Machine learning is going real-time: Here's why and how
ML systems need to have two components to be able to do that, Huyen notes. They
need fast inference, i.e. models that can make predictions in the order of
milliseconds. And they also need real-time pipelines, i.e. pipelines that can
process data, input it into models, and return a prediction in real-time. To
achieve faster inference, Huyen goes on to add, models can be made faster, they
can be made smaller, or hardware can be made faster. The focus on inference,
TinyML, and AI chips that we've been covering in this column is perfectly
aligned to this, and naturally, these approaches are not mutually exclusive
either. Huyen also embarked on an analysis on streaming fundamentals and
frameworks, something that has also seen wide coverage on this column from early
on. Many companies are switching from batch processing to stream processing,
from request-driven architecture to event-driven architecture, and this is tied
to the popularity of frameworks such as Apache Kafka and Apache Flink. This
change is still slow in the US but much faster in China, Huyen notes.
Whistleblowers can protect crypto and DeFi
While the industry frets over this counterrevolution of sorts, crypto insiders
who report fraud and illegal activity to the government could see significant
upside. Regulators, such as the SEC, the CFTC, the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network, and the Internal Revenue Service, need whistleblowers who can provide
an inside look at the operations of a company or industry segment, helping
regulators identify fraud and illegal activities well before wrongdoers
irreparably injure investors, customers and the public. Information from
insiders can also help regulators target their enforcement actions and
rulemaking to address the worst actors in the space, which can help prevent
regulators from unnecessarily quashing innovative and valuable aspects of the
cryptocurrency industry. In exchange for this information, whistleblowers can
earn awards under various federal whistleblower rewards programs, provided the
whistleblower properly filed a tip that contributed to a qualifying enforcement
action. In the case of the SEC and CFTC programs, and now the newly enhanced AML
whistleblower program, a whistleblower can receive an award of up to 30% of an
enforcement action of more than $1 million.
Remove System Complexity with The “Impedance Mismatch Test”
Everyone has data pipelines compiled of lots of different systems. Some may even
look very sophisticated on the surface, but the reality is there’s lots of
complexity to them––and maybe unnecessarily so. Between the plumbing work to
connect different components, the constant performance monitoring required, or
the large team with unique expertise to run, debug and manage them, all these
factors can add time-to-market delays and operational overhead for product
teams. And that’s not all. The more systems you use, the more places you are
duplicating your data, which increases the chances of data going out-of-sync or
stale. Further, since components may be developed independently by different
companies, the upgrades or bug fixes might break your pipeline and data layer.
... The variables such as the data format, schema and protocol add up to what’s
called the “transformation overhead.” Other variables like performance,
durability and scalability add up to what’s called the “pipeline overhead.” Put
together, these classifications contribute to what’s known as the “impedance
mismatch.”
New SEC Proposal Could Be a Disaster for DeFi Exchanges
Under this new definition, decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap would
be subject to SEC regulations and would therefore need to register with
the SEC as a securities broker. As decentralized exchanges have no way of
complying with the current demands placed on securities exchanges by the
SEC, the new legislation would effectively kill decentralized exchanges
operating within the United States. DeFi enthusiast Gabriel Shapiro
highlighted the potential devastating effects of the proposal in a blog
post, noting that “because the proposal achieves this expansion by
providing new restraints on ‘communication protocols,’ I believe it may
also be unconstitutional as a restraint on free speech,” taking a strong
stance against the proposed changes. He also suggested that under the new
definition, the SEC could class block explorers, such as Etherscan, as
securities exchanges because they allow users to interact with smart
contracts to communicate trading interests. Shapiro is not the only
prominent figure to come out against the SEC’s proposed
legislation.
Accessing And Retaining Knowledge Is Vital For Businesses In The Era Of The Great Reshuffle
In many businesses, when an employee moves to a new job, all that’s left
behind is a digital shadow. Their knowledge, expertise and experience
disappear, and new hires and old colleagues alike struggle to fill the gaps.
A trail of data breadcrumbs that lead to nowhere — old messages, outdated
docs and dusty email chains — are often all busy ex-teammates are left to
rely on. As a result, business productivity suffers. Of course, this isn’t
the fault of the person who has moved roles. Their expertise belongs to
them, and too often, organizations undervalue that expertise, further
fuelling resignations. It’s in the hands of businesses to do more to retain
business-critical knowledge and smooth the transition for new teammates.
Nobody should be having to rely on guesswork from day one. And if they are,
chances are they too won’t stick around for long. To overcome these
challenges, we need to think innovatively and start optimizing our tech
stacks to reduce knowledge drain and fast-track problem-solving. The
solution isn’t more collaboration or communication apps.
FBI Reportedly Considered Buying NSO Spyware
The yearlong investigation by Bergman and Mazzetti also alleges that a group
of Israeli computer engineers arrived at a New Jersey building used by the
bureau in June 2019 and started testing their equipment. The report alleges
that the FBI had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO’s premier spying tool.
"For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance
software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence
agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else - not
a private company, not even a state intelligence service - could do:
consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone
or Android smartphone," says the NYT report. As part of their training on
the tool, bureau employees bought new smartphones, with SIM cards from other
countries. This version of Pegasus that the FBI bought was zero click, i.e.
it did not require users to click on a malicious attachment or link - so the
users in the U.S. monitoring phones could see no evidence of an ongoing
breach.
Zero Trust is hard but worth it
Keeping software updated is key to applying both these rules, and
unfortunately that’s often a problem for enterprises. Desktop software,
particularly with WFH, is always a challenge to update, but a combination of
centralized software management and a scheduled review of software versions
on home systems can help. For operations tools, don’t be tempted to skip
versions in open source tools just because they seem to happen a lot. It’s
smart to include a version review of critical operations software as part of
your overall program of software management and take a close look at new
versions at least every six months. Even with all of this, it’s unrealistic
to assume that an enterprise can anticipate all the possible threats posed
by all the possible bad actors. Preventing disease is best, but treating it
once symptoms arise is essential, too. The most underused security principle
is that preventing bad behavior means understanding good behavior. Whatever
the source of a security problem, it almost always means that something is
doing something it shouldn’t be. How can we know that? By watching for
different patterns of behavior.
Apache Airflow and the New Data Engineering
The ELT steps can seem simple enough on the surface, but with a lot of
moving parts, an increasing number of sources and increasing ways to use the
data, a lot can go wrong. Data engineers need to contend with complex
scheduling requirements, creating dependencies between tasks, figuring out
what can run in parallel and what needs to run in series, what makes for a
successful task run, how to checkpoint tasks and handle failures and
restarts, how to check data quality, how and who to alert on fails -- all
the stuff Airflow was designed to handle. The cloud only makes that process
more complicated, with cloud buckets used to stage data from sources before
loading that data into cloud-based distributed data management systems like
Snowflake, Google Cloud Platform or Databricks. And here’s what I think is
important: For many organizations, making the leap from exploratory data
analysis [EDA] to formalizing what’s found into data pipelines has become
increasing valuable.
Web3’s early promise for artists tainted by rampant stolen works and likenesses
Ironically, the decentralized markets selling NFTs are starting to
centralize around one or two providers. One of the most popular, OpenSea,
has a full takedown team dedicated to situations like York’s or Quinni’s.
The company has taken off, reaching a stratospheric $13 billion valuation
after a $300 million round in early January. The company is far and away the
biggest player in the NFT market, with an estimated 1.26 million active
users and over 80 million NFTs. According to DappRadar, the platform took in
$3.27 billion in transactions in the last 30 days and managed 2.33 million
transactions. Its nearest competitor, Rarible, saw $14.92 million in
transactions in the same period. ... Interestingly, the company also seems
to be cracking down on deep fakes or, as OpenSea calls it, non-consensual
intimate imagery (NCII), a problem that hasn’t surfaced widely yet but could
become pernicious for influencers and media stars. “We have a zero-tolerance
policy for NCII,” they said. “NFTs using NCII or similar images (including
images doctored to look like someone that they are not) are prohibited, and
we move quickly to ban accounts that post this material.
Understanding Web3's Supporting Blockchain Technology
The benefits of a decentralized network are varied, but because they don’t
have to go through a “trusted party,” nobody has to know or trust anyone
else. Every person in the network has a copy of the distributed ledger which
contains the exact same data. If a person’s ledger is altered or corrupted,
it will be rejected by the other members in the network. One of the cons of
a decentralized network is that the more members that are in a network, the
slower the network tends to be. In decentralized blockchain systems, unlike
distributed systems, security is prioritized over performance. When a
blockchain network scales up or out, while the network becomes more secure,
performance slows down. This is because every member node has to validate
all of the data that is being added to the ledger. “Most references place
blockchain squarely in the realm of currencies or finances, but the
applicability is far greater,” said Perella.“When the world wide web came
about, most websites were maintained by individuals or groups hosting their
own systems and data. This format would eventually become known as Web
1.0.
Quote for the day:
Integrity is the soul of leadership!
Trust is the engine of leadership! - Amine A. Ayad
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