Tag: technology

Why Mar-a-Lago is a counterintelligence nightmare

Imagine that the White House, instead of a fortress, were an opulent country club.

If you pony up a US$200,000 nonrefundable initiation fee, you can have the run of the place.

Wander the halls. Drop in any time on the West Wing, the Oval Office, the Situation Room.

Chat freely with the US President’s family and advisers, listen in on national security conversations with foreign leaders, even snap a selfie with POTUS himself.

Take it all in – actually, feel free to record it if you like.

Welcome to the Mar-a-Lago club, known in US President Donald Trump’s circles as the winter White House, in Palm Beach, Florida.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12221320

A proposed “sovereign internet” law currently working its way through Russia’s government.

Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means.

The plan is going to be tricky to pull off, both technically and politically, but the Kremlin has set its sights on self-sufficiency.
By Charlotte Jee
Mar 21 2019
<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613138/russia-wants-to-cut-itself-off-from-the-global-internet-heres-what-that-really-means/>

In the next two weeks, Russia is planning to attempt something no other country has tried before. It’s going to test whether it can disconnect from the rest of the world electronically while keeping the internet running for its citizens. This means it will have to reroute all its data internally, rather than relying on servers abroad.

The test is key to a proposed “sovereign internet” law currently working its way through Russia’s government. It looks likely to be eventually voted through and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, though it has stalled in parliament for now.

Pulling an iron curtain down over the internet is a simple idea, but don’t be fooled: it’s a fiendishly difficult technical challenge to get right. It is also going to be very expensive. The project’s initial cost has been set at $38 million by Russia’s financial watchdog, but it’s likely to require far more funding than that. One of the authors of the plan has said it’ll be more like $304 million, Bloomberg reports, but even that figure, industry experts say, won’t be enough to get the system up and running, let alone maintain it.

Not only that, but it has already proved deeply unpopular with the general public. An estimated 15,000 people took to the streets in Moscow earlier this month to protest the law, one of the biggest demonstrations in years.

Operation disconnect

So how will Russia actually disconnect itself from the global internet? “It is unclear what the ‘disconnect test’ might entail,” says Andrew Sullivan, president and CEO of the Internet Society. All we know is that if it passes, the new law will require the nation’s internet service providers (ISPs) to use only exchange points inside the country that are approved by Russia’s telecoms regulator, Roskomnadzor.

Operating hours Mon-Thu 8:30-17:30 Fri 8:30-16:15

+7 (495) 987-68-00

These exchange points are where internet service providers connect with each other. It’s where their cabling meets at physical locations to exchange traffic. These locations are overseen by organizations known as internet exchange providers (IXPs). Russia’s largest IXP is in Moscow, connecting cities in Russia’s east but also Riga in neighboring Latvia.

MSK-IX, as this exchange point is known, is one of the world’s largest. It connects over 500 different ISPs and handles over 140 gigabits of throughput during peak hours on weekdays. There are six other internet exchange points in Russia, spanning most of its 11 time zones. Many ISPs also use exchanges that are physically located in neighboring countries or that are owned by foreign companies. These would now be off limits. Once this stage is completed, it would provide Russia with a literal, physical “on/off switch” to decide whether its internet is shielded from the outside world or kept open.

What’s in a name?

As well as rerouting its ISPs, Russia will also have to unplug from the global domain name system (DNS) so traffic cannot be rerouted through any exchange points that are not inside Russia.

The DNS is basically a phone book for the internet: when you type, for example, “google.com” into your browser, your computer uses the DNS to translate this domain name into an IP address, which identifies the correct server on the internet to send the request. If one server won’t respond to a request, another will step in. Traffic behaves rather like water—it will seek any gap it can to flow through.

“The creators of the DNS wanted to create a system able to work even when bits of it stopped working, regardless of whether the decision to break parts of it was deliberate or accidental,” says Brad Karp, a computer scientist at University College London. This in-built resilience in the underlying structure of the internet will make Russia’s plan even harder to carry out.

The actual mechanics of the DNS are operated by a wide variety of organizations, but a majority of the “root servers,” which are its foundational layer, are run by groups in the US. Russia sees this as a strategic weakness and wants to create its own alternative, setting up an entire new network of its own root servers.

“An alternate DNS can be used to create an alternate reality for the majority of Russian internet users,” says Ameet Naik, an expert on internet monitoring for the software company ThousandEyes. “Whoever controls this directory controls the internet.” Thus, if Russia can create its own DNS, it will have at least a semblance of control over the internet within its borders.

This won’t be easy, says Sullivan. It will involve configuring tens of thousands of systems, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to identify all the different access points citizens use to get online (their laptops, smartphones, iPads, and so on). Some of them will be using servers abroad, such as Google’s Public DNS, which Russia simply won’t be able to replicate—so the connection will fail when a Russian user tries to access them.

[snip]

Could someone really destroy the whole Internet?  YES

The Internet is more than just a technology. It is a domain similar to the domains of land, air, sea and space, but with its own distinct challenges.

WHO CONTROLS THE INTERNET?

The whole internet is controlled by seven actual, physical keys. – The key issue with internet governance is always trust, which is ridiculous.

WHO MANAGES THE INTERNET’S ADDRESS BOOK?
BY VINT CERF Vint Cerf summarizes the transition of ICANN.

THE NET IS A WORLD OF ENDS. The Internet is a “network of networks” of computers. It was born on Oct. 29, 1969, when a UCLA student programmer sent a message from his computer to one at Stanford.

Amazon (sub)Prime? allows any third party to supply inventory into commingled stock. By Izabella Kaminska

Amazon (sub)Prime?

By Izabella Kaminska
Mar 20 2019
<https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon–sub-Prime-/>

The following is the first in a two-part post about Amazon’s dependence on an obscure process known as commingling, which has become essential to underpinning its instant fulfilment services, especially its Prime offering.

If you work in finance, the concept of commingling and its cost benefits will be instantly recognizable. But so will its risks.

And it’s these sorts of risks that are now creeping into the entire Amazon system due to the online retailer’s open-ended fulfillment structure, which allows any third party to supply inventory into commingled stock.

Not only is commingling becoming a means by which a huge number of sub-par or counterfeited goods are entering the Amazon network, it’s arguably the reason why Amazon is being forced to take increasingly extreme steps to take control of its suppliers.

As it does so, it turns itself back into a conventional vertically-integrated retailer like Tesco or Walmart, losing much of the scaling, and cost advantages, associated with its “Fulfilled by Amazon” model (FBA). This also forces an ever greater “unapproved” seller network to deal in the increasingly cut-throat dynamics of its wider marketplace offering. 

The consequences of all this, as we will explain, are glaring.

Unless you make your money from selling stuff on Amazon, chances are you won’t have heard of an FNSKU. The acronym stands for Fulfilment Network Stock Keeping Unit and represents a location identifier for products sitting in Amazon warehouses. This, to all intents and purposes, equates to an Amazon barcode. 

If you’re a seller on Amazon’s marketplace who has chosen to be fulfilled by Amazon’s warehouse system (a scenario which sees Amazon dispatching the seller’s products on their behalf from its warehouses) you will always need an FNSKU.

Apart from the times you don’t.

At such times all you need is a manufacturer code. And it’s these instances, sellers tell FT Alphaville, that are introducing a counterfeiting vulnerability into the Amazon system.

Not using an FNSKU is appealing for sellers. It means products sourced from manufacturers do not have to be relabelled, ensuring they can be sent into Amazon’s network directly, saving time and money. Sellers who have chosen to be fulfilled by Amazon otherwise add an additional logistical layer into their operations if they have to relabel the goods independently. 

Using manufacture bar codes also means products are more likely to qualify for Amazon Prime classification, pushing them higher up the search rankings.

Sellers tell FT Alphaville that, as it stands, the Amazon system seems to structurally incentivise the use of manufacturer codes over FNSKUs as a result. Indeed, Amazon itself promotes the fact that the process speeds up delivery in its own literature:

If multiple sellers have inventory with the same manufacturer barcode, Amazon may fulfil orders using products with that barcode when those products are closest to the customer.

This happens regardless of which seller actually receives a customer’s order. We use this process to facilitate faster delivery.

COMMINGLING

But there is an important downside. Not using FNSKUs turns sellers’ products into cold, hard commodities which are treated as fungible with equivalent products sent into the system. This happens because of a process called commingling.

How does commingling work and why is it important to the Amazon Prime model?

If you have ever wondered how it is possible for Amazon Prime to guarantee 24, or 48, hour delivery for a hugely diverse range of products, the answer is commingling.

In its simplest and idealised form, commingling allows sellers to share inventory to the mutual benefit of all, especially with respect to speed of dispatch.

The larger the geographic area, the more effective commingling becomes. In the US, for example, a seller who supplies an Amazon warehouse in Florida can — thanks to commingling — fullfil a customer living in Minnesota as easily as customers in their home state.

To explain, consider that the time it might ordinarily take to deliver to a Minnesotan from Florida is bound by the physical limitations of travel. In other words, there’s no way a parcel can arrive more quickly than via a plane. That’s its effective speed of light limit.

However, if the buyer’s parcel can be dispatched from an equivalent commingled stock just around the corner, this theoretical speed of light limit can be broken.

<SNIP>

<If you label your commingle units by printing labels from your inventory page, and ship them with labels where you said to commingle, Amazon will likely delay your items being received and provide a warning to you about shipping items with labels when you said you want to commingle your inventory.>

<There are some inherent risks involved with using the stickerless commingled inventory option.  The main risk is the loss of control of the item that the end customer receives.  In addition to this there is the risk that there are counterfeit products that were sent in by other sellers, or sellers that are trying to pass off items as new that should be listed as used.  The problems arise when one of these counterfeit items or less than new items are sent to a customer that orders from you.>

<august 12, 2017
I ordered the top-rated eclipse glasses on Amazon a few months ago and they were counterfeit. If you put them on during daytime you can see indirect sunlight and even my kitchen light. They were shipped from China despite having “Made in the USA” markings and all the proper ISO certification fine print. I haven’t received any communication from Amazon, so people who haven’t heard from them should not assume their glasses are safe (contrary to Amazon’s statement). I contacted Amazon support and they were quick to initiate a refund. For some reason Amazon rejected my review warning that items from third party sellers may be counterfeit and explaining how to tell.
Here are a couple photos of the counterfeits>