Daily Tech Digest - April 04, 2022

What are Governance Tokens? How Token Owners Shape a DAO's Direction

Governance tokens represent ownership in a decentralized protocol. They provide token holders with certain rights that influence a protocol’s direction. This could include which new products or features to develop, how to spend a budget, which integrations or partnerships should be pursued, and more. Generally speaking, exercising this influence can take two forms. First, governance token holders can propose changes through a formal proposal submission process. If certain criteria are met and the proposal goes to a vote, governance token holders can use their tokens to vote on the proposed changes. The specific mechanisms and processes through which these rights are exercised differ across protocols. ... In traditional corporations, a concentrated executive body—typically some combination of a C-Suite, board of directors, and shareholders—has sole discretion over decisions pertaining to the organization’s strategic direction. DAOs differ from traditional corporations in that they don’t have a centralized group of decision-makers; but they still need to make decisions that influence the organization’s future.


Remote work vs office life: Lots of experiments and no easy answers

"It's important that it's an iterative process because we're going to find out things that we didn't necessarily expect in our assumptions around how the styles of work that we will be carrying out may well change as we start to reach a balance," he says. Lloyds is examining the work that takes place in offices, branches and homes, and is thinking about how the bank will connect people across these spaces in what Kegode refers to as "a mindful way". Developing that understanding involves constant conversations and an analysis of the crossover between business demands, individual needs and team requirements. "It's always about looking at how we can use technology as an enabler to make us more human," he says. "How can we use technology to enhance our human traits and the things that make us unique that machines can't do?" Lloyds started introducing Microsoft Teams just before the pandemic, which served the bank well when lockdown began. While video-conferencing tech has kept workers productive during the past two years, the future of the workplace will require careful conversations about how tools are adopted and adapted.


PCI SSC Releases Data Security Standard Version 4.0

The PCI Security Standards Council on Thursday released the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard version 4.0. The Council says that the latest version's improvements are intended to counter evolving threats and technologies, and the new version will enable innovative methods to combat new threats. Organizations currently use PCI DSS version 3.2.1. The council is allowing two years - until March 31, 2024 - for the industry to conduct training and provide education regarding implementation of the changes and updates in version 4.0. While the new standard will be considered best practice, the current version of PCI DSS will remain active during this time. After March 31, 2024, it will be retired over the next year, and the new requirements will become effective after March 31, 2025. The global payments industry received feedback on the latest changes over the course of three years, during which more than 200 organizations provided more than 6,000 suggestions to ensure the standard continues to meet the ever-changing landscape of payment security, the council says.


Building Trust with Responsible AI

User-centered reliable AI systems should be created using basic best practices for software systems and methods that address machine learning-specific problems. The following points should be kept in mind while designing a reliable and responsible AI. Consider augmenting and assisting users with a variety of options. One should use a human-centered design approach. This includes building a model with appropriate disclosures, clarity, and control for the users. Engage a wide range of users and use-case scenarios, and incorporate comments before and during the project’s development; Rather than using a single metric, you should use a combination to understand better the tradeoffs between different types of errors and experiences. Make sure your metrics are appropriate for the context and purpose of your system; for example, a fire alarm system should have a high recall, even if it implies a false alarm now and then; ML models will reflect the data they are trained on, so make sure you understand your raw data. If this isn’t possible, such as with sensitive raw data, try to comprehend your input data as much as possible while still maintaining privacy; Understand the limitations of your dataset and communicate them with the users whenever possible.


The CISO as brand enabler, customer advocate, and product visionary

Quantifying the value of a corporate brand is tough. But it’s clear that your organization’s brand is as much an asset as the devices and networks that the CISO is charged with protecting – in fact, the brand may be your organization’s largest single asset. A recent Forbes/MASB report states that brand assets drive approximately 20% of enterprise value on average. Doesn’t that sound like something worth protecting? Yes, the creation and growth of the brand is typically the responsibility of the marketing organization and the CMO (chief marketing officer). But it’s not unusual for marketing to feel like it’s outracing the other business functions, including the CISO, and they are anxious for everyone to “catch up” and join them. The CISO can act as a useful counterweight to help marketing achieve its goals safely, in good times and bad. For example, isn’t it important to fully coordinate a breach response between these two groups in a way that best preserves the value of your brand? Those brands that emerge out of a high-profile information security incident stronger don’t get there by accident.


Introducing the MeshaVerse: Next-Gen Data Mesh 2.0

When designing MeshaVerse, our primary focus was on preserving decentralization while ensuring data reliability, data quality, and scale. Our novel approach includes implementing Dymlink, a symlink in the data lakehouse, and a new SlinkSync (Symbolic link Sync), a symlink that links Dymlinks together – similar to a linked list. By establishing which symlinks can be composed as a set – using either a direct probable or indirect inverse probable match – we are able to infer the convergence criteria of a nondivergent series (i.e the compressed representation of the data) while always ensuring we stay within the gradient of the curve. As a result, we’re able to prevent an infinite recursion that can potentially stale all data retrieval from the Data Mesh. Stay tuned for a future blog, where we’ll dive deeper into this approach. The integrity of this virtual data is ensured in real-time and at scale using a more recent implementation of Databricks Brickchain, taking advantage of all global compute power and therefore offering the potential to store the entire planet’s data with a fraction of the footprint.


DAOs could revolutionize how startups are run

Blockchain technology has ushered in the creation of businesses that allow users greater control over the services they choose to use. These emerging services turn the top-down approach of traditional tech firms on its head, allowing patrons to have a say in the development of a new generation of Web3-based games, apps, and companies. VCs currently have a monopoly on decision-making in their chosen investments, giving them the power to dictate critical judgments and the direction of these companies. While this sounds fair in theory — given the money they provide — this can also mean that critical decisions get slowed, or the original vision for the company diverges entirely. However, under the Web3 model, it makes sense that key business decisions should be as decentralized as the infrastructure that underpins them. Decentralized voting via a token governance structure means that anyone — regardless of their ethnicity, creed or financial status — can get involved and benefit from being part of a like-minded community of peers, removed from the hierarchical structure of the standard business model.


5 things CIOs should know about cloud service providers

While cloud service providers may offer similar capabilities, they are not actually the same. Determining the best one for your unique requirements and goals is another critical piece of your strategy. “When working with cloud service providers, it’s important to align the platform with the company’s unique business objectives,” says Scott Gordon, enterprise architect director, cloud infrastructure services at Capgemini Americas. “Every organization has its own situation, and the cloud strategy must be catered to solve those customized business challenges to create value and results.” While there might be some plain-vanilla workloads where the choice of cloud service provider might not have overwhelming implications, most organizational realities are more complex. Thinking back to the advice from Haff and LaCour, this is again where specific motivations or goals have a big impact. Gordon notes, for example, the importance of evaluating the end-to-end life cycles of your on-premises applications and determining which ones will require modernization and/or migration at some point.


General Catalyst’s Clark Talks Opportunistic Investing in Tech

We have to balance thematic with what we refer to as opportunistic work. We have to pay attention and engage with companies that get referred to us through our founders and other parts of our network. There are other incubator functions--that is important for us to engage in because we don’t necessarily see everything as we view things thematically. It’s just impossible. We do some of our very best work when we are being more intentional. ... Another area is dynamic workforce, which is a little fuzzy. I fit things like Remote.com, Awardco, and Hopin into these things, as well as things like Loom and Glean where it’s not just the tools end users are using because they are much more project-based than they used to be. Now it’s like, “You’re going to do this project and when that’s done, there’s another one. Maybe you do two at once and the teams you work with are different.” It’s a different system that we’ve put in place. Distributed work is permanent now. We will get back in the office one, two, three days a week -- or not. 


Improving open source software governance stature

The first line of defense against vulnerable open source libraries is to scan a project's dependencies for libraries known to have security vulnerabilities. OWASP Dependency-Check is a tool that returns a report that identifies vulnerable dependencies, along with their common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). There are different ways to run OWASP Dependency-Check, such as via a command-line interface, an Apache Maven plugin, an Ant task or a Jenkins plugin, which enables easy integration into any CI/CD pipeline. Using a tool that creates actionable reports is only as useful as the process enforced around the tool. Run OWASP Dependency-Check on a consistent schedule to scan the codebase against the latest updates of newly discovered CVEs. Dedicate time and plan for identified CVEs. When using open source dependencies, consider the licenses that govern their use. Licenses for open source projects define how to use, copy and distribute the software. Depending on the application's software and distribution types, the application's source code might not permit certain open source tools.



Quote for the day:

"Brilliant strategy is the best route to desirable ends with available means." -- Max McKeown

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