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Cops Get Younger, Windows Gets Older

Sep 28, 2017 |

Via a freedom of information release, the BBC has uncovered some embarrassing information about the technology used by some of our boys in blue.
With regards to the Greater Manchester Police (GMP), they discovered that around a fifth of the force are still trying to do their work whilst using the outdated Windows XP operating system.
The police spokesperson admitted to the BBC : “The remaining XP machines are still in place due to complex technical requirements from a small number of externally provided highly specialised applications.”. He later went on to say : “Work is well advanced to mitigate each of these special requirements within this calendar year, typically through the replacement or removal of the software applications in question.”
Whole Country Surveyed
The BBC queried multiple forces around the country using the freedom of information request system. However, the majority of forces didn’t play ball and were reluctant to release their information, citing security concerns as their reason.
By comparison, of those that did reveal their information, Northern Ireland’s Police Service had just 0.05% using the ageing OS, i.e. less than 1 in 200.
Better yet were the forces of Gwent, North Wales, Lancashire and Wiltshire with zero XP machines whatsoever being deployed.
Shock Met Figures
When asked, London’s Metropolitan Police Service (‘The Met’) refused to cite their numbers.
Paul Mayger (the force’s information manager) was quoted as saying: “Disclosing further information would reveal potential weaknesses and vulnerability.” who then went on to say “This would be damaging as criminals/terrorists would gain a greater understanding of the MPS’s systems, enabling them to take steps to counter them.” Not to be deterred, the BBC appealed against its refusal.
It was revealed back in June that the Met actively uses 18,000 XP machines, equating to over 50% of the total in their arsenal.
Ominously, the ICO has warned that this situation means personal information could be compromised. For example, the recent WannaCry virus meant that Microsoft had to rush out patches, even though they (technically) stopped support back in 2014.
Windows XP – An Overview
Windows XP was launched way back in 2001. (Extended) support was withdrawn in April 2014. Nonetheless it still represents a large share of all the operating systems in existence – especially overseas.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
This illustrates the leviathan task that large public organisations face, when simply trying to keep up to date in a rapidly changing tech landscape. Large commercial enterprises face similar challenges and therefore smaller, more agile organisations can use this to their competitive advantage.
It should be noted that the roll-out of newer equipment is not necessarily being hampered by budget constraints (although this will certainly be a factor) but rather that complex and/or bespoke specialist systems/software can often make upgrading difficult.
These legacy systems requiring obsolete technology to make them function can hamper both the public and private sector alike. Adopting cloud-based solutions may provide one solution.
When choosing critical systems for a smaller company (Such as a CRM for example), one must weigh up the advantages of a system that is designed specifically for you against the
potential threat that the (specialist) provider may cease to exist and therefore upgrades, support and transferability will be difficult.
As far as security is concerned, using outdated operating systems which are no longer supported is clearly asking for trouble.
On a positive note, there will doubtless be opportunities waiting to be exploited by leveraging the Freedom of Information Act itself in terms of acquiring specialist information and data for marketing purposes.

Two Hours Or Less To Remove Terrorist Content

Sep 28, 2017 |

Speaking at the United Nations, Prime minister Theresa May said technology companies must go “further and faster” in removing extremist content.
Given the recent increase in terror-related incidents in London and Manchester (and other European cities), it’s likely her statements will have resonated with many leaders.
Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft will also meet with the PM, where she will request them to find ways to remove content within a 2 hour-or-less timeframe.
Companies and Governments Must Work Together
Google has responded that they’re doing their best but that they need help from outside as well as simply more investment on the inside. Youtube (owned by Google) is the centre of much of the concern and Google have pledged to sponsor £3.7 million in UK based counter- terrorism initiatives.
With AI and other emerging technologies in mind, May believes (and is pressing for) the tech giants to do more to combat the spread of material promoting terrorism.
Information pertaining to low-tech terror techniques (e.g.driving into people or stabbing people) together with higher-tech techniques and bomb-making instructions must be removed as soon as they appear.
An End … to End to End Encryption
May, (supported by home secretary Amber Rudd) back in June called for an end to “Hiding places” on the web, essentially demanding ‘back-doors’ for technologies such as those employing end-to-end encryption.
This would mean enabling the security services to be able to access and view material they consider pose a risk.
Worrying
Last Tuesday’s report published by think tank ‘Policy Exchange’ showed that more people clicked online in the UK (than in any other country in Europe) on jihadist propaganda.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Encryption ‘Backdoors’ would represent a huge loss of confidence in the security of any communications system as whole as essentially, the ‘unbreakable’ nature of the technology is totally compromised.
The aim of terror is to cause as much disruption as possible and the slew of hacks and embarrassing government data-breaches that would almost inevitably occur if government staff were able to access previously secure information would doubtless be considered a success of some kind by the terrorists themselves.
Given the muscle, might and money required to be able to effectively ensure dangerous content is taken down very quickly, it’s very likely that the technology and industry produced as a result will have ramifications in completely different areas such as PR, SEO and  reputation-management for example.
It seems that coming from an age where material can be published instantly, we might be heading into an age where material can be removed and/or deleted very quickly too.
Whilst this has clear advantages in terms of removing terrorist content, one might wonder what other content could be removed ‘instantly’ too. Food for thought … or possibly the legal profession.

Uber Loses London Licence

Sep 28, 2017 |

Taxi-booking giant Uber will lose its licence to operate in London at the end of September.
The ruling, made by regulators at Transport for London, was because they deemed Uber was “not fit and proper”. London Mayor Sadiq Khan publicly endorsed the decision.
Uber has had a catalogue of complaints and bad press recently so this decision was not a massive surprise.
Security Concerns
Citing security issues, public safety issues, poor reporting (of serious in-car crimes), poor medical checks (of drivers) and  poor background checks (of drivers) it seems the regulators were not short of material to support their decision.
Uber was run until recently by controversial founder and CEO Travis Kalanick. Further to an extended leave, he finally resigned in June of this year (possibly “pushed” by unhappy shareholders). He currently still retains a seat on the board.
Unsurprisingly, the firm hit back by declaring that “far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies” and plans to appeal. It had 21 days to lodge an appeal which could then take a long time to investigate, during which it can continue to operate. Doubtless delaying tactics by Uber’s lawyers could extend this state of affairs for the forseeable future.
Who’s Affected?
In this instance, the directly affected stakeholders appear to be Uber’s drivers, staff and shareholders, London Black cab drivers (who obviously want the ban as well as mini-cab companies), the paying (passenger) public and ultimately, the UK tax office.
Additionally, this decision may well give life-breathing oxygen for the other, lesser-known car-sharing firms, startups and social initiatives.
Meanwhile, there is an online petition on change.org, already signed by circa half a million people, requesting that the ban be reversed. This is not surprising as London has 3.5 million Uber users and 40,000 Uber drivers … around as many as the number of traditional, licensed drivers.
London is Not Alone
Uber’s challenges are by no means limited to London. Cab-drivers in many countries have lobbied hard and protested to stop or slow-down Uber’s impact and threat to their livelihoods.
Given the number of potential legal loopholes and appeals, it is unlikely the car-sharing leviathan will be stopped in the immediate future. For example, Uber was banned
earlier this year in Italy after taxi unions argued their case. However, the ban was appealed and later reversed.
How Does This Affect Your Business?
This decision just goes to show that a company that’s grown to be worth tens of billions of dollars within less than a decade can’t have everything its own way.
There’s a reason these companies are labelled “disruptive” business models. It’s clear that changing an entire industry in such a short period of time will inevitably ruffle a lot of feathers with the incumbent businesses operating in that space. Job displacement will ripple out to other industries.
Whilst this decision was apparently based on issues such as bad practice and security, the impact to the livelihoods of traditional cab drivers will doubtless have been an influence.
This type of business model relies on the sharing of privately owned assets. In this case, it’s cars. In Airbnb’s case, it’s private rooms. The ‘sharing economy’ model has become hugely
successful in recent years due to the obvious scalability (it doesn’t have to buy “stock”) and appeals to individuals that want to supplement or replace their income.
However, the societal costs and effects of these types of businesses (and decisions like the London ban if it sticks) will take a lot longer to determine.

Tech Tip : Remove Clutter From Your Search Results

Sep 28, 2017 |

If you ever find that you’re getting unwanted search results, you can quickly and easily narrow down the list by using the minus sign.

Here’s a classic example; let’s say that you’re interested in natural history and wanted to know more about a jaguar.

However, the (organic) results may display local Jaguar dealerships. You can modify your search with a negative keyword like this :

Jaguar -car.

Or even use several modifiers like this to suppress even more irrelevant results, like this …

Jaguar -car -vehicle -sales -garage

… and there you have it … more accurate search results.

Online Hate Bans Appear To Work, According To Reddit

Sep 21, 2017 |

Contrary to concerns that social news platform Reddit would drive abusive user groups to other areas of the site by banning them, research has shown that bans have cut hate speech and bad online behaviour for the longer term.

What Happened?

Back in 2015, social news platform Reddit was receiving criticism for appearing to do nothing to curb online harassment and bullying that was occurring on the site as user numbers grew. Reddit’s own survey at the time showed that 50% of active users would not recommend the site, due to “hateful or offensive content and community”.

This led Reddit to publicly introduce a ‘no harassment policy’ that was designed to prevent attacks against people, not ideas i.e. not to be seen as censorship or curbing free speech. The platform also banned so-called ‘revenge porn’ which was seen as a major online problem at the time.

Hateful Communities Blamed

Much of the blame for the worst behaviour was apportioned to hateful / racist communities on the platform. These groups included racist subreddit /r/coontown and fat-shaming subreddit /r/fatpeoplehate. Reddit, therefore, took the action of banning these communities from the platform altogether.

Research Shows Beneficial Results

Research by the Georgia Institute of Technology, and researchers from Emory University and the University of Michigan has found that banning hate groups caused them to abandon the Reddit platform (rather than go elsewhere within it) at higher than average rates. The researchers also found that levels of hate speech reduced in the group members who stayed, and the communities that the hate groups moved to reported no increase in their levels of abuse. Statistics from the research showed a 90.63% reduction in the usage of manually filtered hate words by the r/fatpeoplehate group, and an 81.08% decrease in the usage of manually filtered hate words by r/CoonTown.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The business world works best when customers, investors, and other stakeholders have confidence in companies, brands, products and services. Those businesses that supply platforms for, or enable the sharing / distribution free speech of any kind e.g. social media and web companies, have a common (and commercial) duty to provide a safe online environment for their users e.g. by removing hate speech promptly, and by making their part of the online environment particularly safe for children, young people, and the vulnerable. Surprisingly, given the level of technological expertise and investment in large social media platforms e.g. Facebook and Twitter, they have always struggled to moderate their platforms effectively. Although a ban on hate groups may seem like an obvious answer, fear of being seen to censor and curb free speech (characteristics of authority and governments), and thereby damaging a high value brand may be reasons why major platforms have been perceived as not doing enough. Reddit’s research results and how the platform has turned things around by banning groups, and the proven effectiveness of banning in modifying behaviour, could point the way for other social media platforms.

Online hate speech / hate crimes and bullying are now being widely challenged e.g. Google, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare’s decision to stop serving a neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, and the UK Crown Prosecution Service’s move to treat online hate crime as seriously as offences carried out face to face with tougher penalties and sentences for online abuse on social media platforms.

Most marketers will be familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and how important basic safety needs are likely to be for customers of any service. Anything that contributes to a safer online environment (the digital business environment) can therefore only benefit businesses as well as society. Businesses and organisations of all kinds can also help the common purpose of minimising online hate crime through education of their staff / pupils / customers / users / stakeholders about their own policies for the treatment of those discovered to be using hate speech e.g. at work online.
We can all play our own individual part in making the online environment safe for all by reporting hate speech where we find it, and, although the stance of open rights / free speech organisations such as the ORG is important, so is ensuring that the Internet is a safe place for all.

Parking Chatbot Could Help You Sue Equifax

Sep 21, 2017 |

In the wake of the recent, massive Equifax hack, a well-known chatbot developed to overturn parking fines has been modified to help victims file legal claims against Equifax.

What Happened?

A vulnerability in the Equifax website was reportedly exploited by unknown hackers, leading to the theft of 143 million customer details stolen, 44 million of which may have come from UK customers.

What many found most shocking about the hack is that not only was Equifax reported to have known about the attack some 40 days before informing the public that it had happened, but that three senior executives at the company are believed to have sold-off shares worth almost £1.4m before the breach was publicly announced.

Also, subsequent revelations include reports (based on a statement from the company) that Equifax’s Security organization was aware of the vulnerability at that time, and that although it took efforts to identify and to patch any vulnerable systems, it clearly wasn’t successful. To add insult to injury for those affected by the hack, news has also now emerged that Equifax’s chief information officer and chief security officer are “retiring”.

DoNotPay To The Rescue

The chatbot, called ‘DoNotPay’ (originally launched in March 2016 by British student, Joshua Browder), is famous for providing legal advice that has led to a reported 375,000 claims against parking tickets. The fact that the Equifax hack included social security numbers and personal details of an estimated 143 million Americans, has prompted the modification of the DoNotPay chatbot so that it can automatically sue Equifax for $15,000 per claim.

No Need For A Lawyer

Personal legal help is notoriously expensive, and is often seen as a barrier to claims, but one advantage of the modified DoNotPay bot is that it essentially helps users to fill out the PDF form that can be used to file a suit in small claims court, thereby removing the need to hire a lawyer from the equation.

Worked For Refugees

Back in March this year the same DoNotPay bot was modified to provide refugees with legal advice and help, via the Facebook Messenger app. The bot was re-configured to help refugees to the UK and the US complete their immigration applications, and was developed using the help of lawyers in both countries.

Also, back in August 2016, a modified version of the same bot was released to help those in need of emergency housing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The full extent of the Equifax hack (believed to be is the largest in US history) is not yet known, but the Credit Rating Company is believed to hold the data of 820 million consumers and 91 million businesses. Many businesses are direct customers of Equifax. Given the fact that many businesses are likely to have been affected, and given the apparent conduct of a company trusted to safeguard identities finances (sitting on the hack for 40 days, executives selling shares before telling the public, and apparently failing to plug a known vulnerability), there is likely to be an appetite to seek compensation / redress from Equifax.

An easy, fast, and low-cost way to do so (no need to pay for a lawyer), such as the modified DoNotPay chatbot is, therefore, likely to be popular with businesses and consumers alike.

The Equifax hack is also a reminder to all businesses of how vital it is to keep security systems up to date and to maintain cyber resilience on all levels. This could involve keeping up to date with patching (9 out of 10 hacked businesses were compromised via un-patched vulnerabilities), and should extend to training employees in cyber security practices, and adopting multi-layered defences that go beyond the traditional anti-virus and firewall perimeter. Companies need to conduct security audits to make sure that no old, isolated data is stored on any old systems or platforms, and may now need to use tools that allow security devices to collect and share data and co-ordinate a unified response across the entire distributed network.

Each week we bring you the latest tech news and tips that may relate to your business, re-written in an techy free style. 

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