Daily Tech Digest - June 24, 2022

Toward data dignity: Let’s find the right rules and tools for curbing the power of Big Tech

Enlightened new policies and legislation, building on blueprints like the European Union’s GDPR and California’s CCPA, are a critical start to creating a more expansive and thoughtful formulation for privacy. Lawmakers and regulators need to consult systematically with technologists and policymakers who deeply understand the issues at stake and the contours of a sustainable working system. That was one of the motivations behind the creation of the  >Ethical Tech Project —to gather like-minded ethical technologists, academics, and business leaders to engage in that intentional dialogue with policymakers. We are starting to see elected officials propose regulatory bodies akin to what the Ethical Tech Project was designed to do—convene tech leaders to build standards protecting users against abuse. A recently proposed federal watchdog would be a step in the right direction to usher in proactive tech regulation and start a conversation between the government and the individuals who have the know-how to find and define the common-sense privacy solutions consumers need.


For HPC Cloud The Underlying Hardware Will Always Matter

For a large contingent of those ordinary enterprise cloud users, the belief is that a major benefit of the cloud is not thinking about the underlying infrastructure. But, in fact, understanding the underlying infrastructure is critical to unleashing the value and optimal performance of a cloud deployment. Even more so, HPC application owners need in-depth insight and therefore, a trusted hardware platform with co-design and portability built in from the ground up and solidified through long-running cloud provider partnerships. ... In other words, the standard lift-and-shift approach to cloud migration is not an option. The need for blazing fast performance with complex parallel codes means fine-tuning hardware and software. That’s critical for performance and for cost optimization, says Amy Leeland, director of hyperscale cloud software and solutions at Intel. “Software in the cloud isn’t always set by default to use Intel CPU extensions or embedded accelerators for optimal performance, even though it is so important to have the right software stack and optimizations to unlock the potential of a platform, even on a public cloud,” she explains.


NSA, CISA say: Don't block PowerShell, here's what to do instead

Defenders shouldn't disable PowerShell, a scripting language, because it is a useful command-line interface for Windows that can help with forensics, incident response and automating desktop tasks, according to joint advice from the US spy service the National Security Agency (NSA), the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the New Zealand and UK national cybersecurity centres. ... So, what should defenders do? Remove PowerShell? Block it? Or just configure it? "Cybersecurity authorities from the United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom recommend proper configuration and monitoring of PowerShell, as opposed to removing or disabling PowerShell entirely," the agencies say. "This will provide benefits from the security capabilities PowerShell can enable while reducing the likelihood of malicious actors using it undetected after gaining access into victim networks." PowerShell's extensibility, and the fact that it ships with Windows 10 and 11, gives attackers a means to abuse the tool. 


How companies are prioritizing infosec and compliance

This study confirmed our long-standing theory that when security and compliance have a unified strategy and vision, every department and employee within the organization benefits, as does the business customer,” said Christopher M. Steffen, managing research director of EMA. Most organizations view compliance and compliance-related activities as “the cost of business,” something they have to do to conduct operations in certain markets. Increasingly, forward-thinking organizations are looking for ways to maximize their competitive advantage in their markets and having a best-in-class data privacy program or compliance program is something that more savvy customers are interested in, especially in organizations with a global reach. Compliance is no longer a “table stakes” proposition: comprehensive compliance programs focused on data security and privacy can be the difference in very tight markets and are often a deciding factor for organizations choosing one vendor over another.”


IDC Perspective on Integration of Quantum Computing and HPC

Quantum and classical hardware vendors are working to develop quantum and quantum-inspired computing systems dedicated to solving HPC problems. For example, using a co-design approach, quantum start-up IQM is mapping quantum applications and algorithms directly to the quantum processor to develop an application-specific superconducting computer. The result is a quantum system optimized to run particular applications such as HPC workloads. In collaboration with Atos, quantum hardware start-up, Pascal is working to incorporate its neutral-atom quantum processors into HPC environments. NVIDIA’s cuQuantum Appliance and cuQuantum software development kit provide enterprises the quantum simulation hardware and developer tools needed to integrate and run quantum simulations in HPC environments. At a more global level, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) announced its funding for the High-Performance Computer and Quantum Simulator (HPCQS) hybrid project. 


Australian researchers develop a coherent quantum simulator

“What we’re doing is making the actual processor itself mimic the single carbon-carbon bonds and the double carbon-carbon bonds,” Simmons explains. “We literally engineered, with sub-nanometre precision, to try and mimic those bonds inside the silicon system. So that’s why it’s called a quantum analog simulator.” Using the atomic transistors in their machine, the researchers simulated the covalent bonds in polyacetylene. According to the SSH theory, there are two different scenarios in polyacetylene, called “topological states” – “topological” because of their different geometries. In one state, you can cut the chain at the single carbon-carbon bonds, so you have double bonds at the ends of the chain. In the other, you cut the double bonds, leaving single carbon-carbon bonds at the ends of the chain and isolating the two atoms on either end due to the longer distance in the single bonds. The two topological states show completely different behaviour when an electrical current is passed through the molecular chain. That’s the theory. “When we make the device,” Simmons says, “we see exactly that behaviour. So that’s super exciting.”


Is Kubernetes key to enabling edge workloads?

Lightweight and deployed in milliseconds, containers enable compatibility between different infrastructure environments and apps running across disparate platforms. Isolating edge workloads in containers protects them from cyber threats while microservices let developers update apps without worrying about platform-level dependencies. Benefits of orchestrating edge containers with Kubernetes include:Centralized Management — Users control the entire app deployment across on-prem, cloud, and edge environments through a single pane of glass. Accelerated Scalability — Automatic network rerouting and the capability to self-heal or replace existing nodes in case of failure remove the need for manual scaling. Simplified Deployment — Cloud-agnostic, DevOps-friendly, and deployable anywhere from VMs to bare metal environments, Kubernetes grants quick and reliable access to hybrid cloud computing. Resource Optimization — Kubernetes maximizes the use of available resources on bare metal and provides an abstraction layer on top of VMs optimizing their deployment and use.


Canada Introduces Infrastructure and Data Privacy Bills

The bill sets up a clear legal framework and details expectations for critical infrastructure operators, says Sam Andrey, a director at think tank Cybersecure Policy Exchange at Toronto Metropolitan University. The act also creates a framework for businesses and government to exchange information on the vulnerabilities, risks and incidents, Andrey says, but it does not address some other key aspects of cybersecurity. The bill should offer "greater clarity" on the transparency and oversight into what he says are "fairly sweeping powers." These powers, he says, could perhaps be monitored by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, an independent government watchdog. It lacks provisions to protect "good faith" researchers. "We would urge the government to consider using this law to require government agencies and critical infrastructure operators to put in place coordinated vulnerability disclosure programs, through which security researchers can disclose vulnerabilities in good faith," Andrey says.


Prioritize people during cultural transformation in 3 steps

Addressing your employees’ overall well-being is also critical. Many workers who are actively looking for a new job say they’re doing so because their mental health and well-being has been negatively impacted in their current role. Increasingly, employees are placing greater value on their well-being than on their salary and job title. This isn’t a new issue, but it’s taken on a new urgency since COVID pushed millions of workers into the remote workplace. For example, a 2019 Buffer study found that 19 percent of remote workers reported feeling lonely working from home – not surprising, since most of us were forced to severely limit our social interactions outside of work as well. Leaders can help address this by taking actions as simple as introducing more one-to-one meetings, which can boost morale. One-on-one meetings are essential to promoting ongoing feedback. When teams worked together in an office, communication was more efficient mainly because employees and managers could meet and catch up organically throughout the day.


Pathways to a Strategic Intelligence Program

Strong data visualization capabilities can also be a huge boost to the effectiveness of a strategic intelligence program because they help executive leadership, including the board, quickly understand and evaluate risk information. “There’s an overwhelming amount of data out there and so it’s crucial to be able to separate the signal from the noise,” he says. “Good data visualization tools allow you to do that in a very efficient, impactful and cost-effective manner, and to communicate information to busy senior leaders in a way that is most useful for them.” Calagna agrees that data visualization tools play an important role in bringing a strategic intelligence to life for leaders across functions within any organization, helping them to understand complex scenarios and insights more easily than narrative and other report forms may permit. “By quickly turning high data volumes into complex analyses, data visualization tools can enable organizations to relay near real-time insights and intelligence that support better informed decision-making,” she says. Data visualization tools can help monitor trends and assumptions that impact strategic plans and market forces and shifts that will inform strategic choices.



Quote for the day:

"Patience puts a crown on the head." -- Ugandan Proverb

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