Daily Tech Digest - November 29, 2019

Cybersecurity: The web has a padlock problem - and your internet safety is at risk


Even now, encryption is sometimes discussed as if it's a bonus when using the internet, when it needs to become the standard way of doing things everywhere on the internet, Helme explained. "We need it to become so ingrained and embedded into everything that we do that it's boring and we don't need to talk about it because it shouldn't be special. Encryption should be the boring default that we don't need to talk about," he said. The security industry therefore needs to step up and help fix the issue, Helme argued, because by doing this, it takes the responsibility for deciding if a website is safe or not away from the user – something that will help make the internet safer for everyone. "We need to take encryption and make it the default, universal – it needs to be everywhere," he said, adding: "The lack of encryption on the web is actually a bug. And what we're doing now isn't adding a new feature for an improvement or a new thing: we're going back and fixing a mistake we made in the beginning."


Simplifying a data problem can ensure better buy-in

Vector wave lines flowing dynamic on blue background for concept of AI technology, digital,
Like many complex technical topics, an ability to share a relatable and very human story can engender action far more quickly than the most thoughtful technical arguments, or detailed integration diagrams combined. Similarly, an ability to find an impactful story can serve as a sanity check for your data-related projects. If you can't concisely articulate how gathering, sharing, or analyzing data can have a real impact on your business or its customers, then perhaps the project is not as valuable as you thought or will present an uphill battle for funding that may not have been obvious purely on the technical merits. Look for opportunities to condense your data-related endeavors into a simplified, relatable metric. Asking, "What if we had sales data a week earlier?" may more easily get funding for your data lake project than a 90-slide presentation about the merits of Hadoop. Similarly, you'll have a guiding objective for your data projects that's more readily understandable than a Gantt chart or status slide, and often is more successful at generating continued interest and excitement in the endeavor.


Will the future of work be ethical? Future leader perspectives


As a consumer of a lot of technology and as someone of the generation who has grown up with a phone in my hand, I’m aware my data is all over the internet. I’ve had conversations [with friends] about personal privacy and if I look around the classroom, most people have covers for the cameras on their computers. This generation is already aware [of] ethics whenever you’re talking about computing and the use of computers. About AI specifically, as someone who’s interested in the field and has been privileged to be able to take courses and do research projects about that, I’m hearing a lot about ethics with algorithms, whether that’s fake news or bias or about applying algorithms for social good. ... Today we had that debate about role or people’s jobs and robot taxes. That’s a very good debate to have, but it sometimes feeds a little bit into the AI hype and I think it may be a disgrace to society to try to pull back technology, which has been shown to have the power to save lives. It can be two transformations that are happening at the same time. One, that’s trying to bridge an inequality and is going to come in a lot of different and complicated solutions that happen at multiple levels and the second is allowing for a transformation in technology and AI.


Critical thinking, linking different lines of thought, and anticipating counter-arguments are all valuable debating skills that humans can practice and refine. While these skills are tougher for an AI to get good at since they often require deeper contextual understanding, AI does have a major edge over humans in absorbing and analyzing information. In the February debate, Project Debater used IBM’s cloud computing infrastructure to read hundreds of millions of documents and extract relevant details to construct an argument. This time around, Debater looked through 1,100 arguments for or against AI. The arguments were submitted to IBM by the public during the week prior to the debate, through a website set up for that purpose. Of the 1,100 submissions, the AI classified 570 as anti-AI, or of the opinion that the technology will bring more harm to humanity than good. 511 arguments were found to be pro-AI, and the rest were irrelevant to the topic at hand.


The power and promise of AI in the coming year and beyond

The power and promise of AI in the coming year and beyond
AI advancements are also happening rapidly in the area of sales productivity. Over the past year, the level at which businesses are utilising AI to grow their business has skyrocketed. It’s become standard for companies to use AI to improve predictive business software and to make more effective decisions. Using heavy duty machine learning analytics as a standard business practice is now widely accepted. Looking even farther down the road, there are those who believe that computers will be just as smart as humans in about two decades. I personally love reading about the subject of singularity and quantum computing. It’s fascinating to hear about its potential. Naturally, one could argue that humans might not want computing to become as smart as us. We’ve all watched movies centered-around apocalyptic devastation! But, in my opinion, AI stands to improve our lives in ways that we have yet to consider, especially at home. While AI is becoming commonplace in customer service and sales, we are a long way from having a robot cooking us dinner or cleaning our apartments.



CISOs and CMOs – Joined At The Hip in the Era of Big Data

Today, data is the lifeblood of business. Businesses have access to copious amounts of consumer data that can be leveraged to gain a better understanding of their market and customer base. To the CMO, this is a gold mine – more detailed insight into the wants, needs, habits and activities of their target demographics. These can result in initiatives with large scopes and larger budgets. On the flip side, the CISO sees the red flags and vulnerabilities that come along with this information. Privacy and security threats, technological limitations, and reputational risk are all on the radar. Commonly their response is to reel the scope back in to reduce risk and budget. As you may expect, this can result in internal friction as to who is truly responsible for the management of this data, making it more important than ever for the CISO and CMO to establish an effective working relationship. In order for your organization to best capitalize on the benefits of big data, the CISO and CMO must work together cohesively.
CROP - Businessman on blurred background using digital artificial intelligence icon hologram 3D rendering - image courtesy of Depositphotos.
With AI-based technology, it’s possible to increase the efficiency, objectivity and accuracy of work on vehicle production lines, while enhancing safety and enabling a higher volume of work with the same amount of resources. By detecting faults at an early stage, we can prevent a potential breakdown and reduce maintenance costs over the lifetime of the vehicle. These faults might include loose bolts, incorrectly routed cables, damage to paintwork or underinflated tyres, to name a few examples. What’s more, with manual checks, manufacturers not only risk overlooking faults on their vehicles, but also waste time that could be more productively allocated elsewhere in the factory. An intelligent AI-based system greatly enhances speed and efficiency, improving the flow of vehicles through and out of the plant. vWith all of this in mind, we expanded the breadth and capabilities of UVeye’s technology to other areas of a vehicle’s exterior, such as the tyres and bodywork.


No Blockchain to Rule Them All
The benefits of 5G are huge compared to 4G: it offers much higher data speeds (1-20 Gbit/s), much lower latency (1 ms), increased capacity as the network grows and it uses very high frequencies (3.5 GHz). The challenge with 5G is that it requires a lot more antennas than 4G networks. This is because 5G uses millimetre waves, which are a lot shorter than 4G wavelengths. As a result, it can carry a lot more data, but it means a much shorter range. As a result, to achieve a reliable 5G signal, you need a lot more 5G antennas. Placing these antennas will take time, so it will take another 2-3 years before we will have a broad, reliable 5G network. However, until then, enterprises are already building their own private 5G network to enable machine-to-machine communication. 5G will be vital for the 4th industrial revolution, and the first successful pilots have been done. Earlier this year, Ericsson, Vodafone and eGO launched the first 5G car factory in Germany. 


Palo Alto Networks Employee Data Breach Highlights Risks Posed by Third Party Vendors


Palo Alto Networks has declined to name the vendor concerned, or provide details of where on the internet the data appeared, but it has said that it has terminated the contract of their careless vendor. We would all like to think that the companies we work for would put robust demands on those external firms that provide products and services that they will be careful with our data - whether it be information about our products and services, intellectual property, customers, or employees. But however much you may demand in a contract that your providers have proper security measures and practices in place to reduce the chances of a breach or hack, you can never have 100% certainty that accidents and goofs won't happen. All you can do is limit the amount of sensitive data that your external providers have access to, ensuring that they can only access the information that they absolutely need to do their job and no more.


The Implications of Last Week's Exposure of 1.2B Records

Data enrichment is a legal but controversial practice. "The industry exists for the purpose of influencing people and giving you access to people you want to influence," says Farrow, who says he has heard both sides of the argument. On one hand, employees often use this data to ensure they're not sending mailers to or cold-calling the wrong people. They could get the same information themselves on Facebook or LinkedIn; data aggregators speed up the process. At the same time, it "feels like an intrusion on our privacy," he says. Cybercriminals can use this leaked data to influence victims to their advantage. A leak like this gives attackers access to organized and meaningful information, as opposed to a broad data dump. It forces those affected to think twice about who they trust — about whether a message is legitimate or malicious. Further, there is a difference between this data leak and other security breaches in which credit card numbers or passwords are stolen.



Quote for the day:


"There is no 'one' way to be a perfect leader, but there are a million ways to be a good one." -- Mark W. Boyer


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