Hacks and Hackers are regular informal meetups where technologists and journalists get together to discuss how news gathering is changing in the digital age. The November Sydney meeting featured a discussion with Aron Pilhofer, founder of the original event and Editor of Interactive News at The New York Times.
Aron had some great views on how journalism is changing and some of what he mentioned about the New York Times’ digital adventures was off the record
Some gems from Aron included just how ‘dirty’ raw data is from government agencies and how journalists can help open data advocates make their stories more accessible. Those topics are for future blog posts.
One of Aron’s comments about the challenges of the media was how many news organisations are trapped in “a weird case of Stockholm syndrome” – where their output is limited by their Content Management Systems.
It’s notable how many businesses, not just in media are constrained by their own systems – what was set up to serve the organisation has instead has become the master.
Of all the take aways from Aron’s talk, the Stockholm Syndrome of poor CMS’ is the most universal across industries – organisations pay a fortune to multinational consultancies for poor software platforms that management then tries to shoehorn their staff and business processes into.
This rarely ends well and usually creates more problems as the business loses flexibility, which is exactly what has happened to new organisations.
Sometimes biting the bullet and writing off a poor investment, particularly in software, makes damn good sense.
The last factor bears more examination as consumer and enterprise are very different and there’s no guarantee that businesses built around thousands of people downloading apps or accessing websites can pivot into selling into corporations and government agencies.
Probably the biggest problem is the consumer or small business freemium model doesn’t cut it in the enterprises who are prepared to pay big sums for highly reliable and secure services.
Similarly the enterprise model of fat sales commissions paid for by big implementation costs and expensive support contracts doesn’t quite fly either for these start up business. There’s also a good argument that high margin enterprise model is doomed anyway as cloud services displace costly in-house installations.
In the transition from consumer to enterprise is difficult and most companies have struggled to make the jump, even Google Docs has been a hard sell into the corporate sector.
At the enterprise end, cloud services are cutting margins as IBM and Oracle are finding. Both companies are moving across to cloud products and now a lot of salespeople and consultants in those organisations are looking at a substantial drop in their standards of living.
More importantly for the startup and VC communities, the “greater fool” model doesn’t work in the enterprise space. Hyping a business which has barely made a cent in revenue but does have a million users is very different to building a stable corporate platform.
It may well be the move to the enterprise by Silicon Valley is because the consumer model has run out of “greater fools” who’ll buy overhyped photo sharing apps or social media platforms of dubious value.
This change in investment behaviour also has lessons for governments trying to copy Silicon Valley. The puck moves fast in the investment community while governments, by definition, are slow.
By the time governments have setup their programs, the markets have moved on and many of the hot technologies of two years prior are now old hat. This is exactly what we’re seeing in the apps world.
We often hear about technology causing disruption, often though we forget that those disruptive technologies can be ephemeral as they are disrupted themselves.
As these industries evolve, we’ll see how well the disrupters deal with being disrupted.
Last week an interesting media release from anti-virus company Bitdefender appeared in the inbox describing a tricky little scam that promises to change Facebook page colours but actually grabs a user’s information to set up fake blogs associated with the victim’s email address.
Those fake blogs in turn link to a working from home scam, the type which are becoming depressingly common online. No doubt the malware authors have some sort of interest in that scheme.
What makes this malware interesting is how it brings together a range of opportunities for the malware writer – social media, apps, data aggregation, identity spoofing and the Ponzi affiliate schemes that are prevalent as people try to find new ways to supplement their income.
Many people say “I’d never get caught by these scams” but the reality is the scammers are rat-cunning, if not clever. Assuming you’re immune to these because you’re too smart, or you use a Mac or there’s nothing of value on your computer is a risk in itself.
Here’s the media release from Bitdefender.
Google Chrome App grabs identities, forges blogs in victims’ name to promote scam
Bitdefender catches Facebook colour scam with both hands in cookie jar
SYDNEY/AUCKLAND– November 19, 2012 – A Google Chrome app that promises to change the colour of Facebook accounts instead nabs authentication cookies and generates dozens of blogs registered to the victims’ Gmail address, in a new scam analysed by Bitdefender, the leading global antivirus company.
Once the malicious app is installed from Google’s Chrome Web Store, it starts displaying a large Google Ads banner redirecting users to a “work from home scam.” When clicking the sign-up link, users are redirected to a fraudulent website.
“Scammers gave a new twist to the old change-your-Facebook-colour scheme that’s been luring users to fraudulent websites to grab credentials and other sensitive data,” says Chief Security Strategist, Catalin Cosoi. “By creating dozens of blogs for a single account, the scam spreads like wildfire among Facebook friends.”
The blogs generating under the email address of the victims, which are used in further disseminating the scam, have registered a large number of hits among users in the US, the UK, Germany, Spain, Romania, and other countries.
The app can also post wall messages on the victims’ account. The messages use friend tagging to convince the victim’s friends to visit the blog domains. Each time the app posts on a users’ timeline, it links to one of the auto-generated blogs as to avoid blacklisting.
Bitdefender encourages users to use an antivirus solution and the free application Safego, which protects Facebook and Twitter accounts from scams, spam, malware and private data exposure.
San Francisco’s Marriot Marquis is a welcome place to rest after a tough flight or a long day at a conference, just be careful when you take on the coffee machine.
The first impression of the Marriot Marquis San Francisco when you step out of a cab is that it is a very busy place. Being situated next to the city’s Moscone Centre makes it is the centre for the convention trade which overruns the hotel when a big convention like Dreamforce is on.
Something all major conference destinations do well is dealing with crowds and the Marquis is no exception. The reception desk is efficient, fast and friendly – right down to having no problem with a check-in earlier than the stipulated 4pm. Exactly what a traveller needs after a cramped 13 hour flight.
The room
A standard room at the Marquis is a comfortable size with a genuine king sized bed. Beside the bed is a clock radio that is simple to set and actually works, this is something many other hotels should take note of.
There’s plenty of room to spread out with a good sized bath, plenty of storage space and a deep wardrobe. In the wardrobe is the standard digital safe for valuables.
On the TV there is the usual range of cable TV, free to air stations and in-house movies. Interestingly the cable selection included Russia Today but not the BBC World Service or Al-Jazeera.
Power sockets are plentiful including two mounted on the writing desk for easy laptop charging. Wireless networking, which costs an extra $14.95 a day, gives reasonable download speeds and is more than adequate for most cloud computing tasks.
The Coffee Machine of Doom
Unlike the user friendly beside clock the one cup drip coffee machines are quite possibly the most difficult devices ever installed in a hotel room.
The evil Marriott coffee maker
Thinking the first one was broken, I sent it back. It turned out it wasn’t but I never quite got the knack of figuring out how to work them.
Along with being horribly user unfriendly, the disposable cartridges in the thing are horribly environmentally unfriendly. Generally give the things a miss and visit one of the many good coffee shops in the neighbourhood.
Fitness Centre
The fourth floor fitness centre features the usual range of equipment but in a complex the size of the Marriott expect it to be busy at peak times, at 7am the place was packed.
The Marriott Marquis’ swimming pool
Upstairs on the fifth floor is a respectable 30ft swimming pool which doesn’t get too busy, however more than four lap swimmers at one time will be difficult. The pool is quite shallow at one end and enthusiastic tumble turners should take care at the end of their laps. Note the pool opens at 6am, half an hour after the rest of the fitness centre.
Location
For attending conferences at Moscone the location is unbeatable and being right on Market Street in downtown San Francisco with Union Square, Westfields and all the major shopping outlets close by.
Harbourside tourist attractions are some distance from the hotel although the Marriot is close to the Powell terminus of the city’s iconic cable cars to Fisherman’s Wharf. The vintage K-Line street car service also runs to Fisherman’s Wharf via the Embarcadero waterfront.
Both the BART and Metro are around the corner at the Powell Street Station – the BART takes half an hour to San Francisco airport but it’s unlikely you’ll need that if you can afford to stay at the Marriot. Cabs to the hotel are around $65 including a 20% tip.
Overall
It’s difficult to fault the hotel as the service is friendly and efficient while the rooms are comfortable with all the features required for a good business stay.
Overall, if you’re not on a tight budget and you’re attending a conference at the Moscone Centre or have business in the SoMA district then the Marriot Marquis is a good choice. If you’re in San Francisco for the tourist experience or you have business in the Financial District then you’ll probably find hotels closer to what you’re in town for.
Paul travelled to San Francisco and stayed at the Marriott courtesy of Salesforce to attend their Dreamforce conference.
Bureaucrats dream of tracking every person or asset under their purview and the rise of technologies like smartphones, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Radio Frequency IDentity (RFID) chips are giving them more power than ever.
Two stories in the last week illustrated how these technologies are being used by authorities to monitor people; a school district in the United States is fighting a student who refuses to wear an RFID enabled identity card and Saudi immigration authorities are now sending text messages to guardians of travellers, mainly women, leaving the country.
In Saudi Arabia, the law prohibits minors and women from leaving the country without the permission of their adult male guardians. As the Riyadh Bureau website explains, to streamline the permission process Saudi authorities enabled online pre-registration for travellers so now male guardians can grant assent through a website rather than dealing with the immigration department’s paperwork every time their spouse or children wants to travel.
When the spouse or child passes through immigration, the guardian receives an SMS message saying their ward is about to leave the country. One assumes the male can withdraw that approval on receipt of the text.
The Saudi application is an interesting use of the web and smartphones to deliver government services and probably not what Western e-gov advocates are thinking of when they agitate for agencies to move more functions online.
John Jay High School’s use of RFID tags is a classic case of bureaucrat convenience as electronic cards are far easier to manage and monitor than roll calls or sign-ins.
The problem is that RFID raises a range of privacy and security issues which the bureaucrats either haven’t thought through or have decided don’t apply to their department.
Notable among those issues is that “has a bar code associated with a student’s Social Security number”. It never ceases to amaze just how, despite decades of evidence, US agencies and businesses keep using an identifier that has proved totally unsuited for the purposes it was developed for.
Probably the most worrying point from the Texan story is how school officials tried to suppress the story, offering Ms Hernandez’s father a compromise on the condition he “agree to stop criticizing the program and publicly support it.”
That urge to control criticism and dissent is probably the thing all of us should worry about when governments and businesses have the ability to track our movements.
In this respects, the Texas education officials are even more oppressive than Saudi anti-women laws. Something we should consider as more of our behaviour is tracked.
