Brave Browsing Sniping
June 9, 2020
DarkCyber noted “The Brave Web Browser Is Hijacking Links, and Inserting Affiliate Codes.” The write up explains that the Brave browser is behaving in a way that is unseemly. The point is that a free Web browser is pitching privacy and at the same time performs some underhanded actions to generate revenue. The explanation of the digital sleight of hand is interesting and illustrates that those “gee, stuff is free” online users assume one thing and may find something different. The write up includes this list and suggestions for accessing Web sites in a non-Brave way. We quote:
There is no good reason to use Brave. Use Chromium — the open-source core of Chrome — with the uBlock Origin ad blocker. [Chromium download, uBO Chrome]
Or use Firefox with uBlock Origin — ‘cos it blocks more ads than the Chromium framework will let anything block. [uBO Firefox]
Or, if you want a really cleaned-out Chrome — ungoogled-chromium, with uBlock Origin. [GitHub]
If you’re on Android, use Firefox with uBlock Origin, or the new Firefox Focus browser. [Mozilla]
Brave is a browser for suckers who want to keep getting played — so it’s a 100% crypto enterprise. As Eich’s pinned tweet still tells us: “Who gets paid? If not you, then you’re ‘product’.” [Twitter]
DarkCyber is not sure if this comment is as ominous as it sounded to one DarkCyber researcher:
Brendan Eich has responded to this post by claiming “David lies about us all the time.” I have pointed out that this is a prima facie defamatory statement, and asked him to detail these claimed lies. [Twitter, archive]
Mr. Eich is the alleged perpetrator of the Brave misdeeds. Online marketing and advertising are fascinating disciplines.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2020
Technology TapsBrakes on Learning? Well, Well, Well
June 8, 2020
DarkCyber is often amused when friends and acquaintances explain that tablets, personal computers, and mobile phones make their children more intelligent. Living in a cloud of unknowing is a delightful mental condition. One can only imagine the disdain with which the information in “Harder to Learn about Science with Modern Technology – Astronomer Royal” will be greeted.
The person dubbed the Big Dog of Astronomy in the UK has some definite ideas; to wit:
“I think paradoxically our high-tech environments may actually be an impediment to sustaining useful enthusiasm in science,” Lord Rees said….
The gadgets that now pervade our lives, smartphones and such like, are baffling black boxes and pure magic to most people. “If you take them apart you find few clues to intricate miniaturize mechanisms and you certainly can’t put them together again. “So, the extreme sophistication of modern technology, wonderful though those benefits are, is ironically an impediment to engaging young people in the basics, with learning how things work.”
I think the summary is that dumbing down goes up as high-technology squeezes learning into an easily controlled digital experience.
This is a positive for some companies. Are you able to identify two or three?
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2020
Adulting at Facebook: Filtering Government Generated Content
June 5, 2020
Facebook may have realized that certain nation states are generating weaponized content. My goodness, what an insight, what a flash of brilliance, what a realization about the world of adults! DarkCyber noted “Facebook to Block Ads from State Controlled Media Entities in the U.S.” The write up reports:
Facebook said Thursday (June 5, 2020) it will begin blocking state-controlled media outlets from buying advertising in the U.S. this summer. It’s also rolling out a new set of labels to provide users with transparency around ads and posts from state-controlled outlets. Outlets that feel wrongly labeled can appeal the process.
Some government professionals in Sweden were hip to state actors using social media ads for state owned purposes about a decade ago. Facebook just got the memo maybe? The article adds:
The purpose of labeling these outlets is to give users transparency about any kind of potential bias a state-backed entity may have when providing information to U.S. users.
How many users of social media know that some content is “real,” and other content is “pay to play”? Not too many. DarkCyber has picked up hints that fewer than five percent of online content consumers can figure out provenance as a concept, let alone identify wonky information and data. Infographics? Hey, looks like real numbers, right?
The key point is that adulting is arriving a day late and a dollar short. Does anyone care? Sure, some people. But decades into the Wild West of weaponized content, information and data, slapping an index term on a content object is similar to watching the ocean liner sailing toward the horizon. Missing the boat? Yep.
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2020
GoAccess: A Log Analyzer
June 4, 2020
We are updating our tools section of an upcoming National Crime Conference lecture. If you have access to a Web server and a log, you may want to take a look at GoAccess. The software
was designed to be a fast, terminal-based log analyzer. Its core idea is to quickly analyze and view web server statistics in real time without needing to use your browser.
“Analytics without Google” provides additional information about the software and includes helpful pointer. The article states:
What I further liked about GoAccess is I could run it on a separate machine, transferring logs from multiple servers into one place, then creating my necessary dashboards; this isn’t a specific feature of GoAccess, but a feature of the Unix philosophy. This flexibility works well with my seemingly ephemeral Digital Ocean Droplets, which don’t go kaboom on their own, but rather suffer from my own tendencies to erase and start from scratch. GoAccess reminded me how beautiful composable tools are. Its feature set is minimal and it plays nicely with the tools already available to us on a *nix platform. Do one thing and do it well — words of wisdom.
Worth a look.
Stephen E Arnold, June 4, 2020
Bookmarks and the Dynamic Web: Yes, Still a Problem
June 3, 2020
Apparently, bookmarks are a thing. Again. Memex from WorldBrain.io is an open source browser extension that allows users to annotate, search, and organize online information locally. The offline functionality supports both privacy and data ownership. It is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Brave browsers, and now offers a mobile app called Memex Go. The product page lists these features:
Full Text History Search: Automatically indexes websites you visit. Instantly recover anything you’ve seen without upfront work.
Highlights & Annotations: Keep your thoughts organized with their original context.
Tags, Lists & Bookmarks: Quickly organize content via the sidebar or keyboard shortcuts.
Quickly save & organize content on the go: Encrypted sync between your computer, iOS and Android devices.
Your Data and Attention are yours: Memex is offline first & WorldBrain.io introduced a cap on investor returns so we don’t exploit your attention and data to maximize investor profits.
The page illustrates each feature with a dynamic screen shot, so check it out for more details. You can also click here to learn more about their financial philosophy. The Basic version of Memex is free, while the Pro version costs € 2 per month or € 20 per year (after the 14-day free trial). WorldBrain.io hopes its software will contribute to a “well-informed and less polarized global society.” Based in Berlin, the company was founded in 2017.
Cynthia Murrell, June 3, 2020
The Good Old Internet Archive Attracts Some Legal Eagle Action
June 2, 2020
Who really owns the Internet Archive? Does the Internet Archive still bundle up tweets and provide them to the august Library of Congress? Is that the caterpillar tracks of the Bezos bulldozer in the roadway near the Internet Archives headquarters? DarkCyber does not know the answers to these questions.
What is clear is that the Association of American Publishers (yes, there are still American publishers) is not happy with the Internet Archive. “Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive for Systematic Mass Scanning and Distribution of Literary Works. Ask Court to Enjoin and Deter Willful Infringement” is reasonably well written, probably because there is a Vassar literature major in the PR chain. The write up states:
… member companies of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Internet Archive (“IA”) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit asks the Court to enjoin IA’s mass scanning, public display, and distribution of entire literary works, which it offers to the public at large through global-facing businesses coined “Open Library” and “National Emergency Library,” accessible at both openlibrary.org and archive.org. IA has brazenly reproduced some 1.3 million bootleg scans of print books, including recent works, commercial fiction and non-fiction, thrillers, and children’s books.
The AAP, like DarkCyber, finds the self aggrandizing, virtue signaling about pandemics, unemployment, and other contentious social issues tiresome. Amazon and Google are busy waving their hands after recent social turmoil. That helps if one is seeking clicks and some positive corporate CxO stroking.
The AAP’s statement continues:
Despite the self-serving library branding of its operations, IA’s conduct bears little resemblance to the trusted role that thousands of American libraries play within their communities and as participants in the lawful copyright marketplace. IA scans books from cover to cover, posts complete digital files to its website, and solicits users to access them for free by signing up for Internet Archive Accounts. The sheer scale of IA’s infringement described in the complaint—and its stated objective to enlarge its illegal trove with abandon—appear to make it one of the largest known book pirate sites in the world. IA publicly reports millions of dollars in revenue each year, including financial schemes that support its infringement design.
You can read the AAP statement via the link above.
At a time when civility is in short supply, the AAP approaches its legal foe this way:
The lawsuit reflects widespread anger among publishers, authors, and the entire creative community regarding IA’s actions and its response to objections. In an open letter to IA and its Board of Directors, the Authors Guild observed, “You cloak your illegal scanning and distribution of books behind the pretense of magnanimously giving people access to them. But giving away what is not yours is simply stealing, and there is nothing magnanimous about that. Authors and publishers—the rights owners who legally can give their books away—are already working to provide electronic access to books to libraries and the people who need them. We do not need Internet Archive to give our works away for us.”
Yikes. The news release should have carried a trigger warning. Where is that Vassar-powered red pencil when one needs it? After the Google-centric headline, why not add “This content may be disturbing.”
Will publishers succeed in this effort? The flapping of the legal eagles over the Google Books’ project is less noisy than it was. (When will those angry with Google realize that projects die at Google because staff lose interest?)
Internet Archive may be different. One bright spot: The search and retrieval mechanism for Internet Archive content is darned interesting. Try to find a content object. Great stuff. When a content object cannot be found, does it exist?
The lawsuit is unlikely to consider this question.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2020
List of Online Libraries
June 2, 2020
One of the DarkCyber researchers spotted a list of online libraries. The source is an unlikely one: Voat and a contributor named Auchtung. The links point to Web sites which provide access to collections. The “collections” are often duplicates; that is, there is redundancy in the list. DarkCyber believes that if one library is taken down, another one can be located. If you are curious about lists of books offered without charge, navigate to this link. Registration may be required. Also, it is possible that some of the information offered on these Web pages is protected by copyright. Just a heads up.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2020
Survey Says, Make the Content Go Away, Please
May 19, 2020
TechRadar states the obvious—“Want to Remove Information About Yourself Online? You’re Not Alone.” The write-up cites a recent Kaspersky survey of over 15,000 respondents. It confirms people are finally taking notice that their personal data has been making its way across the Web. The findings show a high percentage of Internet users have tried to erase personal information online, and for good reason, but many have met with little success. Writer Mike Moore reports:
“Four in five people (82 percent) surveyed in a major study by Kaspersky said they had tried to remove private information which had been publicly available, either from websites or social media channels, recently. However a third (37 percent) of those surveyed had no idea of how to remove details about themselves online. … [The survey] found that over a third (34 percent) of consumers have faced incidents where their private information was accessed by someone who did not have their consent. Of these incidents, over a quarter (29 percent) resulted in financial losses and emotional distress, and more than a third (35 percent) saw someone able to gain access to personal devices without permission. This rises to 39 percent among those aged between 25 and 34, despite younger internet users often being expected to have higher levels of technological literacy. Overall, one in five people say they are concerned about the personal data that organizations are collecting about them and their loved ones.”
The standard recommendation to protect privacy in the first place has been to use a VPN, but even that may be inadequate. A study performed by TechRadar Pro found that nearly half of all VPN services are based in countries that are part of the Fourteen Eyes international surveillance alliance. Looking for alternatives? Moore shares this link to a TechRadar article on what they say are the most secure VPN providers.
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2020
A Food Program Online: Shortages? What Shortages?
May 15, 2020
Retailers have adapted their sales model to serve customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Humanity’s best qualities have also surfaced as we help each other during the bleak present. Combining charity and shopping in one, Walmart and Nextdoor launched a new assistance program. Techcrunch shares the story: “Nextdoor And Walmart Partner On A New Neighborly Assistance Program.”
Nextdoor is a neighborhood social network and the new “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” endeavor will allow vulnerable people to request shopping assistance from their neighbors who are already going to Walmart. Nextdoor users will post assistance requests in local groups via the Web site or app. Users can work out details through private messages or a message board.
The “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” is a low cost alternative to grocery delivery services and will help vulnerable people on fixed incomes.
The program is voluntary and Walmart is not monitoring the program. Walmart only partnered with Nextdoor to facilitate the “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” program.
“‘We’re inspired everyday by the kindness of people around the world who are stepping up and helping out. In recent weeks, we’ve been blown away by the number of members who have raised their hand to run an errand, go to the grocery store, or pick up a prescription for a neighbor,’ said Sarah Friar, Nextdoor CEO, about the feature. ‘We’re grateful for Walmart’s partnership to make this important connection between neighbors around vital services, and we’re proud to come together to ensure everyone has a neighborhood to rely on,’ she said.”
Helping vulnerable people during the COVID-19 pandemic is important, but the people who would use the “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” program could also be made targets via the same service. Nextdoor has useful information about crime which is not comprehensively indexed right now. The data about shopping and the “address / location” of those in need is a potential problem for users and an opportunity for bad actors to know whom to target.
And if there are food shortages? Virtue signals will light up.
Whitney Grace, May 15, 2020
Semantic SEO: Solution or Runway for Google Ads, Formerly AdWords?
May 14, 2020
I participated in a conversation with Robert David Steele, a former CIA professional, and a former Google software engineer named Zack Vorhies. One of the topics touched upon was Google’s relaxing of its relevance thresholds. A video of extracts from the conversation contains some interesting information; for example, the location of a repository of Google company documents Mr. Vorhies publicly released.
My contribution to the discussion focused on how valuable “relaxed” relevance is. The approach allows Google to display more ads per query. The “relaxed” query means that an ad inventory can be worked through more quickly than it would be IF old fashioned Boolean search were the norm for users. Advertisers’ eyes cross when an explanation of Boolean and “relaxing” a semantic method have to be explained.
DarkCyber’s research team prefers Boolean. None of the researchers need training wheels, Mother Google (which seems to emulate Elsa Krebs of James Bond fame) and WFH Googlers bonding with their mobile phones like a fuzzier, semantic Tommy Bahama methods.
The team spotted “The Newbie’s Information to Semantic Search: Examples and Instruments.” Our interpretation of “newbies” is that the collective noun refers to desperate marketers who have to find a way to boost traffic to a Web site BEFORE going to his or her millennial leader and saying, “Um, err, you know, I think we have to start buying Google Ads.”
Yes, there is a link between the SEO rah rah and the Google online advertising system. The idea is simple. When SEO fails, the owner of the Web page has to buy Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords). In a future post, someone on the team will write about this interesting business process. Just not in this post, thank you.
The article triggering this essay includes what looks like simplified semi-technical diagrams. Plus, there are screenshots featuring Yo Yo Ma. And SEOish jargon; for example:
Coding
Elements
Knowledge as in “knowledge of any Web page.” DarkCyber finds categorical affirmatives a crime against logicians living and semantically dead.
Mapping as in “semantic mapping”
Markup
Semantic
Plus, the write up some to be an advertorial weaponized content object for a product called Optimizer. DarkCyber concluded that the system is a word look up tool, sort of a dumbed down thesaurus for hustlers, unemployed business administration junior college drop outs, and earnest art history majors working in the honorable discipline of SEO.
What’s the semantic analysis convey to a reader unfamiliar with the concepts of “semantic,” “mark up,” and “knowledge.”? The answer, in the view of the DarkCyber team, is less and less useful search results. Mr. Vorhies makes this point in the video cited above. In fact, he wants to go back to the “old Google.” Why? Today’s Google outputs frustratingly off point results.
The article’s main points, based on the DarkCyber interpretation of the article, are:
First, statements like this: “…don’t actually recognize how troublesome it’s to elucidate what’s being communicated with out the assistance of all “beyond-words” indicators.” Yeah, what? DarkCyber thinks the tortured words imply that smart software and data can light up the dark spaces of a user’s query. Stated another way: Search results should answer the user’s question with on point results. Yes, that sounds good. A tiny percentage of people using Google want to conduct an internal reference interview to identify what’s needed, select the online indexes to search, formulate the terms required for a query, and then run the query on multiple systems. Very few users of online search systems wants to scan results, analyzed the most useful content, dedupe and verify data, and then capture facts with appropriate bibliographic information. Many times, this type of process is little for than input for a more refined query. Who has time for a systematic, thorough informationizing process. Why? Saying the word “pizza” to a mobile phone is the way to go. If it works for pizza, the simple query will work for Inconel 235 chemical properties, right? This easy approach is called semantic. In reality it is a canned search with results shaped by advertisers who want clicks.
Second, a person desperately seeking traffic to a Web site must index content on a Web page. Today, “index” is a not-so-useful term. Today one “tags” a page with user assigned terms. Controlled vocabularies play almost no role in modern Web search systems. Just make up a term, then to a TikTok video and become a millionaire. Easy, right? To make tags more useful, one must use synonyms. If a page is about pizza, then a semantic tag is one that might offer the tag “vegetarian.” At least one of the DarkCyber team is old enough to remember being taught how to use a thesaurus and a dictionary. Today, one needs smart software to help the art major navigate the many words available in the English language.
Third, to make the best use of related words, the desperate marketer must embrace “semantic mapping.” The idea is to “visualize relationships between ideas and entities.” (The term “entity” is not defined, which the DarkCyber team is perfectly okay for newbies who need help with indexing.) The idea of a semantic map is a Google generated search page — actually a report of allegedly related data — created by Google’s smart software. In grade school decades ago, students were taken to the library, taught about the “catalog”. Then students would gather information from “sources.” The discovered information was then winnowed and assembled into an essay or a report. If something looked or seemed funny, there was a reference librarian or a teacher to inform the student about the method for verifying facts. Now? Just trust Google. To make the idea vivid, the article provides another Google output. Instead of Yo Yo Ma, the topic is “pizza.” There you go.
The write up reminds the reader to use the third party application Text Optimizer for best results. And the bad news is that “semantic codes” must be attached to these semantically related index terms. One example is the command for deleted text. Indeed, helpful. Another tag is to indicate a direct quotation. No link to a source is suggested. Another useful method for the practicing hustler.
Let’s step back.
The article is all too typical of search engine optimization expertise. The intent is wrapped in the wool of jargon. The main point is to sell a third party software which provides training wheels to the thrashing SEO hungry individual. Plus, the content is not designed to help the user who needs specific information.
The focus of SEO is to add fluff to content. When the SEO words don’t do the job, what does the SEO marketer do?
Buy Google Ads. This is “pay to play”, and it is the one thing that Google relies upon for revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, May 14, 2020
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