Categories
technical

Social Graphing for fun and profit

The whole ‘iSpy’ issue (iPhone’s logging your location — see here [confusion.cc]) reminded me about the data. What good is the data?

According to Gizmodo;

Security expert, Kevin Mitnick says he’s “Quite shocked and disturbed” by the revelation, noting that the logged data could be of great interest to a variety of entities—prying spouses, private investigators, and, he reckons, the government. He speculates that the existence of the log itself “could have been at the request of the government,” as such data “can’t be used for advertisements. It seems to me more to be a governmental request.”

Sam Biddle in Your iPhone is Secretly Tracking Everywhere You’ve Been [gizmodo.com] on Gizmodo

The story has been defused somewhat since a few people have suggested that the logging of location data is a bug [gizmodo.com].

But… let’s say it’s not a bug. Lets say it’s invitational. Let’s go further and say that there are similar files showing who you called and who you messaged. All of this can be correlated with the timestamps so we can see who you called, when you called them and where you were. Now Apple has the same data that your phone service provider has about you (well, they have billing address too if you’re not pre-paid. The again Apple most likely has a credit card on file for iTunes or the App Store so they know where you live too…)

Why would someone want all this data? I said it was most likely for advertising before. But Mitnick says that can’t be what it’s for. I disagree. First of all because location is one of the basic data points for traditional ad selling; Age, Sex and Location or ASL is the triumvirate of advertising. It’s the minimum info you need to attract advertisers. So if Apple could get your Age and Sex — maybe from your credit card data — and combine that with your location (I know that your credit card gives them an address but they can make a more detailed determination of where you actually frequent from the log data than just your home address. For example; if you live in Brooklyn but are actually in Manhattan from 8AM to 8PM every day then maybe your a better target for Starbucks in Manhattan than Einstein Brothers Bagels in Brighten Beach.)

The second and more compelling reason I think the data could be good for advertising is related to Social Graphs. A Social Graph is basically a digital representation of you, the people you know, the people they know and so on. Facebook, and all social networks are Social Graphs. And the reason Facebook launched Places is because it can add location to the graph. And every additional data point added to the graph allows it to profile users better and sell more targeted advertisements. The better the targeting the more it can charge for ads.

Facebook’s Social Graph is founded on the friends that each user has. Then Facebook adds additional layers of data on top of this; everything your ‘Like’, every place you check in to, etc. etc. All of this is used to provide a richer set of profiling data to improve the targeting of ads. But all of it is based on who you say your ‘friends’ are. This is the Explicit Social Graph.

There is another type of Social Graph however, the Implicit Social Graph. This would be a Graph built up not by who you say your ‘friends’ are but by who you actually interact with. This Graph would be developed not by asking you but by observing you, and while hiring a PI to follow everyone around would be expensive there are more passive ways of getting this data. Your phone service provider knows who you call and message and who calls and messages you, as well as were you where any time your phone is turned on. This data could be used to create an Implicit Social Graph showing who you actually interact with in the real work better than who you ‘friend’ online. This Implicit Social Graph could be augmented by other data in the same way that Facebook augments their Social Graph and for the same purpose, better profiling; better advertising.

So maybe Apple is not using the location data and it’s all just a bug. But I think they will want it if they can get it, and they want those call logs and messaging logs. Once they build their Implicit Social Graph for you they will augment it with purchase data from iTunes and maybe Safari Browser history and any other data point they can get no matter who trivial it seems. All to sell more ads.

One final note; To get this data Apple would have to jump through some hoops; collecting it on the handset and sending it back to them from time to time. And I don’t doubt that they or some one else will do it at some point. Your phone service provider has the data already, it’s a byproduct of providing your mobile phone service. They don’t seem to be doing anything with it. I’ve seen several project discussed over the past few years about how to use it, how to create these Explicit Social Graphs and sell advertising, but I am not aware of any that have come to fruition yet. I think it’s only a matter of time till someone like Apple beats the phone companies to the prize. As usual the culture of phone companies will get in the way and they will let another revenue stream slip past them because they just can’t do it. They’re too risk averse, to cheap and to old-fashion. Silicon Valley is going to have their lunch and the ISPization of the phone companies will be one step closer.

Categories
technical

The stalker in your pocket part two

Stalker in our pockets

What’s the difference between the image on the left and the image on the right?

The image on the left is the recently posted map [gizmodo.com] of the data that is being stored in your iPhone (and your computer that your iPhone syncs with). That data amounts to all the locations you have taken your phone since you upgraded it to iOS 4.

The image on the right is basically the same type of data — though it’s presented as an animation so you only see one spot in the image above. That data is from the your phone company — and it does not matter what phone you have, just having a phone on the network is enough for the operator to collect the data, and in many places they are required by law to keep this data for some period of time. (The map on the right also shows all the calls and messages to and from the phone; in this case stripped of the details but be assured the raw data that your phone company has does show who you are calling, I wonder if Apple is creating a log of this data on your iPhone too? I bet they are.) I ranted about this map a while back [confusion.cc].

There seems to be a lot of concern about the fact that your iPhone is logging this type of data. The FCC want’s to know why. Congress wants to know why. (See here [politico.com]). But there does not seem to be anywhere near as much concern about the fact the your phone company has the same data, more detailed data in fact. There should be. In fact, if privacy is your concern, or fear of Big Brother, you should be much more concerned about what your phone company knows than what Apple might know.

The big difference to me between the two is that the historical data that Apple is collecting is on the device and backed up to your computer. While the data that is collected by your phone service provider is on their servers and therefore subject to Lawful Intercept. According to Wikipedia Lawful Intercept [wikipedia.org] is:

obtaining communications network data pursuant to lawful authority for the purpose of analysis or evidence.

That means that all that data; including locations, calls made, calls received, messages sent and received, as well as who those calls and messages where to or from, is available to law enforcement if needed. This is generally a good thing; if it helps to catch murderers or sexual predators or other criminal types. But it’s not hard to image it being used for less savory purposes like tracking dissidents or in more authoritarian places tracking political opponents or protesters. This is the kind of data that warrantless wiretapping was collecting, and it’s done by just making a request to your phone service provider —if the provider or the government is good enough they could collect this data in real time. Meaning we are all carrying around Big Brother approved “bugs” in our pockets.

It’s also worth noting that the data collected by your phone company is required for it to provide the service you are paying for. There has been speculation about what Apple wants this data for; I imagine it will come down to advertising or something, some way to make more money off of iPhone owners; in the end Apple is a company interested in making money. In this case consumers will quickly forget the issue while privacy advocates piss into the wind about for much longer.

Categories
technical

The cloud is useless

What good is the cloud? I don’t get it. This article on PC Mag [pcmag.com] talks about how all the new cloud services will change our concept of content ownership but I think it’s bullshit. I don’t disagree with anything in the article but I think it’s all a dream, a crack dream, until one issue is solved. One issue which is outside the scope of the cloud service providers: bandwidth!

At the same time as we are seeing all these new cloud services providing us storage and access to our purchased content 24/7 streaming to any device, anywhere, any time, we are also seeing the death of unlimited bandwidth. Even for home access. How am I supposed to stream my content all over the place if I don’t have any bandwidth?

Take this scenario from the PC Mag article:

The parent whose child wants to watch “Dora the Explorer: Big Sister Dora” over and over and over again doesn’t have to own the DVD or even the digital file. Cloud-based ownership and access means that their child can see Dora play big sister at home, on the iPad, in the car, and on mommy’s smartphone. They own the movie or, more likely, have an all-you-can eat subscription service, so each viewing costs nothing except the price of Internet access.

The emphasis is mine, because it’s the part that kills the whole scenario.

I might be a strange consumer by today’s measure — I’ve digitized all my content. I’ve got more then 1200 CDs that I digitized before I started buying digital music; 200+ DVDs that I have digitized and 7 years worth of digital photos and video that alone amount to more then 12 gigs worth of keepers. All in all I have more than a terabyte of digital content. All happily sitting on my 8TB NAS server mirrored and stripped high up on the shelf in the back room.

To get streaming access to all this content today I can jump through a bunch of hoops and make it work. But… I would max out my mobile data plan every month — 12GB — due to my daughter streaming Dora, and Toy Story 3 and Kai-Lan and whatever new, or old, show it was this week (actually currently it’s My Neighbor Totoro), to the iPad while we are driving or shopping or wherever. So for now she is restricted to the content that is actually on the device, and I fill up the devices quickly. I can’t even put all the Pixar movies on the iPad and have the family photos on there, 64GB is just not enough.

While I may be the exception today this will be normal one day when every piece of content we ever buy is stored on the cloud, ready for on-demand download or streaming to any device over any network. But until the bandwidth issue is solved it will be any network accept the mobile one and only till the service provider throttles me or cuts me off for exceeding my bandwidth cap for the month. Bottom line; the scenario from the PC Mag article is pointless without unlimited bandwidth. Memory is cheap — bandwidth is the new memory.

Categories
ranting

On time, in budget, fit for purpose

In a meeting a customer asked, “do you want this deal.” At the time I did not answer him, someone else did, of course they said “yes”. But I do have an answer:

No.

I want a deal that can actually be delivered on time, in budget and fit for purpose.

That project, like so many others, was none of those things. How could it be when there was no business justification, no planning and no scope defined by the customer? Just a vague command from the top to jump and an assumption that the vendors would get around to asking how high before they landed. Why is it so hard to plan before you execute? Start ups may be able to live by the shotgun method of product selection —but most do in fact die by it. Big companies? It’s a recipe for mediocrity at best and, more often, wasted money.

Categories
quotes

Hegemony through holy genocide

My concept of God does not allow for God’s blessing of genocide as a means for one country’s hegemony over the earth.

Andrew Sullivan in Exceptional and Unexceptional America [theatlantic.com]

He is obviously not a fan of the Old Testament God of Deuteronomy and Numbers.

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them

Deuteronomy 7:1-2, King James version

Sounds like hegemony through genocide to me. And it’s not even the worst thing in the Old Testament; remember the Moabites and Midianites?