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Supplier Report: 9/20/2019


Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

News about massive acquisitions, mergers, and government fines can make it easy to lose track of the true value of a dollar.

WeWork and Uber continue to struggle justifying their value and become cash-flow positive. Google, through all of their own self-inflicted wounds are being treated like a piggy bank for foreign and the US governments.

Meanwhile critics of IT companies keep touting the value of data over the value of hard cash. Interesting times indeed.

Acquisitions/Investments

None this week

Artificial Intelligence

  • How to Build Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust

    For certain A.I. tasks, the dominant data-correlation approach works fine. You can easily train a deep-learning machine to, say, identify pictures of Siamese cats and pictures of Derek Jeter, and to discriminate between the two. This is why such programs are good for automatic photo tagging. But they don’t have the conceptual depth to realize, for instance, that there are lots of different Siamese cats but only one Derek Jeter and that therefore a picture that shows two Siamese cats is unremarkable, whereas a picture that shows two Derek Jeters has been doctored.

    In no small part, this failure of comprehension is why general-purpose robots like the housekeeper Rosie in “The Jetsons” remain a fantasy. If Rosie can’t understand the basics of how the world works, we can’t trust her in our home.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/opinion/ai-explainability.html

Cloud

  • Attorneys General Launch Probe of Google

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, announced the probe in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building, joined by about a dozen other attorneys general. In all, 48 states are part of the investigation of the Alphabet Inc. unit, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, officials said.

    Mr. Paxton said the states for now would focus on Google’s practices in online advertising markets. “But the facts will lead where the facts lead,” he said, adding, “We don’t know all the answers.”

    The states sent Google a civil subpoena on Monday seeking information about its ad practices, officials said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/attorneys-general-launch-probe-of-google-11568055853

  • Google, Amazon and Microsoft in Battle to Store Health Data in the Cloud

    Google will announce Tuesday a 10-year deal with the Mayo Clinic to store the hospital system’s medical, genetic and financial data. Providence St. Joseph Health in July said it reached a data-storage agreement with Microsoft. Later that month, Cerner Corp. CERN -0.24% , one of the largest electronic-health-record companies, unveiled its cloud-storage agreement with Amazon’s cloud-computing unit, Amazon Web Services.

    Some hospital-system and company officials said they expect to jointly develop new software by combining data and expertise of health-care companies with tech giants’ computing power and engineering know-how. “Google can’t do this alone. We can’t do this alone,” said Cris Ross, Mayo’s chief information officer. The terms weren’t disclosed.

    Patient records will be kept private and access will be controlled by Mayo, Mr. Ross said. Data used to develop new software will be stripped of any information that could identify individual patients before it is shared with the tech giant.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-amazon-and-microsoft-in-battle-to-store-health-data-in-the-cloud-11568122202

Security/Privacy

  • Big Tech’s Hands-Off Era Is Over

    Over the years, these growing companies have successfully skirted legal recourse for bad actors on their sites. They have had the law on their side: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields internet platforms from liability for what others post.

    Now, as global behemoths, it seems that with greater power comes greater legal responsibility. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit earlier this year held that a customer in Pennsylvania could sue Amazon over a product that was allegedly unsafe. Meanwhile, Facebook was recently fined $5 billion over privacy violations—the largest privacy-related fine in the history of the Federal Trade Commission. Google was also just hit with a $170 million FTC fine over its YouTube operation, for which the company made changes such as disabling comments on children’s videos.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-techs-hands-off-era-is-over-11567762389

  • 51 tech CEOs send open letter to Congress asking for a federal data privacy law

    Many privacy advocates (and even some tech CEOs) believe tech companies aren’t really looking after users’ interests, but their own. There’s a belief that companies are trying to aggregate any privacy lawmaking under one roof, where lobby groups can water-down any meaningful user protections that may impact bottom lines.

    Many companies make money by selling customers’ personal or device-usage data to online advertisers. A privacy framework with too many teeth could prevent companies from selling certain types of data.

    To help speed up the legislative process, the Business Roundtable group released their own consumer privacy framework [more here] that they’d like Congress to analyze and use as a base for any future law. This proposal includes many of the same provisions of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); however, in very broad terms.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/51-tech-ceos-send-open-letter-to-congress-asking-for-a-federal-data-privacy-law/

  • 1B Mobile Users Vulnerable to Ongoing ‘SimJacker’ Surveillance Attack

    Researchers on Thursday disclosed what they said is a widespread, ongoing exploit of a SIM card-based vulnerability, dubbed “SimJacker.” The glitch has been exploited for the past two years by “a specific private company that works with governments to monitor individuals,” and impacts several mobile operators – with the potential to impact over a billion mobile phone users globally, according to by researchers with AdaptiveMobile Security.

    “Simjacker has been further exploited to perform many other types of attacks against individuals and mobile operators such as fraud, scam calls, information leakage, denial of service and espionage,” said researchers with AdaptiveMobile Security in a post breaking down the attack, released Thursday.

    https://threatpost.com/1b-mobile-users-vulnerable-to-ongoing-simjacker-surveillance-attack/148277/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • The mainframe business is alive and well, as IBM announces new z15

    IBM announced last month that it was making OpenShift, Red Hat’s Kubernetes-based cloud-native tools, available on the mainframe running Linux. This should enable developers, who have been working on OpenShift on other systems, to move seamlessly to the mainframe without special training.

    IBM sees the mainframe as a bridge for hybrid computing environments, offering a highly secure place for data that when combined with Red Hat’s tools, can enable companies to have a single control plane for applications and data wherever it lives.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/12/the-mainframe-business-is-alive-and-well-as-ibm-announces-new-z15/

Other

  • California Bill Makes App-Based Companies Treat Workers as Employees

    The bill passed in a 29-to-11 vote in the State Senate and will apply to app-based companies, despite their efforts to negotiate an exemption. On Wednesday morning, the Assembly gave its final approval, 56 to 15. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, endorsed the bill this month and is expected to sign it. Under the measure, which would go into effect Jan. 1, workers must be designated as employees instead of contractors if a company exerts control over how they perform their tasks or if their work is part of a company’s regular business.

    The bill may influence other states. A coalition of labor groups is pushing similar legislation in New York, and bills in Washington State and Oregon that were similar to California’s but failed to advance could see renewed momentum. New York City passed a minimum wage for ride-hailing drivers last year but did not try to classify them as employees.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/technology/california-gig-economy-bill.html

  • Mark Hurd, the co-CEO of Oracle, is taking a leave of absence, citing health reasons

    With Hurd’s departure for now, Catz will become the sole CEO of Oracle. Ellison, who remains the company’s CTO, is also expected to take on some of Hurd’s responsibilities, says CNBC.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/11/mark-hurd-the-co-ceo-of-oracle-is-taking-a-leave-of-absence-citing-health-reasons/

    Safra Catz has long been Oracle’s secret weapon, and analysts say that it’s her time to shine as sole CEO: ‘This will test her, but she will prevail’

    Ray Wang of Constellation Research described Catz as “an extraordinary operator” who has not drawn as much attention as Oracle’s other high-profile — and sometimes controversial — top execs.

    “Many folks underestimate her because she doesn’t want to take the limelight, but she has a silent power,” he told Business Insider. “I think she’s not sought the limelight but internal folks will always tell you she’s the one running the company in the background. Her biggest weakness is a strength in today’s climate. She’s not seeking the limelight. She’s focused on getting the job done.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/safra-catz-profile-oracle-sole-ceo-2019-9

  • Jack Ma officially retires as Alibaba’s chairman

    Ma will continue serving on Alibaba’s board until its annual general shareholders’ meeting next year. He also remains a lifetime partner of Alibaba Partnership, a group drawn from the senior management ranks of Alibaba Group companies and affiliates that has the right to nominate (and in some situations, appoint) up to simple majority of its board.

    Ma said in last year’s announcement that he plans for his departure from Alibaba Group to be very gradual: “The one thing I can promise everyone is this: Alibaba was never about Jack Ma, but Jack Ma will forever belong to Alibaba.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/09/jack-ma-officially-retires-as-alibabas-chairman/

  • Google to pay $549 million fine and $510 million in back taxes in France

    This is a settlement, which means that French authorities are dropping charges against Google in France. It covers activities from 2005 to 2018.

    According to previous reports, the company owed around $1.3 billion in taxes. In 2014, Google started putting aside some money for a potential fine.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/12/google-to-pay-549-million-fine-and-510-million-in-back-taxes-in-france/

  • WeWork and Uber are proof valuations are meaningless

    Up top, we dug into WeWork and the latest from the company’s continuing IPO saga. The question regarding the co-working company’s public offering has changed to whether the IPO will happen this year, not just at what price the firm can entice enough investment to actually get public.

    Alex has written about the company’s cash appetite a few times now, which raise the question of how long the company can survive without some sort of large, external investment. If SoftBank is willing to commit more capital is an open question

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/13/wework-and-uber-are-proof-valuations-are-meaningless/
    WeWork’s Latest Threat: Old-School Landlords Trying to Copy WeWork

    WeWork started off as a great customer of Hines Interests LP and other landlords, leasing unused space and renting it to businesses too tiny to be ordinary tenants, Hines executive Charlie Kuntz said in a presentation after dessert, according to several people present.

    But WeWork didn’t stop there. It began cutting deals with large corporations too, making it a threat to Hines’s core business. WeWork’s move reminded some at the dinner of how Airbnb Inc. stole business from hotels and how taxicab companies saw Uber Inc. eat their lunch.

    “It’s not too late for us,” Gerald Hines, the 94-year-old family patriarch and CEO’s father, told the group.

    This June, the big landlord punched back. It launched its own co-working business, called Hines Squared, as a direct competitor to WeWork.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/weworks-latest-threat-old-school-landlords-trying-to-copy-wework-11568127640

Posted on

News You Can Use: 9/18/2019


Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

  • The Many Ways Planned Obsolescence Is Sabotaging How We Preserve Internet History

    But one issue keeps cropping up that I think is going to become even more prevalent in the years to come: Non-functional batteries.

    Battery technology and the circuitry that connects to it varies wildly, and it creates issues that prevent gadgets from living their best lives, in a huge part due to the slow decay of lithium-ion batteries.

    A prominent example of this, of course, are AirPods, highly attractive and functional tools that will slowly become less useful over time as their batteries go through hundreds of cycles and start to lose steam. But at the same time, AirPods are just an example of what is destined to happen to basically every set of Bluetooth headphones over time: The lithium-ion batteries driving them will slowly decay and turn a once-useful product into an object that must be continually replaced because a single part, the battery, cannot be replaced.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjwmqm/the-many-ways-planned-obsolescence-is-sabotaging-how-we-preserve-internet-history

  • India’s Restaurants Rebel Against Food Delivery Apps

    The frustration goes beyond India. As food ordering and delivery increasingly move online, restaurateurs and delivery workers around the world are questioning the small share of the pie they get from powerful gatekeepers like Zomato in India, Grubhub and DoorDash in the United States, and Deliveroo in Europe.

    The apps have made it easier for people to order takeout meals, and restaurants have gotten exposure to a larger audience of diners. But the platforms also charge hefty commissions on each order and can squeeze the profit margins of culinary establishments. In the United States, some restaurants have closed, unable to keep up with the cost of working with the delivery apps.

    The revolt in India underscores how tense the relationship between restaurants and the dining apps has become. On Thursday, restaurateurs spent all day meeting with top executives of Zomato and Swiggy, but failed to settle their differences.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/technology/india-restaurants-logout-delivery-zomato.html

  • How to vastly improve your problem-solving workshops

    Key Concept: Move from ideas to experimentation quickly
  • Out-of-Office Replies: Can a Strongly Worded One Set You Free?

    Some people threaten to delete all emails upon return. Many deflect with a joke, but taking creative liberties with an OOO only works if you’re high enough on the food chain in certain industries. “Stating you’ll respond ‘if you feel inspired’ will likely be poorly received at a law firm or by your boss if you’re entry-level,” said Ms. Licht. “It comes down to anticipating who’s receiving the message.”

    Others think that working a not-so-humble brag about, say, your “tightly scheduled tour of vineyards in Burgundy” into your OOO might convince people to leave you alone, or at least want to. For some recipients, however, “that’s just too much information,” said Ann Shoket, author of “The Big Life,” a self-help resource for professionals.

    If you can’t totally excise yourself from the grind, or can’t push your work off to a colleague, Ms. Johnson recommends selecting a window of availability each day to maintain some semblance of control over a vacation. Because let’s be real, we can never truly sign off(line) anymore.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/out-of-office-replies-can-a-strongly-worded-one-set-you-free-11567174442

Posted on

News You Can Use: 9/11/2019


Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

  • The Case for Lowering Your Expectations

    In 2006, epidemiologists from the University of Southern Denmark set out to explore why citizens of Denmark consistently score higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction. Their findings, published in the medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), zeroed in on the importance of expectations. “If expectations are unrealistically high they could be the basis of disappointment and low life satisfaction,” write the authors. “While the Danes are very satisfied, their expectations [compared to other countries] are rather low.”

    In a more recent study that included more than 18,000 participants and was published in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from University College in London examined people’s happiness from moment to moment. They found that “momentary happiness in response to outcomes of a probabilistic reward task is not explained by current task earnings, but by the combined influence of the recent reward expectations and prediction errors arising from those expectations.” In other words: Happiness at any given moment equals reality minus expectations.

    https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-case-for-lowering-your-expectations

  • How to Communicate With Your Boss

    We recently conducted a survey of 355 people and learned that the #1 piece of information that managers want to know is the progress that’s being made on a project. As a result, you’ll want to ask yourself: Am I sharing the progress I’m making day-to-day or week-to-week? You can also ask your boss directly: “How can I give you more visibility into my work?” or “Are there any decisions or projects you wish I were more transparent about?”

    https://lifehacker.com/how-to-communicate-with-your-boss-1837407349

  • Why employees have the upper hand now more than ever before
  • You should think more about how you onboard your newest hires

    No matter how experienced your new hire is, they likely don’t want to be the center of attention of a group of strangers on day one. Starting a new job is stressful, and being immediately thrust into a round of clapping employees magnifies that stress exponentially.

    What to do instead: Opt for “pre-boarding.” To minimize first-day jitters (and the chance of a new hire getting cold feet after accepting your offer), send a welcome email within a couple days and perhaps have one or two key staffers send a similar email. You may also want to send along the employee handbook and a brief outline of the first week’s schedule. That way, new employees can start with confidence and a warm, but low-key, welcome.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90382574/you-should-think-more-about-how-you-onboard-your-newest-hires

Posted on

News You Can Use: 9/4/2019


Photo by BENCE BOROS on Unsplash

  • Why Google employees are donating to Warren and Sanders — presidential candidates who want to break up Google

    In interviews with Recode, Google employees (mostly engineers who work on everything from Android to virtual reality) who donated to Sanders and Warren said that breaking up Google could help consumers and spur more tech innovation by allowing for more competition from upstarts. Some even said they thought regulation could force Google itself to return to its startup roots, recreating the bootstrapped work culture that they say enabled the company’s initial success. (Google executives don’t exactly agree.)

    Their support for candidates who are critical of Big Tech seems to reflect a broader movement among corporate tech employees who have begun demanding more ethical behavior and policies from their companies. In the past year, many tech employees, particularly at Google, have organized and protested against their own employers over concerns related to sexual harassment policies and controversial defense contracts with the US and foreign governments. In candidates like Warren and Sanders, these employees find an outside voice who similarly views major technology companies’ growing and unprecedented power with a critical lens. And for the first time, companies like Google have become major talking points in the presidential campaign.

    https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/7/30/20694619/google-employees-warren-sanders-presidential-election-donations-break-up-tech

  • Don’t stop creating for yourself – #LevelUp

    I really enjoy Peter and I thought this video is a great cross over between career and creative. I am certainly looking for a creative spark (I don’t want to come off like a talking head).
  • Having trouble delegating? These 3 questions can help

    “You can say something, but it’s not always what the other person hears,” she says. “Asking this question ensures that what you intend for someone to do is what they understand they need to do.”

    Repeating information is standard operating procedure in mission critical jobs. “An air traffic controller gives a pilot instructions, and the pilot has to repeat it back to ensure they got it correctly,” she says. “You can use the same thing in the workplace.”

    To avoid feeling robotic or untrusting, Brownlee suggests putting it this way: “I know I threw a lot at you, and I know this has a lot of moving parts. To ensure I didn’t confuse you, would you mind repeating back what you heard?”

    “If they tell you something that is not quite right, you’ll be so glad you can course correct,” she says.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90386012/having-trouble-delegating-these-3-questions-can-help

  • As tech changes homelessness, libraries roll with the punches

    Libraries were always sources of education, but that has become more pronounced recently as they’ve shifted from being the ones that store information to those that provide free and open access to it. With the combination of how that information is used and who needs these services, this involves a transformation not just of purpose but of architecture: Becoming a place where people come and stay rather than a place people visit.

    That transformation doesn’t come equally easily to all libraries or branches. It may be that a small, underfunded library happens to be near a shelter or bus station and attracts more of the homeless than it can serve, and indeed more than intend to use the library for its “intended” purpose. Though these facilities were designed to provide short-term refuge for any and all, they’re generally not equipped or staffed to handle the volume or types of people who find their way in and stay sometimes from open to close.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/as-tech-changes-homelessness-libraries-roll-with-the-punches/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 8/16/2019


Photo by Kong Jun on Unsplash

As the summer comes to a close, we are starting to see M&A activity ramp up. Several companies announced acquisitions over the last two weeks showing that there is money to burn for the right investments.

Meanwhile, Equifax seems to be burning money on settlements, but do they have enough cash to give every American $125? They do not. And critics are not happy.

Finally… Are Uber and Lyft ruing metropolitan traffic patterns? Maybe.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Broadcom Makes $10.7 Billion Deal to Buy Symantec’s Corporate-Focused Security Business

    The part of Symantec, best known for its antivirus software, that Broadcom is buying focuses on sales to companies. That part contributes about half of Symantec’s $5 billion in annual revenue. The consumer segment accounts for the rest of the 37-year-old company’s revenue.

    Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan has been focused on diversifying beyond the company’s core chip business and pushing into the lucrative software arena. Last year, he struck a roughly $19 billion deal to buy software firm CA Technologies, formerly Computer Associates.

    The Symantec business will add an expected $2 billion to Broadcom’s annual revenue going forward, Broadcom said, and would generate savings of more than $1 billion by eliminating cost overlaps in the year after the deal closed.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/broadcom-makes-10-7-billion-deal-to-buy-symantecs-corporate-focused-security-business-11565298059

  • Salesforce to Buy Workforce Management Software Firm

    Salesforce Inc. said Wednesday it struck a $1.35 billion deal to buy ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd., as the company aims to bolster the services it offers to customers.

    ClickSoftware is used by companies to schedule field service work and develops workplace management software. Private-equity firm Francisco Partners Management L.P. bought the company in 2015 for $438 million.

    “Our acquisition of ClickSoftware will not only accelerate the growth of Service Cloud, but drive further innovation with Field Service Lightning to better meet the needs of our customers,” Bill Patterson, general manager of the Salesforce Service Cloud unit, said in a statement.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/salesforce-to-buy-workforce-management-software-firm-11565215962

  • Amazon acquires flash-based cloud storage startup E8 Storage

    E8 Storage’s particular focus was on building storage hardware that employs flash-based memory to deliver faster performance than competing offerings, according to its own claims. How exactly AWS intends to use the company’s talent or assets isn’t yet known, but it clearly lines up with their primary business.

    AWS acquisitions this year include TSO Logic, a Vancouver-based startup that optimizes data center workload operating efficiency, and Israel-based CloudEndure, which provides data recovery services in the event of a disaster.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/amazon-acquires-flash-based-cloud-storage-startup-e8-storage/

  • Cisco scoops up Voicea to infuse more AI into its collaboration products

    Voicea, incorporated as Rizio Inc., has raised $20 million in funding since hitting the scene three years ago. Cisco’s venture capital arm contributed to the startup’s Series A round in 2017. Salesforce.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s GV fund and Battery Ventures were among the other high-profile investors that backed Voicea.

    The Mountain View, California-based startup has developed an artificial intelligence called Eva that can join conference calls to take notes. The assistant transcribes the conversation and enables participants to organize key highlights into an easily browsable list for future reference. Users can instruct Eva to mark an item as important with their voice, which removes the need to scribble notes while a call is ongoing.

    Cisco will bake Voicea’s technology into its Webex family of cloud-based collaboration services. The flagship product of the lineup is the Webex Meetings video conferencing tool, which competes with applications such as Microsoft Corp.’s Skype for Business. Cisco also offers versions of the tool for team collaboration, customer support and webinars along with a line of conference call equipment.

    https://siliconangle.com/2019/08/06/cisco-scoops-voicea-infuse-ai-collaboration-products/

  • Microsoft acquires data privacy and governance service BlueTalon

    Microsoft today announced that it has acquired BlueTalon, a data privacy and governance service that helps enterprises set policies for how their employees can access their data. The service then enforces those policies across most popular data environments and provides tools for auditing policies and access, too.

    Neither Microsoft nor BlueTalon disclosed the financial details of the transaction. Ahead of today’s acquisition, BlueTalon had raised about $27.4 million, according to Crunchbase. Investors include Bloomberg Beta, Maverick Ventures, Signia Venture Partners and Stanford’s StartX fund.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/microsoft-acquires-data-privacy-and-governance-service-bluetalon/

  • Salesforce closes $15.7B Tableau deal

    In an amazingly quick turnaround for a deal of this scope, Salesforce announced today that it has closed the $15.7 billion Tableau deal announced in June. The deal is by far the biggest acquisition in Salesforce history, a company known for being highly acquisitive.

    A deal of this size usually faces a high level of regulatory scrutiny and can take six months or longer to close, but this one breezed through the process and closed in less than two months.

    With Tableau and MuleSoft (a company it bought last year for $6.5 billion) in the fold, Salesforce has a much broader view of the enterprise than it could as a pure cloud company. It has access to data wherever it lives, whether on premises or in the cloud, and with Tableau, it enables customers to bring that data to life by visualizing it.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/01/salesforce-closes-15-7b-tableau-deal/

Cloud

  • JEDI Cloud-Computing Contract Award to Be Delayed Weeks

    Mr. Esper said Aug. 1 he would be reviewing the program known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. He didn’t give a timeline for a review at the time. The Pentagon had previously signaled it could award the potentially $10 billion contract by the end of August, with Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as finalists.

    Mr. Deasy said it would take “a number of weeks” to brief Mr. Esper and that the contract isn’t likely to be awarded in August. He said he is planning a number of sessions to explain to Mr. Esper the need for a Pentagon-wide cloud-computing capability, the benefits it would have on the battlefield, and how officials have designed the contract.

    He stressed the program was for a minimum of $1 million over 2 years, and would only reach its $10 billion maximum value over a decade if the Pentagon exercises several options.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/jedi-cloud-computing-contract-award-to-be-delayed-weeks-11565361020

Security/Privacy

  • Capital One breach also hit other major companies, say researchers

    The data breach at Capital One may be the “tip of the iceberg” and may affect other major companies, according to security researchers.

    Israeli security firm CyberInt said Vodafone, Ford, Michigan State University and the Ohio Department of Transportation may have also fallen victim to the same data breach that saw more than 106 million credit applications and files copied from a cloud server run by Capital One by an alleged hacker, Paige Thompson, a Seattle resident, who was taken into FBI custody earlier this week.

    It follows earlier reports from Forbes and security reporter Brian Krebs indicating that Capital One may not have been the only company affected, pointing to “one of the world’s biggest telecom providers, an Ohio government body, and a major U.S. university,” according to Slack messages sent by the alleged hacker.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/capital-one-breach-vodafone-ford-researchers/

  • The Equifax Settlement Is a Cruel Joke

    As part of the $575 million settlement, up to $425 million was set aside to compensate those who could clearly prove they were victims of identity theft as a result of the breach.

    For those unable to prove clear financial harm (most of us), the settlement offered users either free credit reporting for ten years, or a $125 one time cash payout. But because the FTC only set aside $31 million to pay for these payouts, it quickly ran out of cash and is now falsely telling consumers the free credit reporting is a “much better value.”

    But because free credit reporting is routinely doled out as compensation for a steady parade of privacy breaches, it’s effectively worthless to most consumers. Many of these services also include terms of service restrictions that erode your legal rights.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3agv7/the-equifax-settlement-is-a-cruel-joke

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Cisco to Pay $8.6 Million to Settle Government Claims of Flawed Tech

    Cisco will pay civil damages in connection with software that it sold to various government agencies, including Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a government complaint unsealed on Wednesday.

    The government said the video surveillance software it bought from Cisco was “of no value” because it did not “meet its primary purpose: enhancing the security of the agencies that purchase it.” In many cases, the Cisco software actually reduced the protection provided by other security systems, the complaint said.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/technology/cisco-tech-flaw-sales.html

  • Apple Reports Declining Profits and Stagnant Growth, Again

    On Tuesday, the Silicon Valley behemoth said that its net income had fallen 13 percent and that its revenue rose 1 percent in the latest quarter, with iPhone sales continuing to decline and gains in the company’s services and wearables business failing to make up the difference.

    The results showed persistent signs of weakness for one of the world’s financial standouts. Apple built its enormous business on the iPhone, but sales of the device have slipped for three straight quarters in a saturated market for smartphones.

    Yet the results also suggested that the company could be starting to halt declines in those sales and other key areas, including revenue from the Chinese market. Over the previous two quarters, Apple’s profits and revenue had fallen over all.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/technology/apple-earnings-iphone.html
    Shameless Plug: I did an entire podcast about Apple’s shrinking consumer base.

Other

  • Uber and Lyft finally admit they’re making traffic congestion worse in cities

    These figures suggest that Uber and Lyft are hitting some cities harder than previously thought. An independent study commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority looked at 2017 traffic patterns in the county and concluded that TNCs generated about 6.5 percent of the total VMT on weekdays, and 10 percent on weekends. (TNC, which stands for transportation network company, is an industry term used to describe ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.)

    The findings from Fehr & Peers show totals “nearly twice that previous estimate,” said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft’s effects on public transit ridership. “This difference may be due to the continued increase in TNC use over the intervening two years.”

    But some cities aren’t as hard hit as others. Uber and Lyft represent lower percentages of total VMTs in Chicago, LA, and Seattle. And New York City, the largest market for both companies in the US, was left out of the analysis altogether, likely because of the city’s low rate of car ownership and extensive public transportation network.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756945/uber-lyft-tnc-vmt-traffic-congestion-study-fehr-peers

  • Elizabeth Warren Promises to Kill State Laws That Ban Locally-Owned ISPs

    Warren’s proposal, outlined in a Medium post as part of a broader plan for rural America, includes doling out $85 billion to help fund broadband deployment to underserved areas. FCC data suggests that 39 percent of rural Americans still lack access to broadband.

    But the plan also does something notable: it takes aim at the growing roster of protectionist state laws telecom lobbyists have used to crush competition across the country.

    “Many small towns and rural areas have turned to municipal networks to provide broadband access in places that the private market has failed to serve—but today, as many as 26 states have passed laws hindering or banning municipalities from building their own broadband infrastructure to protect the interests of giant telecom companies,” Warren said.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmjja/elizabeth-warren-promises-to-kill-state-laws-that-ban-locally-owned-isps