Open Source: Everything New Is Old Again
October 7, 2019
The Andreessen Horowitz open source info blitz contains some good stuff. You will want to read the essay “Open Source: From Community to Commercialization” and, if you qualify, download the pdf of lecture notes. We noted this statement from the essay about the SaaS open source business model:
In a SaaS model, you provide a complete hosted offering of the software. If your value and competitive edge is in the operational excellence of the software, then SaaS is a good choice. However, since SaaS is usually based around cloud hosting, there is the potential risk that public clouds will choose to take your open source code and compete.
Accurate.
We noted this statement at the end of the article:
I [Peter Levine / Jennifer Li?] believe Open Source 3.0 will expand how we think of and define open source businesses. Open source will no longer be RedHat, Elastic, Databricks, and Cloudera; it will be – at least in part – Facebook, Airbnb, Google, and any other business that has open source as a key part of its stack. When we look at open source this way, then the renaissance underway may only be in its infancy. The market and possibilities for open source software are far greater than we have yet realized.
Correct.
Years ago, the DarkCyber team undertook a study of a dozen open source software vendors specializing in search and retrieval. Today, most of those vendors have embraced “artificial intelligence”, “predictive analytics”, and “natural language processing”. That’s because search is a utility and the developers and vendors of general purpose open source software have to differentiate themselves. In the course of that research, DarkCyber noted several things.
- Big companies in 2008 were among the most enthusiastic testers and eventually users of open source software. Why? Our data suggested that open source allowed users of commercial proprietary software more freedom to make changes. Bug fixes would often arrive in a more timely way. Plus, the IBM- and Oracle-style license fees did not come along for the ride. That is probably true in some cases today.
- Open source was a free lunch. The developers often contributed for the common good; others created and made available open source software as a way to demonstrate and prove their capabilities. Translation, as one person told one of my researchers, “A job, man. Big bucks.”
- Monetization was mostly “little plays”; that is use our free stuff and then pay for support or proprietary extensions.
Flash forward to today. Some of these three decade old findings may still be in play, but the context is now very different.
What’s changed?
For the first time, meta plays are possible. Forget the investment, merger, and acquisition angles that motivate venture capital firms. Think in terms of just using Amazon and paying for what you need.
Start ups no longer just use Microsoft because it is available and works. Start ups use Amazon because it appears to be open source, cheap or subsidized, and available globally.
The challenge this presents to open source is significant. DarkCyber is not convinced that open source developers, users of open source software, analysts, and other professionals recognize what Amazon’s meta play and strategy is doing; that is, creating a new context of open source.
Want to learn more about Amazon’s meta play for open source? Write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com and inquire about our Amazon strategy webinar. Note: It’s not a freebie.
Everthing new is old again, including vendor lock in.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2019
Amazon AWS, DHS Tie Up: Meaningful or Really Meaningful?
October 7, 2019
In my two lectures at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics conference in San Antonio last week, my observations about Amazon AWS and the US government generated puzzled faces. Let’s face it. Amazon means a shopping service for golf shirts and gym wear.
I would like to mention — very, very briefly because interest in Amazon’s non shopping activities is low among some market sectors — “DHS to Deploy AWS-Based Biometrics System.” The deal is for Homeland Security:
to deploy a cloud-based system that will process millions of biometrics data and support the department’s efforts to modernize its facial recognition and related software.
The system will run on the AWS GovCloud platform. Amazon snagged this deal from the incumbent Northrop Grumman. AWS takes over the program in 2021. DarkCyber estimates that the contract will be north of $80 million, excluding ECOs and scope changes.
This is not a new biometrics system. Its been up and running since the mid 1990s. What’s interesting is that the seller of golf shirts displaced one of the old line vendors upon which the US government has traditionally relied.
DarkCyber finds this suggestive which is a step toward really meaningful. Watch for “Dark Edge: Amazon Policeware”. It will be available in the next few months.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2019
Will the Real Disintermediating Entity Step Forward?
October 3, 2019
Big Microsoft day. It’s back in the mobile phone business. Sometime next year, probably coincident with a delayed Win 10 update, the Microsoft Surface Dual Screen Folding Android Phone becomes available. You can get the scoop and one view of Microsoft’s “we’re in phones again strategy” in “Microsoft’s Future Is Built on Google Code.” Do I agree? Of course not, that’s my method: Find other ways to look at an announcement.
The write up posits:
Google underpins Microsoft’s browser and mobile OS now.
I noted this statement as well:
… it could come as quite a shock that the CEO of Microsoft doesn’t care that much about operating systems. But there it is, in black and white. Microsoft obviously isn’t abandoning Windows — it announced a new version of it today — but it matters much more to Microsoft that you use its services like Office. That’s where the money is, after all.
Money. A phone that is not here?
But there’s another side to Microsoft. Amazon, the evil enemy, makes it possible run Microsoft on the AWS platform.
Now who is going to disintermediate whom?
Will Google get frisky and nuke Microsoft’s Android love?
Will Amazon just push MSFT SQLServer and other Microsoft innovations off the AWS platform and suck up the MSFT business.
Will Microsoft find that loving two enemies is more a management hassle than getting a Windows 10 server out the door?
Will Amazon and Google escalate their skirmishes and take actions that miss one enemy and plug the Redmond frenemy?
The stakes are high. Microsoft has done a pivot with an double backflip.
Perfect 10 or broken foot? Enron tried something like Microsoft’s approach. The landing was bumpy. The cloud may not cushion a lousy landing.
Stephen E Arnold, October 3, 2109
Smart Dubai: An Amazon AWS Connection
October 2, 2019
Amazon AWS provides the plumbing for the Amazon owned Souq.com. Amazon has a “region” and “edge location” in the United Arab Emirates. Amazon is supporting an educational push to infuse those with an interest in computer science in the ways and lingo of AWS. There was an Amazon summit in the UAE as well.
I thought about these Amazon actions when I read “Smart Dubai to Have a Marketplace for Sharing and Exchanging Data by 2021.” I learned:
Smart Dubai is building a data marketplace in a bid to monetise data through centralised and decentralised platforms, a top official said.
This initiative may be a glimpse of the smart data system disclosed in US 9947043. The Dubai activity may be the testing ground for a service which may be rolled out in the US as Amazon edges toward broader investigative services for the US government’s enforcement agencies, the IRS, and the SEC, among others.
Worth monitoring or you can express your interest in DarkCyber’s AWS policeware webinar by writing benkent2020 at yahoo dot com.
Stephen E Arnold, October 2, 2019
Google: A Big Play
October 1, 2019
Google’s walled garden is getting a glass roof. AMP was a good first step, but there is a world of other Internet-enabled services which are not likely to be AMP-lified. What’s the fix? DarkCyber believes that Google wants to become the Internet. Stopping Amazon is not working with the GOOG’s standard line up of services. “Why Big ISPs Aren’t Happy about Google’s Plans for Encrypted DNS.”
The write up states:
Google and Mozilla are trying to address these concerns by adding support in their browsers for sending DNS queries over the encrypted HTTPS protocol. But major Internet service providers have cried foul. In a September 19 letter to Congress, Big Cable and other telecom industry groups warned that Google’s support for DNS over HTTPS (DOH) “could interfere on a mass scale with critical Internet functions, as well as raise data-competition issues.”
Consider Google’s point of view. Google has user security in mind. Sure, there are others who see benefits in putting Google in a superordinate position with regards to DNS. What happens if Google filters certain addresses? An apology for sure.
The stakes are high. How will Amazon (an ISP of sorts) respond?
This will be interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1. 2019
Amazon: Airport Purchases
October 1, 2019
DarkCyber spotted a report on the CNBC Web site. Its title was “Amazon Is in Talks to Bring Its Cashierless Go Technology to Airports and Movie Theaters.” Data about movie attendee purchases is interesting, but date about what an airport passenger is quite interesting. Location, method of payment, items purchases, date, and time are likely to be of considerable interest to investigators and intelligence professionals. With cross correlation a number of interesting questions could be answered. Will Amazon dominate airport sales? DarkCyber is not a prediction business. We will go as far as saying, “Worth watching.”
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2019
Amazon Policeware: One Possible Output
October 1, 2019
Investigations focus on entities and timelines. The context includes the legal wrapper, procedures, impressions, and similar information usually resident in investigators and their colleagues.
Why gather data unless there is a payoff. The payoff from data in terms of Amazon’s policeware includes these upsides:
- Data which informs new products and services, especially those signals for latent demand
- Raw material for analytical processes such as those performed by superordinate Amazon Web Services
- Outputs which have market magnetism; that is, the product is desirable and LE and intel customers want to buy it.
This illustration which I have taken from my October 2, 2019, TechnoSecurity lecture and from my Amazon policeware webinar illustrates three points:
First, raw data are acquired by Amazon. The sources are diverse and some are unique to Amazon; for example, individual and enterprise purchasing data.
Second, the AWS policeware platform which performs normalization, indexing, and analysis from historic and real time data flows; for example, what books did an individual purchase and when.
Third, an output in the form of a profile or report about a person of interest.
© Stephen E Arnold 2019
I know the image is difficult to read. There are two ways to address this issue. You can attend my lectures at the San Antonio conference or you can sign up for my Amazon policeware webinar.
No Epstein supporters, fans, and acquaintances should express interest in my research. Sorry. I am old fashioned.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2019
Amazon: The Surveillance Mesh Play
September 30, 2019
DarkCyber received a complaint about the small size of the image from my webinar about Amazon Policeware. There are two remedies for tiny images. You can attend my policeware lecture at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference in San Antonio on Wednesday, October 2. Qualified attendees can request a PDF of the image. Second, you can contact DarkCyber at benkent2020 at yahoo dot com and sign up for our LE, security, and intel personnel webinar.
Today, I want to provide several findings from our research related to Amazon Policeware. These are:
- Amazon’s mesh network in the Sidewalk product provides a solution to blanketing a city with a data collection component. This wide field outdoor mesh network may fail. In the meantime, you may be able to locate your dog if it is wearing a Fetch.
- Amazon’s Ring doorbell provides an anchor for fixed video feeds. The resolution is poor and the system is far from comprehensive, but the test mechanism is sufficiently compelling for several hundred police departments to show interest.
- The supplementary data collection devices shown in the figure below feed into the AWS policeware platform. That platform performs a number of analytic functions. Cross correlation is one of these.
© Stephen E Arnold, 2019
So what?
In the US, Amazon is moving forward to put in place a next generation service which provides a new tool to enforcement authorities. The system delivers other benefits to Amazon as well.
DarkCyber identifies some parallels between the efforts the government of China is making with Amazon’s activities.
Will the Epstein friendly academic institution get this story straight? Probably not.
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2019
Amazon Policeware: The Path to IBM-Style Lock In on Steroids
September 27, 2019
Quite a bit of Amazon news has flowed through the DarkCyber system. The problem is that most of the information is oblivious to Amazon’s policeware initiative. DarkCyber’s research suggests that Amazon is building a surveillance system. One DarkCyber team member said, “Amazon is building what China has been working on for several years.” Is this DarkCyber researcher correct? Who knows?
I do want to provide a diagram from our Amazon webinar which puts Amazon’s activities into a context for enforcement. The scope of Amazon’s business strategy extends beyond local law enforcement and the Ring video doorbell activities, beyond the cloud services for several US government agencies, and beyond the company’s online businesses.
Amazon may be positioning itself to provide:
- IRS-related services associated with tax investigations
- Drug enforcement actions related to physicians who allegedly overprescribe or entities which obtain certain compounds using obfuscation methods
- SEC-related services to determine entity interaction, expenditures, and related financial activities
- Credit verification, including other financial analyses, for government and retail financial activities.
Other “extensions” are possible. What’s interesting is that few have noticed and even fewer pay much attention beyond hand waving about Alexa. There’s more than Alexa, which is a low level gateway service.
Here’s the diagram, which is copyrighted by Stephen E Arnold, operator of DarkCyber, and author of the forthcoming monograph, Dark Edge: Amazon’s Policeware Initiative.
© Stephen E Arnold, 2019.
How do you use this diagram? Just map Amazon’s most recent product announcements into the grid.
The DarkCyber Amazon policeware webinar walks through the tactics and the strategy for this “in plain sight” play. Analysts, journalists, policeware vendors paying Amazon to host their systems, and Microsoft-type outfits are oblivious to what is now the end game for a 12 year push by Amazon to make IBM-style lock in seem as quaint as a Model T Ford.
For those who recycle my information and claim it as your own creative output, why not be somewhat ethical and provide attribution. You know. Old-fashioned stuff like a footnote. Yep, that includes a real journalist who writes for the New York Times and the Epstein linked MIT publication, among others.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2019
Amazon and Certified for Humans
September 26, 2019
Amazon’s product announcements were extensions of the company’s surveillance technology. The innovations gather a wide range of fine-grained data which LE and intel professionals may find interesting.
But one innovation caught DarkCyber’s attention.
“Alexa’s Certified for Humans Wants to Eliminate Smart Home Headaches” reports:
Amazon wants you to be able to set up your smart home even if you don’t know anything about tech.
We noted this statement in the write up:
As with the rest of Amazon’s wide range of compatible smart home devices, you’ll of course be able to control these gadgets with a voice command to the company’s assistant, Alexa.
DarkCyber is confident that the “real” journalists who are playing catch up for outfits which cover up some interesting Epstein related activities will reveal the scope of Amazon’s LE and intel activities.
This Amazon certification is designed to make sure that more than the tech savvy can provide a stream of high value data to users, vendors, and — just maybe — to Amazon’s online data marketplace. DarkCyber thinks of this initiative as a “push down” effort as a way to expand the data flows, services, and “conveniences.”
Curious about this? Write benkent2020@yahoo.com for information about our Amazon policeware webinar.
Stephen E Arnold, September 26, 2019
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