Digital Currency Now Becoming Visible
September 14, 2020
Did you think your Bitcoin was beyond the long arm of tax law? Sorry to break it to you, but it is not. Not only does the IRS now ask about cryptocurrency transactions on the front page of form 1040, the agency has acquired a list of digital currency users, we learn from the article, “IRS Sends Fresh Round of Tax Warning Letters to Cryptocurrency Owners” at Bitcoin.com News. Cointracker’s Chandan Lodha suspects the IRS built this mailing list from a subpoena of Coinbase data, though the agency has subpoenaed several other exchanges and is using blockchain analytics software. So much for secret transactions. Writer Kevin Helms reports:
“Several tax service providers revealed on Tuesday that their clients have received a warning letter from the IRS similar to those the agency sent to about 10,000 crypto owners last year. There are three types of letters. The first type, Letter 6173, specifies a date by which the taxpayer must respond or their tax account will be examined by the agency. The other two, Letter 6174 and 6174-A, only remind taxpayers of their tax obligations. The Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the IRS, has said that the IRS letters violate taxpayers’ rights. … The IRS letter proceeds to advise cryptocurrency owners that if they did not accurately report the cryptocurrency transactions on the federal income tax return, they should ‘file amended returns or delinquent returns.’ The agency warned: ‘If you do not accurately report your virtual currency transactions, you may be subject to future civil and criminal enforcement activity.’”
The assertion that these letters violate taxpayers’ rights rests on the right to privacy described in the IRS’ own Taxpayer Bill of Rights (PDF). We do not suggest anyone count on that claim to keep them out of trouble, however. The agency has helpfully published guidelines for those who must report cryptocurrency transactions, as discussed in this article.
Cynthia Murrell, September 14, 2020
Yo, Kafka: Check Out This Bureaucratic Play
September 9, 2020
“Beijing Floats a Plan to Protect Chinese Companies from American Cyber Bullying” is an interesting news report. Let’s assume that it is accurate with nothing lost in translation. The write up states:
In a speech Tuesday, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi proposed a set of international rules intended to increase trust and refute the Trump administration’s strategy to limit the reach of Chinese-made technologies. Wang said the “Global Initiative on Data Security” is a recognition that data protection techniques are increasingly politicized at a moment when “individual countries” are “bullying” others, sometimes “hunting” foreign-based companies.
The political questions are outside the scope of DarkCyber. The semantic issues are getting into the research team’s area of interest.
What’s important is that this is a content object which may be weaponized. Who is bullying whom? Has security become the equivalent of accosting a person of improper behavior? What’s hunting mean?
Worth noting.
Stephen E Arnold, September 9, 2020
Amazon: Employee Surveillance and the Bezos Bulldozer with DeepLens, Ring, and Alexa Upgrades
September 4, 2020
Editor’s Note: This link to Eyes Everywhere: Amazon’s Surveillance Infrastructure and Revitalizing Worker Power may go bad; that is, happy 404 to you. There’s not much DarkCyber can do. Just a heads up, gentle reader.
The information in a report by Open Markets called Amazon’s Surveillance Infrastructure and Revitalizing Worker Power may be difficult to verify and comprehend. People think of Amazon in terms of boxes with smiley faces and quick deliveries of dog food and Lightning cables.
Happy Amazon boxes.
The 34 page document paints a picture of sad Amazon boxes.
The main point is that the Bezos bulldozer drives over employees, not just local, regional, and national retail outlets:
A fundamental aspect of its power is the corporation’s ability to surveil every aspect of its workers’ behavior and use the surveillance to create a harsh and dehumanizing working environment that produces a constant state of fear, as well as physical and mental anguish. The corporation’s extensive and pervasive surveillance practices deter workers from collectively organizing and harm their physical and mental health. Amazon’s vast surveillance infrastructure constantly makes workers aware that every single movement they make is tracked and scrutinized. When workers make the slightest mistake, Amazon can use its surveillance infrastructure to terminate them.
Several observations:
- Amazon is doing what Amazon does. Just like beavers doing what beavers do. Changing behavior is not easy. Evidence: Ask the parents of a child addicted to opioids.
- Stakeholders are happy. Think of the the song with the line “money, money, money.”
- Amazon has the cash, clout, and commitment to pay for lobbying the US government. So far the President of the United States has been able to catch Amazon’s attention with a JEDI sword strike, but that’s not slowed down Darth Jeff.
Net net: After 20 plus years of zero meaningful regulation, the activities of the Bezos bulldozer should be viewed as a force (like “May the force be with you.”) DarkCyber wants to point out that Amazon is also in the policeware business. The write up may be viewed as validation of Amazon’s investments in this market sector.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2020
Maps with Blank Spots
September 2, 2020
We noted the “real” news outfit story “Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps.” The how to is interesting. We learned:
Our breakthrough came when we noticed that there was some sort of issue with satellite imagery tiles loading in the vicinity of one of the known camps while using the Chinese mapping platform Baidu Maps. The satellite imagery was old, but otherwise fine when zoomed out — but at a certain point, plain light gray tiles would appear over the camp location. They disappeared as you zoomed in further, while the satellite imagery was replaced by the standard gray reference tiles, which showed features such as building outlines and roads. At that time, Baidu only had satellite imagery at medium resolution in most parts of Xinjiang, which would be replaced by their general reference map tiles when you zoomed in closer. That wasn’t what was happening here — these light gray tiles at the camp location were a different color than the reference map tiles and lacked any drawn information, such as roads.
After reading the article, DarkCyber wonders what other interesting sites are missing?
Stephen E Arnold, September 2, 2010
Google: We Are the Web. You Really Did Not Know, Did You?
August 31, 2020
Years ago I wrote three monographs about Google. The publisher, now defunct, sold these books after I recycled research paid for and delivered to several clients. The books explored the technologies was developing to redefine what in 2004 to 2008 was the World Wide Web. I included diagrams of a Google walled garden. I explained how Google’s page reconstruction inventions cobbled together data from different sources to create a Google version of content. Heck, I even included the dossier example from a Google patent.
The figure comes from US20070198481. Note that the machine generated dossier includes nicknames, contact information, ethnicity, and other interesting items of information culled from multiple sources and presented in a police report format. The “Maps and Pictures” label is linked to Google Maps.
The patent drawing presented a photo, key facts, and other information about an entity (in this case a person Michael Jackson, the songster). No one paid much attention. One book was circulated within a government agency, but the “real” journalists who requested review copies did zippo with the information.
I spotted a post on Slashdot titled “Brave Complains Google’s Newly Proposed Web Bundles Standard Would Make URLs Meaningless.” Welcome to the reality of the walled garden concept I explained about 15 years ago. The Slashdot post is here and the Brave post is here.
The hiding of PDF urls was one “enhancement” Google introduced several years ago. Researchers who need to document the location of a source document have to use services like URL Clean in order to identify the source of a document, including documents created by US government agencies like DARPA and the CIA. Hey, that’s helpful, Google.
The url masking was little more than an experiment, and it provided the Google with useful data which allows the next “walled garden” architectural enhancement to be scheduled.
Urls from Google are the source.
Why the time lag of a decade? Despite the perception that Google is a disorganized, chaotic outfit, there are some deeper trends which persist through time. These Brin-Page ideas, like the Elliott wave theory, Google becoming the Web is reaching another crest.
Is it too late? Gentle reader, it was too late a decade ago. A lack of meaningful regulation and the emergence of an information monoculture has ceded provenance to Google and a handful of other companies. One does not live in a country. One lives in a dataverse owned, shaped, and controlled by a commercial enterprise.
That’s why it makes zero difference what government officials try to do, the Google is in place and simply enhancing its walled garden, its revenue capability, and its control. Since few online consumers know how to vet sources and validate information, why not trust Google?
And where do the regulators get their information? Why from Google, of course. Logical. And logic is right.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2020
Another Data Marketplace: Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, or Other Provider for This Construct?
August 31, 2020
The European Union is making a sharp U-turn on data privacy, we learn from MIT Technology Review’s article, “The EU Is Launching a Market for Personal Data. Here’s What That Means for Privacy.” The EU has historically protected its citizens’ online privacy with vigor, fighting tooth and nail against the commercial exploitation of private information. As of February, though, the European Commission has decided on a completely different data strategy (PDF). Reporter Anna Artyushina writes:
“The Trusts Project, the first initiative put forth by the new EU policies, will be implemented by 2022. With a €7 million [8.3 million USD] budget, it will set up a pan-European pool of personal and nonpersonal information that should become a one-stop shop for businesses and governments looking to access citizens’ information. Global technology companies will not be allowed to store or move Europeans’ data. Instead, they will be required to access it via the trusts. Citizens will collect ‘data dividends,’ which haven’t been clearly defined but could include monetary or nonmonetary payments from companies that use their personal data. With the EU’s roughly 500 million citizens poised to become data sources, the trusts will create the world’s largest data market. For citizens, this means the data created by them and about them will be held in public servers and managed by data trusts. The European Commission envisions the trusts as a way to help European businesses and governments reuse and extract value from the massive amounts of data produced across the region, and to help European citizens benefit from their information.”
It seems shifty they have yet to determine just how citizens will benefit from this data exploitation, I mean, value-extraction. There is no guarantee people will have any control over their information, and there is currently no way to opt out. This change is likely to ripple around the world, as the way EU approaches data regulation has long served as an example to other countries.
The concept of data trusts has been around since 2018, when Sir Tim Berners Lee proposed it. Such a trust could be for-profit, for a charitable cause, or simply for data storage and protection. As Artyushina notes, whether this particular trust actually protects citizens depends on the wording of its charter and the composition of its board of directors. See the article for examples of other trusts gone wrong, as well as possible solutions. Let us hope this project is set up and managed in a way that puts citizens first.
Cynthia Murrell, August 31, 2020
Will the US Government Understand Streaming and ISPs?
August 26, 2020
There’s hope I suppose. After reading “Streaming Is Laying Bare How Big ISPs, Big Tech, and Big Media Work Together Against Users,” I am not sure the message will get through. Dark patterns can be difficult to explain. Crafty and efficient MBAs create ways to harvest money. Consumers may get the drift, but regulators and elected officials? Maybe, maybe not.
One this is certain: With appeals like this one, most will just smile and move on:
We need more choices for our ISPs, so they can’t keep charging us more for bad service. We need more choices so they can’t leverage their captive audiences for their new video services. We need net neutrality so these giant companies can’t create fiefdoms where they manipulate how we spend our time online. And we need our technology to be freed from corporate deals so we get what we paid for.
For some fun reading, check out this cost comparison chart. How’s the communication with the US government working out?
Stephen E Arnold, August 26, 2020
Alphabet Spells Out Actions for YouTubers to Take
August 20, 2020
Coercion is interesting because it can take many forms. An online publication called Digital Journal published “Google Rallies YouTubers Against Australian News Payment Plan.” Let’s assume the information in the write up is accurate. The pivot point for the article is:
Google has urged YouTubers around the world to complain to Australian authorities as it ratchets up its campaign against a plan to force digital giants to pay for news content. Alongside pop-ups warning “the way Aussies use Google is at risk”, which began appearing for Australian Google users on Monday, the tech titan also urged YouTube creators worldwide to complain to the nation’s consumer watchdog.
The idea, viewed from a company’s point of view, seems to be that users can voice their concern about an Australian government decision. The company believes that email grousing will alter a government decision. The assumption is that protest equals an increased likelihood of change. Is this coercion? Let’s assume that encouraging consumer push back against a government is.
The action, viewed from a government’s point of view, may be that email supporting a US company’s desire to index content and provide it to whomever, is harming the information sector in a country.
The point of friction is that Alphabet Google is a company which operates as if it were a country. The only major difference is that Alphabet Google does not have its own military force, and it operates in a fascinating dimension in which its actions are important, maybe vital, to some government agencies and, therefore, its corporate actions are endorsed or somehow made more important in other spheres of activity.
DarkCyber is interested in monitoring these issues:
- How will YouTube data consumers and enablers of Google ad revenue react to their corporate-directed coercive role?
- How will the Australian government react to and then accommodate such coercion if it becomes significant?
- How will other countries — for example, France, Germany, and the UK — learn from the YouTube coercion initiative?
- How will Alphabet Google mutate its coercive tactics to make them more effective?
Of course, the Google letter referenced in the Digital Journal may be a hoax or a bit of adolescent humor. Who pays attention to a super bright person’s high school antics? These can be explained away or deflected with “Gee, I am sorry.”
The real issue is a collision of corporatism and government. The coercion angle, if the write up is accurate, draws attention to a gap between what’s good for the company and what’s good for a country.
The issue may be the responsibility of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, but the implications reach to other Australian government entities and to other countries as well. The US regulatory entities have allowed a handful of companies to dominate the digital environment. Coercion may the an upgrade to these monopolies’ toolkits.
But the whole matter may be high school humor, easily dismissed with “it’s a joke” and “we’re sorry. Really, really sorry.”
Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2020
Apple and Russia
August 19, 2020
We have learned that Apple is being accused of unfair practices in yet another country from AppleInsider’s write-up, “Russian Watchdog Says Apple’s App Store Rules and Behaviors Are Anticompetitive.” According to Reuters, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia declares that the way Apple runs its online app store gives it unfair advantage. We note the agency’s leader once allegedly worked for the KGB; we suggest it is unwise to irritate such an individual. Writer Mike Peterson gives details of the allegations:
“The FAS’s ruling cites the need for users to download iOS apps from the official App Store, and claimed that Apple has ‘unlawfully reserved rights’ to block any third-party app from the marketplace. The watchdog also signaled that it would issue an order demanding that Apple resolve it alleged regulatory abuses. The FAS launched its investigation following a formal complaint by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab. The company issued the complaint after Apple blocked its ‘Safe Kids’ parental control app from the App Store, citing child privacy and security concerns. At the time, Apple’s removal of those parental control apps prompted concerns that the company was quashing competition of its Screen Time feature. Apple responded, stating that the use of mobile device management (MDM) and other tools in the apps presented a security risk.”
Peterson reminds us Apple is also facing antitrust investigations in the US and Europe. The EU probe, we’re told, was launched in response to charges by Apple Music competitor Spotify.
Russia’s government options may include some strategists at Apple may under weight. Telegram, for example, found cooperation a more pragmatic way to deal with Russian authorities. Why? Perhaps it was first hand knowledge of certain bureaucratic features of the Russian government’s mechanisms?
Some companies want to function as if they were countries. Some countries find that approach untenable.
Cynthia Murrell, August 19, 2020
Aussie Agency Accuses Google of Misleading Consumers
August 19, 2020
Our beloved Google misleading consumers? Say it isn’t so! The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) announces: “ACCC Alleges Google Misled Consumers About Expanded Use of Personal Data.” The commission has begun federal court proceedings against the company, saying it failed to adequately notify users about a change made to its privacy policy in 2016. Basically, it swapped out the promise, “We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with personally identifiable information unless we have your opt in consent,” for the sentence, “Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google’s services and the ads delivered by Google.” To those who do not follow developments in the world of data, that sounds like a neutral thing at worst, perhaps even helpful. However, the post explains:
“Before June 2016, Google only collected and used, for advertising purposes, personally identifiable information about Google account users’ activities on Google owned services and apps like Google Search and YouTube. After June 2016, when consumers clicked on the ‘I agree’ notification, Google began to collect and store a much wider range of personally identifiable information about the online activities of Google account holders, including their use of third-party sites and apps not owned by Google. Previously, this additional data had been stored separately from a user’s Google account. Combined with the personal data stored in Google accounts, this provided Google with valuable information with which to sell even more targeted advertising, including through its Google Ad Manager and Google Marketing Platform brands. The ACCC alleges that the ‘I agree’ notification was misleading, because consumers could not have properly understood the changes Google was making nor how their data would be used, and so did not – and could not – give informed consent.”
As ACCC Chair Rod Sims points out, these third-party sites can include some “very sensitive and private information.” He also takes an interesting perspective—since Google is raking in more ad revenue from this personal data, and users essentially pay for its services with their data, the policy change amounted to an inadequately announced price hike. See the article for details on how Google implemented these changes in 2016.
We’re reminded Google acquired ad-serving firm DoubleClick in 2008, but it has since referred to the system as simply “Google technology” in its privacy policy. The technology tracks users all over the web to provide more personalized, and lucrative, advertising. With some imagination, though, one can think of many more uses for this information. Users should certainly be aware of the implications.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2020
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