Google: Forgetting or Selective Remembering?
March 27, 2019
Google created many useful and brilliant projects from its trademark search to Gmail and its free office suite. Google also has its share of failures, most notably Google+ and now the admission that they “forgot” about a microphone in its Nest Secure security system. BGR reports that, “Congress Wants Google To Explain How It Forgot About The Nest Secure Microphone.”
Google says they entirely “forgot” about a microphone inside their Nest Secure security system. Smart home security systems, such as the Nest Secure, are popular among homeowners, because it allows them to monitor their homes remotely, maintain a constant camera feed, and more. Smart security systems are supposed to protect individuals and their privacy, but some US senators are concerned about citizens’ privacy and Google’s “forgotten” microphone.
Senators and their constituents are worried that large tech companies are taking advantage of their end users and are not being transparent. Google maintains its commitment to transparency and its chief privacy officer said so during a Us Senate Committee hearing. Google will respond further to the issue in mid to late March 2019 with answers about the Nest Secure’s technical specifications, how they communicated with consumers, and what stage it was forgotten.
Google is taking the full blame:
“As we mentioned last week, Google has already released a pretty bare-bones mea culpa about this, sharing a statement with Business Insider that says the mike was never meant to be a secret and should have been included in the tech specs. ‘That was an error on our part.’ The company went on to explain that ‘the microphone has never been on and is only activated when users specifically enable the option.’ The long and short of this is that if you bought Nest’s $500 home security system, which is only a year old, you’re just now learning that you’ve inadvertently had a microphone in your home for a year or more that you didn’t know was there. The ball is now in Google’s court to respond to the questions raised in the Senators’ letter…”
Perhaps someone at Google should read Surveillance Capitalism. No, forget that.
Whitney Grace, March 27, 2019
Google, the Ad Giant, Funds Local Media
March 26, 2019
I found “Exclusive: Google Funds Creation of New Local Media Companies” quite interesting. Some publishers Google directly contributed to many publications slide into a sluggish Sargasso of red ink.
The write up states:
McClatchy [Google’s first news partner] will be the first of many “experiments” within the Local Experiment Project. The goal is to use the lessons from McClatchy’s efforts, and others in the future, to create a network of shared insights that can be leveraged by everyone in the local news business.
Yep, everyone except those selected by the new Local Experiments Project.
One question, “How long will the experiment last?” If Google kills the service, what happens to the partners? What happens to everyone? Perhaps Tim Andrews of Patch local news fame will return to the GOOG to get news back on track? That’s the net net net, as Mr. Andrews has been known to say.
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2019
Such Nice Fellows. Such a Fine. Such a Trend Line
March 20, 2019
I read “EU Fines Google $1.7 Billion for Abusing Online Advertising.” The fine works out to about $1.7 billion US dollars. DarkCyber believes that further penalties may be forthcoming. The write up states:
It’s the third time the commission has slapped Google with an antitrust penalty, following multibillion-dollar fines resulting from separate probes into two other parts of the Silicon Valley giant’s business.
The old adage “the third time is a charm” is not applicable. The third fine simply puts a trend line in a regulator’s spreadsheet.
What adage applies? How about Willie Sutton’s apocryphal statement: “I rob banks because that’s where the money is.” Here is Harrod’s Creek people have been known to identify a piggy bank and take whatever money falls out when shaken.
Stephen E Arnold, March 20, 2019
Google and Anti Disinformation
March 19, 2019
Lest anyone wonder what, exactly, Google is doing to fight disinformation on its platforms, the company has compiled that information in a white paper presented at the recent Munich Security Conference. Techspot tells us, “Google Presents Its Anti-Fake News System in Detail.” Reporter Greg Synek gives us the highlights; we learn:
“An important fact about Google’s algorithms are that they ‘do not make subjective determinations about the truthfulness of webpages.’ Instead, only measurable and verifiable data is used to give a trust score of sorts. The number of other websites linking to or referencing a page and authority rank are contributing factors. Once a web page meets enough of Google’s criteria to be considered legitimate and of good quality, it is given a boost in results. Google News imposes even stricter guidelines for what will be prominently featured because timeliness is a major factor in ranking. All of the news produced on any given day that Google crawls through can be used to determine when and which topics are considered important.
We also noted this statement:
“Following the automated filters in place, extra context is being given to ‘Your Money or Your Life’ pages. Google looks for medical, legal, financial, and public information pages that may be used to make critical decisions. These YMYL category pages receive special ranking consideration based on authority and user trust. For example, anti-vaccine campaigns may be moved down rankings considerably due to their provably false information being spread. Humans are involved in rating some of these pages, but do not determine the absolute rank of any site or individual web page.”
As for Google-owned YouTube, it can be a bit more complex to manage as we learned when the controversial New Zealand video surfaced and surfaced and surfaced.
Readers can download the full pdf here.
Cynthia Murrell, March 19, 2019
Google: No China Interaction?
March 18, 2019
I read the NBC report “Google Denies Working with the Chinese Military after Trump Criticism.” Not much of a surprise. The Google had to say something. The real news outfit reported:
“We are not working with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare,” a spokesperson said.
Google blew off the US government project Project Maven and then found itself stung by its Dragonfly initiative.
DarkCyber believes everything Google says. Doesn’t everyone? Mr. Trump does not it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2019
Forget Facebook Resignations, Is Google Actually Aiding the Chinese?
March 15, 2019
Okay, okay, the source is Gizmodo. The article may be spot on or a bit like outputs from quite interesting sources from lesser known experts. The value of the write up rests in its reminding me of the duck – rabbit paradox:
Is this a duck (Peking variety) or rabbit (cute technological bunny)?
The title which caught my eye was:
Pentagon Brass Bafflingly Accuses Google of Providing ‘Direct Benefit’ to China’s Military
The “bafflingly” is an interesting word. Gizmodo cannot understand why someone from the Pentagon would “accuse Google of providing direct benefit to China.”
I noted this passage:
Dunford’s incendiary comments came during a budgetary hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee this afternoon. During his time for questioning, freshman Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, turned to the subject of Google’s decision to back away from projects with the Pentagon. Hawley asked the panel if he understood the situation correctly and that the men were saying, “that Google, an American company, supposedly, is refusing to work with the Department of Defense, but is doing work with China, in China, in a way that at least indirectly benefits the Chinese government.”
General Dunford is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
Google has many government projects, a big office near a Metro stop, and a modest lobbying team. Nevertheless, “brass” seems to suggest that our beloved Google is not interested in working on behalf of the US. I wonder if the same could be said of Baidu, Huawei, or ZTE efforts on behalf of the Chinese government?
General Dunford is quoted as saying:
You know, senator, I’m nodding my head on exactly the point that you made: that the work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefitting the Chinese military. And I’ve been very public on this issue as well; in fact, the way I described it to our industry partners is, ‘look we’re the good guys in the values that we represent and the system that we represent is the one that will allow and has allowed you to thrive,’ and that’s the way I’ve characterized it. I was just nodding that what the secretary was articulating is the general sense of all of us as leaders. We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing there is that indirect benefit, and frankly ‘indirect’ may be not a full characterization of the way it really is. It’s more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.
Google’s position is:
As an American company, we cherish the values and freedoms that have allowed us to grow and serve so many users. I am proud to say we do work, and we will continue to work, with the government to keep our country safe and secure.
Gizmodo’s interpretation of the baffling comments may be nestled in this paragraph:
But Dunford sent a striking message to any tech companies that might consider getting involved with the DoD in the future: If you get in bed with us and you decide you want to break it off, you might be called a traitor.
I don’t know anything about General Dunford. I know nothing about Google’s current work for the US government. However, I have heard comments from my acquaintances to the effect:
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck. It is a duck.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2019
When the Best and the Brightest Tech Stars Fail
March 15, 2019
Two outages. Two explanations.
Google’s March 12, 2019, outage was explained this way at Google Cloud Status Dashboard.
On Monday 11 March 2019, Google SREs were alerted to a significant increase in storage resources for metadata used by the internal blob service. On Tuesday 12 March, to reduce resource usage, SREs made a configuration change which had a side effect of overloading a key part of the system for looking up the location of blob data. The increased load eventually lead to a cascading failure.
I like the phrase “cascading failure.” Sounds inevitable.
Facebook’s explanation of its one day plus outage appeared in “Biggest Facebook Outage in its History Due to Database Issues.” The explanation was:
The company’s databases were “overloaded.”
Concentration, just like in the mainframe days, can create some challenges for those downstream. If the big outfits cannot deal with failure, I don’t feel bad when my Android phone complains it cannot connect to the Google Play store where malware may still live.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2019
A Hip Bro Excuse: We Cannot Modify Our System and Software
March 5, 2019
I was zipping through news this morning, and I spotted “Google to Ban Political Ads Ahead of Federal Election, Citing New Transparency Rules.” The “rules” apply to Canada, not the United States. Google will not sell ads. That’s interesting.
The main point of the article for me was the reason Google will turn down money and leave a giant pile of cash on the table was this sentence in the write up (which I assume is true, of course):
Google is banning political advertising on its platforms ahead of the Canadian federal election because of new ad transparency rules it says would be too challenging to comply with.
Challenge, when I hear the word, means “too darned difficult.” A connotation for me is “what a waste of time and effort.” Another is a variation on the Bezos basic, “Just walk away”; for instance, Hasta la vista, Nueva York.”
Is adapting Google’s ad sense too challenging for a company which has a boat load of talented programmers?
What I find interesting is that Facebook has the same limitation. Do you recall that Facebook users were going to get a control that would allow them to delete some of their data. The delay, I heard, is a consequence of figuring out how to make delete work.
Net net: Two outfits with smart people are unable to modify their respective systems.
Do I believe that technical modifications are too difficult?
Yeah, I believe the moon is made of green cheese as well. The questions these technical challenges beg include:
- What is the specific problem?
- Is the system intractable so that other changes are too great a challenge? If so, what functions cannot be altered?
- What is the engineering approach at Google which renders its software unfixable?
- Are Google’s (and Facebook’s) engineers less effective than technical personnel at other companies; for example, Apple or Microsoft?
- What’s the personnel problem? Is underpaying certain ethnic groups an issue?
Maybe regulations are the optimal way to deal with companies unable to comply with government regulations?
Stephen E Arnold, March 5 2019
SIM Swapping: Trust Google?
March 2, 2019
Anyone holding crypto currency should be aware by now of SIM swapping, a hacking technique that involves tricking telecom companies into redirecting the victim’s phone number to the attacker’s device. Now, The Next Web tells us, “Google’s Head of Account Security Has Fix for Crypto currency SIM-Swapping.” Note that the fix involves a physical device, not just a download. Writer David Canellis explains:
“An overt reliance on SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) systems has only compounded the problem. While these are regarded as an upgrade to traditional verification methods like usernames and passwords, SMS-based 2FA presents cybercriminals with a clear attack vector. If hackers can take control of a phone number, it would be them who receive the special codes, allowing instant access to sensitive information.
We also noted:
“Google is one of many tech giants to present a solution. It released its Titan Keys last August, a $50 set of hardware devices that cryptographically ties particular devices to accounts, effectively keeping anyone without a registered device at bay. Users connect the Key to a device, such as a laptop or a smartphone, and sign into the account they wish to protect. This can be done via USB, NFC, or Bluetooth. A button then is pressed on the Key which will cryptographically register the device to a user account. It’s not exactly necessary to carry around the Keys, but users will need to have at least one handy to sign in. Purchasers of Titan Keys can also enroll in Google’s Advanced Protection Platform, which provides a supplementary bundle of security measures.”
Canellis notes that crypto currency makes for a tempting target. While typical attacks net hackers a fraction of a cent per victim, a bad actor can make thousands of dollars from one successful attack. The Titan Keys work because they cut out the telecoms—there is no one for hackers to bamboozle. Navigate to the source article for more information on the device and how it works. Canellis observes what could be taken as a warning—today’s world of online banking and mobile apps makes for a less secure banking environment than we older folks grew up with.
Whom do we trust? Google? Another third party?
Cynthia Murrell, March 2, 2019
Google: More on the Good Fight
March 1, 2019
Yep, prohibiting unmoderated comments seems like a real wow moment for the Googlers. Breakthrough ideas take time, particularly with each tiny step, Google is moving from a platform to an old fashioned, curated news outfit.
Google and Facebook are drowning in fake news. The tech giants are routinely chastised in the media and on Capitol Hill for failing to maintain customer trust over fake news and privacy. So, the search king has taken it upon itself to fight these fights. But, is it enough? We gathered information from a recent Engadget story, “Google Explains How It’s Fighting Fake News.”
According to the story:
“Google is not immune to the scourge of fake news that has dominated headlines over the last few years. The company has taken various steps in fighting the problem — from partnering with fact-checking networks to launching the $300 million Google News Initiative. Now it’s expanded its transparency efforts further by detailing at length the steps it takes to fight disinformation across its services.”
Self regulation seems like a good idea—if you are a stakeholder in the Wild West world of Silicon Valley. Other countries’ regulators have a different view it seems.
Does the phrase “digital gangster” ring a bell. Local problems once were just that, confined and local. Global online information services are a bit broader and appear to have much more far reaching consequences.
Patrick Roland, March 1, 2019
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