Posts tagged tech
Replacing Torture with Journalism & Data Science
Wired’s Danger Room interviews Marc Ambinder, a former reporter for The Atlantic and National Journal, who’s just written a book on JSOC, or Joint Special Operations Command. The whole interview is fascinating.
Here, Ambinder describes JSOC’s intelligence gathering tactics, which take a page from journalism, detective work, and data science:
DR: What were some of the intelligence tactics that JSOC would use?
MA: Some of the tactics were as simple as equipping your tier-one operators — i.e., a Delta Force shooter or a SEAL Team Six demolition expert, the elite of the elite — with a camera. Instead of rounding up insurgents, bringing them to one area of a house, they’d have pictures of them exactly where they are, and take pictures what they have on them exactly. They’d keep them with their pocket litter until they were processed. And they’d send pictures back in real time to an intelligence fusion center. The main one in Iraq was in Balad but there were others. And you’d have analyst who could use many of various databases that JSOC had access to, and many that JSOC was building. The common metaphor was that you’re building the airplane as it’s taking off. You built all these databases for intelligence and had secret biometrics processes. There were teams of U.S. intelligence officers who were trying to get as many fingerprints, DNA samples and so forth of anyone in Baghdad as they could. The analysts would be able to create link analysis charts from them.
If you captured Abu So-and-So, you’d be able to say within a minute, “Hey, I know your uncle is this person, who we really want to get to. If you can tell me where this person is right now, we’ll give you a break and even let you go.” And often, that would be what Abu So-and-So would do, because it would be in his best interest. Within maybe 20 minutes, JSOC could launch a second raid targeting the uncle of Abu So-and-So.
Such methods have thankfully replaced several forms of torture.
The Problem isn't Browser Exploits, it's that Users Have No Idea What's Happening With Their Data
- Microsoft: Hey Google, you're breaking our browser's privacy settings and getting more data because of it. Cut it out.
- Google: A bunch of academics say your privacy settings were already broken. (Plus, Facebook's doing it too).
- Facebook: Oh hi Microsoft, your browser is old so we thought nobody would notice.
- Internet Explorer Users: What the hell is going on?
Building a Coffin for Mobile Ad Revenues
Google’s mobile revenue problem just got harder to solve. As Julia Angwin and Jennifer Valentino-Devries reported in the Wall Street Journal:
The companies used special computer code that tricks Apple’s Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users. Safari, the most widely used browser on mobile devices, is designed to block such tracking by default.
Google disabled its code after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.
This is all being spun as here Google goes again, doing something “evil”. But the real issue is how it affects their bottom line. Mobile advertising companies are fucked if they’re not able to track users the way that they’ve been doing on the desktop. It makes it much harder to do behavioral ad targeting and will likely make click-through rates decline. But, as John Battelle points out, it’s not like Google was doing anything different from what companies have been doing in desktop browsers:
In short, Apple’s mobile version of Safari broke with common web practice, and as a result, it broke Google’s normal approach to engaging with consumers. Was Google’s “normal approach” wrong? Well, I suppose that’s a debate worth having – it’s currently standard practice and the backbone of the entire web advertising ecosystem – but the Journal doesn’t bother to go into those details. One can debate whether setting cookies should happen by default – but the fact is, that’s how it’s done on the open web.
Anyone else find it weird that tracking your every move as much as possible is “common web practice” and became the de facto standard for the “open web”?
“Don’t get upset about Path, this is standard practice!” “Psh, Google’s just doing what it does all the time on the desktop anyway.”
I vote that the ‘business as usual’ or ‘standard practice’ defense can only be used if your users can explain what you’re actually doing. If they can’t, you’re not lying but you’re certainly omitting or couching the truth.
140 Characters Go Farther in China
James Fallows, covering Jeremy Lin’s reception in China, quotes a tweet:
On Feb. 12, Mao Maozi, a cameraman with the state-run Shanghai Education Television network, tweeted an answer to that question on Sina Weibo: “If Jeremy Lin lived on the mainland, he would either be a semi-literate CBA [Chinese Basketball Association, China’s state-run professional league] player or an ordinary undergraduate who likes basketball in his spare time. We admire him not because he is an ethnic Chinese, but because he has proved for a fact that the main reason that Chinese don’t play basketball well is because of the system, and not their physique!”
And, Yes, for the record, that’s all one tweet! The writing system of the Chinese language has its drawbacks, but one of the pluses is that with 140 characters you can say a whole lot more in Chinese.
I’m really enjoying the linguistic quirks and negotiations as exported technology encounters methods of communication which their interfaces never thought to consider. China is nearly always a participant, as it’s scale cannot be ignored. As more and more locally designed tech is exported and more and more Chinese citizens explore the bounds of the web, the friction and workarounds will be fascinating to watch. The Economist notes:
More than 300m Chinese internet users have at least one microblog account, and some use virtual private networks (VPNs) to get around the infamous “great firewall” of China. The Chinese government is being dragged, click by click, out of its cone of silence.
(Fallows via Matt Yglesias)
Mountain Lion in China
Jason Snell on the big updates for Apple’s soon-to-be largest market:
Mountain Lion will offer better suggestions and corrections via a dynamically updated dictionary, something an Apple representative told me was because Chinese word usages are evolving rapidly. Apparently English words are often inserted in Chinese text, so Mountain Lion allows the mixing of Pinyin and English without switching between keyboard layouts. Apple says Mountain Lion also doubles the number of characters recognized by trackpad-based handwriting recognition.
On the Internet services side, Mountain Lion offers support for Chinese alternatives to several worldwide services. Search-engine Baidu is now an option in Safari. Chinese microblogging service Sina weibo is supported in Share Sheets, just as Twitter is. In addition to Vimeo and Flickr, Mountain Lion will support sharing to Chinese video-sharing sites Youku and Tudou. And Mail, Contacts, and Calendar syncing will be supported to Chinese service providers QQ, 126, and 163.
Implementing text support in Lion must be linguistically fascinating and head-smashingly complex.
If Mountain Lion’s AirPlay allowed me to use my TV as a wireless, non-mirrored display I would be all over this beta.
On Mountain Lion and the Lack of a Big Announcement
Sure, it’s surprising that Apple introduced Mountain Lion with private briefings rather than a formal Keynote. Perhaps this is the mark of a post-Steve Apple finding its footing. Or maybe the breadth of Apple’s coverage is growing beyond what a reasonable Keynote schedule will allow.
My guess? I think Apple knows it couldn’t hold a major press event where three of their top ten features are ports of iOS’s clunkiest implementations: action sheets, the notification drawer, and Game Center. And the rest aren’t exactly scene stealers. Can you imagine the news cycle that would follow if this was unveiled on stage?
Mountain Lion is a necessary update, but as news goes it’s for the wonks. Its significance is what it implies down the line, the suggestions it makes about how our mobile and desktop lives will meet.
Though I’m positive they’re holding back their best feature or two. Siri would be amazing and it makes sense that they’d hold it back until a new iPad launches so they can blanket their product line.
But my big prediction for Mountain Lion is this: it will be free.
“ The changes and additions in Mountain Lion are in a consistent vein: making things simpler and more obvious, closer to how things should be rather than simply how they always have been.”
We’re crossing a line in operating systems and beyond where technology has advanced sufficiently to mostly mimic natural experiences and users have sufficiently acclimated to technology to make up the difference.
“ The app, currently available only for iPhone, though an Android version is in the works, is called Amir, which means “guide” in Arabic (among other things). It offers a check-list to ensure the pilgrim is fully prepared before setting off to Saudi Arabia. It also includes interactive tutorials, for instance on what to do while walking seven times counter-clockwise around the Kabah, the Black Stone, or how properly to stone the Devil. Once they arrive, pilgrims can use Amir to check where they are and to locate their tent. On top of that, the app has a built-in emergency button so people in need can easily be located by an ambulance or the police.”
Artifacts from the Payphone Era: In 1990, Beckett Baseball Card Monthly’s senior editor compiled a list of pay phone numbers in baseball stadiums so callers could obtains real-time game updates. (via Baseball Prospectus)
