Archive for November 9, 2022

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Rogers Releases Its Q3 Numbers And The World Did Not End For Them

Posted in Commentary on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

Today is the day that a lot of people were waiting for. Which is Rogers reporting their Q3 numbers so that we can all see how much damage that the July outage caused team red.

Rogers Q3 numbers were released today. Spoiler alert! The July outage didn’t seem to really hurt them. Here’s the highlights:

  • They had revenue of $3.7 billion which came from Rogers wireless and media businesses. Though that would have been much higher if they didn’t have to hand over $150 million to customers due to the July outage.
  • Rogers only added 6,000 new Internet customers. Down from 20,000 at the same time last year, which a 14 percent decrease.

And listening to the investors call early this morning, I’d like to provide a couple of quotes that are relevant:

There were approximately 666,000 mobile phone net adds across the sector this quarter, and Rogers has succeeded in attracting approximately one-third market share. Once again, reflecting strong competitive execution and attention to customer service. Postpaid mobile phone churn was 0.97%, compared to 0.85% one year ago, remaining under 1% and similar to our peers.

While our churn was more elevated early in the quarter, we had returned below 1% by the time the more promotional back to school selling period commenced. ARPU as reported was [56.82] [ph], down 2%, but grew 3% to [59.76] [ph], excluding the impact of the aforementioned credits. With consumers continuing to travel, roaming revenues were strong in Q3 up 130%, compared to the similar pre-pandemic third quarter period of 2019.

So what that suggests to me is that their wireless churn rate likely went up after the outage. But came back down. When it comes to cable, its a bit more murky:

We were largely measured and balanced in our competitive response matching competitive offers where appropriate and otherwise maintaining underlying profitability versus driving loading. On a product basis, we delivered 6,000 retail Internet net customer additions in the third quarter and video net additions remained positive at 7,000. 

While the highly promotional environment, and network outage impacted our third quarter churn and customer net additions in cable, we remain competitive in the market and optimistic as we move into the fourth quarter.

That caught my attention, so I went back to their press release and found this:

The customer relationship net losses, the lower retail Internet net additions, and the lower ARPA this quarter were a result of the July network outage combined with increased competitive promotional activity.

That suggests to me that Rogers lost customers for their cable related businesses which includes Internet, TV, and home phone.

The net result is that Rogers didn’t bleed customers and they came out okay. But based on this press release suggests that not everything is rosy in Rogers land. And they know that. Especially since both Bell and Telus put up some impressive numbers.

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The Twitter Blue Gong Show Continues

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

This Twitter Blue thing is turning out to a farce, as I said earlier today. In case you missed it, this is what I said:

Maybe I am looking at this wrong, but here’s what I see based on those Tweets: 

  • Elon Musk says that he must democratize verification. 
  • Elon Musk creates an unvetted blue check for all, with no ID verification. 
  • Elon Musk creates a verification scheme for government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures that adds “official” label to those accounts.

So what’s the point of the checkmark exactly? It seems me that charging $8 a month for it gives me a blue checkmark that says that I paid Twitter $8 a month. That’s it. There’s zero semblance of clout or status or whatever that Twitter’s current verification system gave to one who got what I called “the blue checkmark of validity.” So why should I fork over $8 a month based on that? That makes no sense. Besides, with this scheme there’s nothing stopping a rogue nation who say, wants to spread misinformation, from giving a bunch of bot accounts Twitter Blue subscriptions to get the check mark and as a bonus their Tweets will show up on more timelines more often because that’s a feature of Twitter Blue. What could go wrong there? 

This is half baked scheme cooked up by Elon Musk. In fact, I would go as far as saying that this is a farce at this point. Maybe someone should tell Musk to take a time out and come back when he has some real ideas that would stop people and advertisers from fleeting the platform. Or alternately, he could sell Twitter to a bunch of people who know how to run a business and simply get out of their way. I’m good with either option at this point.

Well, maybe he took that time out and concluded that this was a stupid idea. I say that because of this Tweet posted by YouTuber MKBHD and responded to by Musk himself:

Then he posted this:

Um… Okay. Sure.

Then there’s this. Remember a couple of paragraphs ago I suggested that threat actors and other scumbags will still pay $8 a month and still be able to post Tweets for all to see. It’s happening. Here’s an example:

Honestly. At this point Elon has made a mess of this by jumping into making huge changes without doing the necessary research as to whether it made sense or not. He seriously needs to take a week or two without tweeting anything, and sit down with core stakeholders (staff, management, advertisers, big users) and come out with a plan to move forward. Because his habit of “ready, fire, aim” isn’t working for him. And he looks like a major clown as a result.

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Industry Expert Provides The Top 5 Cybersecurity Predictions For 2023

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

I can already see that 2023 is shaping up to be one crazy year on a number of fronts. When it comes to cybersecurity, that’s going to absolutely the case. To that end Christopher Prewitt, CTO, Inversion6 provides his top five cybersecurity predictions:

1. Government regulations are about to balloon.

Even with the new understanding between the U.S. and the EU, there will continue to be changes in international privacy requirements. Meanwhile, new security regulations will surely come from the SEC. We’re also likely to see more executive orders, more Congressional committee meetings and a lot more talking overall from politicians in the coming year.

And yet, for all their growth in number and complexity, most of these regulations will probably lack real teeth. We haven’t seen any real shakeups since the birth of the “accept all cookies” button. This is unlikely to change in 2023.

2. Hacktivism is on the rise.

From a cybersecurity perspective, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is notable as the first war to prompt large-scale cyberattacks from nonmilitary citizens of other nations.

The Ukrainian army has largely outsourced their offensive cyber operations to hackers across the globe, who are now attacking Russian infrastructure as both a hobby and a political statement. I would expect these types of offensive operations across borders to become more mainstream in the coming year. The results could prove very unpredictable.

3. Zero-trust models are about to have a massive impact on security.

As more and more organizations abandon their internally hosted data centers and migrate to the cloud, they will increasingly rely on zero-trust models to improve security and prevent lateral movement.

In the near future, this new reality will fundamentally change how we perform penetration testing and how we secure our networks. Together, a cloud workload and a zero-trust model will essentially eviscerate the network edge and may even remove the need for significant network security for some organizations.

4. Active response will become the default defense posture.

Historically, the industry has evolved from preventive to detective controls. Still, alerts and timely response have done little to slow the threats. As a result, we may well see systems begin to self-assess and respond to attacks in real-time using locked accounts, forced password resets, network contain systems or other methods to prevent data from egressing.

If things get bad enough, we can expect to see these features become default configurations, and we will begin experiencing auto-responses from many of the platforms we use and operate.

5. Governments will be more direct on attribution.

In 2022, we saw multiple public reports of U.S. espionage efforts in China. This falls in line with the U.S. government’s recent trend of outing its own cybersecurity enemies by name.

As China, Iran, North Korea and others continue to develop their defensive capabilities, we’ll likely hear more and more about attribution of attacks. We can also expect to hear more about the U.S.’ cyber operations, whether we like it or not.

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Elon Musk Seems To Hate Diversity As He Terminates Twitter Black Resource Group Among Other Groups

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

Elon Musk run Tesla has a problem with diversity. And there are a number of lawsuits that seem to back that up. Well it seems that Musk is at it again as news has surfaced that Musk has shut down Twitter’s Black Resource Group now that he owns the company:

An outlet spoke with two Black employees, referred to as Cam and Bailey (to protect their identities), about their thoughts on the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the social media site.

According to the pair, employees were initially excited about the Tesla founder taking over the company, but that quickly changed.

“From afar, we were thinking—this could mean great improvements from an engineering and product perspective because he’s known in the industry as having skills in that arena. But the closer we got to him, the more we realized that his personal ideologies are so far away from ours,” the pair said in an interview.

Bailey predicted that under Musk, Twitter would be a less inclusive company. Yahoo News reported that Musk had terminated Blackbird, the Employee Resource Group (ERG) for Black employees at Twitter, founded by Shavone Charles. Musk also got rid of the Women’s ERG at Twitter.

Bailey took the elimination of the ERGs as a clear indication of a shift in the company, and it completely changed how minority and female employees view the company.

“I was a Twitter user before I was an employee,” Cam told Essence, adding that work culture has taken a dark turn.

It think that it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s only a matter of time before discrimination lawsuits pop up at Twitter. Because this appears to be a bit of a pattern of behaviour with Musk run companies. And it’s pretty clear that Elon Musk doesn’t see diversity as something that should be valued.

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Volvo Announces The EX90 All-Electric SUV

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

A true seven-seater, all-electric SUV that further raises Volvo’s standards in safety and a more sustainable lifestyle: the new Volvo EX90 represents the start of a new era for Volvo in which they have set a decisive course for a fully electric future.

Starting with the Volvo EX90, they will reveal one new fully electric car each year. By 2030, Volvo aims to sell only fully electric cars, one of the most ambitious electrification blueprints in the automotive industry and crucial to Volvo’s ambition to be a climate-neutral company by 2040.

They revealed their new fully electric flagship SUV to the world in downtown Stockholm today, reflecting their Swedish roots. At the same time, reflecting their global footprint as a company, the Volvo EX90 will be built in the USA starting next year and later also in China. By then, Volvo aims for those two production facilities to be climate-neutral.

A new instant classic in Scandinavian design, the Volvo EX90 defines the principle of form following function. It’s a versatile, stylish family car with modern proportions, combined with cutting-edge technology in core computing, connectivity and electrification to optimise safety, efficiency and aesthetics. In terms of range, expect up to 600 KMs on a charge.

Keeping you and your loved ones safe

The standard safety in the Volvo EX90 is also higher than any Volvo car before it. It’s designed to understand you and its surroundings to help keep you, your loved ones and others in traffic safe. It can also get smarter and safer over time, as it learns from new data and receives updates.

The Volvo EX90 has an invisible shield of safety enabled by their latest sensing technology, inside and outside. State-of-the art sensors like cameras, radars and lidar are connected to the car’s high-performance core computers, where NVIDIA DRIVE runs Volvo Cars’ in-house software to create a real-time, 360-degree view of the world.

Volvo’s sensors don’t get tired or distracted. They are designed to respond and react when you’re just a fraction too late. Their lidar can sense the road in front of you, whether it’s day or night, also at highway speeds. It can see small objects hundreds of metres ahead, creating more time to inform, act and avoid. The sensors also contribute to improve the reliability and overall performance of our assisted driving function Pilot Assist, with a new steering support while changing lanes.

Inside, their invisible shield of safety also looks out for you. Special sensors and cameras, powered by their own in-house developed algorithms, gauge eye gaze concentration. The technology allows the EX90 to understand when you’re distracted, drowsy or otherwise inattentive, beyond what has been possible in a Volvo car to date.

It’ll alert you, first softly nudging, then more insistent. And if the unthinkable happens, and you fall asleep or are taken ill while driving, the Volvo EX90 is designed to safely stop and call for help

Finally, thanks to the state-of-the-art sensor set including lidar, the Volvo EX90 is the first Volvo that’s hardware-ready for unsupervised driving in the future.

Technology with a purpose

A core system – powered by NVIDIA DRIVE platforms Xavier and Orin for safety systems and AI, Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon® Cockpit Platforms and in-house developed software by Volvo engineers – runs most of the core functions inside the car, from safety and infotainment to battery management. The end result is a more responsive and enjoyable experience inside the car.

In other words, your Volvo EX90 won’t be just a new car, it will be a highly advanced computer on wheels. Even better, just like your smartphone or your laptop, the Volvo EX90 is designed to get better over time, thanks to regular over-the-air software updates.

By combining the state-of-the-art computing power from Qualcomm Technologies Snapdragon’ Cockpit Platforms with the visualisation capabilities of Unreal Engine, the 3D tool developed by Epic Games and used to power some of the world’s largest games, to give you lightning-fast computing power and high-quality graphics on the in-car screens and head-up display

A 15-inch centre screen is your gateway to one of the best infotainment systems on offer, with Google built in. Google apps and services including hands-free help from Google Assistant, Google Maps navigation and more of your favourite apps on Google Play all come built in. The displays in the Volvo EX90 help you keep your eyes on the road by offering you the right information at the right time. The Volvo EX90 will also be compatible with wireless Apple CarPlay.

Thanks to the standard 5G connection where available, it’s never been easier to install the apps you need on your home screen and enjoy highly intuitive navigation. You can also stream your favourite music through the new, reference-quality Bowers & Wilkins audio system featuring Dolby Atmos as a Volvo-first, plus head rest-integrated speakers for immersive sound.

The Volvo EX90 will also come with phone key technology as standard. Your smartphone serves as your car key and automatically unlocks the car and starts a personal welcoming sequence as you approach. Your personal profile will also be loaded automatically as you enter the car

All of this technology comes together in one of the most pleasant and elegant car interiors on the market, full of natural and responsibly-sourced materials. That interior composition also reflects our sustainability ambitions, such as being a fully circular and climate-neutral company by 2040.

Supporting a more sustainable lifestyle

With its brand new, in-house developed fully electric technology base, the Volvo EX90 is your perfect companion for a more sustainable family lifestyle. Delivering up to 600 kilometres of tailpipe emission-free driving range on a single charge, according to the WLTP test cycle, it charges from 10 to 80 per cent in under 30 minutes.

The initially available twin-motor all-wheel drive version is powered by a 111kWh battery and two permanent magnet electric motors together delivering 380 kW (517 hp) and 910 Nm of torque. In combination with the brand new chassis, this creates a great and smooth driving experience.

The Volvo EX90 contains approximately 15 per cent of recycled steel, 25 per cent of recycled aluminium as well as 48 kilogrammes of recycled plastics and bio-based materials, which corresponds to around 15 per cent of the total plastic used in the car – the highest level of any Volvo car to date.

Finally, the Volvo EX90 is their first car with all the necessary hardware to enable bi-directional charging. It’s a technology whereby you can use your car battery as an extra energy supply, for example to power your home, other electric devices or another electric Volvo car. They plan to make bi-directional charging available in the future, starting with selected markets.

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Rezilion Expands Dynamic SBOM Capability To Support Windows Environments

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

Rezilion has announced today the expansion of its Dynamic Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) capability to support Windows environments. Through this expansion, Rezilion will provide organizations with a first-of-its-kind toolset to efficiently manage software vulnerabilities and meet new regulatory standards, for the 56% of software today that’s built for Windows OS.

While many tools exist for organizations to manage vulnerabilities in their software, the vast majority of these were initially built for use with Linux OS, resulting in gaps in functionality when they’re used for Windows. A dearth of “Windows-first” tooling also affects organizations’ preparedness to comply with new regulations such as the President’s Executive Order (EO) 14028, which will require teams to provide regulators with a thorough inventory of their software environments and related vulnerabilities.The market has been alarmingly slow to respond to this increasingly urgent need for better solutions. As evidence of this, Microsoft itself released its first, basic, open source “Windows-first” SBOM generation tool as recently as July of this year.

As a result of these gaps, for organizations with large, legacy Windows environments (including critical infrastructures), a new threat on the scale of the “Y2K” scare of the late 1990’s is emerging. Be it attackers or regulators, these organizations must modernize their security standards, or suffer consequences of looming risks ahead.

First released in May, Rezilion’s Dynamic SBOM can be deployed in all software environments – both Windows and Linux simultaneously – and provides a real-time versus static inventory of all software components in a single graphical UI. Rezilion’s solution also integrates dynamic runtime analysis to not only detect software vulnerabilities, but validate their actual exploitability, helping teams to clear away “false-positive” scan results and avoid wasteful patching work that shifts resources away from build activity.

Other key features and capabilities include:

Dynamic Identification – Instantly search and pinpoint vulnerable components such as Log4J across millions of files and onthousands of hosts, containers, and applications.

Holistic Insight & Control – View Windows and Linux risk side by side in one UI, to get a complete picture of your attack surface,manage risk efficiently and comply with auditors

Tackle Legacy Vulnerability Backlogs Efficiently – Aggregate detected vulnerabilities, filter out false-positives and prioritize what matters to address risks quickly and meet modern remediation SLAs as defined by CISA with a fraction of the effort

Learn more about Rezilion’s Dynamic SBOM at https://www.rezilion.com/platform/dynamic-sbom/.

Book a demo today to learn more about Rezilion’s Windows software security solutions at https://www.rezilion.com/lp/windows-security-demo/.

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What A Shocker…. Twitter Took Zero Action Against Election Posts That Were Problematic

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

We all wondered what would happen to content moderation on Elon Musk’s Twitter during last night’s election. And now we have our answer:

A watchdog group has said Elon Musk’s Twitter took little action against high-profile election posts they flagged as problematic, Reuters reported.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that monitors social media for voter suppression, told Reuters that posts from some Republican candidates should have included warning labels under Twitter’s current policy.

False claims and conspiracy theories have already been emerging around Maricopa County in Arizona, where voting machines experienced a “technical glitch” that led to some votes not being correctly tabulated, CNN reported. Some people took to social media to blame Democrats for the technical difficulties.

Common Cause said tweets by candidates such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also publicized the glitch on Twitter, should have been marked with a warning under Twitter’s civic integrity policy, per Reuters. 

The watchdog also told the news outlet that Twitter’s response time had decreased since mass layoffs last Friday saw 50% of staff axed.

The group said Twitter’s response time used to be around one to three hours, but now the company was “hopeless” and “going dark on it for days.”

This I believe is proof positive that Twitter under Elon Musk is becoming the hellscape that he promised it would not be. You cannot simply fire the people who are responsible for stopping this sort of thing from happening, and not expect anything bad to happen. It’s just another sign that Musk’s “Ready, Fire, Aim” mentality is going to kill Twitter.

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The Twitter Blue Dumpster Fire Has Just Become Bigger

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

This whole Twitter Blue which includes verification as part of the deal is turning out to be a gong show. In order to calm people down over having a whole bunch of verified people out there and the potential damage that can cause, Esther Crawford who is Director of Product Management at Twitter posted this series of Tweets hoping to clear up how verification will work under Twitter Blue:

Maybe I am looking at this wrong, but here’s what I see based on those Tweets:

  • Elon Musk says that he must democratize verification.
  • Elon Musk creates an unvetted blue check for all, with no ID verification.
  • Elon Musk creates a verification scheme for government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures that adds “official” label to those accounts.

So what’s the point of the checkmark exactly? It seems me that charging $8 a month for it gives me a blue checkmark that says that I paid Twitter $8 a month. That’s it. There’s zero semblance of clout or status or whatever that Twitter’s current verification system gave to one who got what I called “the blue checkmark of validity.” So why should I fork over $8 a month based on that? That makes no sense. Besides, with this scheme there’s nothing stopping a rogue nation who say, wants to spread misinformation, from giving a bunch of bot accounts Twitter Blue subscriptions to get the check mark and as a bonus their Tweets will show up on more timelines more often because that’s a feature of Twitter Blue. What could go wrong there?

This is half baked scheme cooked up by Elon Musk. In fact, I would go as far as saying that this is a farce at this point. Maybe someone should tell Musk to take a time out and come back when he has some real ideas that would stop people and advertisers from fleeting the platform. Or alternately, he could sell Twitter to a bunch of people who know how to run a business and simply get out of their way. I’m good with either option at this point.

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Salesforce Apparently Cut “Hundreds” Of Employees On Monday

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

Even before the news that Meta has slashed thousands of jobs hit the wires, news filtered out on Tuesday that customer relationship management software provider Salesforce has cut jobs on Monday. CNBC has the details:

Salesforce on Tuesday confirmed that it cut some employees this week after the enterprise software maker saw demand lighten in some countries and industries.

Protocol reported earlier on the cuts, saying they could affect up to 2,500 employees. One person familiar with the matter said Salesforce let go of fewer than 1,000 people Monday. At the end of January it employed 73,541 people. In August Salesforce said in a filing that headcount rose 36% in the past year “to meet the higher demand for services from our customers.”

“Our sales performance process drives accountability. Unfortunately, that can lead to some leaving the business, and we support them through their transition,” a Salesforce spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

With a looming recession, I’m expecting to be writing a lot of stories like this. And the thing is that I work with a number of people that are employed by Salesforce. I’ll be pinging them to make sure that they still have jobs because things are getting brutal out there.

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Is Elon Musk Selling Tesla Stock To Keep The Lights On At Twitter?

Posted in Commentary with tags , on November 9, 2022 by itnerd

A reader pointed me towards a series of Tweets last night that make it look like that Elon Musk is selling a significant amount of Tesla stock all of a sudden:

Four billion dollars isn’t a small amount. Thus I have to assume that it’s one of two reasons that’s driving this stock purchase:

Perhaps it’s both at the same time. The fact is that we don’t know and can only speculate as a result. And chances are, Musk isn’t going to say. But I can say that selling this much Tesla stock is going to cause Tesla’s stock price to drop. In fact, it is down 3% as I type this which was early this morning while it was still dark. That will anger Tesla stock owners if it stays there or goes lower when the markets open. So he may end up having a new problem to deal with on top of Twitter. Which will make Wednesday a difficult day for Elon.

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