Wednesday, May 16, 2018

If you don’t understand security, you can’t understand why we need this post. It’s not Real Estate Mr President.
Trump eliminates job of national cybersecurity coordinator
… Trump signed an executive order rearranging the federal information technology infrastructure that includes no mention of the White House cybersecurity coordinator or of a replacement for Rob Joyce, who said last month that he is leaving the position to return to the National Security Agency, where he previously directed cyber-defense programs.
Politico first reported the elimination of the job on Tuesday. The White House and the National Security Council didn't reply to requests for comment about the decision, which came on the same day a major computer security report again found government systems to be the least secure among all industries.


(Related) Does the President think this is an adequate replacement? Remove high level strategy, let every CIO do his own thing?
Trump issues order to strengthen CIO role at U.S. federal agencies
… In December, the White House said the government required a major overhaul of its information technology systems as well as needing to protect data better and accelerate moves toward using cloud-based technology.
The order on Tuesday seeks to address some of those issues by giving agency CIOs authority similar to that of their counterparts in the private sector, making it easier to attract high-level talent for government technology jobs, one official said.




Do you see this as an unbiased approach?
Facebook’s fake news algorithm seems to be working
The Outline: “Facebook’s January 12 announcement that it would begin to deprioritize news in users’ News Feed left publishers shaking in their boots. “[B]y making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down,” admitted Mark Zuckerberg, much to the horror of every major media outlet, most of which relied heavily on the traffic generated from the site. And for a while, it truly did look like the apocalypse was nigh: The Outline’s investigation from early March showed that traffic for most conservative publishers and nearly all publishers of viral and needlessly polarizing content experienced a significant drop in the month following the News Feed change. In the wake of Newswhip’s recent analysis of top publishers’ Facebook engagement data over March and April, many have come to the similar conclusions of partisan bias (though the winners and losers often switch, depending on who’s talking). However, new information that takes into account the last four months as a whole — rather than merely looking at month-to-month trends — tells a much different story. According to data The Outline obtained from research tool CrowdTangle, a subsidiary of Facebook, Facebook’s January news feed algorithm change has had little to no effect on mainstream conservative and liberal publishers in the long run, with most actually experiencing increased interaction rates following February. However, publishers of clickbait, purposefully polarizing content, and/or blatantly fake news have experienced a significant sustained drop in interaction in the months following Facebook’s January News Feed deprioritization announcement. The Outline came to these conclusions after analyzing the Facebook interaction rates of 20 publishers from November 1, 2017 to April 20, 2018. CrowdTangle calculates a particular Facebook page’s interaction rate by dividing the average number of interactions (i.e. likes, comments, shares, etc) in a given time period by the size of the account…”


(Related)
Twitter will hide more bad tweets in conversations and searches
Twitter: “In March, we introduced our new approach to improve the health of the public conversation on Twitter. One important issue we’ve been working to address is what some might refer to as “trolls.” Some troll-like behavior is fun, good and humorous. What we’re talking about today are troll-like behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation on Twitter, particularly in communal areas like conversations and search. Some of these accounts and Tweets violate our policies, and, in those cases, we take action on them. Others don’t but are behaving in ways that distort the conversation. To put this in context, less than 1% of accounts make up the majority of accounts reported for abuse, but a lot of what’s reported does not violate our rules. While still a small overall number, these accounts have a disproportionately large – and negative – impact on people’s experience on Twitter. The challenge for us has been: how can we proactively address these disruptive behaviors that do not violate our policies but negatively impact the health of the conversation? A New Approach – Today, we use policies, human review processes, and machine learning to help us determine how Tweets are organized and presented in communal places like conversations and search. Now, we’re tackling issues of behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation in those areas by integrating new behavioral signals into how Tweets are presented. By using new tools to address this conduct from a behavioral perspective, we’re able to improve the health of the conversation, and everyone’s experience on Twitter, without waiting for people who use Twitter to report potential issues to us…”




Incentive? Is it enough?
Amazon just gave you a Whole Foods reason to get Prime
If you’re not an Amazon Prime subscriber but love Whole Foods, which is also an Amazon property, you should check out the retailer’s brand new promotion that’s targeting Whole Foods shoppers.
Amazon is ready to give you 10% off Whole Foods purchases at already discounted prices, and cut prices on other Whole Foods products each week.
Vice president of Amazon Prime Cem Sibay told The Wall Street Journal that this week’s deals will be available immediately in Florida stores and roll out to more than 460 stores nationwide this summer.




Perspective. A quick overview of the market.
Cloud Computing Companies
Cloud computing companies are enjoying marked growth, and it's no surprise: the cloud computing market shows no signs of slowing down its own considerable growth. Forrester Research estimates the total global public cloud market will be $178 billion in 2018, up from $146 billion in 2017, and will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22%.
… So in our list of the 50 leading cloud computing companies, you will see big names that have been around for decades right along new entries.




Is this not a stupid rule?
WTF: Guardsmen Can Patrol The US Border But Can’t Look Across It?!
The National Guard troops standing watch along the United States’ southwest border may find themselves curious to know what great mysteries lay beyond the muddy waters of the Rio Grande… but alas, federal law forbids them from using their state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to find out.
While the roughly 800 guardsmen holding the line in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona are permitted to use their naked eyes to peer across the divide, the legal basis for President Donald Trump’s National Guard deployment prohibits the troops from peeping southward through a pair of binoculars — or any other piece of technology that makes things appear closer than they actually are.
Title 32 provides that the National Guard can operate “up to” the United States-Mexico border, but that’s it. No peeking across!
In addition to the surveillance restrictions, the troops are also prohibited from apprehending people or having any physical contact with migrants. Those duties are left to the Border Patrol, which is not shackled by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the post-Civil War statute that limits military involvement in civilian law enforcement.




I have a few people I want to try this on…


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