OSIRIS Brief 1.10.0
Twitch leaks information; Fancy Bear strikes back; Financial Times prints premature obituary for US AI.
Twitch Leak Pulls Back Curtain on New Media Economy
Twitch, the Amazon-owned streaming service, experienced a major data leak this week. The leak included Twitch source code and payouts to Twitch streamers. Twitch claims a misconfigured data server caused the leak, and that user login accounts were not affected. The leak is undoubtedly bad for Twitch (and its parent company Amazon), the costs may fall heavier on the content creators using the platform.
I’m sure many readers have never heard of Twitch, but it is one of the most popular video platforms in the world, competitive with YouTube and Twitter. Twitch’s primary market is live-streaming events, where consumers pay to watch content created live. The most popular content on Twitch may be live-streamed video games, which occupy a space in the streaming world like live sporting events on television. If you are surprised to learn of Twitch, you will be even more surprised to learn that Twitch pays its most profitable content creators millions of dollars each year.
Although there are many technical lessons to learn from the Twitch data leak, the socio-political lessons are just as important. Twitch’s financial success proves the online video market is vibrant and even multinational (Portuguese). Online entertainment has created a thoroughly novel financing mechanism, completely separate from traditional media, and that mechanism is easily making people wealthy. I am currently involved in research examining some of the effects of these alternate financing mechanisms, so contact me if you are interested in helping with such research.
FancyBear is Back
Google warned 14,000 Gmail users that the Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), Fancy Bear, has been targeting Google service users. Fancy Bear is one of the most notorious APTs in cybersecurity, as it was one of the groups responsible for Russian hacks during the 2016 election. Anyone who has drawn Fancy Bear’s attention should take the threat seriously, and respond with appropriate care. The metaphor may be overwrought, but everyone should be wary when a bear is on the prowl.
It is not immediately obvious why Fancy Bear would suddenly turn up targeting Gmail addresses. Google likely has not released any pattern, because it would reveal either something about the investigation or the victims. Though we learned about the attacks this week, there may be no significance to the timing. The one sure takeaway from Google’s disclosure is that major APTs remain active, and can threaten large groups of people who may not realize they are playing on an international stage.
Mid-Level Bureaucrat Talks Too Much
Imagine my surprise when I read today that a “former Pentagon Chief” had told the Financial Times (a British paper) the “US has already lost AI fight to China.” Imagine further my surprise to learn that the supposed “Chief” was not what most people mean when they say “chief at the Pentagon” but Nicolas Chaillan, a political appointee with no obvious expertise in AI or China. Of course, such a sweeping declaration spread from Britain to Germany, India, and even Brazil. It’s not clear whether Chaillan or Financial Times were exaggerating his credentials.
Neither Chaillan, nor me, nor anyone has the information necessary to make such a declaration because no one has the information they’d need for such a prediction. First, you’d need to know both where the US and China are which probably no one knows. Second, you’d need to know the role AI will play in a future conflict, which definitely no one knows. Given that Chaillan has already started walking back his statements he’s probably having a bad day.
Noteworthy
Illegal Activities Endure on China’s Dark Web Despite Strict Internet Control by Insikt Group
4 Steps to Protect Your Accounts by Dudley
How Quantum Computers Can Impact Security by Roesler
David Benson is a Professor of Strategy and National Security focusing on cyberstrategy and international relations. You can reach him at dbenson@osiriscodex.com.
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