorbing video streams.
And Amazon Twitch? Just another day of “good enough” safeguards for users, their parents, and talent formerly known as Dr. Disrespect, whose name has a certain je ne sais quoi.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2020
Amazon Product Fulfillment in a Post Brexit World: Red Tape, Higher Costs, and Smaller Markets for Some Sellers
July 20, 2020
You are a merchant. Let’s say you import products from countries in the orbit of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok. The goods arrive, and you trundle them off to an Amazon Fulfillment Center or AFC, which is part of the Fulfillment by Amazon subsystem. This is called FBA.
Amazon has a big fulfillment operation in the UK. Who doesn’t like those Thursday trips to London, a day of meetings, and then the post Covid thrill of looking at pigeons in Trafalgar Square? Home in time for Monday meetings too.
Nope. The Bezos bulldozer is changing in order to adapt to what looks like Brexit and some UK – EU tensions. (Alternatively the Amazon managers are testing how to go about breaking “stuff” up. A dry run, maybe like the Twitter security probe by alleged script kiddies?)
The Amazon announcement appears in Tamebay in an article called with remarkable sonorousness “Amazon FBA Brexit Bombshell – EFN and Pan-European FBA ends for UK.” Those lucky British Amazon sellers get a smaller market as a bonus: 60 million versus 400 million in round numbers.
I mention the write up because it looks at an Amazon wiggle through a quite narrow lens. Even the Ripper drone takes a broader view of surveilled actions.
This mindset may be useful when assessing the FBA EFN acronym fiesta.
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2020
Amazon: We Love the Cheery Smile, But Does It Have a Darker Meaning?
July 13, 2020
Who needs the Dark Web when one has Amazon? The Markup reveals, “Amazon’s Enforcement Failures Leave Open a Back Door to Banned Goods—Some Sold and Shipped by Amazon Itself.” Investigators at The Markup began combing the site for banned goods after a series of deaths and illnesses attributed to one counterfeit pill maker. The fake-Percocet maker, now in prison, revealed he’d bought his pill press right off Amazon. The journalists were dismayed to find nearly 100 dangerous and/or illegal items readily available on the site. All of these products are explicitly banned in Amazon’s third-party seller rules and prohibitions for the U.S. market. Reporters Annie Gilbertson and Jon Keegan write:
“The Markup filled a shopping cart with a bounty of banned items: marijuana bongs, ‘dab kits’ used to inhale cannabis concentrates, ‘crackers’ that can be used to get high on nitrous oxide, and compounds that reviews showed were used as injectable drugs. We found two pill presses and a die used to shape tablets into a Transformers logo, which is among the characters that have been found imprinted on club drugs such as ecstasy. We found listings for prohibited tools for picking locks and jimmying open car doors. And we found AR-15 gun parts and accessories that Amazon specifically bans. Almost three dozen listings for banned items were sold by third parties but available to ship from Amazon’s own warehouses. At least four were listed as ‘Amazon’s Choice.’ The phrase ‘ships from and sold by Amazon.com’ appeared beneath the buy button of five of the banned items we found, which two former employees confirmed means those products are, in fact, sold by Amazon. In addition, one of the sellers we were able to reach also confirmed it sold the items to Amazon.”
Of course, “Amazon’s choices” are often chosen by algorithm, which is part of the problem. The site does have a process for finding and removing banned products, but the human reviewers cannot keep up with the onslaught of third-party uploads. The journalists found several products that evaded detection by being listed as something they are not—like the AR-15 vise block masquerading as a desk accessory, complete with paperclips and pencil erasers in the image. Other items simply avoid telltale keywords, but are plain as day to anyone who views the listing. It is apparent even the algorithm has a clue because it frequently recommends items related to the product at hand. See the article for more examples.
What will Amazon do about this alarming issue? Well, if we take spokesperson Patrick Graham’s responses as a guide, the answer is it will downplay the problem. Seems about right.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2020
Amzon AWS Cost Control Insights
June 29, 2020
Amazon’s AWS is a fascinating business case. On one hand, AWS reduces some of the hurdles to modern solution development. On the other hand, it is easy — even for an experienced Certified AWS expert — to forget what’s running, whether a particular service is unnecessary, or what processes are tucked into the corner of Jeff Bezos’ profit making machine. “Our AWS Bill is ~ 2% of revenue. Here’s How We Did It” provides a run down of the money gobblers and provides some helpful guidance. There are screenshots in the Gulf racing colors of orange and blue. There are explanations. Plus, there are useful insights; for example:
Our application is a Shopify app and during the process of building the application we created a Shopify store. Every Shopify store gets its own personal CDN where you can manually upload anything and it will be served over the Shopify CDN. So we minified and uploaded our JS file to the CDN of our Shopify store and now we serve 20000 Shopify stores using this method at zero cost.
One problem: There are more ways for Mr. Bezos to suck cash from eager and willing customers than helpful explanations of how to keep expenses low.
Stephen E Arnold, June 29, 2020
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