Russia/Ukraine conflict
Clearview AI gives Ukraine’s Defence Ministry free facial recognition search engine
…What can it be used for?
- ID people at security checkpoints
- Identify the casualties
- Reunite families that have been separated
- ID Russian operatives
Sounds good? But it can be abused. Indeed, Clearview AI has been sued in the US, UK and Australia for invasion of privacy. The charge is that they are doing things with the personal data beyond the expectations of those to which the personal data attaches. In the US, Clearview is currently in a privacy litigation for violation of Illinois privacy law.
Macy’s is also being sued under Illinois privacy law for accessing Clearview AI’s database/facial recognition which is linked to its in-house security cameras in some way without obtaining the requisite consent.
What Clearview AI does is, is to scrape pictures off the internet and match it with other images and information about the images and build a profile. Examples of abuse:
- It has sold the database to law enforcement. Law enforcement can marry scenes of crime captured by CCTV with images on social media. It’s not always accurate leading to wrong people getting arrested (typically those from ethic minority because the algorithm is less good at categorising them, owing to less training data used to develop the AI) – this actually happened in New Jersey.
- You can use the technology to stalk people eg. someone in the bar – take a photo of your target and you can find information about them.
Google executive in Moscow finds Russian agent on his doorstep and told to remove an app from Google Play or else
…Similar has happened to an Apple representative.
I wonder whether this plays in the hands of Apple who advocates that all apps on iOS should, for security and privacy reasons, be channelled via their App Store?
Instagram down-grading posts from Russian state controlled media
…Instagram posts of Russian state controlled media will be placed below posts from other sources with a pop up cautioning against spreading information from Russian state controlled media.
Chinese tech firms are doing the opposite, promoting Russian propaganda, which causes compliance issues for foreign investors, it has been reported.
Ukrainian cyber army of volunteer hackers
…Ukranian government backed calls for volunteers to join the cyber army on the Telegram channel has been effective [Telegram is like Whatsapp, but you can broadcast your messages publicly by creating your channel – users can subscribe to a channel of interest on the Telegram platform. Subscribers can’t see each other. It is a bit like subscribing to your favourite channel on YouTube – I don’t know who else has subscribed to that channel and nobody else knows which channel I’m subscribing to. Judging by eavesdropping on the chats between 20 somethings in my local gym, Telegram is very popular – there is also Private Telegram channels too where subscribers have to be invited in]. Clearly vetting the volunteers that want to join is key, as there must be would-be moles that try to get in. One of the key requirements to join is that you must already know members of the Ukranian cyber army.
The Ukranian volunteer cyber army have carried out DDOS attacks (bombarding of traffic on target websites) on Russian banks, Russian energy giant Gazprom, Kremlin, Ministry of defence, and more recently also websites of Russian ally Belarus, as well as asking volunteers to report to YouTube about channels that disseminate misinformation about Ukraine.
Interestingly the trend has signalled to the Ukraine population at large, the level of resistance and solidarity that has been mustered across the country.
New York Times has recently announced that it is starting a channel on Telegram.
Belarussian anti-Russia cyber group Cyber Partisan advances second attack on Belarussian railways
…There are anti-Russian cyber groups in Russian ally Belarus declaring cyber war against “a common enemy [with the Ukranians]: Putin, Kremlin, the imperial regime”. They have been around for some months, with the main objective to oppose the Belarussian president and Putin ally Lukashenko. The attack on Belarussian railway was carried out to delay Belarussian invasion into Ukraine.
Russian hacking groups advance attacks on the West
…There are of course cyber groups on behalf of Russia. These include criminal organisations such as Conti which is well-known for their ransomware. A whopping 75% of ransomware in the world is thought to derive from Russia. There are many other similar organisations. But not all is plain-sailing as there have been revolts by Ukrainians within these groups causing chaos.
Ukraine raises funds through NFTs of digital images of Russians attacking Ukraine
…This initiative is led by Ukrainian vice Prime Minister and Minister for digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.
Civilians from across the world are also participating, including Russian arts groups.
The largest NFT open marketplace OpenSea is expected to restrict Russian users participating in NFT trading.
Exclusion of Russians spills over to the borderless virtual world – pro-Ukraine demonstrations in Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV)
…Gatherings in social hubs within FFXIV are full of avatars donning yellow and blue outfits voicing support for the people of Ukraine.
Over in the virtual world Sandbox, Russian user accounts have been suspended, EA Games (Electronic Arts) have stopped selling games in Belarus and Russia, which includes the popular Apex Legends.
Epic, the publisher of blockbuster Fortnite, has also stopped the sale of games in Russia but communication functionalities are sustained.
Russian vice prime minster Fedorov had earlier asked gaming companies to prohibit sales in Russia, and suspend Russian user accounts.
Facebook faces criminal charges in Russia after changing hate speech rules to allow users to call for “death to the Russian invaders”
…Facebook has drawn a line at hate speech aimed at civilians. Nick Clegg (former deputy prime minister of UK and current head of global affairs of Meta) said the rules only apply in Ukraine to allow the population to express themselves.
Google and Twitter had for some time had to deal with contents deemed by Russia as being illegal. This is kind of predictable. Putin’s popularity in the 2000’s owed itself to tightly controlled state media. When the Russian population started owning smartphones in the decade that followed, that control slipped and Putin’s popularity eroded. The withdrawal of BigTechs in Russia could help the Russian government regain control over messaging across Russia.
Head of European Commission Margaret Vestager, “EU’s top tech cop” as monikered by CNBC, who is staunchly against hate speech including against state heads, seemed to be supportive because it’s the sort of speech you hear protestors shout outside city halls.
Apps
Peloton and iFIT battle it out at the US International Trade Commission (ITC) requesting the blockade of each other’s product into the US on the grounds of patent infringement
…iFIT patent concerns bike with pedals and cradle for free weights. Peloton is said to be infringing. ITC now investigating.
Peloton patent – stationary bikes which allow subscribers to remotely participate in streamed classes, control system which collects and synchronises user’s live performance and metrics and a display table which compares users’ class performance.
Peloton to overhaul pricing strategy
…Peloton exercise equipment (mainly bikes and treadmills) are superior, and so is the price. This means that its captive audience is limited as only a small proportion can afford it. Now that we move back to normal life, people have also decided to move back to the gyms, and the company has suffered majorly, leading to shuttering of its factories, slashing of employees and the resignation of the visionary founder CEO. In comes, as a replacement, a high profile CFO (formerly of Spotify and Netflix) Barry McCarthy who has come in to do what he does best – look at subscription models and pricing and take a firm grip on the balance sheets.
Peloton is thinking now to offer monthly subscriptions (which does not involve an initial significant outlay ($2500) for the equipment) priced around $100/ month for both the hardware and the services. This means many more people – say, 50% of the population instead of say, 5% of the population (my own wild guesses) can afford to on-board. A success of an enterprise is all in the business model.
From a position of strength, a similar sort of business play can be seen from Apple which has launched the iPhone SE, a mid-range price point device which has installed the latest Apple M1 chips. Why? Apple’s devices do have handsome profits built in, but how does it compare with profits that can be derived from services? By launching a much cheaper mobile, it now aims to eat into the Android portion of the mobile market (and most importantly, apps) pie.
Artificial Intelligence
UK National Health Services (NHS) launches algorithmic impact assessment (AIA)
…A typical use of AI in healthcare, might be training the artificial intelligence software with volumes of x-rays of lungs, teaching the machines those images have been shown to be cancerous and others which have not. The AI works out a pattern and using those images, learns to identify whether they are likely to be cancerous or not.
What is the issue with this?
- Too much reliance on what the AI says – remember episodes of people who believed in their sat navs so much they drove into a river? You need to also exercise human judgement.
- Effectiveness of AI depends on the quality of images – so if an image is taken in suboptimal conditions, the AI could give you the the wrong output.
- Quality of the data on which the AI has been trained – sometimes the data is not diverse enough such that differences depending on ethnicity/gender/ age might not be sufficiently taken account of (the Clearview AI example described above, is a case in point). This is especially acute when it comes to skin diseases where the tone of skin could impact on outcome, could with the use of AI based on genetic databases which comprises of predominantly the white population, which has been known to lead to misdiagnoses.
NHS AI Lab’s National Medical Imaging Platform (NMIP) has collected data from the NHS, and that data is made available to companies wishing to develop AI. However, those wishing to access must conduct an algorithmic impact assessment first, and show that they ought to be given access to the database.
The AIA process will require applicants to:
- Engagement of stakeholders – including clinicians and patients
- Considerations of benefits and harms to society
- Ensure transparency – Document the AIA process and publish results
Autos
Japanese Vehicle infotainment systems maker overcome Broadcom’s application to block importation of allegedly patent infringing goods before the US ITC (International Trade Commission)
…The relevant law is Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Broadcom was found to have provided insufficient evidence that the patents covered Broadcom’s own products. Before the ITC, a complainant must fulfil two prongs:
- Technical prong – that the defendant infringes the complainant’s patent
- Economic prong – complainant or its licensee has significant or substantial US economic activities with respect to the patented articles beyond those of a mere importer (US manufacturing, R&D, technical support, and other US based activities – so the definition is quite wide).
BigTech
EU Commission and UK CMA launches parallel attacks against possible collusion between Google and Meta on digital ad price fixing
…This concerns the agreement called Jedi Blue in which:
- Google gives Facebook preferential rate and priority on ad placements
- Facebook promises not to build competing ad technologies or use the competing header bidding system (online display advertising services).
Google apparently accounts for 90% of the search advertising market (it’s the advert on the side when you search for particular word on Google eg. rucksack – and you see ads for different rucksacks on the side of a Google search result)
Meta is said to control more than 50% of the display advertising market.
Parallel complaint in Texas is in situ.
Other Google antitrust EU complaints:
- Online display advertising case, EU Commission probe, 2021: Whether Google favoured online display advertising technology of their own over others by restricting third parties use of user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps, whilst using them for itself.
- Adsense, EU Commission fine (€ 1.5billion), 2019: Google sells advertising space on third party websites. It is by far the biggest broker, boasting over 70% of the market since 2006. The commission found restrictive, anticompetitive clauses in its agreements with major sites, such as exclusivity and prohibiting the sourcing of search ads from Google’s rivals, requirement to put Google search ads in the most prominent place.
- Android, EU fine, 2018 ($5billion): Google required manufacturers to pre-install Google Search app and Google Chrome as a condition for licensing Google’s app store / paid manufacturers and mobile network operators to pre-install chrome (at one point, it paid for exclusive pre-installation) / as a condition for installing Google apps, manufacturers were prohibited from installing unapproved versions of Android.
- Google Shopping case, EU Commission fine, 2017 ($2.7billion): Whether Google favoured its own comparison shopping service by displaying it prominently in its search results. Google’s service was not subject to Google’s search algorithms. Rival comparison shopping services are demoted, or in some cases, not indexed so it isn’t displayed in search results.
Antitrust breaches in the EU is serious because firms can face a penalty up to 10% of global revenue (not profits).
Amazon should be criminally investigated for lying in the course of Congress Investigation says House Judiciary Committee
…It is said that Amazon lied about two things:
- It had given its own products preferential treatment over better rated third party products on the e-Commerce website in the customer search results
- It had used confidential third party seller data (rather than usable aggregated data) on its platform, to sell its private label items [Amazon has been accused previously of looking at what sells well, and make their own version of those products]
Cloud computing
Google to purchase Mandiant, a well-known US cyber security company to strengthen its cloud offering
…Being able to identify attacks and fend itself is key to cloud services offerings. Google will also acquire security consultants, which is valuable in the face of unprecedented security threats.
Crypto
Biden signs executive order on cryptocurrencies – what does this mean?
…The executive order means the US government will examine the benefits and risks of crypto. This is worth looking at further, anodyne though it sounds.
Areas of Benefits & Risks
- Consumer & investor protection
- Safeguards against scams and cyberattacks.
- Financial stability
- Crypto is volatile. It can be pegged to a stablecoin, but these are not necessarily backed by dollars held in reserve
- Illicit activity
- This goes back to the scam point – vulnerable to hacking.
- You can also launder money. There is a process called crypto mixers which is a software that combines crypto from different sources, mixes them and then re-distributes, which makes it harder to trace its provenance. Others have said it facilitates privacy, as crypto/blockchains are fundamentally transparent [though it is true that one usually is not able to identify who owns what wallet].
- Getting around sanctions using crypto [sanctioned oligarchs are being supported by securing funds through crypto – but on the other hand it has helping Ukraine. It has managed to amass $106million in crypto donations that is flooding into the Ukranian central bank following the government’s announcement that it will accept global donations in crypto currencies]
- Climate
- High levels of computer power required to carry out crypto transactions. Biden called for innovation to make it more responsible/sustainable.
- US competitiveness on global stage
- China has launched the digital currency (e-Renminbi or e-Yuan, which is 100% government backed) earlier this year – this threatens the dollar as a main reserve currency, as the global population (for example those excluded from the financial ecosystem – in poorer countries) can embrace the Chinese digital currency.
- Urgent development required for the digital dollar (or Fed coins) where it is actually backed by Fed Reserve Dollars
- Benefit: harder to commit fraud, evade tax
- Risk: impact on privacy; it will mean governments will know what you are spending your money on, potential control of citizens’ assets by the government (easier to freeze accounts, confiscate proceeds for example in response to speaking against the government – depending on the nature of the government), government losing control of fiscal policy.
[It ought to have looked at the role in the future metaverse – it is key to building economies in the virtual world]
Data
Pfizer case study: Real World Data (RWD) key for developing new drugs
…Competition to access data is escalating as Real World Data (RWD) proves key to getting drugs approved. RWD is not clinical trial data, but data of patients following a doctor’s visit and use of medical devices.
Pfizer looked at data of Electronic Health Records of in-patients suffering from Covid-19, and accelerated new vaccines effective against the Omicron variant based on such data.
Pfizer has previously been successful in using RWD to establish breast cancer treatments for males. This is because breast cancers in males are rare (less than 1% of the patient population) and so there is difficulty collecting sufficient data. Pfizer looked at the data of patients who used its own breast cancer treatment ibrance, and compared to those that were not so treated.
There is likely to be stiff competition to gain access to RWD, held by companies like IQVIA (formerly Quintiles and IMS Health) and Flatiron (now purchased by Roche).
RWD includes data such as:
- Electronic Health Records – data relating to patient treatment and outcomes
- Recept – price of treatment and details of medicaments prescribed
- Wearable devices
Kids’ smartwatch maker TickTalk Tech breached privacy rule – US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
…The interesting aspect is what TickTalk have to do to comply:
- Revise website and app to make clear what personal information can be collected from children, both passively and actively (these include location tracking, information in videos, text and voice messages),
- Make clear how the data can be used and disclosed
- Clear and prominent link to privacy policy, including policies for deleting and retaining information
- Enable parents to consent prior to completion of the registration process
Oracle, one time bidder to buy TikTok now close to a deal to become data holders of US TikTokkers’ user data
…It will apparently be later replicated in Europe. This means that TikTok parent ByteDance will be prevented from access.
Greentech
Huawei shows off solar power generating technology at the Mobile World Congress
…I looked at Qualcomm’s displays at the MWC just last week, Qualcomm being a thought leader in tech. So is Huawei. It is focussing on solar power generating green tech. With the drive to carbon-zero, use of fossil fuel and oil being restricted as a result of the war in Ukraine, and with nuclear energy lacking public support and the long lead-time to implementation, I think focus on solar is highly likely to intensify.
At the MWC, Huawei announced a new data center in UAE (February) and the world’s largest energy storage in Saudi Arabia. They will be powered by 100% renewable energy supply, with the help of Huawei’s technology.
Huawei is the leading business in inverters, which is one of the main components of solar power generation. Huawei’s “Digital Power” division is likely to be key (alongside its EV projects) to compensate for losses in smartphones and semiconductors as a result of US trade restrictions.
NFT
NFT market plunges – was it a fad?
…Personally, I don’t think so because of its potential, especially when it comes to creators selling their digital works, but there may have been a lot of over-hype and hence some correction going on:
Average selling price of NFT – down 48% compared to November peak
Daily trading volume on OpenSea – the biggest marketplace for NFTs – down 80% compared to peak in February
Number of active accounts – down about 50% compared to November peak
NFTs fetch keen prices because of their scarcity. One thought leader said, yeah, but it’s like snowflakes. Each one of them is unique, but there are billions of them. It doesn’t mean each snowflake is valuable. Plus, it doesn’t help that there is a lot of grifting going on – you can buying your own NFTs and selling them at higher and higher prices, to generate an illusion of value. This process is called wash trading. Melania Trump was called out for doing that. Prevalence of wash trading may have led to the erosion of confidence in NFT marketplace.
Delving deeper – for those who want to dig deeper into tech
Where are metaverse invested companies heading?
…Here I provide a summary of the main patents covering AR/VR headsets by the main players in this space – needless to say, these reflect visions of various companies that are invested in the metaverse:
- Microsoft
- Ensuring low latency when melding real and virtual worlds
- Accurate virtual visualisation of positioning and movements of physical products in the real world.
- Meta
- Movement of virtual objects based on brain activity
- Management and control of data used for conversations between users in the virtual world.
- Magic Leap (has partnership with Google cloud)
- Engineering concerning displays on the headsets
- Efficient energy solutions for the headsets
- Management and displays of virtual content
- Sony Group
- Meta data and displays of positioning of real life objects
- Technology relating to spectating virtual sports and other events
- Apple
- Provision of virtual displays relating to real life environments
- Display of virtual objects on the interface between virtual and real worlds on electronic devices such as smartphones.
Qualcomm, together with Vodafone and Thales develop iSIM – the integrated SIM
…The traditional SIM cards (which users have to insert into a smartphone, as most of you have done before) have personal information about the user of the network. With the iSIM, the SIM, including the personal information is designed to be stored inside the semiconductor chip. If iSIM takes off, users can more freely contract with cheaper network operators, or a number of them in parallel (so that users can use different network operators depending on the app).
The iSIM will be available on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon semiconductors. Now that Qualcomm, which have approximately 30% share of mobile phone chips, have developed this technology, other mobile makers such as Apple and Samsung may follow suit.
The use of iSIM will free up more space for other functionalities which may be very advantageous especially phones limited in internal capacity (ie: less space).
GSMA is looking to standardise iSIM.
What is so good about 6G?
…We haven’t really gotten round to enjoying the real benefits of 5G yet. And here we are, having to consider the next generation of cellular technology. 6G is expected to be released in 2030.
In short, 6G should provide services at a faster and higher data rate, by using bandwidths at a higher frequency.
6G – Operates at the yet to be cultivated “teraherz” frequency band. Confusingly, teraherz band covers 100giga – 10 teraherz, but 6G is expected to use 100 – 450 gigaherz (ie: not teraherz) [giga = billion, tera = trillion – why they don’t just use the more familiar prefixes I don’t know].
5G – max 28 gigaherz
4G – max 3.5 gigaherz
The benefit of using higher frequency bands is that each network operator can use a wider bandwidth (around x10 5G), which increases the data rate. However, higher frequency waves are more easily affected by buildings and obstacles, which means that the signals have lower range. This means in turn that the signal masts have to transmit the waves in a narrower beam. Antenna technology is expected to advance in preparation for the 6G era.