Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
26 July 2020
Phew, made it before the deadline with this rag! We look at artificial intelligence company Clearview, now under investigation over privacy, cryptocurrency payments, Verizon customer ‘service’, and what happens after the pandemic. No pictures this week – the ones I found were mostly boring. There’s a nice quote about market research which is especially relevant with the pandemic.
Scanner contains URLs pointing to material on AI, alien civilisations in our galaxy, a data security failure, 1,000 databases gone after Meow attacks, a new state of matter, and AT&T...
I’m taking a scheduled break next weekend – it’s a holiday in Scotland. I don’t live in Scotland, but I could drive there in a few hours, so it seemed like a reasonable excuse...
We will be back on the 9 of August.
Stay safe!
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Artificial Intelligence:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to have had a long run of ‘hands off’ by the powers that be – until recently. Now the privacy watchdogs in Canada, the UK and Australia are starting to take an interest. In particular, they are looking at the activities of Clearview and its use of millions of images scraped from social media to train its AI. These AI systems are then sold to law enforcement entities to use as a tool to identify possible suspects.
And did Clearview ask the people in the pictures for permission? Of course they didn’t!
And what was the result of using the AI systems?
Few identifications, and lots of misidentification... The truth is that the cops that have really good identification skills don’t merely use the faces, they use all the other characteristics – body shape, the way a suspect walks, mannerisms, dozens of other little things that taken together can make identification work.
Stills – especially ones from social media which are usually taken from the most flattering angle, and possibly even touched up, just don’t cut the mustard.
Still that’s for a different investigation, one which the police forces that forked out for these systems seem to be reluctant to undertake.
What the watchdogs are looking at is violations of the privacy laws, and there I think it’s almost inevitable Clearview and others of the same ilk will eventually be saying, “It’s a fair cop, guv. You’ve got me bang to rights!”
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/09/clearview_privacy_stop/
Blockchain & E-coins:
One of the most interesting things happening at the moment in the cryptocurrency field is the question of using these currencies, such as bitcoin, as a common method of payment for goods, rather than as an investment asset. Rumours abound that one of the largest online payment systems – PayPal – might be seriously considering cryptocurrency payments as part of its services.
PayPal haven’t confirmed this, but they haven’t denied it either...
There are plenty of use cases for online cryptocurrency payments, with cross border payments and settlements being the most obvious. There are still a lot of hurdles to overcome, though, accounting and tax status being the most obvious. More to the point is the suspicion with which most sovereign states regard cryptocurrencies, and the really bad security record of the extant crypto exchanges. A lot of clean up will be needed before the trust is established!
https://tokenpost.com/Corporations-hesitant-to-accept-cryptocurrency-but-demand-for-crypto-payment-services-is-growing-5615
Big Business:
I see that the bane of US connectivity, Verizon, has taken to using Google Cloud’s Contact Centre for its customer service. The mind boggles, especially given Google’s own reputation for not having any customer service! As HAL 9000 famously said, “I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that...” Which about sums it up!
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/13/if_customer_service_for_verizon/
PS: Here is the legendary Verity Stob’s explanation of how HAL came to be able to lip read – https://www.theregister.com/2017/11/28/2001_a_stob_odyssey/
Business & Coronavirus:
Over the last few issues I’ve mentioned in passing that in the aftermath of the pandemic we are unlikely to be able to just resume where we left off. One change is that a lot of people have been working from home, and their governments are encouraging this to continue, with some success. Meanwhile, the first signs of a second wave of infections are starting to emerge as the lockdowns are being eased.
Now, if we just take the one thing – working from home by a substantial part of the population – then as revealed by a recent study in central London, it’s having devastating effects on the London economy. Most analysts got it right that more working from home would affect the property market – a good or a bad thing depending on which side of the market you are on!
What no one had really thought through was all the other businesses servicing those people who are now working from home, and travellers that are no longer travelling, but using the likes of Zoom for their conferences!
To give you some idea of the scale, Canary Wharf is one of the main financial and IT hubs in the London area. Normally, 120,000 people work there. With the lockdown now finished people can start using the offices again. But they aren’t coming back – they are working from home. Only 7,000 have come back. That’s less than six percent!
So what do you think is happening to the thousands of ancillary businesses that used to provide 120,000 people with lattes, sandwiches, take out meals, pubs, stationary, dry cleaning and a thousand and one other little things that kept the wheels of industry digitally turning?
The figures from public transport suggest that there are now about one million fewer commuters that there used to be going into central London to work each day!
I could go on (the URL has a more detailed look), but I think the consequences are obvious
In the long run things will probably adapt to the new situation and what are now concentrated central London services will move out to where the customers are now – near their homes, but there will be plenty of pain and misery while it’s happening.
And what are the implications for the big metropolitan areas? I don’t know but we need to start thinking about it soon, or we could waste an enormous amount of taxpayer money!
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-economic-meltdown-revealed-investigation-a4496441.html
Quotes:
“Running a company with market research is like driving while looking in the rear view mirror.”
Anita Roddick – English businesswoman
Scanner:
Lie detectors have always been suspect. AI has made the problem worse
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/13/905323/ai-lie-detectors-polygraph-silent-talker-iborderctrl-converus-neuroid/
New calculations hint there could be at least 36 alien civilisations in our galaxy [But they don’t seem to be in a hurry to contact us! -AL]
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-calculations-suggest-there-could-be-dozens-of-alien-civilisations-in-our-galaxy
Congrats, First American Title Insurance, you’ve made technology history. For all the wrong reasons
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/23/american_title_insurance_ny/
Ongoing Meow attack has nuked more than 1,000 databases without telling anyone why
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/more-than-1000-databases-have-been-nuked-by-mystery-meow-attack/
Scientists have discovered a brand new electronic state of matter
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-discovered-a-new-electronic-state-of-matter
AT&T claims a phone made in 2019 will stop working, urges users to upgrade
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/att-misleads-users-about-network-change-in-bid-to-sell-more-phones/
Footnote
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
26 July 2020
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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