A Quick Bite Post Mortem For For Quibi: Hollywood Still Doesn't Get The Internet

from the it-ain't-about-the-content dept

So Quibi, the Hollywood dream of creating a new "professional" video streaming service by throwing $1.75 billion at Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman and hoping they could create something, lasted all of 199 days before announcing that it was throwing in the towel (even though it apparently still has a chunk of that cash on hand, which it will be handing back to some investors). As we noted when it launched, Quibi is the perfect example of Hollywood thinking about the internet. It overvalued the content (and believed that you got the best content by throwing money at big names), and completely undervalued the internet and the fact that the killer application of the internet is community and communication.

For decades now, we've pointed out time and time again that Hollywood seems to view the internet through the lens of their existing industry -- one built up with a few giant gatekeepers who "greenlight" what content gets made -- and that the content they pick must be financed with ungodly sums of money. I'm reminded of the former NBC exec who quizzed me years ago about how to make sure his company could keep making $200 million movies. As I've noted repeatedly in the 15 years since I was challenged over that, the whole question is wrong. No one in the tech industry demands that others explain "how do we keep making $5,000 computers." The industry looks at how best to serve customers -- and often looks for creative ways to do it cheaper and more efficiently, rather than just setting a cost and tossing cash into it.

Quibi was the result of this kind of hubris: taking the Hollywood approach to an internet world. And it showed.

As James Surowiecki highlights in his own post-mortem, Quibi is basically the opposite of what a compelling internet service is because it relies on the idea of the brilliant visionary anointing the best content, rather than letting it bubble up via the wisdom of the crowds.

I find it notable that Quibi shut down the week that there was a flood of stories (and TV commercials) featuring Nathan Apodaca, the Idaho potato farmer who's random TikTok video of himself on a skateboarding heading into work (after his truck broke down) while drinking cranberry juice from a giant bottle and singling along to Fleetwood Mac went super viral. It was also a "quick bite" video, but it was basically the anti-Quibi. That one random video going viral has even brought Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" back onto the charts 43 years after the song came out.

That's the power of the internet. It allows anyone to create. It allows anyone to share. And out of all of that, it allows some amazing content to bubble up, because tons of people like it -- and not because some super rich Hollywood dude decides "this is what the people want."

Filed Under: broadcast, communication, community, content, hollywood, internet, jeffrey katzenberg, meg whitman, sharing, value
Companies: quibi

Telegram Now Being Targeted By Politicians Because Terrorists (Also) Use It

from the ineffective-noise dept

Victims of terrorist attacks are busy suing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for supposedly providing material support for terrorism by not shutting down ISIS-related accounts fast enough. Twitter has gathered more negative attention than most, thanks to its inconsistent application of the "Twitter Rules." Not only has it fielded lots of complaints from so-called "alt-right" figureheads, but non alt-righter Senator John McCain tends to use the service as a national security punching bag during periodic bitchfests hearings on phone encryption.

End-to-end encryption is also the bane of several governments' existence, but even all this concern about unintercepted criminal communications has yet to tip the scale towards mandated backdoors. Instead, pressure is being applied in other ways. Twitter recently killed off a few hundred thousand terrorist-linked accounts, so those looking for a new terrorist support network d/b/a a social media service have begun sniping at secure messaging service Telegram.

Telegram has been the recipient of periodic signup surges, thanks to government action around the globe. WhatsApp, which recently added end-to-end encryption, has been routinely blocked by a handful of national governments, with Brazil denying access to its citizens most frequently. Every time WhatsApp is blocked, other encrypted messaging services see their user bases grow.

The same will happen with alternatives to Telegram, which is now being labeled as ISIS's favorite chat app. The recent addition of a desktop version means encrypted communications aren't limited to terrorists with cellphones. That's apparently problematic, at least according to a few US legislators.

Just three days before the assault on the Berlin Christmas market, senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged Durov to immediately take steps to block content from the Islamic State, warning that terrorists were using the platform not only to spread propaganda but also to coordinate actual attacks.

“No private company should allow its services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,” stated the letter, signed by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), the chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, and Rep. Brad Sherman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

There's a big difference between "allow" and "encourage," but Rep. Ted Poe seems to think those terms are synonymous. Pavel Durov, the ousted founder of Russia's Facebook, VKontakte, is the person behind Telegram, which recently added end-to-end encryption. Durov pushed back against what he felt were unlawful demands for information by the Russian government while helming VKontakte. He fled the country and now lives in "self-imposed exile," stating that living in Russia is "incompatible" with running an internet-based communications platform.

So it's unsurprising his next project has focused on secure messaging with social media trappings. One of the few effective tools against government interference is "invisible" communications, which is why dissidents, journalists, and activists embrace encrypted communications platforms. (Politicians use it too, because they love obliterating FOIA-able paper trails.) Obviously, this also works out well for criminals and terrorists, who are no more fans of government interference than those with more altruistic aims.

The Washington Post article is largely based on a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which actively monitors Telegram for ISIS activity. MEMRI has observed a large number of terrorist communications on the platform and says terrorists are migrating there from Twitter in large numbers. This is to be expected considering recent efforts by Twitter to purge more of these accounts.

However, the report -- while pointing at the encryption and secret, invitation-only chat rooms provided by Telegram -- also highlights the fact (inadvertently, perhaps) that terrorists aren't nearly as security-focused as their new love for Telegram would suggest. Its post summarizing the report notes that terrorists are also using Tumblr blogs for communications and uploading content to the Internet Archive. (This might explain some of the NSLs the Internet Archive's been receiving...) So, terrorists haven't "gone dark," at least not completely, and there are still open communications that can be scooped up and other metadata generated during Telegram use that might be instructive.

Also, the Washington Post's coverage appears to buy into the silly moral panic here, using ridiculous terms like "military grade encryption," which proves that whoever wrote the article doesn't know what they're talking about.

The problem with holding Telegram up as a villain is that efforts to kill or throttle the service are also going to harm thousands or millions of innocent people who are trying to keep their own oppressive governments from intercepting their communications. As Durov himself pointed out last year, any communications system like his is going to be used by bad guys as well. That's just the nature of any communications platform.

It's unclear at this point if US legislators are actually going after Telegram. At this point, they can't do much more than sign letters and release statements of disapproval. Telegram isn't an American company. If the US government decides US-based companies aren't doing enough to fight terrorism, any pressure applied to those platforms that results in greater censorship or increased demands for user data will simply push users to services that haven't been tampered with yet. This generally means communications sought by law enforcement will now be even further out of reach, controlled by providers located outside US borders.

The same goes for terrorists and criminals. No one's going to sit around and wait to get swept up. Getting into a panic about an encrypted chat app does little more than advertise its effectiveness and send more users its way. And once it becomes a favorite target of governments, users will migrate to other platforms, starting the whole cycle over again.

Filed Under: communication, encryption, isis, moral panic, telegram
Companies: telegram

Encryption Is Contagious: Viber Launching End To End Encryption

from the keep-it-coming dept

It appears that more fully encrypting messaging and content is really catching on. Following Whatsapp's big move to roll out end-to-end encryption, the super popular communications app Viber has announced it intends to do the same for its 700 million (and growing) users. It's already testing encryption in a few markets, before rolling it out globally. The company claims that the encrypted system will also let you know if your content is encrypted based on color coding.

Unfortunately, Viber is not entirely clear on what encryption tools they're using. With Whatsapp, the company was upfront in saying that it was using the popular and tested open source encryption from Open Whisper Systems. Viber doesn't say what it's using, leading some to speculate that the company tried to roll its own (generally not a good idea -- and likely means there are serious security flaws). The company, however, says that they're doing "open source plus," but have not yet named what open source tools it's pulling from:

“We built [our end-to-end encryption] based on the concept of an established open-source solution with an extra level of security developed in-house,” a Viber spokesperson says, refusing to be more specific.

There are some that will argue that an opaque/unknown encryption system can, in some ways, be worse than no encryption, in that users may think their communications are private, when they really are not. So, the lack of an open, audited encryption solution is definitely a concern here.

However, what's encouraging is that we're seeing more and more apps embracing end-to-end encryption for communications, as well as strong disk encryption for data at rest. This is something that cryptographers and security experts pushed for for years without much actual support or adoption. However, it's finally starting to become a necessary piece of the puzzle for communications service providers, and that's a good thing.

Filed Under: communication, encryption, privacy
Companies: viber, whatsapp

Law Enforcement's Nemesis -- WhatsApp -- Is Also Law Enforcement's Best Friend

from the love/hate-as-needed dept

WhatsApp: a tool for evil.

David Cameron announced early last year that it was "unacceptable" that all communications could not be intercepted and read by intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. He stopped short of calling for a ban but strongly hinted this would be addressed in the Snooper's Charter.

This followed the head of the UK's GCHQ throwing both terrorism and child porn into the mix while vocally handwringing about encrypted communications -- portraying tech companies as callous accomplices of child abusers and jihadists.

In Brazil, WhatsApp was blocked and a Facebook executive arrested for refusing to hand over identifying information on its users.

And here in the US, the FBI has been dropping sealed hints that the popular messaging app may be the next recipient of one of its infamous All Writs orders.

Meanwhile, over in Belgium, it's law enforcement that's benefitted the most from the platform's existence. (h/t Frederic Jacobs)

"There were no orders and nobody really knew what to do. The mobile phone network was also out of order. Fortunately, Whatsapp worked. Without this app we we could not communicate at all," federal police spokesman Peter De Waele said as quoted by the media outlet.

Very handy, that. When cell infrastructure goes down, WhatsApp stays up. What law enforcement hates and fears because it can't capture readable content in transit is also useful when all hell breaks loose. Kill it off because you fear the unseen communications and you're going to end up hurting yourself.

As for Belgian law enforcement, they're likely not as fearful of WhatsApp's encryption as others. WhatsApp played a key part in a terrorist plot last summer -- but one that was disrupted by Belgian law enforcement.

According to Gaspard Sebag from Bloomberg, the European law enforcement in a joint effort with the FBI are monitoring the use of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp.

“Investigators said earlier they had detained 16 people in the anti-terror raids after working with U.S. authorities to monitor suspects’ communications on WhatsApp Inc.’s messaging service.” states Sebag.

The Belgian law enforcement raided two separate groups operating in Ostend and Louvain, and according various sources the messages exchanged on WhatsApp allowed the investigators to trace the group.

At the time I’m writing, Facebook who acquired WhatsApp, declined to comment the events, but security experts speculate that there is something wrong in the implementation of WhatsApp end-to-end (E2E) encryption started in November.

And even if the flaw is no longer present, intelligence/law enforcement agencies still have other options:

It seems that even if the messages are protected by the encryption implemented, the FBI or NSA are able to gather metadata on the server side that could be used to link WhatsApp users. The analysis of metadata allowed law enforcement to identify the network of the alleged suspects.

Not quite the monster Cameron, et al. have portrayed it as. And it's a great backup plan for those times when regular communication channels just aren't working.

Filed Under: brussels, communication, encryption
Companies: whatsapp

New Study Says There's No Evidence That Terrorists Changed How They Communicate Post-Snowden

from the because-they-already-knew dept

One of the standard talking points right after the Ed Snowden revelations first started coming out was that the leaks were causing terrorists to change how they communicated, meaning that US intelligence was somehow "losing track" of important information on the whereabouts and plans of terrorists. The most obvious example of this was from CNN "reporter" Barbara Starr (who has a long track record of repeating Defense Department talking points) who directly claimed: "terrorists are trying to change the way they communicate because of what they learned from Edward Snowden's admitted leaks of classified information about government surveillance programs." We questioned this claim on a number of points -- in part because there was plenty of evidence that most terrorists already suspected such surveillance and acted accordingly. Meanwhile, in private, James Clapper (who publicly was claiming massive damage from terrorists changing how they communicate) admitted that he really wasn't that worried.

Clapper has said repeatedly in public that the leaks did great damage, but in private he has taken a more nuanced stance. A review of early damage assessments in previous espionage cases, he said in one closed-door briefing this fall, found that dire forecasts of harm were seldom borne out.

So it should come as no surprise at all that a new research report more or less confirms that there is no evidence of terrorists changing how they communicate post-Snowden. You can read the full report from Flashpoint Partners yourself, but it's pretty clear:

• The underlying public encryption methods employed by online jihadists do not appear to have significantly changed since the emergence of Edward Snowden. Major recent technological advancements have focused primarily on expanding the use of encryption to instant messenger and mobile communications mediums.
• Aside from warning of tampered copies of “Asrar al-Mujahideen” that were deliberately infected with spyware, none of the prominent jihadi logistical units have expressed any public doubt as to the continued effectiveness of encryption methods employed in their software packages that were released prior to the Snowden leaks.
• The actual release of new jihadi-themed encryption software packages, like “Asrar al-Dardashah,” seems to have had a far more noticeable impact in terms of driving waves of interest in the subject of encryption among users of jihadi web forums than the publication of the Snowden NSA revelations in June 2013.
• Well prior to Edward Snowden, online jihadists were already aware that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were attempting to monitor them. As a result, the Snowden revelations likely merely confirmed the suspicions of many of these actors, the more advanced of which were already making use of – and developing –secure communications software.

In other words, as we said, most terrorists already assumed their electronic communications were at risk and acted accordingly. There is little to no evidence that Snowden's leaks had any significant impact at all. The report shows that encryption packages were popular well before the Snowden leaks, and little seems to have changed after the Snowden leaks.

The report also looked at forum discussions on various encryption techniques on forums frequented by terrorist groups. As you can see from the following two charts, there doesn't appear to be any bump in discussions about encryption or related software post Snowden (the leaks began in June of 2013). If anything there was much more discussion before the Snowden revelations started:

The full report is quite interesting, though I doubt we'll see any NSA defenders/Snowden haters admitting that their doom and gloom claims turned out to be false.

Filed Under: communication, ed snowden, encryption, fud, james clapper, jihad, terrorists
Companies: flashpoint partners

DailyDirt: It's What You Say AND How You Say It

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Studying how language can predict behavior is a fascinating field. As communications are increasingly digital, everyone's messages are more easily data mined for all sorts of analysis (ahem, and not all of it is done by the CIA). Marketing folks are looking at how catchy phrases might increase sales -- which may be why you're seeing more headlines like "8 simple ways to ..." and "one simple trick that ..." in ads. Here are just a few other linguistic studies for you to peruse. Also, happy belated National Grammar Day!

• Men who use the pronoun "whom" in an online dating profile receive 31% more responses from women. And you probably don't even need to use it correctly... well, unless another study concludes that women are significantly better at grammar usage than men. [url]
• Can the language you speak influence your behavior? Speakers of languages with weak future tense grammar (eg. German, Finnish and Estonian) seem to correlate with more future-oriented behaviors such as an increased rate of financial saving, lower rates of smoking and higher rates of exercise, and higher condom usage -- compared to speakers of languages with stronger future tense grammar like English and French. [url]
• Four minutes of conversation is about all it takes for a speed dating participant to figure out if there's any real chemistry between a potential couple. Protip: language analysis suggests you might want to sound sympathetic and not ask too many questions. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: analysis, behavior, big data, communication, data mining, dating, grammar, language, linguistics, predictions, whom

Feds Apparently Didn't Communicate With Each Other About Various Silk Road Investigations

from the left-hand,-right-hand dept

There's been plenty of talk about Silk Road since the site got shut down and Ross Ulbricht was arrested and accused of being Dread Pirate Roberts behind the site. Of course, it struck us as interesting that hours after the arrest and the criminal complaint in NY, there was also an indictment in Maryland. Since then, there have been a bunch of Silk Road related arrests concerning drug dealers who used the site. One of those, as named in our last post on this, was Steven Sadler of Bellevue, Washington.

The folks over at The Smoking Gun have a bunch of details about Sadler, which show that he wasn't discovered as a result of the Ulbricht arrest, but rather had been raided months ago and became an informant for the feds. His arrest and court hearing were rushed into place after the Ulbricht arrest and the site shut down:

The hastily arranged court appearance for Sadler was prompted by the FBI's arrest a day earlier of Ross Ulbricht, who has been charged with being the mastermind behind the Silk Road site, which operated on the "darknet" (or "deep web"). Simultaneous to Ulrich's bust, federal investigators shut down the two-year-old site, which relied on the anonymizing tool Tor to shield both vendors and patrons.

During the October 2 hearing, federal prosecutor Thomas Woods told Tsuchida that "Mr. Sadler has been cooperating, working for the government for the past two months." Referring to "unusual circumstances," Woods noted that "through reasons unrelated to" Sadler, his cooperation "abruptly came to an end this morning." Sadler's lawyer told Tsuchida that her client was in "constant communication with the government."

Of course, this makes you wonder just how (un)coordinated the various efforts against Silk Road really were by the feds. We've got two separate lawsuits filed against Ulbricht in two separate courts, and now we find out that the feds had already been working one of the site's top dealers (Sadler went by the name "Nod" on the site). You'd think the feds would be a bit more communicative with each other over their various attempts to investigate Silk Road, its operators and users.

The details also suggest a few other informants, including one who taught investigators how to use Silk Road:

Investigators also were aided by a confidential informant who agreed to cooperate after agents seized several packages mailed to her by Silk Road heroin dealers. In a TSG interview, the woman--a business owner in her thirties--said she had made several heroin purchases from "Nod" and allowed investigators to take over her Silk Road account to make undercover drug purchases.

A self-described "junkie" who has been clean since May, the informant said she helped a postal inspector navigate Silk Road and explained how to fund an account with Bitcoin, the virtual currency used for purchases. When an undercover drug purchase failed to arrive, a postal inspector--apparently sensing a rip-off--sent the woman an e-mail seeking advice as to how to address the missing Express Mail parcel with the narcotics seller. When the informant referred to the package "going missing," the inspector replied, "I know the package is not missing, I work for the post office…hahaha. They just have not sent it."

Either way, it seems likely that more arrests are coming, but it still seems to suggest a level of dysfunction among the feds with regards to coordinating their investigations.

Filed Under: communication, law enforcement, ross ulbricht, silk road, steven sadler
Companies: silk road

DailyDirt: Connecting With Animals

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Technology has largely helped make our lives better. Sure, there are a few cases where technology has caused some major problems, but it's not easy putting the genie back in the bottle. Mark Zuckerberg might want to keep pushing the internet to more and more people, but there are some folks out there who want to go even further. Why limit ourselves to sharing technology with other humans? Let's give some technology to other animals. Here are just a few examples of people giving animals some technological help.

• Peter Gabriel, Vint Cerf and a bunch of other folks want to create an "interspecies internet" to help animals communicate with people (as well as other animals). If you can imagine the rage some animals might exude after a few pop-up ads, you'll probably think this is a bad idea. [url]
• People have volunteered to create all kinds of prosthetic devices for injured animals -- such as an artificial fin for a dolphin, plastic legs for elephants that have stepped on landmines, and a 3D printed beak for a bald eagle. Elsewhere, a turtle injured by a lawnmower was fitted with wheels under her shell to help with her mobility, and Denver-based OrthoPets made artificial paws for the first dog to have four prosthetic limbs. [url]
• An artificial neural connection has helped to restore the function of a monkey's partially paralyzed hand. This research could help some injured people, too, and create an alternative artificial nerve system to route around damaged nerves. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: animals, artificial neural connection, communication, interspecies internet, peter gabriel, prosthetics, vint cerf

DailyDirt: Is There A Better Word For Wireless?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wired communications are obviously a more reliable connection than any wireless technology (when a wired connection is actually possible or practical), so wirelines aren't going away any time soon. (Well, unless you live on an island off the coast of New Jersey.) But wireless technologies offer some pretty clear advantages, too. Maybe we'll discover some way to make wireless connections just as solid as wired ones, but until then, here are just a few advances for transmitting information without a wire or cable.

• If you're really paranoid about someone intercepting your home WiFi network, maybe someday you can set up a wireless network that transmits via visible wavelengths (so a wall would effectively block out would-be eavesdroppers). It might be annoying to set up a wireless network like this for more than one room, though. [url]
• Cheap, high-bandwidth transmitters for satellite communications in the 42-25 GHz range might be nice to have in a smartphone. A couple DARPA teams have demonstrated the feasibility of millimeter-wave power amplifiers on silicon chips for the first time. [url]
• T-rays (aka terahertz rays) have been shown to break the 3 Gbps barrier -- but a T-ray based WiFi network would probably only achieve 100 Gbps and have a range of about 10 meters. FYI: T-rays are part of the unregulated spectrum, and they can penetrate some materials (but not metals or water). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: bandwidth, communication, networks, satellite, t-ray, technology, unregulated spectrum, wifi, wireless
Companies: darpa