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Amazonia, July 22, 2019

About that JEDI contract? The big news is that President Trump is going to check out the $10 billion deal for the Department of Defense’s cloud computing initiative. The driver of the Bezos bulldozer owns the Washington Post. Allegedly Mr. Trump refers to the prestigious “real news” outfit as “Amazon’s Washington Post.” A good sign? Who knows. Other Amazon items the DarkCyber team processed this week were less interesting. Here’s a few which seemed intriguing.

Amazon-SUE-ticals

Amazon wants patient data. (Note: With the patient data comes useful information about the prescription itself. Doctors in Florida, are you paying attention?) CNBC, which continues to surprise as a source of useful information, published “Amazon Threatens to Sue Major Pharmacy Player If It Prevents PillPack from Accessing Patient Drug Data.” We noted this statement in the write up:

PillPack was informed this week that it will soon be cut off from accessing that data via a third-party entity, ReMy Health — a move that could seriously complicate its business. Amazon is considering legal action against Surescripts to halt those efforts, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. One person told CNBC that PillPack has already sent a cease-and-desist letter to Surescripts.

Several observations:

• Executives are fearful of Amazon. For a reason, read “Amazon Brand Control” below
• These data feed into other Amazon “areas of interest”. DarkCyber speculates that delivery information, compliance data, and policeware services may benefit
• Amazon doesn’t have a direct deal with Surescripts.

DarkCyber believes that Amazon’s “customers” may provide a bit of shadow power to make “sure” the information is provided. And if Surescripts decides to sue Amazon in an expensive, lengthy court battle? A deal may result. Worth monitoring this pharma-SUE-tical matter? Yep.

The Pesky EU and Amazon

“Antitrust: Commission Opens Investigation into Possible Anti-Competitive Conduct of Amazon” makes clear that the European Commission has a new project for some of its lawyers, INSEAD graduates, and accountants: Amazon. Here’s the problem:

Amazon has a dual role as a platform: (i) it sells products on its website as a retailer; and (ii) it provides a marketplace where independent sellers can sell products directly to consumers.

Is Amazon a monopoly? Judge for yourself by reading “Amazon Brand Control.”

Amazon Brand Control

The Rupert Murdoch “real news” outfit published “Amazon Seeks More Brand Control.” DarkCyber thought the story left an important point unstated; for example, monopolies exercise their power directly and by fiat. The “real news” outfit reported:

The program — which allows brand rights to be bought for a fixed price on 60 days’; notice—… is part of a push by Amazon to obtain a stable of exclusive brands for the platform.

What happens if a “brand” does not want to play ball? Well, there’s eBay, driving for Uber, or an Amazon warehouse job. You can read the write up for free if you can find the dead tree version of the Murdoch property for Friday, July 19, 2019, B-1. If not, you can click here but you may have to pay. “Cutting out the middleman” is a nice way of saying, “My way or the highway.” A rose by any other name is still a  — Prime day rose?

Bloomberg Identifies Amazon’s Most Serious Research Project

Bloomberg’s judgment can be measured against its reports of spy chips on motherboards. Now the company has turned its attention to Amazon’s research projects. Forget the policeware and intelware activities. The rubber hits the door mat with Amazon’s retail store experiments. You can get the Bloomberg analysis of Amazon’s “most ambitious research project” in this July 18, 2019, essay/analysis. Note that you may have to pay for this insight. The write up states:

Will all this work be worth it? Some Go stores seem almost deserted except for the lunchtime rush. Employees familiar with Amazon’s internal projections say the outlets in Chicago, in particular, are falling short of expectations, and the company has had to resort to raffles and giveaways of tote bags and other branded goodies. Yet, as the turbulent history of the project suggests, the Go store isn’t so much the culmination of the company’s efforts but something closer to an ongoing experiment.

Plus, there’s a picture:

DarkCyber heard that in one Go store, humans were added because theft was an issue.

Amazon Police Map

“Here’s The Most Complete Map So Far Of Amazon’s Ring Camera Surveillance Partnerships With Local Police” looks like this:

Is Amazon in the policeware business? You judge for yourself by checking out this mostly ignored item. Also, how many of these “installations” are trials, freebies, and demonstrations? Some trial are ending; for example, Orlando’s.

 

For more on this topic, DarkCyber offers a for fee webinar on this topic. Write us at darkcyber333 at yandex dot com.

Prime Day Data

DarkCyber has no way of knowing if the data in “Amazon Just Announced Prime Day Data, and the Staggering Numbers Beat Black Friday and Cyber Monday Combined” are accurate. But the numbers do seem to be beefier than those reported by Nordstrom and other outfits of that ilk.

So how big? Well…

• 175 million items sold
• 175 million Prime members
• Each Prime member bought 1.75 items

Do these numbers look similar? Sophisticated analysis for sure.

First Transnational Bank of Amazon

The FTBA does not exist yet, but some think it may arrive. “Can Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon Transform Banking? Yes, and They’re Closer Than You Think” states:

Amazon’s competitive advantage is its ability to build cloud-banking much more securely than banks. It’s leading in the cloud, so this means your banking would no longer need to be local, it can be global. One account for all currencies.

The write up even suggests that one obtain a consultant’s research report to make the case for FTBA. Objective? Sure. DarkCyber believes everything its team reads on the Internet, including ITPortal’s analyses.

Amazon Fee Triggers

Amazon published in April 2019 a paper called “AWS Reliability Primer.” The idea is that one must consider how much of each of these “values” an AWS developer requires:

• Operational excellence
• Security
• Reliability
• Performance efficiency
• Cost optimization.

From a technical or architectural point of view, the write up provides useful information about the linkage between what Amazon can deliver and what one’s budget can tolerate.

DarkCyber thinks that this list of five factors explained in 62 pages of text highlights where costs can skyrocket if the AWS “customer” makes bad decisions.

Best practices or we warned you? You decide.

Amazon Stock Value

Seeking Alpha knows that fear, uncertainty, and doubt are good for some businesses. “Amazon’s Slowing Growth May Sink The Stock Following Results” opines:

AMZN is seeing a deceleration of growth in many of its business units. It could result in the stock pulling back following the results to around $1,800 based on an analysis of the chart.

Disaster looms, but one can tap Seeking Alpha for financial advice.

Amazon Satellites

Is this a $100 billion per year business? Motley Fool (“fool” in shorthand) states:

Amazon confirmed its plans, saying, “Project Kuiper is a new initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world,” according to an Amazon spokesperson.

Satellites may be more reliable than floating Loon balloons.

Amazon Sales Reorg

Seeking Alpha published “AWS Reorganizes Sales Leader.” The site reported:

Web Services shuffled its sales team’s senior leadership earlier this year to clarify roles and eliminate confusion of multiple pitches to the same customer.

Criticism of AWS Firecracker?

Tech Republic’s “The Clearest Sign of AWS’ Open Source Success Wasn’t Built by Amazon” seems to be critical of the Bezos bulldozer. The write up states:

AWS Firecracker is great open source technology, but the best indication of its open source success is what Weaveworks built on top of it.

We think this means that Amazon provided a foundation, and another company used that foundation to create a successful solution.

The write up is a bit convoluted, and it preserves Tech Republic’s ability to keep the doors open to content sponsors.

Partners and Integrators

Datadog is now competent in AWS migration. Source: MarketWatch

Northern Virginia Community College will train US Marines to use AWS. Amazon seems to have some confidence in its winning the JEDI competition. Or, this could just be another “train people to use Amazon” play. Source: World Socialist Web Site (real news all the time we assume)

SnapLogic offers a quick start for those wanting to put a data lake on AWS. It appears that SnapLogic will work with Agilisium. Source: Help Net Security

ZenDesk moves to make customer data more actionable. We are not sure what “actionable” means, but with an expanded AWS service, DarkCyber has high hopes for understanding the concept. Source: Yahoo

Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2019

Amazonia for July 15, 2019

The Amazon displacement effect appears to be gaining momentum. Here’s a selection of Bezos bulldozer actions for the past week. DarkCyber has included a handful of items that took place outside this review window, but holidays can perturb in unexpected ways.

Amazon: Disinformation or Dissing the Competition?

A quite interesting article appeared in the Brisbane Times. The title caught my attention: “Former Amazon Scientist Pokes Holes in Data Collection at Brisbane Summit.” DarkCyber noted these quotes and statements in the write up:

• …People in poorer economic areas may not drive, so might not see potholes as a problem, or they were less likely to be connected online, so were less likely to report them. DarkCyber note: This means that the data will mis-report potholes. In short, the data leads to uninformed decisions.
• …Organizations should be transparent about how they used private data, and that citizens should be able to see their own data within the organization…The “right to inspect the refinery”, he said, was another right – that any person must be able to see and observe how organizations were using their data.” DarkCyber note: Amazon seems to preserve and use Alexa data, but that information is not revealed to customers of the Alexa devices.

Note that the speaker is a “former” Amazon scientist.

Employment Developments: Efficiency and Beyond

A report which appeared on July 8, 2019, suggested that Amazon workers will strike on Prime Day. That is a Monday, the same day this Amazonia news run down appears. Alas, we can’t update before this goes live on Prime Day. The origin of this story appears to be Engadget which pegs the action in Minnesota. If false, Amazon has dodged a problem. If it is true, disgruntled Amazon low tier workers may become more bold. What happened in the Middle Ages when those lower down the Great Chain of Being were unhappy? I don’t remember. Perhaps Amazon will have a book about these historical antecedents.

“Amazon Finds an Alternative Workforce Through Northwest Center, a Seattle Nonprofit Helping People with Disabilities” explains another Amazon management approach to staffing. The title explains the tactic.

Another tactic is the use of home workers for customer service roles. These employees receive some benefits. For details see “Amazon Is Hiring 3,000 Work-from-Home Employees with Full Benefits.”

Amazon will retrain its workers. Automation is coming and with it, many jobs will be crushed under the Bezos bulldozer. The New York Times explains the $700 million “retraining” effort but does not reference similar initiatives in Stalinist soviets.

ZDNet contributes the notion of a protest about upskilling. ZDNet reported:

Amazon’s announcement comes amid an Amazon Web Services conference in New York where CTO Werner Vogels was interrupted by protesters. Chants, which revolved around AWS providing technology to the US government, repeatedly picked up as Vogels talked early in his keynote. Vogels, flustered a smidge but rolling with it, said: “I’m more than willing to have a conversation, but maybe they should let me finish first.” AWS’ New York Summit had a similar issue last year, but the 2019 version was more persistent. On AWS’ live stream the protester audio was muted. “We’ll all get our voices heard,” said Vogels.

Does the Bezos bulldozer listen to humans directly or just through Alexa devices? DarkCyber does not know the answer.

Business Insider reveals that Amazon employees want the online bookstore to take a stand against the US government’s enforcement of immigration law. These individuals may not realize that Amazon facial recognition technology may be able to identify them.

Build a Serverless Architecture with AWS

A how to, diagrams, and step by step instructions. Navigate to Hypertrack and learn how “awesome” serverless is. The write up includes suggestions for specific AWS functions to include.

AWS Control Tower Available

I bet you didn’t know that Amazon AWS had a control tower. DarkCyber did not. Satellites, yes. Control towers? Sure, but these are a service automating “the process of setting up a new baseline multi account AWS environment.” InfoQ explains:

With Control Tower, a cloud administrator has a tool, which automates various tasks involving the initial setup of a new AWS environment such as identity and access management, centralized logging, and security audits across accounts. Furthermore, the service consists of several components, including:

• A Landing Zone – the multi-account AWS environment the tool sets up
• Blueprints – design patterns used to establish the Landing Zone
• A set of default policy controls known as Guardrails
• The Environment – an AWS account with all of the attendant resources set up to run an application.

Amazon QLDB

Jerry Hargrove published a useful diagram. Yes, we know it is small, but you can get a larger one and more from the link:

A link to the QLDB is included in the source.

Amazon Offers Centralized and Decentralized Blockchain Services

Most of the people with whom DarkCyber speaks are not aware of Amazon’s digital currency and blockchain services. We noted that Forbes, the capitalist tool, has noticed some blockchain capabilities available from Amazon. We noted:

AWS announced the preview for both of these models, centralized and decentralized, in late November of 2018, according to a press release. At the time of the July 3, 2019 interview with me, Pathak noted, “Quantum Ledger Database, QLDB, is still in preview,” while “Amazon Managed Blockchain went into General Availability at the end of April.” While in preview, customers can gain free access to these projects by filling out a form and signing up, an AWS representative clarified via email. When released for General Availability, anyone can use them.

Timely coverage.

Amazon Emotion Detection

Detecting a person’s emotions can be useful. Examples range from an insurance company’s identifying an insured driver evidencing signs of impending “rage” behavior to an Amazon DeepLens camera identifying an individual becoming increasingly problematic in a restaurant, night club, or sporting event. “Amazon May be Developing a Wearable That Detects Human Emotions” discusses this innovation. DarkCyber wonders if the technology has already been implemented in other Amazon devices; for example, the Alexa home gizmos. Could security and government authorities find this type of data-generating technology useful? DarkCyber thinks this is an interesting question.

DeepLens Now Available in Europe

DarkCyber covers the imaging devices in its Dark Web Version 2 lecture. We want to note The Register’s article “AWS’s Upgraded DeepLens AI Camera Zooms in on Europe” states:

The product is the result of work between AWS and Intel. DeepLens’s hardware consists of a mini PC running Ubuntu 16.4 LTS (Long Term Servicing) upon which is mounted an HD camera.

We noted:

The advantage of DeepLens is that it is ready to go, presuming you want to use AWS for your ML project. The pre-installed software includes AWS IoT Greengrass, which does local processing of IoT data such as the stream of images from your DeepLens camera.

This comment warranted a checkmark:

AWS has its own forthcoming Inferentia project, custom hardware for processing all the common ML frameworks, but currently it seems Google Cloud Platform has an advantage for TensorFlow.

Amazon Neighborhood Watch

A viewer of the DarkCyber Video news program questioned our assertion that Amazon was monitoring with humans, not just DeepLens and other zippy technology. Here’s a no cost source of information: “Amazon’s Neighborhood Watch App Raises Discrimination, Privacy Fears.” The problem is, of course, is that people cannot track Amazon’s activities nor do most professionals want to exert that effort. Hey, those meetings are important and there’s yoga and the off site. The write up points out:

Advocates and experts are worried that an Amazon-owned mobile app, used by owners of its Ring security cameras to upload videos for neighbors to see, could entrench racial discrimination and violate people’s privacy.

Why it matters: The app, called Neighbors, is striking deals to partner with police departments across the country.

Driving the news: Last week, journalists on Twitter noticed Ring was hiring an editor — prompting concerns that Amazon was stoking community fears to sell security systems. (Amazon bought the company last year.)

How it works: People with and without Ring cameras can download the Neighbors app. It features a feed where users can post videos and photos from their cameras, file reports of activity they think is suspicious and read crime reports from the app’s “News Team.”

Poke around online and other bits and pieces of information will surface. If you are lucky, you may get to meet Teresa Carlson, a former Microsoftie who is now Amazon’s VP of the Worldwide Public Sector. (This means government work.)

Amazon Brands

Trust Amazon?

Nope. “There’s No Reason to Trust Amazon’s Choice.” The idea is that Amazon recommends its own products. Do consumers know which products are really Amazon’s? No. The write up states:

Amazon’s typical statement on the matter is this: “Amazon’s Choice is just our recommendation, and customers can always ask for specific brands or products if they choose.” But Amazon’s recommendation doesn’t mean much if the recommendation engine is getting fooled.

Typical? Nope, standard operating procedure.

Furthermore, the article “These Are All the Businesses You Never Knew Were Owned by Amazon” was a heroic effort by a shopaholic. Among the gems in the list were these five brands with names DarkCyber found suggestive:

• 206 Collective (Was a variant of this in use in Stalinist stores?)
• Coastal Blue (Similar to the code name for the first stealth aircraft, “Have Blue”)
• Core 10 (a phrase similar to those in use in the nuclear industry)
• The Fix (slang for a rigged event or a drug injection)
• Mint Lilac (a code name similar to those used by SAS operatives).

Amazon Acquisitions

Business Insider (which may or may not beg for your email or demand cash to view the article) compiled from open sources of information a list of Amazon acquisitions. These lists are usually incomplete because the researchers typically exclude partial investments, stakes held by individuals who employed by Amazon, and clever deals in which services are exchanged for stock. The real excitement is often in these secondary holdings. In the case of this article, the coverage of the list is superficial. Contact your local Wall Street purveyor of investor research for a more thorough run down.

Amazon’s Impact on Truck Drivers

Business Insider ran this story: “Truckers Say Amazon’s New Logistics Empire Is Being Underpinned by Low, Ridiculous Rates — and Some Are Refusing to Work with Them.” Amazon’s investments in self driving are not included in the lists of Amazon’s acquisitions. But Amazon is focused on efficiency. Robots are efficient. Humans require benefits, retirement plans, and other “soft” and “squishy” things which add escalating and variable costs. Nope, not in Amazon’s future.

How to Put Amazon in Your Business?

Answer: Just use Amazon. Plus, CTO Vision ran a “real” news story called “Amazon on How Businesses Can Implement AI.” The write up is a pointer to an Amazon movie “How AWS Is Changing Businesses Using Artificial Intelligence.” The video runs about four minutes, too short for popcorn, long enough to get the message across, “Embrace Amazon.” Admission is free even if one does not have a Prime membership. More Amazon PR is included in “At Re:MARS, Amazon Sells Itself As an AI Innovator.” Unlike Facebook and Google, Amazon is taking note of America Online’s disc campaign and refined it. Instead of CD ROMs, Amazon is using digital reminders, flashy technology, and glitzy conferences to make clear that it is the Bezos way or one will be sitting on the side of the Amazon toll way.

Amazon Revenue

According to GeekWire, Amazon’s sale of products make up less than half of Amazon’s revenue. Where’s the other revenue come from? Amazon Web Services, advertising, and “other” revenue streams. Is this important? Facebook, Google, and Microsoft may care. Regulators? Tough to say.

We noted a question posed by the Motley Fool, a rock solid financial advisory service: Is Amazon spending too much cash on Lord of the Rings? You can read the MBAistic discussion at this link. The answer is that the streaming world is a competitive place. Deep pockets are needed for this game. Even Google is working to fix up its YouTube service. If Amazon doesn’t get with the seeing stone, Apple, Disney, Netflix, or another outfit with cash will. Netflix has lost “Friends” and that’s the new world of streaming video. Losing friends.

Amazon: Asking Permission

“Amazon Asks to Join Broadband Space Race with Elon Musk’s SpaceX” signals a new spirit at Amazon. The write up reports:

Amazon.com asked for U.S. permission to launch 3,236 communications satellites, joining a new space race to offer internet service from low orbits and challenge the fleet planned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Yes, asking permission.

Amazon’s satellite initiative is designed to help people get Internet access. Those without Internet access can use Amazon for shopping, videos, and computer services. But the permission angle is noteworthy.

Amazon Faces Challenges

There has been an uptick in “Amazon faces challenges” news. The Telegraph published “As Amazon Turns 25, What Are the Biggest Challenges Facing the World’s Most Powerful Company?” The Week, another UK publishing outfit, chimed in with “Amazon at 25: Where Next for the Online Giant?” These “analyses” recycle truisms. But after a decade of inattention, the rush to criticize is amusing.

More interesting were these items about Amazon’s new world:

Deliveroo Stalled

CNN reported:

UK regulators have ordered Amazon to pause its investment in UK food delivery startup Deliveroo while they consider whether the deal amounts to a takeover.

UK Investigates Amazon

The Associated Press, an outfit which frightens us, emitted a write up called “UK Investigation of Amazon Investment Shows Tougher Approach.” The AP story appeared in SFGate. We won’t quote from the story. What’s up is that government authorities are going to scrutinize Amazon. Amazon has been in business for more than 20 years. What’s the rush? Possible revenue from fines and taxes. These are potent forces in some nation states.

French Push Back

SFGate reported that Amazon faced some environmental pushback in Paris, France. We learned:

Protesters also disrupted Amazon sites in the southern city of Toulouse and northern city of Lille, hoping to inspire similar action in other countries.

C’est dommage.

Adding fuel to the environmental dumpster fire was a report that the online bookstore will not reveal how much carbon is pumped into the atmosphere by its Australian server operations. The Register said:

It’s one rule for Jeff Bezos’ online empire, and another for everyone else.

Security Issue

A new exploit has appeared. The code is Magecart and it attacks misconfigured AWS S3 instances. The method used is called “skimming.” The basic idea is to siphon off credit card data.

One unique feature of the S3 attacks is that the group is using a “spray and pray” technique as opposed to previous attacks that were highly targeted. In this case, the Magecart group is installing the skimmer code on any open S3 instances it can find in the hope that some of them may be linked to sites that have e-commerce functions.

Financial fraud is a new core competency of some bad actors and industrialized crime cartels. You can read more in Silicon Angle.

Selected Partner / Integrator News

• The Chengdu Hi-tech Zone has teamed up with the Chinese non governmental organization to create a joint innovation zone. The idea is that Amazon and its partner will have an accelerator, incubator, international maker space and talent base. Source: Yahoo
• Datadog has achieved AWS Microsoft workloads competency status. Source: Business Wire
• Dobler Consulting has achieved Select Partner status as part of the Amazon Partner Network (APN). Source: Business Insider
• Saviynt announced support for the newly launched Amazon EventBridge, from Amazon Web Services (AWS). (Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service that connects applications using events.) Source: Digital Journal
• Iron Mountain now supports AWS. The announcement included this remarkable phrase: ‘’Iron Mountain announced it has joined the AWS Partner Network (APN) as a Select Technology Partner, enabling customers to accelerate their digital transformation journey with AWS.” Source: Yahoo
• The Spanish vendor Media Interactiva Media Interactiva offers system developers and engineers the chance to prepare for certification in Amazon Web Services (AWS). Source: Business Insider (may be paywall protected or free. It’s sort of hit and miss with this media and “real” news giant.)
• SentryOne has also achieved Advanced Tier status in the Amazon Web Partner Services Network (APN) as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Microsoft Workloads Competency status. Source: Yahoo
• SIOS Technology Corp. achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Microsoft Workloads Competency status within the AWS Partner Network (APN). Source: Yahoo
• Trend Micro will deliver transparent, inline network security with Amazon Web Services Transit Gateway. Source: MarketWatch
• Turbonomic has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Microsoft Workloads Competency status as an inaugural global launch AWS Partner Network (APN) Partner. Source: Yahoo
• Unissant has joined the AWS consulting partner network. Source: Globe News Wire
• Oooh rah. The US Marines and Amazon have teamed up for AWS training. Source: Education Drive

Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2019

Amazonia for July 8, 2019

Even though many Amazonians celebrated the Fourth of July with their Amazon-ordered grills, spatulas, aprons, and Whole Foods’ goodies — the company’s Bezos bulldozer pulverized some small shrubs and a big tree or two. Here’s a selection of Amazon’s harvest from the previous week.

A Glimpse of the Future of Government IT Procurement

JEDI has not been awarded. Australia, however, has decided upon a country wide Amazon AWS deal. Australia will use the Amazon platform for its government IT. If the deal holds and the system works, traditional procurement approaches will be kicked to the side of the Information Highway. The idea is standardization, lower costs, and efficiency. The fact that these benefits may be difficult to quantify and deliver is beside the point. For details, navigate to “Australia-Wide AWS Deal Could Signal the End for Legacy IT Procurement.” DarkCyber wants to remind you, gentle reader, that the country is a member of the Five Eyes group. Most of the members behave in surprisingly similar ways. Amazon could land IT deals in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and the United States. JEDI is important to big outfits like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and the companies in these firms’ orbits.

Amazon’s Delete Does Not Delete

I know. Delete means gone, disappeared, vaporized into the ether. Well, not at Amazon. Amazon allegedly retains Alexa recordings even if an authorized user deletes them. There are many different reports about this Amazon approach to deletion. These come from IAfrican to Silicon Republic. Devices can listen. Amazon sells its own line of surveillance devices. Now these devices are migrating to other countries; for example, the UK. Will delete mean retain in other countries too?

What Happens When an Amazon Third Party Seller Fools You?

That’s a good question. I received a pair of hiking pants allegedly with a 36 inch waist. My leg would not fit through the pants leg. I sent the pants back and asked for a replacement pair. I got the replacement with a label stating 36 inch waist. Same problem, my leg would not fit. Never got to the waist. I gave up.

No more. I just gave up.

“Amazon Can Be Held Liable for third Party Sales, Court Rules” suggests a different path. DarkCyber learned:

Wednesday’s ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia reversed a lower court decision, and has the potential to expose Amazon to numerous lawsuits related to defective or counterfeit products sold by third-party sellers on its site, Reuters reported. Up to now, such lawsuits have been batted away by Amazon, but this may no longer be the case going forward.

DarkCyber buys hiking pants at a local retail store. That outfit has a dressing room, not a court judgment, a procedure, and merchants who can be surprisingly clever humanoids.

Amazon’s Approach to Smarter Work

The Verge reported about Amazon’s semi-secret conference called re:MARS. At the conference Amazon revealed smart software and smarter robots. According to the write up:

re:MARS is the first public version of Amazon’s secretive MARS (machine learning, automation, robotics, and space) conference. MARS is usually a private event where a few hundred scientists, creatives, and business types are hosted by Jeff Bezos. They eat canapés, attend group meditations, and discuss technologies that will make or break the future. The chat is pretty much the same here in Vegas. But instead of 200 select attendees, there are 3,000 of us shuffling around in lanyards, backpacks, and comfy shoes. And instead of luxury workshops on blacksmithing and sausage making, there are seminars on how to build better robots, smarter AI, and maybe even colonize the Solar System.

Amazon seems to be more “public”. In addition to getting publicity, the Verge quotes one attendee as saying:

“It seems like they’re trying to get the smartest people in the same building and get them to talk to one another,” said Michael Bell, a PhD candidate and research fellow at Harvard’s School of Engineering who was demoing the university’s latest work with soft robotic grippers. “People have come by and asked me whether they can use these things to clean up the oceans. You don’t really get that at other conferences.”

Amazon, therefore, is innovating in conferences as well as drone surveillance within a geo-fenced area. (See the Tuesday, July 9, 2019, DarkCyber for more about this five year old Amazon innovation.)

The conference was interrupted by a pro-animal protester. The author of the write up suggested he felt like a package on a conveyor belt. Plus robots are in the Amazon future.

Chug, chug, chug goes the Bezos bulldozer.

Cat Flap with DeepLens

Digital Trends revealed that an Amazon employee connected the smart DeepLens video camera to an automatic pet door. The link up work. The feline can no longer bring dead animals into the Amazon worker’s home. The Rekognition image recognition system seems to work well for dead birds, deceased squirrels, and terminated rats. People? DarkCyber can only point to the next story in this week’s Amazonia.

Amazon Facial Analysis: Some Blind Spots?

An online information service called Jezebel published “Amazon’s Facial Analysis Program Is Building a Dystopic Future for Trans and Nonbinary People.” DarkCyber has a hunch that this means that Amazon’s facial recognition is [a] inaccurate and [b] biased. You will have to judge for yourself. DarkCyber noted this passage:

Rekognition, in particular, has some prodigious—and highly concerning—blind spots, especially around gender identity. A Jezebel investigation has found that Rekognition frequently misgenders trans, queer and nonbinary individuals. Furthermore, in a set of photos of explicitly nonbinary individuals Rekognition misgendered all of them—a mistake that’s baked into the program’s design, since it measures gender as a binary. In itself, that’s a problem: it erases the existence of an already marginalized group of people, and, in doing so, creates a system that mirrors the myriad ways that nonbinary people are left out of basic societal structures. What’s more, as Rekognition becomes more widely used, among government agencies, police departments, researchers and tech companies, that oversight has the potential to spread.

As Amazon becomes less secret and marginally more open, criticism of Amazon has increased. DarkCyber is not convinced that facial recognition systems vary much from developer to developer. Nevertheless, Amazon image technology is being sold and applied in interesting new ways.

Amazon and Automation: Job Losses? Yep.

“Amazon’s Future Vision of AI, Warehouse Bots and Alexa” is an exclusive look at Amazon’s artificial intelligence and automation work and how it may impact jobs.” In a nutshell, humans will have a tough time getting hired after Amazon’s vision is implemented. The write up points out:

Amazon executives say they don’t see gloom and doom in AI and automation, noting that they continue to hire thousands more people to work alongside their warehouse bots and to create the latest machine-learning code.

By the way, code camps may not provide the ticket to future employment. One can give Amazon’s training programs a try. Universities are embracing the Amazon way. Student loans? Not an Amazon problem.

Amazon to Add Jobs in the UK

Forbes reports that Amazon will add 2,000 jobs in the Brexit-challenged country. If those hires take place, Amazon will employ 29,500 people across its more than 17 locations. Forbes suggests that these will be low wage jobs in the Amazon “fulfillment network.” That euphemism translates to warehouses for the DarkCyber team.

Amazon Prime Twitches

DarkCyber has noted that Twitch has out delivered on the Hong Kong riots as YouTube sat back and mostly ignored them. Many of the people with whom Amazon talks after our lectures about Dark Web Version 2 are not clued in about Twitch. Learning about Twitch might be a good idea. Who knows you, gentle reader, might become a streamer.

Amazon wants to be more Twitchy if the information in “Twitch Will Join Amazon Prime Day with Giveaways, Events and QVC Style Live Show” is accurate. QVC is a 24 hour a day live shopping cable TV show. Twitchers stream 24 hours a day, right? Probably a coincidence. DarkCyber highlighted this passage from the write up:

Given its push for more live video, it only makes sense that Twitch would get involved with Prime Day in this way, too. Beyond Twitch’s plans for live video, the streaming site is also offering a number of giveaways and hosting live events.

Perhaps this time Amazon live shopping will deliver the bucks that company needs to pay its taxes, innovate, and support charities. Perhaps?

AWS Security

Cloud computing offers benefits and drawbacks. On the drawback side of the teeter totter is security. “AWS CISO Talks Risk Reduction, Development, Recruitment” reports that:

To mitigate this risk [from insider threats], Schmidt launched an initiative within AWS to radically reduce employees’ access to data by 80%. This was a large number, he noted, and one he partly chose to raise eyebrows – and partly because of its effectiveness. Reducing data access by 10 or 20 percent wouldn’t have had the same effect; an 80% cut forced investment in security tools.

Amazon AWS itself figures in some security issues; for example, data left exposed on AWS systems can be discovered and compromised by bad actors. To cite one example: Navigate to this TechRadar report. Data from Fortune 100 companies were exposed online. The write up, however, does not address that real time, here and now risk. Insider threats are a problem, but are they more significant than the security methods in place for AWS customers? Taken together, is it possible that Amazon has more security issues than some perceive?

Amazon Goes North to Alaska

Amazon’s delivery service has expanded to Alaska. According to Business Insider (pay wall may apply):

Amazon Air is adding another gateway to its network of airports: Anchorage, Alaska. Amazon’s in-house air cargo fleet, which will total 70 planes by 2021, is key to the e-commerce behemoth’s plan to achieve one-day shipping for its Prime members this year.

Alaska is closer to some of Amazon’s providers. FedEx and UPS are likely to dismiss Amazon’s ambitions, but DarkCyber believes that Amazon can disrupt because it may have a slight advantage: Lower wages due to some of its policies.

Amazon: South to Buenos Aires

The New York Times (gentle reader, you may have to pay to access the source article,” reports that AWS will set up a data center in Argentina. This is the seventh data center Amazon has set up in an area which contains the actual organic, green Amazon.

Partner and Integrators

Last week was a quiet one for Amazon’s partner / reseller category.

eLogic Learning is now partners with AWS. Training courses will be parked in the Amazon cloud. Source: MarketWatch

Velocity Technology Solutions is now a strategic collaborator with Amazon. DarkCyber does not know what a strategic collaborator is, but it appears to have something to do with moving to the Amazon cloud. Source: MarketWatch

Amazon: A TV News Focal Point

Love Amazon? Want to know how it changed your life. ABC has the answer. View the video at this link.

Amazonia for July 1, 2019: The Firecracker Edition

Quite a flurry of partner, integrator, and consultant news in the last seven days. DarkCyber was unfamiliar with some of these outfits. If you take the known partner names, circle the wild and weird ones, one or two on your list will be generating significant sums as the Bezos bulldozer grinds forward. Not much speed, but the bulldozer has torque. Lots of torque.

Amazon Visual Search

Few people pay much attention to the number of people running queries on Google for products. In 2002, Google commanded about 90 percent of the search traffic as other Web search system collapsed. Numbers like the rock solid estimates in DarkCyber’s weekly Factualities write up are hard to obtain and validate. Chatter suggests that Amazon now dominates product search. That’s bad, bad news for the Google. The early “Froogle” fizzled. Amazon is now the search engine millions of people rely upon for basic product information. There are reviews, and many are bogus. But there are often numerous reviews and a careful reader can figure out what a product’s attributes are. Plus there are pictures. Yeah, about those pictures. Forbes, the capitalist tool and “real news” outfit published “Why Amazon’s Visual Search Could Eliminate Keywords For Online Retail.” The article suggests that the Google may be behind the curve in visual search. Perhaps the Google should buy Pinterest? DarkCyber learned:

Earlier this month, Amazon announced its sizable investment in visual search, which gives users the ability to search by picture. Through this new feature called “StyleSnap” on the Alexa app, users can replicate their favorite fashion simply by uploading a photo and letting artificial intelligence technology deliver the most relevant products to their search.

We noted this statement:

This news follows a trend that has been a long time in the making. And of course, Pinterest which rolled out its visual search feature back in 2015, has been capitalizing on this computer-vision technology for some time by attracting users and providing an excellent user experience.

The Google is tallying a number of high profile challenges. Forbes seems to have added visual search to the list. Google was the leader in search. Amazon may be poised to capture the traffic and the advertising dollars.

Amazon AW SAI

DarkCyber thinks this sequence of letters may be pronounced “aw, see.” The explanation of the enhanced smart software appears in “AWS Enhances Deep Learning AMI, AI Services SageMaker Ground Truth, and Rekognition.” These are important gears in the Amazon “policeware” machine. We noted this competitive statement in the write up:

The other major cloud players have services similar to Rekognition. Microsoft Azure’s Computer Vision service offers a comparable set of features. Like Rekognition, it is not available in every region. Google’s Vision API is available globally, but only works images, not on full video.

But neither Google nor Microsoft can match the addition of dozens of cyber security services. Maybe the Department of Defense will notice the absence of these functions from the Microsoft Azure offering?

Therefore, “aw see” Amazon is differentiating itself from some of its competition. That may be ground truth which only some procurement officers “Rekognize.”

AWS Management Tools for Corporate Customers

One of the hassles of the Amazon AWS system is that it is lacking in the management tools behavioral deportment category on an enterprise system report card. Not exactly an F, but a D, maybe a C minus. There are signals that AWS is trying to grow up—at least a little bit.

“Amazon Web Services Rolls Out Control Tower and Security Hub, Courting Big Business Customers” says:

Amazon Web Services on Monday night announced the general availability of AWS Control Tower and AWS Security Hub, aiming to make it easier for corporate customers to set up, secure and monitor cloud environments.

Instead of getting whacked with a telephone-style quota exceeded penalty, AWS will provide a tools so customers can plan. Maybe not long term, but at least avoid a threshold sticker shock. You can get additional details from the Amazon blog in a post written by a person with an absolutely marvelous name, Rodney Bozo.

AWS Security Services Push: Why?

If you want to know about Amazon’s security services, you can dive into “AWS Security Hub Aggregates Security Alerts and Conducts Continuous Compliance Checks.” A reasonable question is, “Why are numerous vendors using AWS to deliver difficult-to –differentiate cyber services?” It is not a US only push. We learned:

AWS Security Hub is available … in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), and South America (Sao Paulo), with additional regions coming soon.

This week’s partner run down features a number of security related announcements. That’s interesting, but the announcements must be viewed in the context of this story: “AWS S3 Server Leaks Data from Fortune 100 Companies: Ford, Netflix, TD Bank.”

What’s the story about Amazon AWS security? DarkCyber has a webinar which answers this question in part. For more information, write us at darkcyber333 at yandex dot com.

AWS Internet of Things Services

CloudTweaks published a pro-AWS write up about the bulldozer’s AWS solutions. We learned:

The most secure and best way to ensure all data is processed and stored is to redirect all device topics data to an SNS which is designed to handle data flood processing, ensuring that incoming-data is reliably maintained, processed and delivered to the proper channel. To make it more scalable, multiple SNS topics, SQS queue, Lambda for a different/group of AWS device topics can be used. One should consider storing the data in safe-storage like a Queue, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, and Amazon Redshift before processing. This practice ensures no data loss due to message floods, un-wanted exception code or deployment issues.

Now you know why Amazon is working with educational institutions like George Mason University not too far from a three letter agency to teach the lingo of Amazon. Otherwise, much of the jargon is incomprehensible, which is great news for consultants, advisors, and mid tier consulting firms looking to make a buck.

Plus, there are some equally incomprehensible diagrams. Amazon has arrived in the big time it seems.

A Sampling of AWS Partner, Integrator, and Reseller Announcements

The DarkCyber team is unfamiliar with many of these firms. It seems obvious that the Amazon “bus” is picking up passengers as it follows behind the Bezos bulldozer. Quite a few of the ride alongs are wearing “cyber security” logos.

• Blue Hexagon unveils native deep learning-powered threat protection platform For Amazon Web Services. Source: Digital Journal
• Coupa Expands its service line up on Amazon. The idea appears to be designed to provide more control over the costs of Amazon services, a business which Amazon appears to find attractive. Source: Business Insider (sometimes free, sometimes paywalled. Go figure.)
• Fortinet has readjusted so that its WAF-as-a-Service is available via Amazon Web Services. Source: Yahoo
• Gigamon has announced the GigaVUE Cloud Suite with Amazon virtual private cloud traffic mirroring service. Source Finanzen
• JASK delivers enhanced cloud workload traffic security visibility with Amazon Web Services or ECWTSV. Very catchy. Source: Digital Journal
  Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/4356408#ixzz5s5wJw75q
• McAfee (the security outfit, not the person avoiding certain government authorities) has announced a compliance service called MVision Cloud. This is available on AWS. Source: Register Herald
• Nubeva Prisms TLS (SSL) decrypt solution supports Amazon virtual private cloud traffic mirroring. Enterprises using Amazon Web Services can now acquire keys and decrypt mirrored traffic. Source: Globe News Wire
• NeuVector has announced a run-time container security service for AWS Cloud. The service integrates with apps on AWS EKS, AWS ECS and AWS App Mesh. Love those acronyms. So clear and easily differentiateable. Source: MarketWatch
• Rapid 7 Insight now integrates with the AWS Security Hub. Source: MarketWatch
• Rite Aid becomes a pick up partner. Order online. Go to a brick and mortar store to get the Amazon goodies. No drone needed. Source: GeekWire
• Riverbed brings cloud and enterprise network traffic analysis to AWS. Source: Digital Journal
  Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/4356419#ixzz5s5y1xpGD
• Sumo Logic has launched a global threat benchmarking service for AWS. Source: Business Insider
• Vectra has introduced the first network threat detection and response solution in Amazon Web Services. Source: Finanzen
• VoiceFoundry – and I quote from the Business Insider “real news” story: “VoiceFoundry, an SDP-accredited Amazon Connect consulting partner and reseller and provider of enterprise cloud-based contact center solutions with a unique focus on customer engagement, today announced with Service Management Group (SMG), a global customer experience management firm, the release of VoiceFoundry Post-Call Survey powered by SMG AgentTrack for Amazon Connect.” The full write up can be found at this link.
• Wallarm states that it has achieved advanced technology partner status in Amazon Web Services. If you are not familiar with this firm, the company Wallarm focuses on automated protection of Web sites, micro services, and APIs running on public and private clouds. Source: Virtual Strategy

Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2019

Amazonia for June 24, 2019

The Amazon online bookstore continues to push outside the virtual mall. Some of the more interesting announcements about the landscape changing Bezos bulldozer include:

Bebo Bepops into Amazon Twitch: Name That Gamer Tune

DarkCyber believes that Amazon’s acquisition of Bebo, a moribund social network outfit, is a big deal. You can get the Silicon Valley take on this cheapo acquisition in “Amazon’s Twitch Acquired Social Networking Platform Bebo for Up to $25M to Bolster Its Esports Efforts.” DarkCyber thinks that there are other reasons for this deal. Socializing esports is a great red herring snagged by a public relations hook. There is more behind this deal, but the explanation will not be disclosed in this blog. Catch me after my Amazon lecture in late September 2019. I will be in San Antonio at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference holding forth for law enforcement, security, and intelligence professionals.

Some Amazon game programmers now have an opportunity to drive Amazon delivery vans or flip burgers. Green Man Gaming reports that Amazon Game Studios lays off dozens of staff. We think Google Stadia may be hiring.

Surveillance as a Service

Quite a few pundits and wizards noted that Amazon received a patent for flying a drone with a camera. Now that is one of those inventions which is not on a par with the spat over calculus. If you want to read the document, navigate to this link. Why’s this important? It’s not, but it snaps into the matrix I use for Amazon’s push into policeware. Lecture available for a fee. Just write darkcyber333 at yandex dot com. Although not directly about Amazon, this write up edges close to the revenue potential of the alleged Amazon service.

DHS Has Moved Biometrics to Amazon’s Cloud

Ouch. Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle just took one to the jaw. We noted this article in Geekwire: “DHS Moving Biometric Screening System to Amazon Web Services Amid Debate over Government Tech.” Here’s a statement we circled in bright blue marker:

The Department of Homeland Security is migrating the system it uses to search for people using biometric data to Amazon’s cloud….

The system is a catchall for fingerprints, iris scans, images of faces, and other information collected by the agency’s various departments, like TSA, FEMA, and ICE. It allows officials to scan a database and quickly identify undocumented immigrants, terrorist suspects, and other people of interest. The database is used by “DHS, other Federal agencies, State and local law enforcement, the intelligence community, and international partners to support counterterrorism, immigration and law enforcement, and credentialing efforts pertaining to identity services.”

You may be able to ferret out more clues in this RFI. Keep in mind that if the link goes dead, complain to USA.gov, DHS, or your favorite citizen services office, not DarkCyber.

Is this important? On a par with Bebo, the defunct social network company Amazon bought as most people read about Facebook’s sovereign currency play.

Ring May Amazonify Itself

Quartz reports that the Ring doorbell may undergo what MBAs call “ product extension.” What can Amazon do with Ring beyond connecting a Ring to Amazon’s connected lock service? There’s the sharing of video footage with neighbors and others, including “more than 50 police departments.” According to the “real” news outfit:

Amazon is apparently not stopping there with its one-stop viewing. The company recently received trademarks, uncovered by Quartz, for multiple products that bear the Ring name, including Ring Beams, Ring Halo, and Ring Net. All three trademarks are listed as covering a range of uses, many matching what Ring products currently offer, including internet-connected security cameras, alarm systems, lighting, and cloud video storage. They also mention new applications, such as cameras intended to be mounted on motor vehicles, electronic locks, indoor cameras like pet and baby monitors, and “home and business surveillance systems.” All three trademarks even suggest the marks should cover “navigation software for use with smart, autonomous vehicles and mobile machines for use in connection with internet of things (IoT) enabled devices.”

DarkCyber is disappointed that no “Ring a Dinga Ding Dong” was mentioned.

Amazon Twitch: Copyright Issues and Porn

Most of the people with whom I speak in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, think a twitch is what grandpa’s leg does when he wants to go to the tavern and grandma won’t let him. Twitch is Amazon’s “game” streaming service. The Verge reported “Twitch sues to unmask trolls that posted violent and pornographic streams.” DarkCyber noted this statement:

The videos were posted last month by an organized group of trolls in Twitch’s Artifact category, who are named in the lawsuit as John and Jane Does 1-100. Aside from the video filmed by the Christchurch shooter, trolls also streamed porn, copyrighted movies and television shows, and other illegal and harmful content.

Is the issue one that took place in the past, or is the problem of copyright violation and questionable content a “here and now” issue? I cover several facets of the Twitch service in terms of law enforcement and intelligence matters in my Dark Web 2 lectures. The reality of Twitch is not well understood.

Has someone like the Verge asked, “If it is your platform, how can you not know the identity of a user?” The answer is, “What?”

Amazon Is a Domain, Not a Jungle, a River, or a Region

We learned from the Conversation (a sort of one way thing) that Dot Amazon is a reality. How happy will be the countries bordering the region, the jungle, and the river? Probably happy enough to order products, buy ebooks, and learn about the AWS cloud. The article “Amazon Wins Amazon Domain Name, Aggravating South American Region and Undermining Digital Commons” reports:

Under international human rights law, the indigenous peoples in the region should have been consulted. Exclusive use of “.amazon” will deprive them of using it for economic opportunities in their historical lands, such as eco-tourism.

Amazon wants “amazon” to do many positive, US company things. The write up states:

The implications for the future of the internet are troubling.

DarkCyber is not sure the real Amazon cares or if the jungle, river, and governments bordering what is real estate care. Navigate to www.amazon.amazon, Amazonians around the world and in the area once uniquely named “Amazon.”

Amazon Bashing?

Fox News ran a story about the Amazon JEDI contract competition. “Amazon, Pentagon Accused of Swampy Dealings over $10B Contract” reported:

Amazon is poised to receive a lucrative government contract with the Pentagon, but a competitor is arguing it’s nothing more than a prime example of D.C. swamp politics.

That’s an interesting bit of prognostication. The Fox report then recounts the claims made by firms likely to be pushed to the gutter if Amazon wins the deal.

The write up points out:

The JEDI Contracting Officer said in a court document that a July 2018 review of potential conflicts of interest related to Ubhi and four other government employees with ties to AWS showed that they did not “negatively impact the integrity of the JEDI procurement.”

But predicting the outcome of a horse race with some of the jockeys wearing the logos of Amazon competitors? Interesting.

Amazon Poster Person

The Wall Street Journal on June 22 or 23, 2019 (love that precision in metatagging, don’t we?) published an encomium to Amazonian Nancy Nims. According to the glowing semi-interview, mostly rah rah rah:

…Nancy Nims pitches in on everything from blank screens to burst pipes.

You can find the story online at wsj.com (paywall) or snag a dead tree edition of the newspaper if you can find one on either June 22 or June 23, 2019.

Amazon Alexa and Yamaha TV Add Ons

Don’t have an Amazon device in your home? Just buy the Yamahas YAS-109 and the YAS-209 TV sound bars, and you have the problem solved. According to Slashgear:

Yamaha has introduced two new home sound bars, the YAS-109 and YAS-209. Both models feature native Alexa voice control, enabling users to directly access Amazon’s voice assistant and its various control functions. In addition, both new models pack wireless connectivity, support for various music streaming services, a discreet design, and more.

“Alexa, what’s the weather?”

Who Sponsored the AWS Public Sector Summit?

That’s a good question. Here’s the list. Where are the presentations? Well, that’s another good question to which DarkCyber does not have the answer. There are some PR type speeches available on YouTube plus the often opaque Amazon blog entries.

Look Out, NYT Best Sellers’ List

Amazon has announced the best books of 2019 “so far”. Yeah, it is June 2019, but this is a real time, year to date, Amazon analytics output. None of that checking with bookstores in places like Charlottesville, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts, where people still read old fashioned books. Digital Reader reports:

“We love selecting the Best Book of the Year So Far,” said Sarah Gelman, Editorial Director, Amazon Books. “We’ve read so many great books this year – a heart-wrenching memoir of loss, an intoxicating novel of a ’70s rock band, a psychological thriller worthy of Agatha Christie comparisons, and so much more. But one book stood out for us, Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls. It has so many elements that make reading fun – the sparkle of youth, indiscretions, sassy characters, and freedom in a city that doesn’t sleep – perfect summer reading in our book.”

And the top book? City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert (Riverhead Books). And where can one acquire this big dog? Did you guess Amazon? If so, you may be Jeopardy material.

Amazon Reveals How to Implement AI

CTOVision explains the ins and outs in “Amazon on How Businesses Can Implement AI.” The method is revealed in an AWS video, a “succinct video” because, as you know, artificial intelligence is really easy using Amazon’s software and its platform. Here’s an example of an explanation in the video:

Yep, easy.

Amazon Is More Than a Bookstore

Amazon is on a PR blitz. The BBC snagged an interview with the former Cornell professor and now big tech person at Amazon. There were some gems in “Amazon’s Next Big Thing May Redefine Big.” The first “big” thing is that DarkCyber must learn a new definition of “big.” Okay, what else? These are items extracted from the Beeb’s somewhat uncritical article:

1. Only “mortal humans” ever saw Amazon as merely a retailer.
2. Its big data capabilities are now the tool of police forces, and maybe soon the military.
3. New Amazon could make today’s Amazon look quaint in both scale and power.
4. AWS accounts for most of Amazon’s profits.
5. Amazon provides the infrastructure backbone for major firms such as AirBnB and Netflix, as well as more than one million other clients who collectively give Amazon “control” of large swathes of the web.
6. Amazon Rekognition can scan video footage and, for example, pick up people’s faces that can then be checked against a client’s database.
7. Amazon will need to answer continued questioning about how it handles user privacy, and whether it is being entirely up-front with users when it comes to how data is stored and analyzed.

Interesting stuff. But the police and military? DarkCyber theorizes that these entities will buy something other than boots and tactical vests.

Amazon’s Choice: An Evaluation

Leave it to the real news outfit Buzzfeed. Its story “Amazon’s Choice Does Not Necessarily Mean a Product Is Good.” Shocker. The write up reveals:

A review of dozens of Amazon’s Choice products by BuzzFeed News found listings with troubling product defects and warnings, as well as review manipulation.

DarkCyber’s hunch is that “quality” is defined in terms of revenue and margin. The notion about “troubling” is probably not high on the list of considerations. We noted this passage:

But “Amazon’s Choice” isn’t that at all, and here’s the disappointing news: It’s a label automatically awarded to listings by an algorithm based on customer reviews, price, and whether the product is in stock. And those choices Amazon’s software makes aren’t always reliable — in fact, sometimes they’re Amazon-recommended crap.

We highlighted this snippet as well:

But what consumers are finding is that while a product that performs well on key marketplace metrics might get an “Amazon’s Choice” label, it isn’t necessarily a good product. There are many examples. A forehead-and-ear thermometer with a 3.6-star average rating over 1,509 reviews is distinguished as Amazon’s Choice for an “infant thermometer.” Yet the product description from the manufacturer itself said, “Widely inaccurate and the results could be found from the comments by yourself.” (After BuzzFeed News reached out to the company for comment, that description was removed from the Amazon listing.)

Interesting, if true.

Amazon Fights Human Trafficking

Here’s another example of Amazon PR and a less than obvious reminder of the company’s push into policeware. Quartz’s story “Amazon’s AI Is Being Used to Rescue Children from Sex Trafficking.” We learned:

The nonprofit Thorn, founded by actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore in 2009, wants to help to find these children and bring them to safety. To do so, it’s looking to AI… DetectText quickly extracts this information from the images, allowing Thorn to work backwards to find children from their last known number. IndexFaces, meanwhile, detects and matches faces to images of missing and exploited children from open web data sources, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s register of missing children.

Another message is, “Facial recognition is a pretty good thing.”

Now It Is Amazon Reinforcement Learning

Forbes is, it seems, an Amazon believer. “Amazon Dives Deep into Reinforcement Learning” explains:

The company [Amazon] applies RL in combination with other ML methods to optimize its warehouse and logistics operations, and assisting with automation in its various fulfillment facilities. The company has also applied RL to solving supply chain optimization problems and helping to discover optimal paths for delivery.

RL is an acronym for “reinforcement learning.” Useful when talking about ML and AI and APR (Amazon public relations).

The capitalist tool added:

the company has applied RL and other ML approaches to help create the latest iteration of its autonomous drone delivery device.

Okay, drones. What about those drones and RL?

Amazon used machine learning to iterate and simulate over 50,000 configurations of drone design before choosing the optimal approach.

Working at Amazon Twitch

SFGate, which is a bit rah rah for the Silicon Valley thing, published “Here’s What It’s Like to Work at Twitch, One of the Hottest Gaming Companies in the US.” Here’s a snapshot of the main point: Fun, food, autonomy, choice at an entertainment revolution.

Sounds like heaven or a bizarro world, almost the inverse of working at an Amazon warehouse.

Want to work in this paradise digital? I learned:

People who can show that they’re unabashedly passionate about something they do, whether it’s for fun or work, is a really nice cultural fit for us. We think that passion translates to your work, ultimately.—Alleged live streamed statement from a Twitch University Recruiter Gina Greenwalt.

Nothing about the streams which contain commercial TV shows (Russian streamers pump out US TV shows with dubbed Russian), movies (Pokémon is a fave), and the interesting pay-me-to have a private chat services. Odd that.

Next time around maybe SFGate will dig a bit deeper than free donuts. Plus a comparison with an Amazon warehouse job would be quite interesting. Perhaps free adult diapers instead of bagels?

Amazon: PR Diversity or Child Labor?

DarkCyber believes this is a PR play. Amazon is doing a lot of PR it seems. A 10 year old is now working alongside Amazonians who are young at heart if not in years. NBC Washington reports that Karthick Arun will enter the fifth grade. He will also work on robots because he is the youngest person to pass the Amazon AWS Cloud Practitioner examination. Will he take the now retired Google Labs Aptitude Test or GLAT? I once sent a page to an investment banker who told me he was good at math. I never heard a peep from this fellow after the snail mail was delivered to him. Arun would probably ace that confection. Too bad Google dumped its robotics company. You remember the one with the terrifying reindeer wandering the company’s front lawn. Arun wants to build a robot dog. Sorry, Arun, already done.

Amazon: More Planes Because…

DarkCyber’s answer is, “FedEx and UPS are like old, rotting trees to the gleaming blade on the front of the Bezos bulldozer.”

“Amazon Prime Air Gets More Planes to Boost One Day Shipping to You” offers a different explanation. To wit:

Amazon said it agreed to lease 15 more Boeing cargo planes from GE Capital Aviation Services, helping the e-commerce titan continue growing its air fleet so it can speed up Prime deliveries.

FedEx and UPS will take heart with this statement:

Pilots working for Prime Air have regularly complained about poor pay and lousy working conditions.

Hmmm. Different from Twitch working conditions perhaps?

DarkCyber understands the Prime delivery notion. Customers are number one. However, DarkCyber believes the motivation is to leverage Amazon’s infrastructure and robots, a white elephant airport, and the loose regulatory environment to become the same-day delivery giant, none of this overnight, three day, or seven day approach.

Amazon Connect Lex Speech Recognition

Here’s a link to a news story titled “Amazon Connect Lex Speech Recognition advanced Configuration.” The short write up is duplicated plus there’s a link to a video. Lex is Amazon’s speech recognition system. You will have to navigate to the link and figure out what DrVoIP on Collaboration is trying to communicate.

The real news is that Amazon Connect has launched AI powered speech analytics. The idea is to capture speech, convert to text, add metadata, and run numerical recipes across the content. Who is excited about this? Well, marketers, of course. We noted this statement in the write up:

The solution combines Amazon Transcribe to perform real-time speech recognition and create a high-quality text transcription of each call into text; Amazon Comprehend to analyze the interaction, detect the sentiment of the caller, and identify keywords and phrases in the conversation; and Amazon Translate to translate the conversation into an agent’s preferred language. To learn more about AI Powered Speech Analytics for Amazon Connect, see the solution webpage.

Want more? You can read marketing detail in Martech Advisor.

Amazon Partners, Resellers, Innovators

Summer is approaching in rubber boots and with a brolly here in Harrod’s Creek. There was some partner and reseller news. We’ve tossed in innovators because there are some interesting rumblings in the Amazonian digital jungle.

• Datacal supports AWS databases. Source: SD Times
• Digital Asset Partners puts smart contracts on AWS. Source: Coin Telegraph
• Domo has launched Domo on AWS. “Domo for AWS is a new purpose-built package that gives AWS customers an easy way to make data from nearly two dozen AWS services securely accessible to virtually anyone across the company to drive new business value.” Here’s another baffler: “to drive new business value.” Source: MarketWatch
• FINEOS is now competent in AWS financial services. Did you forget that Amazon is into finance but in a different way than privacy-centric Facebook? Source: Digital Journal
• HaTech is named an AWS advanced partner. We’re not sure what it means, but you can read more in the Yahoo write up. Only 10 percent have reached this tier. We have to ask, “10 percent of how many?”
• iBaset, a manufacturing services outfit, is using AWS for aerospace and defense applications. Source: Yahoo.
• IEEE and Amazon are teaming up to encourage entrepreneurs in the IEEE community. Would Amazon invest in a promising start up? Would Amazon encourage a promising start up to use Azure, Google, or another cloud? Source: Business Insider (a source which really wants money)
• SenecaGlobal is now an Amazon EC2 partner for Microsoft Windows Server. Strange bedfellows perhaps? Source: Host Review
• Smartsheet is now AWS government competent. Smartsheet is in the “work execution business.” No, we don’t understand the phrase either. Workflow, project management, and the like we get. But not work execution. Source: Bakersfield Californian
• Solodev is using Amazon AWS as a customer experience platform. We think this means customer service. Source: EContent What’s this have to do with electronic content? [a] Self help Web site, [b] search FAQs, [c] another publication jumping on the Amazon bandwagon for content, [d] who knows. Pick one, please.
• Tripwire signs up for Amazon AWS. Tripwire provides security and compliance services. Source: Host Review
• Legal and General will use AWS’s blockchain service. Source: Forbes
• ZeroNorth is now an Amazon advanced technology partner. Source: Digital Journal

Stephen E Arnold, June 24, 2019

Twitch Aces YouTube Again

I did a quick check of YouTube Live, the finder for live streams available on YouTube. You can locate this dashboard at this link. I scrolled through the results on YouTube at 0630 US Eastern time. I located this video link on the YouTube Live page:

YouTube Live has zero Hong Kong protest streams which are actually “live.” Queries run at 0630 am US Eastern time.

The “Police HQ Blocked” points to a “recent live stream.” That’s okay but the link appears on the YouTube Live page, and there is no live stream of the Hong Kong protest streaming live.

What? A live index pointing to an archived file.

Now contrast that with Twitch.tv, an Amazon property. I entered the query “Hong Kong protest” in the Twitch search box at this link: https://bit.ly/2sRPekp and got hits to actual live streams. Here’s a screen shot taken shortly after my visit to the YouTube Live page.

A Twitch live stream captured about 630 am US Eastern time.

The quality of the video is excellent. None of that low res stuff.

A couple of observations:

• YouTube Live is supposed to provide links to live content. Obviously YouTube does not have live video of the historic Hong Kong protests on June 21, 2019, US time zone, or YouTube chooses not to make these streams available
• Twitch.tv provides live streams of high quality from different Twitch content providers and the Twitch.tv search engine makes the content easy to find. This is a feat that mainstream US media sites cannot achieve.
• The cognitive disconnect of YouTube Live’s listing archived footage as “live” is baffling to me.

Net net: Amazon Twitch continues to provide interesting and often significant content of news value. YouTube looks increasingly arthritic when compared to the more agile Twitch service. Plus Twitch delivers high quality streams. To be fair, Amazon does display some annoying and repetitive advertisements. That’s a small price to pay for feet on the street information about activities in Hong Kong.

Twitch is focused and apparently on the steraming ball. Google is not in the game when it comes to Hong Kong’s protests.

If you were Hong Kong government authorities, which service would you use to track protest activities? Sure, the government’s camera network is a first choice, but right behind might be the Twitch.tv service. YouTube? Probably not.

Stephen E Arnold, June 21, 2019

Facebook: Amazon Is Shifting Gears and May Be Grinding Toward Social Media Land

The zippy 2019 news cycle is writing about Facebook: Its digital currency, a thriller for those working to enforce assorted rules and regulations about money. Facebook’s trust issues percolate in the stories as well; for example, “Facebook’s Crypto currency Has a Trust Problem,” which explains — well, obviously — Facebook’s method of saying one thing and just chugging along mostly doing what it wants to do. One must not overlook the legal tussles like the Cambridge Analytica matter; for example, “The Cambridge Analytica Debacle: A Legal Primer.” Exciting stuff.

There was an announcement which the DarkCyber team noted; specifically, “Game Streaming Site Twitch Buys Social Network Bebo.” Yawn. Bebo, a social media service founded in 2005. That’s so yesterday. Bebo pivoted to social apps, but that did not work out as planned. Then Bebo tried a hashtag messaging app. The idea was that a message had content and it had user assigned index terms just like Twitter. More recently, Bebo has dabbled in young people playing games. Think intramural sports with games like Fortnite. Bowling leagues for people who prefer digital games to those which can result in two a days, bruises, and rides on a team bus.

Wikipedia provides more details of the Bebo trajectory. The reports about this deal like “Amazon’s Twitch Acquired Social Networking Platform Bebo for up to $25 million to Bolster Its Esports Efforts” hit the basics:

• Twitch will be buying pizzas for the Bebo team
• Amazon paid an alleged $25 million for the Bebo property (fungible and intellectual property like Monkey Inferno)
• Hope for the future.

DarkCyber’s view of the deal is mostly in line with the publicly available news reports. However, Amazon has access to data about Twitch, including outputs from users who exchange messages, inputs from “creators” or “live streamers” who want special features without having to arm wrestle with third party software, and Amazon’s own big thinkers who understand that “games” are not part of the fabric of outfits like Amazon, Facebook, and — are you ready for it? — Netflix.

There are also implications for intelligence and law enforcement and, of course, for Facebook, a digital country with its own fledgling sovereign currency. The Bezos bulldozer might be making tracks for Palo Alto to redevelop a certain billionaire’s compound.

Stephen E Arnold, June 19, 2019

Amazonia for June 17, 2019

With travel and a crazy eye doctor appointment, Amazonia snagged a handful of highlights. Enjoy the bulldozer’s path from 30,000 feet.

Amazon Is Okay with a Break Up

DarkCyber noted an interesting report from CNBC. One DarkCyber research professional thought this announcement was a green light for regulators to create one or more additional Fortune 100 companies by dismantling some of the Bezos bulldozer’s accessories. CNBC reported as “real” news:

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon’s cloud business, said Monday that, although he doesn’t see clear benefits for Amazon Web Services spinning off from the rest of the company, if the U.S. government were to force that move, then Amazon would have to comply.

The information flowed from an interview with talk overs from Kara Swisher, who has become the “voice” of Silicon Valley deep thinkers. The story also included these statements:

Jassy has often been asked if Amazon could be planning to separate AWS and turn it into its own business. Historically, Jassy has said no. On Monday he said he still felt there were no major obvious advantages to such a move. He added that customers should not want it to happen because having to do things like hold earnings calls could distract from more important tasks such as keeping cloud services functioning at a high level.

Does Amazon Record Children via Alexa?

An interesting write up appeared in Gizmodo. Online news, of course, may not be “real,” but you can decide for yourself. Just read “Lawsuits Claim Amazon’s Alexa Voice Assistant Illegally Records Children Without Consent.” The write up states:

the complaint argues that Amazon saves “a permanent recording of the user’s voice” as well as records and transmits clips of anything said after Alexa’s “wake word” is uttered. It also claims that Alexa neither informs users that these permanent recordings will be created nor bothers to ask for their consent beforehand…

DarkCyber will monitor this allegation.

Amazon Is Fine with Regulating Facial Recognition

Phys.org reported:

Amazon has joined the ranks of other technology companies, including Microsoft and Google, in acknowledging the risks of facial-recognition software and calling on the federal government to impose national regulations on the technology.

Amazon Financial Shifts into Low Gear

In my Amazon Policeware lectures, I talk about the way in which financial information “snaps in” to services for government authorities. Think in terms of IRS investigations, credit and background checks, and similar services delivered from GovCloud. Against this background, consider Amazon’s new credit card. The Amazon bulldozer’s push is for people with poor credit who want and need an Amazon credit card. Once the territory of the Vanilla pre-paid bank card and similar “financial” services, the Amazon offering is significant. Marketwatch stated:

Like many other retail cards, however, the Amazon Credit Build card can only be used for Amazon purchases, making it a “closed-loop” card.

Seems like a drawback, right? Maybe not. Individuals with poor credit are often difficult to profile like a high net worth Silicon Valley one percenter. The card has hooks to Amazon Prime, a useful way to obtain information about certain card users’ video viewing preferences.

The article points out:

“Secured credit cards are my favorite cards for folks who are getting started with credit or rebuilding it,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst at CompareCards.com. “They’re a great training-wheels card because there’s so little risk involved. After all, with typical credit lines of $200 or $250, there’s only so wild you can go with your spending.”

DarkCyber sees this one more interesting option bolted to the Bezos bulldozer. Unlike some of Amazon’s efforts in food delivery and operating in a “green” manner, this credit card play will be a useful probe for Amazon. If successful, perhaps after the bulldozer blazes a new trail, additional financial services will take root?

Amazon’s Blink XT2 Goes Dark

The Verge reported that the Amazon phone’s demons haunt the XT2. The XT2 is a video camera which garnered “mixed reviews.” Amazon wants love, gentle reader. As a result:

Amazon has temporarily stopped taking orders for the Blink XT2 smart camera that it launched last month. The XT2, which is Blink’s first new camera since Amazon acquired the company, is listed as “currently unavailable” for purchase. That applies to all configurations, including the single camera and multicamera kits. The Verge has reached out to Amazon for comment. Best Buy, which also carries the new camera, simply lists it as “coming soon”online, but some people have been able to buy it at their local stores.

The Blink XT2 may return. Amazon is still selling the Amazon Cloud Cam to Ring’s smart camera lineup. And DeepLens? Not mentioned in the write up.

Amazon’s Food Home Delivery Choked Out

Geekwire reported that Amazon has shut down its food delivery business. DarkCyber has never used Amazon’s or another other food delivery service. The fact that Amazon has offered the service since 2015 was “real” news for us. The service started in Seattle and then became available in more than 20 US cities and London, according to Geekwire. The write up points out:

The closure of Amazon Restaurants after investing serious time and money in the service is a rare retreat from the e-commerce behemoth.

As Amazon “dabbled,” Geekwire notes:

Uber Eats, which launched more than three years ago and is live in 500 cities globally, generated $1.46 billion in revenue last year, up from $587 million in 2017, and brought in $536 million during the first quarter of 2019…. Grubhub, meanwhile, saw revenues reach $324 million for the first quarter, up 39 percent year-over-year, though its operating margin dipped by more than 10 percent, The Motley Fool noted.

For Amazon’s competitors failure may be a delightful Amazon take away.

Amazon Personalize for Everyone

ClickZ likes Amazon’s personalize service. The article “Amazon’s Famed Recommendation Service Personalize Now Available to Every Application” uses the adjective “famed.” Famed? The write up states:

To utilize this personalization-as-a-service, a publisher provides an activity stream from an application, which can include such data as clicks, page views, signups or purchase history – along with info on the products to be recommended, such as products, videos, songs or articles. Additional user info, including demographic or geographic data, can also be included. AWS said the supplied data is kept private and secure, and only used for that application’s recommendations. The service selects the most appropriate algorithms, trains a personalized machine learning model that is designed for the data, and then hosts and manages the model as it provides the recommendations via an API call. Application owners can control the service through the AWS console, and billing is only for the amount of the service used, with no minimums or upfront fees.

If you want to read Amazon’s own explanation of its announcement, navigate to this link.

But “famed”?

Amazon and Blockchain

The UK insurance outfit Legal and General will use Amazon’s blockchain system for its bulk annuities business. Bulk annuities are what makes some UK pensions tick. “UK Insurer Legal & General Picks Amazon for First Pensions Blockchain Deal” reported:

L&G is only launching the blockchain platform for bulk annuity business outside its core markets of Britain and the United States, although an L&G spokesman said the platform could be extended to those two markets in future.

Amazon’s unique selling proposition is that the insurance company can focus on building new business, not keeping a blockchain up and running.

Another brick in the Amazon bulldozer policeware parking garage? Maybe?

George Mason, Yep, George Mason’s Cloud Degree

DarkCyber thinks this news story, overlooked by “real” media,” is important. The Business Journals reported on June 11, 2019, that the Bezos bulldozer dropped off some Amazon professionals at George Mason University. After talk and pizzas, the university favored by some government types, and Amazon had a deal. Student can enroll in George Mason (for example, some Department of Defense professionals, and after four years of study emerge with a four year cloud computing degree. Some of these cloud savvy professionals will return to the US government and others will join the consulting firms which serve the US government. DarkCyber believes that the cloud service the graduates will be able to make work is AWS. “Amazon Web Services Partners with George Mason on 4 Year Degree Program” states:

The announcement comes a year after AWS rolled out a cloud curriculum-based associate degree program at Northern Virginia Community College.

Amazon is also pumping in $3 million for housing.

Amazon explained it this way:

NOVA and Mason faculty worked with AWS Educate curriculum designers to create a BAS degree path that will equip students with technical skills and hands-on experiences to help prepare them for careers in cloud architecture, cybersecurity, software development, and DevOps. The degree pathway will be launched in fall 2020 as part of the ADVANCE program, the NOVA/Mason partnership that streamlines the path to a four-year degree and entry into the workforce by eliminating traditional transfer obstacles, providing students with additional coaching and financial incentives, and highlighting pathways to high-demand careers. The degree program will be backwards-mapped to in-demand skills along with competency-based credentials required by AWS and other cloud employers. All students will receive membership in the AWS Educate program and gain hands-on, real-world experience with leading cloud technology and tools.

As Yoda may have said, “Plan ahead, young JEDI. Cyber warriors need we soon.”

DarkCyber expects similar deals with NOVA and other nearby universities. We also want to point out that the bulldozer is pushing AWS cloud into community colleges and pre-college education. Computer Weekly reports:

Amazon Web Services joins forces with Career College Trust to create cloud course that will prepare students for entry-level tech jobs or further education at university

And if the money and support are insufficient, Amazon rolled out new badges for student who learn AWS RoboMaker, AWS Sumerian, and AWS Deep Racer. The RoboMaker badge is for creating robots to replace inefficient humanoids. the Sumerian badge is a virtual reality play. The DeepRacer badge is for racing virtual cars on virtual tracks. The game angle is a good way to interest young, hungry minds.

Amazon AWS Fees: Know Before You Sign

DarkCyber wants to point out that the complexity of Amazon’s services are equaled and perhaps outdone by Amazon’s pricing structures. “AWS Costs Every Programmer Should Know” is a useful write up. The article includes information for compute and storage, which often comprise the bulk of the customer attention. DarkCyber believes that similar analyses would be useful for the numerous other services Amazon makes available. Amazon’s pricing complexity and its different approaches to assigning fees to services is a bit of digital left overs. Like the company’s “two pizza teams,” the pricing appears and becomes part of the system. It is possible for a customer to sign up for a service and then forget to disable or simply forget that it was a for fee deal. The Amazon billing system keeps on chugging along. Thus, scope out the costs and think about the bumps in fees when thresholds for data, transaction, or some other operation are crossed. Like the AT&T of old, certain thresholds can add significant amounts to a monthly invoice. And like Ma Bell, the time machine approach to bill adjustments is not 100 percent efficient.

Partners and Resellers

The companies may not be household names, but Amazon is signing up partners and resellers. Selected deals this week:

Information Builders will create and deliver health care data management from the AWS cloud. Source: Yahoo

Pulumi has set up shop to selling “how to” services to future AWS customers. Source: Geekwire

SAIC is now a premier consulting partner for Amazon AWS.

VMware and AWS continue their UK push. The NHS deal is one facet of the plan. The article said: “Last year, VMware extended its public sector commitment by announcing VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud, a hybrid cloud service designed to enable public sector agencies in the U.S. to leverage a common cloud infrastructure.” Source: Silicon Angle

Stephen E Arnold, June 17, 2019

Amazon and YouTube: The Hong Kong Protests Mark the Day that Twitch.tv Made Clear the Limitations of YouTube

I heard there was a small protest underway in Hong Kong. The time is now 6 30 am US Eastern time. I navigated to YouTube, entered the query “Hong Kong protest”, and I saw links to videos from a day ago (today is June 16, 2019). I navigated to the YouTube “Live” page which provides a limited selection of streaming videos on YouTube. If you have not seen that somewhat incomplete index, navigate to https://www.youtube.com/live. No live stream of the Hong Kong protest.

If it’s not on YouTube, then it doesn’t exist, goes some old times’ catchphrase.

Well, not quite.

Navigate to Amazon’s Twitch.tv. Run a query for Hong Kong. Here’s what I saw before I clicked on the live stream of Unable to Breath.

Amazon Twitch.tv search result. The Unable to Breath stream is not one but an aggregate of eight separate feeds from Hong Kong.

Front and center was a link to Unable to Breath, which presents this streaming image:

This is a screen shot of a single screen which is eight different feeds showing different views of the handful of people who are participating in the event. Note: Handful means more than one million.

Notice that three are eight live streams of this modest protest. This is one live stream with eight separate views of the modest demonstration in Hong Kong. Eight in one stream! No registration required. No in stream pop up ads. Just high value intelligence in pretty good streaming video quality.

Read more

Microsoft and Oracle: Fear Helps Make New Friends

I found “Microsoft, Oracle Team Up on Cloud Services in Jab at Amazon” amusing. The real news outfit Thomson Reuters reported this unusual big company relationship when I was making my way through torrential rain in lovely West Virginia coal country. The mist did disguise the land renewal, but this Microsoft Oracle relationship is going to make for a nifty road trip video.

Imagine. The elegant Larry Ellison and the sleek Satya Nadella explaining how old school databases are the pajamas made for the cool cats. Amazon and Google will pay attention to this odd couple because it makes very visible the fear which both companies have for their database futures. Forget the cloud. We’re talking databases anywhere: On premises, hybrid, in the cloud, or residing in some wonky quantum storage thing yet to be made stable, affordable, and usable by a normal rocket scientist.

The news report does not wax poetic, nor does it offer much in the way of addressing the fear thing. I did note this statement:

The two companies said the high-speed link between their data centers would start with facilities in the eastern United States and spread to other regions. They will also work together to let joint users log into to services from either company with a single user name and get tech support from either company. The move comes as both Oracle and Microsoft are courting large businesses and government customers considering moving computing tasks currently handled in their own data centers to cloud providers.

I would point out that Oracle has chosen to add its legal pointy stick to its approach to database efficacy. Microsoft, on the other hand, is working overtime to explain that it is the solution to a range of data management issues. If one does not think about Microsoft’s struggles to update its Windows operating system, the PR sounds darned convincing.

I wish to offer a couple of observations:

First, Amazon and Google continue to capture the attention of the next generation of innovators. Oh, I know that there are clever Microsoft and Oracle wizards inventing the future at this very moment. But let’s be real: Amazon has an innovation ecosystem. Google may not have the perseverance to make its products work and then “put wood behind” some to make them competitive, but the Google does have a low cost phone and the ability to go off line because of configuration errors. Amazon, on the other hand, is evolving into an innovation platform. I am not sure the database technologies are what makes Amazon attractive to smaller firms and specialists, but Amazon is revving the bulldozer’s engine.

Second, Microsoft and Oracle are “look back” technology providers. I think both companies share many of the adorable traits of Hewlett Packard (any flavor) and IBM. In today’s business environment, which is similar to the weather around Oklahoma City, being old is not what I interpret as a plus.

Third, the two besties have somewhat different personalities. Microsoft wants to be a do gooder. Oracle wants to fly its fighter jet over the San Jose suburbs. Microsoft wants to be the big dog in Seattle. Oracle wants to be relevant. Microsoft wants to avoid the fate of Vista. Oracle wants to keep the myth of the structured query language alive. Amazon and Google, on the other hand, just want to avoid regulation and emulate the business success of pleasant people like JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and a couple of other “good business men.”

To sum up, fear is tough to explain away. The exchange of fraternity rings and an appearance at the fraternity party or the high school reunion is in the future. Town & Country material I believe. Will the two parties dance each dance together at these shindigs?

Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2019

 

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  Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.

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