Hey there, back again. They say it takes about eight weeks to form a habit. This is the second week for Bacon Bytes, so only six more to go before this becomes more routine for me. Until then I will keep having Alexa remind me on Friday mornings to write this post.
OK, let’s do this!
The big story this week for many in the Microsoft realm was the reorg that took place. You can read a copy of Satya’s email to employees here. The summary is this: Myerson is out, Jha is in charge of a new group called “Experiences and Devices”, and Guthrie is in charge of the Cloud + AI Platform division. Oh, and they dropped “Windows” from the division names, which warrants mentioning. This reorg is a necessary step for Microsoft as they demonstrate the “cloud-first” mantra they have been speaking for the past few years. Microsoft knows that the future is in offering services, and not just software. Thus, one division focuses on the customer experience and the devices for that experience, and the other division focuses on building the services that will sell. I’m excited to see what they build next.
Buried deep in these announcements is a committee called AI and Ethics in Engineering and Research (AETHER). Led by Brad Smith and Harry Shum, the committee will also involve other members of senior leadership throughout Microsoft. This was announced in 2017, but yesterday seemed like a good time to mention it yet again. I’m optimistic that companies such as Microsoft and Google Alphabet are forming these committees. Maybe someone could invite Facebook to join them for a few meetings. It is clear that Microsoft is serious about data privacy and security, and Satya wants to make certain that whatever emerges from their Cloud and AI platform reflects not only the core values of Microsoft but also the core benefits of society as a whole. Yes, folks, this is a new Microsoft, one that puts the customer first.
Speaking of Facebook, they are coming off one of their worst weeks ever. So now Facebook is trying to make amends by allowing users to delete their data. Given the quick turnaround on something like this, I’m wondering why they weren’t offering such features sooner. Oh, that’s right, because there wasn’t a need to do anything in our best interest until they were worried about losing customers. There’s also this option of poisoning your Facebook data in order to make it harder for anyone to use. Because I’m certain you know this…even if you delete your data it isn’t gone. There’s always a copy of it somewhere. So you might consider making it worthless before deactivating your account.
I’ll be honest, I never heard the phrase “Honey Token” before reading this abstract. Honeypots, yes. But not a honey token. And now I want to use honey tokens everywhere. They are easy to deploy, track, and alert upon. It takes more than 90 days to detect and uncover a data breach. Honey Tokens give you a chance to be proactive in your data breach monitoring. Brilliant. And sorely needed, too, because something as simple as an image of ScarJo can leave you the victim of a cryptomining attack. When attacks are that simple it reinforces the need to be proactive in your security efforts.
This was an interesting article regarding the need for a Digital Protection Agency. I agree that Silicon Valley isn’t going to do anything in our best interests. They have shown just the opposite. They know that there is value in our data and will do whatever they can to get us to share our personal data with them. A DPA sounds great except for one thing: Congress. I don’t want Congress involved in any way. What would be great is if the EFF could step up and fill the void.
Here’s a wonderful piece on how Netflix uses data to create more entertainment that we want to watch. Netflix is, to me, an example of a company that values their customers and their customer data. As opposed to, well, Expedia, who leaves our data laying around for someone to steal. All the more reason why we need the DPA. Until companies face stiff penalties for being so callous with our data, nothing will change.
Earlier this week I wrote a brief comparison between Azure and AWS analytics and big data services. In that comparison were some products such as Azure Data Catalog and AWS Athena. So, when I saw this article about how machine learning was going to help provide structure to unstructured data, I took note. As the volume of data grows it is going to become harder for humans to stay on top of the necessary data classification tasks. If you fall behind on tracking what is in your data, you will find yourself out of compliance quickly. Machine learning may be our only hope to keep pace with the exponential data growth we manage.
Hope you enjoy the links and see you next week.
