Recorded at TED2011, March 2011, in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 10:41
Category Archives: Security
IID Blasts Rabobank for DDoS Response
A company that sells products to help respond to a distributed denial of service (DOS) has some harsh words for Rabobank:
For the 27th largest worldwide bank (they are larger than Wells Fargo and Royal Bank of Canada by asset size), this was a costly sequence of events that could have been avoided. The lost revenue and increased non-web support costs to both Rabobank and iDEAL are sure to be significant when all the dust settles.
The ripple effect of Rabobank’s reaction spread to other iDEAL partners, further underscoring the interconnected nature of Internet business and the reaches of the Extended Enterprise. Waiting for a partner to fix problems that directly impact your business is simply not a good approach.
Internet Identity (IID), with hindsight on their side, says the solution should have been obvious.
…we know what it takes to properly respond to a situation like this…
Italy Rushes Forward in Clean Energy Race
The new Pew Clean Energy Program report (Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race?) mentions several times that the U.S. has quickly dropped to third place. The U.S. has more venture capital-backed investments compared to other countries by a large margin. Could that be a factor? I was tempted to focus on the U.S. or China, yet I could not avoid noticing a different and very positive point:
Italy saw 124 percent growth in clean energy investments in 2010, the 3rd highest among G-20 members. With almost $14 billion invested, Italy rose up the ranks of G-20 members to take the 4th position. Sixty-two percent ($8.6 billion) of 2010 clean energy investments were directed toward small scale solar projects. Italy also attracted a healthy $4.5 billion in wind energy investments. With high conventional energy prices and abundant solar resources, Italy is the first country in which solar power has achieved price parity with other electric sources.
Hey, look at Italy. First price parity nation for clean energy.
Italy’s 71% growth rate over five years also helped them jump from 8th position last year to 4th position. They achieved the #2 investment intensity (0.79% per $GDP) behind Germany. What do the Italians have to do to be in position to move ahead of the U.S. in the overall standings next year? Is America even threatened by Italy in the same way as Germany? Instead of emphasizing and exploring the Italian rush, or the German move to second place overall, the report makes the point that the West is losing to the East.
…it is clear that the center of gravity for clean energy investment is shifting from the West (Europe and the United States) to the East (China, India and other Asian nations).
Why go with an East, West theme?
A look at the entire globe shows five-year growth rates for countries in the southern hemisphere are even higher than Italy’s. Pew mentions high growth for Latin America, but the question also could be whether the whole southern hemisphere — Argentina (115%), South Africa (94%), Indonesia (89%), and Brazil (81%) — will see the same success as Italy. High one-year growth numbers in Argentina (568%) and Australia (104%) are likewise not just isolated to Latin America. It is curious to me to see an East, West divide when there is powerful (pun not intended) industry data from other countries to the South.
Another interesting issue is that Spain and the UK dramatically scaled-back clean energy investments, yet Italy did not. It may not be useful to depict the very different individual states into a unified West. Likewise, China alone may not be a good representation of the East.
Perhaps this Pew study is meant really to highlight the policies of China (“continued ability to attract record levels of clean energy investments”) and compare to the U.S. (“disproportionate government supports for century-old fossil fuel sources”). All other data points/countries could be just thrown in for good measure but are not meant to interfere with what seems to be the Pew (named after Sun Oil Company founder Joseph Pew) message to America: when China is winning the clean energy race, America is losing.
Will the Real Black Swan Please Stand Up
Sarah Lane, the dancer in the movie Black Swan, is caught in a controversy over credit for her work. I think Christopher John Farley’s interview of her captures it best:
It was all my fault really because I didn’t have a manager…When I was going to sign my contract it said on screen credit is up to the producer’s discretion. So I asked some people and I said I don’t know about this. I feel like I should have it specified in my contract how I want to be credited and everyone was like you know you’re a double so you’re already getting paid more than a principal contract. You’re already getting a good deal. So I signed the contract and I left it. I thought they would kind of take care of me because they were really encouraging and really sweet and always saying how amazing I was. They were kind of rooting me on when I would have to do shots that were really hard and almost impossible even for a professional ballet dancer.
This reminds me of the earlier inventors of the lightbulb who fought with Edison for credit. Edison claimed a patent in 1879 but lost a lawsuit to William Sawyer in 1883 for copying his work. Edison also was embroiled with a lawsuit to Joseph Swan who had a patent in 1878 for the same lightbulb and had demonstrated it publicly as early as 1869.
Never mind the facts, most people still think of Edison as the inventor of the lightbulb because he oversaw some improvements to the design. The truth is that Edison was a master of taking an idea and making it profitable. He was hardly an inventor, but he was a great showman and a producer.
This situation is not about invention but about similar problems of credit and trust. Lane does not really seem to be in a dispute with Natalie Portman, Black Swan’s lead actress. Neither Portman nor Lane actually show much of a fight. Lane suggests the issue is that her trust in FOX was misplaced and it is others in the dance community who want the facts about her efforts to be known. Portman has stepped back politely and said she could not become a professional dancer so easily and believes Lane is very talented.
The only one to show much interest in a fight is the choreographer who accidentally impregnated Portman during the filming, which already puts him in questionable territory. He has come out swinging at Lane and claimed she “honestly” danced only 15% of the scenes.
Maybe the choreographer, Benjamin Millepied, is trying to win points with the movie producer by defending their celebrity marketing plans, or maybe he is trying to win points with Portman. It is impossible to see him as any kind of impartial voice, so it would be interesting to see a true tally of times. The WSJ points out that FOX has taken a more diplomatic route but refuses to admit to any tally of time or percentages and is actively trying to obscure the data.
There is a video circulating on the web that appears to show how filmmakers used “face replacement†special effects to put Portman’s head on Lane’s dancing body. Clicking on the link to one copy of the clip now results in this message: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by FOX.†Another version of the clip, without the face replacement segment, has been issued.
So the issue now moves, from a classic case of professional trust and claims of credit, to a question of authenticity and data integrity.
Millepied’s harsh and unusual criticism of a dance colleague could become a challenge to digital investigators. Can someone prove, through forensic review or even casual observation, the true percentage of dance scenes with Portman’s face digitally imposed over Lane’s? The answer may suggest body doubles in future could be wise to demand a hidden key be used with their work to settle differences of opinion — to prove themselves against a disparaging choreographer. What Lane understands and Millepied perhaps does not is that, regardless of any answer and percentages assigned, Portman will be remembered as the Black Swan.