Tag: technology

Tweet of the Day

While I am generally opposed to bitcoin, I make an exception for South Florida. Miami is the rightful home of everything fraudulent, weird, and sleazy. And I say this with love. https://t.co/7erEwDjSDK

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) February 12, 2021

This succinctly sums up both the current cryptocurrency craze and south Florida.

As Zathras would say, “But at least there is symmetry.”

Good

Finally, a court has ruled that in order for a DNA test to be admitted as evidence, the source code must be made available to the defense.

To my mind, any software used for prosecutions should be publicly available for review:

A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that a man accused of murder is entitled to review proprietary genetic testing software to challenge evidence presented against him.

Attorneys defending Corey Pickett, on trial for a fatal Jersey City shooting that occurred in 2017, have been trying to examine the source code of a software program called TrueAllele to assess its reliability. The software helped analyze a genetic sample from a weapon that was used to tie the defendant to the crime.

The maker of the software, Cybergenetics, has insisted in lower court proceedings that the program’s source code is a trade secret. The co-founder of the company, Mark Perlin, is said to have argued against source code analysis by claiming that the program, consisting of 170,000 lines of MATLAB code, is so dense it would take eight and a half years to review at a rate of ten lines an hour.

MATLAB is a pretty high level language, so if you have 170,000 lines of code in it, you are writing bloated code. 

Also, if you have 170,000 lines of code in it, I guarantee that there are bugs, and likely substantial ones, because most of those lines of code are there to handle edge (unlikely) cases, where the programmer has to make broad assumptions about the data.

………

On Wednesday, the appellate court sided with the defense [PDF] and sent the case back to a lower court directing the judge to compel Cybergenetics to make the TrueAllele code available to the defense team.

“Without scrutinizing its software’s source code – a human-made set of instructions that may contain bugs, glitches, and defects – in the context of an adversarial system, no finding that it properly implements the underlying science could realistically be made,” the ruling says.

Kit Walsh, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, hailed the appellate ruling. “No one should be imprisoned or executed based on secret evidence that cannot be fairly evaluated for its reliability, and the ruling in this case will help prevent that injustice,” she said in a blog post. If TrueAllele is found wanting, presumably that will not affect the dozen individuals said to have been exonerated by the software.

It should be noted that the studies “validating” TrueAllele have been conducted by Mark Perlin, and as such are suspect.

Also, though these are slightly different application, we already know that algorithms used for health care software, Zoom face detection, educational evaluations, and criminal sentencing are all explicitly racist.

It is no stretch to assume that an algorithm explicitly developed for police and prosecutors would be biased in their favor.

That is how you make sales.

Sikorsky-Boeing Takes Wraps Off Defiant X Design For U.S. Army’s FLRAA | Aviation Week Network


Much Smaller Footprint than a Tilt Rotor

After putting out a representative demonstrator, Sikorsky has revealed off of its Defiant-X helicopter for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program.

It does not achieve the same speeds as the tilt-rotor competitor V-280 Valor from Bell, 280 kt (520 km/h) from the Bell offering as versus and 250 kt (465 km/h) for the coaxial compound helicopter, but its footprint on the ground and on takeoff and landing, and its agility during takeoff and landing should be significantly greater than the V-280.

Also, the helicopter should be significantly more agile during takeoff, landing, and autorotation, because of lower disk loading.

One lingering uncertainty surrounding the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft has centered on the service’s ultimate requirements for the advanced rotorcraft that will replace its Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters.

When the Army launched the precursor Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR TD) program in 2013, it provided industry with a “model performance specification”—placeholder requirements that would allow them to begin designing an aircraft.

The result was a pair of 30,000-lb. gross-weight-class demonstrators—the 280-kt. Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor and 250-kt. Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant, a coaxial rigid-rotor compound helicopter—both substantially larger and faster than the 22,000-lb. gross-weight UH-60M they are designed to replace.

Now, almost halfway through the CDRR phase, the answer to that lingering question about the Army’s requirements may be becoming clearer. The Sikorsky-Boeing team has taken the wraps off its Defiant X offering for FLRAA, and the design differs only in detail externally from the SB-1 now in flight test.

In terms of overall size, the Defiant X has the same operational footprint as the demonstrator, says Jay Macklin, Sikorsky’s director of Future Vertical Lift business development. The Defiant X also fits within the operational footprint of the Black Hawk, which the FLRAA is intended to replace beginning in 2030.

The Defiant X design has been optimized to meet Army requirements for survivability, maneuverability and agility in the objective area, or “at the X,” says Macklin, so that troops can be landed and offloaded quickly and safely during an air assault.

I favor the coaxial helicopter over the tilt rotor.

It seems simpler and safer.

A Real Vote of Confidence in the F-35

Following the decision to acquire new-build F-15s for the USAF for the first time in 16 years, the news that the U.S. Air Force is discussing additional purchases of the F-16 as well must be seen as evidence that the force is less than enamored of the performance of the F-35 at this point:

U.S. Air Force officials are talking about ordering new Lockheed Martin F-16s two decades after signing the last production contract.

A review of the tactical aircraft portfolio now underway is set to deliver another Air Force acquisition shake-up in the fiscal 2023 budget request, with F-16s, Boeing F-15EXs, a new breed of so-called attritable aircraft and a next-generation fighter competing for a pool of production funding once monopolized by Lockheed’s F-35A.

………

U.S. Air Force officials are talking about ordering new Lockheed Martin F-16s two decades after signing the last production contract.

A review of the tactical aircraft portfolio now underway is set to deliver another Air Force acquisition shake-up in the fiscal 2023 budget request, with F-16s, Boeing F-15EXs, a new breed of so-called attritable aircraft and a next-generation fighter competing for a pool of production funding once monopolized by Lockheed’s F-35A.

Call me a cynic, but my guess is that the Air Force took a look at the costs of maintaining and operating an all F-35 fleet, and realized that it was simply not possible.

The reasons for the shift in resources has evolved in public statements over time. When Air Force officials requested funding in 2019 to order the first eight of up to 144 new F-15EXs, they justified the unexpected move as a response to an urgent need. Recent inspections had determined that an aging fleet of F-15Cs require new wings to remain airworthy, and the existing training pipeline and infrastructure made F-15EXs a more expedient option than the F-35A.

But the tactical aircraft fleet review could establish a permanent combat role for nonstealthy fighters for decades to come. The F-15EX not only represents a convenient option for an urgent F-15C replacement, but its centerline weapon station with a 7,500-lb. load capacity also may fill a gap in the Air Force’s force structure for a tactical aircraft that can carry a rocket-boosted hypersonic glide vehicle.

………

Roper also put Lockheed on notice about the Air Force’s frustration with the F-35A’s sustainment costs. Lockheed has committed to reducing the average hourly cost to operate the F-35A to $25,000 by 2025, a roughly 25% reduction compared to 2018 levels. But as his resignation approached, Roper was not satisfied with the pace of the reduction, as the Air Force seeks to add new F-35s to the fleet at an annual rate of 48-60 jets a year.

I believe that the technical term for this is overpriced and under-performing.

Why I Don’t Think That Biden Will Reign in Big Tech


Notice How Many People Started in the Obama Admin

Year over year Google to Admin

The revolving door between big tech and the Obama administration spun so fast that it created a shock wave during the Obama administration, and Biden is heavily relying on old Obama hands.

The corruption and hypocrisy of the Obama administration is likely to be carried forward into a Biden administration.

Notice the important thing here, a shit load more people went to Google for the FIRST time after serving in the Obama administration, meaning that they received a delayed payoff for being friendly to the tech giant’s needs.

These people will not produce meaningful regulation.  

They will serve their real master:

The Google Transparency Project has so fari identified 258 instances of “revolving door” activity (involving 251 individuals) between Googleii or related firms, and the federal government, national political campaigns and Congress during President Obama’s time in office.

That included:

  • 53 revolving door moves between Google and the White House. Those involved 22 former White House officials who left the administration to work for Google, and 31 Google executives (or from Google’s main outside firms) who joined the White House, or were appointed to federal advisory boards.
  • 28 revolving door moves between Google and government positions involving national security, intelligence or the Department of Defense. Seven former national security and intelligence officials and 18 Pentagon officials moved to Google; while three Google executives moved to DoD.
  • 23 revolving door moves between Google and the State Department during the Obama administration. Eighteen former State Department officials joined Google, while five Google officials took up senior posts at the State Department.
  • 9 moves between Google and its outside lobbying firms and the Federal Communications Commission, which handles a growing number of regulatory matters with a major impact on the company’s bottom line.

The analysis included Google affiliates such as YouTube, related firms like Civis Analytics (whose sole investor is Eric Schmidt), as well as key law firms and lobbyists representing Google. [Click here for a detailed description of how we conducted our analysis]

Google has hired from throughout the top echelons of the policymaking world in Washington, including high-level White House officials. It also enjoys the benefit of having former executives moving into top positions in the administration that set policy on issues crucial to the company. Those include the Chief Technology Officer, a former Google executive, and key slots at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Former Googlers also occupy key positions at the National Economic Council and the U.S. Digital Service, a part of the Executive Office of the President.

The company has strategically hired from government agencies that have the greatest impact on its business, like the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. Google, or its main law firms, have hired several people from the Federal Trade Commission, an agency that has conducted investigations into the company’s conduct on privacy and antitrust grounds.

Specific cases can be found if you go to the link and scroll down.  It is a veritable rogues gallery of influence peddling. 

This does not indict the Obama administration specifically as much as it does business as usual in Washington, DC.

It is unsustainable.

Who Cares, There is Money to Be Made


US System


Russian Kinzhal

A new report suggests that hypersonic weapons do not add any meaningful military capabilities. (Original paper)

This is not a surprise.

The Skybolt air launched ballistic missile showed how a conventional missile can achieve what they are attempting now in the 1960s,  the Pershing II missile demonstrated a maneuverable reentry vehicle and reached deployment in the 1980s.

This does not matter. 

The defense contractors get their vig, and retired generals get their comfortable sinecures, so it’s good for everyone ……… except the taxpayer, and the people who are told that there is no money to supply a basic social safety net:

Military experts call hypersonic warheads the next big thing in intercontinental warfare. They see the emerging arms, which can deliver nuclear or conventional munitions, as zipping along at up to five miles a second while zigzagging through the atmosphere to outwit early-warning satellites and some interceptors. The superfast weapons, experts say, lend themselves to surprise attacks.

………

Now, independent experts have studied the technical performance of the planned weapon and concluded that its advertised features are more illusory than real. Their analysis is to be published this week in Science & Global Security.

In an interview, David Wright, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of the new analysis, called the superweapon a mirage.

“There’re lots of claims and not many numbers,” he said. “If you put in the numbers, you find that the claims are nonsense.”

Military officials called the paper insubstantial, saying it was based on outdated data. But they declined to disclose new findings.

“Due to the classified nature of hypersonics technologies, we are not at liberty to publicly discuss current capabilities,” Jared Adams, chief spokesman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, said in an email.

Of course they are.  They want their money. 

Claiming that it’s sooper sekrit knowledge has been a dodge used by the military-industrial complex since Truman was in the White House.

………

By definition, hypersonic vehicles fly at more than five times the speed of sound — or up to dozens of times faster than jetliners. The warheads rise into space atop a traditional long-range missile but then descend quickly into the atmosphere to bank, careen and otherwise maneuver. They’re basically stubby gliders. The curved upper surfaces of their wedge-shaped bodies give them some of the lifting power of an airplane wing.

Dr. Wright and Dr. Tracy based their analysis on the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 — an experimental warhead developed by the Air Force and Darpa. Their findings, they say, also apply to other American prototypes, as well as devices being developed by China, Russia and other countries.

The computer simulations drew on the physics of moving bodies and public disclosures about the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 in order to model its most plausible flight paths. The team zeroed in on signature phases of hypersonic flight — when the vehicle zooms through the atmosphere and then plunges to hit a target.

The two experts say their computer modeling fills in public gaps on the weapon’s overall performance as well as its potential interactions with existing military systems for detecting and defeating weapons launched from distant sites.

In their paper, they see the weapon as essentially failing to outwit early-warning satellites and interceptors. For instance, current generations of space-based sensors, they report, will be able to track the weapon’s fiery twists and turns during most of its flight through the atmosphere.

And surprisingly, given the weapon’s speedy reputation, they say their analysis shows it will fly intercontinental distances more slowly than ballistic missiles and warheads fired on low flight paths known as depressed trajectories. In war, such tactics are seen as a good way for attackers to evade interceptors and lessen warning time.

Dr. Wright and Dr. Tracy conclude that the envisioned new weapon is, at best, “evolutionary — not revolutionary.”

Note that their criticisms are based on some pretty elementary physics, specifically that the lift/drag ratios of hyper-sonic bodies are pretty pathetic.

The Russian Systems, like the Kinzhal, and Chinese systems like the DF-21, are not the wedge shaped lifting bodies, they are simply missiles with improved guidance systems allowing for improved targeting and evasion of defenses.

What’s more, they are already in service in limited numbers.

The US system is more complex, more technically challenging, and doesn’t gain a whole bunch more.

Once again, the US is pursuing “dominance” at an unsustainable cost and a time frame of decades.

To quote Ike, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Have Some British Fighter Pr0n


Not Exactly Pretty


I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille


I don’t believe in the cost savings through tech


Hopefully, this will work better than the F-35


Does not appear to be variable cycle

The RAF and “Team Tempest” have released renderings of their next-generation fighter proposal at an online event.

It’s interesting, but based on prior performance, the F-22, the F-35, the Typhoon, and the Rafale, we are at least ¼ century from the aircraft being deployed operationally.

Rather a far cry from the 180 day interval between contract signing and first flight for the P-80 Shooting Star:

Team Tempest and the Royal Air Force recently held a virtual event to provide an update about the development opportunities of the new sixth generation aircraft to industry and government representatives from Northern Ireland, the first of a series of events to engage with industries across the UK. Within the press release there is also some new renderings of the aircraft which, we have to note, is not in its final shape as it’s being designed “from the inside out” and the airframe’s exterior design may change to reflect changes in the internal systems.

Of note is the details on propulsion, specifically the statement that thermal management will be an integral part of the engine.

This is likely in response to an issue with both the F-22 and F-35, which is that they are basically thermos bottles relying on fuel to cool mission and flight critical systems, which means that both aircraft need to carry additional fuel, and weight, for cooling.

The statement implies that the amount of fuel that needs to come back to base would be less, which would either lower weight, or increase range and endurance.

Rolls-Royce is working on the advanced combustion system technology that will power Tempest. The next-generation system is being designed to be hotter than previous ones to increase the efficiency of the engine, its range and speed, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Together with the higher-temperature combustion, there will be a new thermal management system that will use the turbine as a heat sink to recycle thermal energy, removing the need for overboard venting and improving the efficiency, and an increased electrical power production, reportedly in the order of one megawatt, that will be used to power all the aircraft’s subsystems.

This follows the assessment by Rolls Royce that future fighter aircraft will have unprecedented levels of electrical power demand and thermal load that need to be managed accordingly to maintain the airframe’s low observability. Being more specific, the company stated that they will integrate an Electrical Embedded Starter Generator that will function both as an APU and as an electrical generator after the engine is spooled up.

This is actually in some ways quite similar to what RR did with Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787, which is an all electric (no bleed air) design.

If you are into this, time to get your geek on.

We Live in Hell

According to Microsoft®, Microsoft Excel® is the most used programming in the world

This almost makes me feel grateful that I had to write bbCodeWebEx in JavaScript. (Almost)

Microsoft will let users create custom functions in Excel using the number wrangler’s own formula language.

“Excel formulas are the world’s most widely used programming language, yet one of the more basic principles in programming has been missing, and that is the ability to use the formula language to define your own re-usable functions,” said Microsoft.

Please, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, make it stop.

Cuck Fomcast

After billions in public subsidies, Comcast has instituted data caps throughout its network.

The lesson here is that if you want to expend tax dollars for broader internet access, it is best that the networks receiving those subsidies should be owned by the taxpayer:

With millions of Americans trapped at home to protect themselves from a deadly pandemic during the holiday season, the Internet is one of the only conduits connecting them to friends, family and the outside world. Now, Comcast, one of the monopoly corporations that controls the conduit, is extending its fees on bandwidth usage to all 39 states where it operates — even as the company has received hundreds of millions of dollars of public subsidies and new tax breaks.

Whether or not those data caps remain permanent could hinge on whether president-elect Joe Biden and Democrats are willing to take action against a corporation that has been one of their major campaign donors.

At issue is Comcast’s move on Monday that caps home internet usage at 1.2TB of data per month for its customers in 12 additional states, and charging customers up to $100 per month if they exceed the cap. Comcast’s move was flagged by Stop The Cap, which discovered that the company had quietly updated language on its website.

The new limits, which will take effect in March, are being imposed in states that have given Comcast and its subsidiaries more than $738 million in tax subsidies in the last few decades. Those states include New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, where state and local governments have given Comcast and its subsidiaries $484 million, $132 million, and $79 million in tax subsidies, respectively, according to data from Good Jobs First.

In all, Comcast and its subsidiaries — which include NBC and MSNBC — have received nearly $1 billion in state and local subsidies. Additionally, Comcast received $861 million in federal tax subsidies during the first year of the Trump tax cuts, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy.

“This is why monopolies are bad,” tweeted Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization. “Comcast can arbitrarily exploit us for profit during a pandemic just because it feels like it. Meanwhile, Comcast collects tons of tax breaks and government subsidies. Comcast should be broken up.”

No, Comcast should be expropriated and become a public agency operated for a public benefit. 

Creating 50 Comcasts where there was only 1 is not a fix.

Neither will happen though, they gave big bucks to the Biden campaign.

Ajit Pai Does Something Right

Well, knock me over with a sledge hammer.

The FCC has voted to take back about 75% of the spectrum that it allocated to the auto industry for self driving cars because:

  • It really can not work, because you cannot get deer to wear transmitters.
  • All the technology demonstrations have shown that you do not need anything near a full 75 MHz for this technology.

The automobile industry fought this tooth and nail, because they want to use the space to bombard drivers with advertisements, but the FCC unanimously voted to reduce the allocated bandwidth from 75 MHZ to 30 MHz.  

The intent is to reallocate the spectrum to rural broadband and the like.

Full press release after break:

Public Knowledge Applauds FCC Reclaiming Spectrum to Help Close Digital Divide

By  Shiva Stella   November 18, 2020, , , , ,

Today, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously adopted an Order reclaiming the 5.9 GHz spectrum band from the auto industry in order to help close the digital divide.

In 2004, the agency gave the auto industry 75 MHz of spectrum exclusively for “Dedicated Short-Range Communications” (DSRC) for the purpose of improving public safety. After 20 years of waiting for the industry to deploy DSRC, the FCC will phase out DSRC and replace it with a new, more efficient technology called C-V2X (cellular communication to vehicles (C-V2V) and infrastructure (C-V2I), collectively “C-V2X”).

Based on the record, the auto industry will require only 30 MHz of spectrum for collision avoidance and safety purposes. Rather than allowing the auto industry to use the remaining 45 MHz of free spectrum for commercial purposes such as location-based advertising, under this proposal the FCC will repurpose 45 MHz for rural broadband and next generation WiFi needed to support telemedicine and other high-bandwidth applications.

The 5.9 GHz band sits next to the existing “unlicensed” spectrum band at 5.8 GHz. Adding the 45 MHz to this band will allow existing equipment to support gigabit WiFi necessary for telemedicine, multiple education streams, and other valuable services. Furthermore, access to this additional spectrum will allow wireless internet service providers in rural areas to dramatically increase the stability and bandwidth of connections to the home.  

The following can be attributed to Harold Feld, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge:

“Today’s FCC action is a win for closing the digital divide, a win for closing the homework gap, and a win for auto safety. The addition of 45 MHz of unlicensed spectrum will create a WiFi channel capable of supporting WiFi 6. This will enable wireless providers to dramatically increase the speed and reliability of rural broadband. It will dramatically increase the power of public hotspots and mobile hotspots on which many low-income families rely for access to school and work during the pandemic. Because this relies on already existing technology, the expansion and change to WiFi 6 can happen relatively quickly through software upgrades once the rules become effective. 

“In addition, the FCC will phase out the outmoded vehicle communication technology selected as the standard 20 years ago and will phase in a modern, more efficient technology requiring substantially less spectrum for collision avoidance and safety. The FCC has quite properly denied the auto industry desire to repurpose the excess spectrum for infotainment, behavioral advertising, and other commercial purposes that rely on collecting more and more of the public’s personal data and information. The auto industry should not be allowed to commercialize spectrum intended for public safety — especially when doing so would come at the expense of tens of millions of Americans on the wrong side of the digital divide and the homework gap.”

And the UDF is Back

If you followed avaition in the 1980s, you probably remember GE’s GE36 Unducted Fan

It was an F-404 derived core powering counter rotating free turbines attached to props.

There is now a Safran And GE are working another version of what was fondly referred to a load of bananas whirling around.

With sustainability front and center on the aerospace industry agenda, plans are firming up on both sides of the Atlantic for a new wave of ambitious large-scale technology demonstrators to pave the way for ultraefficient next-generation commercial airliners.

Ranging from advanced propulsion and airframe concepts to new systems, structures and fuels, the main demonstrators will form part of the proposed Clean Aviation initiative in Europe and the next round of NASA X-plane projects in the U.S. Clean Aviation, which is expected to succeed Europe’s long-running Clean Sky program, supports the European Union’s broader Horizon Europe research and innovation framework effort for 2021-27 and will feed technology into new civil aviation projects later this decade and into the 2030s.

………

Open rotors, also known as unducted fans or propfans, were initially developed in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s amid concerns over rising fuel costs. Although two concepts—GE’s GE36 and the Pratt & Whitney/Allison 578 DX—were flight-tested, both were shelved by the early 1990s after oil prices fell. Although development of propfans continued in Russia, it was not until greenhouse gas emissions became a legislative factor in the 2000s that Western interest in the concept was revived.

In the U.S. NASA, GE and the FAA collaborated between 2009 and 2012 on wind tunnel tests of an open rotor with blades developed using modern computer-based design methods. The tests showed up to a 3% improvement in net efficiency relative to the best 1980s design, while nominally achieving a 15-17-EPNdB noise margin to Chapter 4 limits.

Around the same time, two open-rotor concepts were evaluated in Europe under the SAGE effort, with a Rolls-Royce-led team evaluating a direct-drive propulsor system while a Safran-led group developed the geared pusher CROR. The Rolls project was later rescoped to focus on lean-burn combustion, while Safran developed a CROR ground demonstrator using its M88 military engine as a gas generator.

So the direct drive free turbine is not a part of the equation this time around, which is kind of a pity.

 I liked the elegance of that arrangement.

Reading the Tea Leaves

In Space!!!!

It appears that there has been a tiny air leak in the International Space Station for months that they have been unable to identify, and they finally found it using loose tea leaves:

The International Space Station has been leaking an unusual amount of air since September 2019.

At first crew members held off on troubleshooting the issue, since the leak wasn’t major. But in August the leak rate increased, prompting astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the orbiting laboratory to try to locate its source in earnest.

Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, announced on Thursday that crew members had finally pinpointed the leak after devising an unusual test: They let tea leaves guide their search.

The cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin released a few leaves from a tea bag in the transfer chamber of the Zvezda Service Module, the section of the station’s Russian segment that houses a kitchen, sleeping quarters, and bathroom. Then the crew members sealed the chamber by closing its hatches and monitored the tea leaves on cameras as they floated in microgravity.

The leaves slowly floated toward a scratch in the wall near the module’s communication equipment — evidence that it was a crack through which air was escaping.

The crew has since patched the leak using Kapton tape, Roscosmos said on Monday.

Behold the power of tea.

OK, This Looks Like a Semi Serious Proposal

Antitrust regulators are looking forcing Google to sell its chrome browser as well as parts of its advertising network.

This is a good start.

What also should be applied is the remove the special stock that gives the founders outsize voting rights.

Many of the anti-competitive behaviors flow from the belief of their founders that they are supermen beyond the limitations of mortal men, and so they need not concern themselves with the rules.

See Neumann at WeWork, Zuckerberg at Facebook, and Musk at ……… well ……… everything, as well as Page and Brin at Google.

What’s more, the recompense for the loss of these voting rights would be small, so you can do it on the cheap.

Also, prohibit any corporate acquisitions by these companies.  

As was the case with Facebook and Instagram, this was a purchase happened because Facebook was relentlessly tracking its users, and came to see it as a threat:

Regulators are considering a breakup of the Google empire, including a forced sale of its dominant web browser Google Chrome and certain aspects of its ad-tech stack.

A Politico report cites several sources with knowledge of the discussions taking place as the U.S. Department of Justice and several state attorneys general prepare to file suit against the online behemoth.

Official proceedings are expected to take place within weeks, following months of speculation over how government officials intend to rein in Google’s dominance of the $130 billion a year online advertising business—of which Google controls 37.2%.

Google Chrome commands a 66.3% share of the global web browser market, according to GlobalStats. Its ad stack, popularly referred to as DoubleClick, comprises both buy- and sell-side tools as well as its dominant ad-serving tool.

This set of tools, as well as Google’s “closed” operating model, has prompted many to accuse Google of exerting undue control over all aspects of the online advertising market (see video below), and its 2015 decision to block third-party ad-buying tools from purchasing ad space on YouTube was widely criticized.

………


The latest media reports come within a week of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust publishing a 449-page report roundly criticizing Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

Among the recommendations in the report were that authorities impose “structural separations,” either by way of a forced sale of certain parts of each company’s assets or assurances parts of their businesses are firewalled. Other recommendations included rules to prevent “self-preferencing,” plus the promotion of “interoperability” with third parties and an overhaul of M&A laws.

………

Speaking at Adweek’s virtual NexTech conference on the same day the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google were appearing before the congressional subcommittee behind last week’s report, NYU professor Scott Galloway said, “They need to be broken up.”

Signs of the Apocalypse

Sen. Ted Cruz is appearing virtually. He has tested negative for COVID but has been self-quarantining after coming into contact with Sen. Mike Lee…who tested positive and delivered his in-person maskless opening statement in the hearing room.

— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) October 12, 2020

We Are Doomed

OK, imagine a situation where there are two people in a similar situation.

One behaves responsibly, and the other acts likes an asshole.

One of the people is Ted Cruz, and the other ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

And finally, the asshole in this situation ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

If this is not an end of the world scenario, if not an end of all existence.

At the very least, Thanos is snapping his fingers like Frank Sinatra right now.

So Not a Surprise

Is anyone surprised that U.S. tech firms are refusing to obey EU data transfer regulations

Criminality is an integral part of the Silicon Valley ethos.  That’s what, “Move Fast and Break Things,” means.

Technology firms’ compliance with European restrictions on transatlantic data transfers is shockingly poor, Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems said on Monday, publishing a survey here of companies including Facebook and Netflix.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in July that the data arrangement set up in 2016, called Privacy Shield, was invalid under Europe’s privacy framework because of concerns about U.S. surveillance.

………

Exercising the right of customers to ask companies how their data is handled under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the survey drew a mixed bag of responses – some firms did not respond and others gave misleading answers.

………

“Overall, we were astonished by how many companies were unable to provide little more than a boilerplate answer,” said Schrems.

“The companies that did provide answers largely are simply not complying with the CJEU judgment. It seems that most of the industry still does not have a plan as to how to move forward.”

This IS their plan for moving forward:  Break the law and force the EU to go after them.

Until assets are seized, or executives are arrested, the lawbreaking will continue.

The New Blogger Sucks

The authoring, both in rich text and in HTML is indescribably awful.

The tag applications still do not work reliably, and both interfaces are clearly slower.

Either this is an attempt by Google to drive people away from Blogspot to justify their shutting down the service, or their programming team for Blogger needs to be fired.

I have no clue as to who, and how, they evaluate user interfaces at Google, but these folks need to be fired too.

F%$# Zuck

In yet another case of wrongdoing, which they claim was a bug, Facebook has been caught spying on Instagram users though their phone cameras

Given that each time that this happens, it is an action that further reinforces Facebook model of stalker capitalism, I am not inclined to believe that this was an accident, and I am not inclined to accept their routine (and insincere) apology:

Facebook Inc. is again being sued for allegedly spying on Instagram users, this time through the unauthorized use of their mobile phone cameras.

The lawsuit springs from media reports in July that the photo-sharing app appeared to be accessing iPhone cameras even when they weren’t actively being used.

Facebook denied the reports and blamed a bug, which it said it was correcting, for triggering what it described as false notifications that Instagram was accessing iPhone cameras.

In the complaint filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco, New Jersey Instagram user Brittany Conditi contends the app’s use of the camera is intentional and done for the purpose of collecting “lucrative and valuable data on its users that it would not otherwise have access to.”  

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The case is Conditi v. Instagram, LLC, 20-cv-06534, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

Facebook is a criminal enterprise.