Reggie Middleton is an entrepreneurial investor who guides a small team of independent analysts, engineers & developers to usher in the era of peer-to-peer capital markets.
1-212-300-5600
reggie@veritaseum.com
My latest appearance on the Max Keiser show at 11:52 in the video.
As for Android, Google, Glass, security and privacy, I took the liberty of posting the discussion from the my last article on this topic. It should be of interest to both the paranoid and the techy types....
0#14 Continuing what I said on Google Glass — John Boyd2013-07-16 12:02
Reg, As to your replique to my comment about Google Glass being a real time snooping tool for the NSA, I would say that what you say is true for those of us with the technical skills to build from the Android source code and then load it on to our phones (maybe there is a business opportunity there). The other issue is whether one can control what gets automatically loaded on the phone subsequent to deploying one's own build. Most people would not be up for the challenge. But I'm seriously thinking there's an opportunity there! 
Quote
0#12 Spying — tfs 2013-07-15 07:44
There is no safety in using Andriod vs IOS vs Windows.
Everything you do is being monitored at carrier level. The NSA taps the cables.
Anyone who thinks DuckDuckGo and StartPage are safe are delusional. Entry and exit points to these services are again tapped at the wire level. The NSA would have no problems in illiciting the certificates supporting https.
You can see why American telecom companies want the contracts to rebuild communication infrastructures in countries their Wmpire has just dismantled.
QuoteEverything you do is being monitored at carrier level. The NSA taps the cables.
Anyone who thinks DuckDuckGo and StartPage are safe are delusional. Entry and exit points to these services are again tapped at the wire level. The NSA would have no problems in illiciting the certificates supporting https.
You can see why American telecom companies want the contracts to rebuild communication infrastructures in countries their Wmpire has just dismantled.
0#11 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Nat 2013-07-15 04:39
Quote:
That's not true. No-one is choosing iOS or Windows OS in order to be "safe". Similarly, next to no-one is choosing Android in order to be safer either.
OS's are chosen because of the hardware people think they want after seeing the promotion. If not the hardware, people choose the OS because of the apps they've seen their friends use, or promoted 'cool' apps.
As you say Reggie about the banks, no-one cares until some large section of society really suffers a loss. When it comes to surveillance and police states, waiting for that loss means you've already left it too late (unless you're watching from another country..).
As an aside, I really don't see people warming to being so constantly connected to hardware/communication etc. You will get a lot of people adicted to it like they are the internet, 24 hour news etc but I think it will wear a lot of people down and they'll reject the idea in the longer term - even you took off the headset in the Keiser Report interview the other day as I presume it was a distraction?
QuoteYet through disinformation borne ignorance, we already have the masses clamoring for a "safe' closed proprietary OS like iOS as compared to an open tool chest exposed to oh so many eyes.
That's not true. No-one is choosing iOS or Windows OS in order to be "safe". Similarly, next to no-one is choosing Android in order to be safer either.
OS's are chosen because of the hardware people think they want after seeing the promotion. If not the hardware, people choose the OS because of the apps they've seen their friends use, or promoted 'cool' apps.
As you say Reggie about the banks, no-one cares until some large section of society really suffers a loss. When it comes to surveillance and police states, waiting for that loss means you've already left it too late (unless you're watching from another country..).
As an aside, I really don't see people warming to being so constantly connected to hardware/communication etc. You will get a lot of people adicted to it like they are the internet, 24 hour news etc but I think it will wear a lot of people down and they'll reject the idea in the longer term - even you took off the headset in the Keiser Report interview the other day as I presume it was a distraction?
0#10 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 21:06
>You don't have the ability to submit
>changes to even be considered for
>acceptance
Your precious Google bozos made a mess of their Open Source modules. They scooped up open source, made copies of it in such as way changes can't be freely propagate back and forth to the original Open Source they took.
They just scooped up Open Source, copied it and moved it into their brand new projects. Really just a copy and paste type hack.
Google are using Open Source, but have done so it such as way as not to contribute back to the ecosystem they are using. Yes, they have their own brand new Open Source project with a brand new name, but the original modules they scooped up won' have changes easily propagating back and forth.
This is what happens when Google hires people straight out of college with no real world experience. Like hires like.
Google Chrome is hardly a beacon of engineering brilliance on Google's part. The hard part was done by Apple - WebKit.
Apple produced the first fast JavaScript compiler.
Quote>changes to even be considered for
>acceptance
Your precious Google bozos made a mess of their Open Source modules. They scooped up open source, made copies of it in such as way changes can't be freely propagate back and forth to the original Open Source they took.
They just scooped up Open Source, copied it and moved it into their brand new projects. Really just a copy and paste type hack.
Google are using Open Source, but have done so it such as way as not to contribute back to the ecosystem they are using. Yes, they have their own brand new Open Source project with a brand new name, but the original modules they scooped up won' have changes easily propagating back and forth.
This is what happens when Google hires people straight out of college with no real world experience. Like hires like.
Google Chrome is hardly a beacon of engineering brilliance on Google's part. The hard part was done by Apple - WebKit.
Apple produced the first fast JavaScript compiler.
0#9 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 19:23
>Windows and iOS all have the same
>problems, except for the facts that
Isn't the core of iOS based on the Open Source operating system FreeBSD? FreeBSD rocks.
Apple's Safari web browser is based on the Open Source component WebKit, which is turn in based on the Open Source web browser Konqueror. Apple's JavaScript to machine code compiler (used in their web browser Safari) is again Open Source.
WebKit is a HTML5 and CSS renderer and supports multimedia and much more.
Google based their Chrome web browser on Apple's WebKit. If it wasn't for Apple, Google Chrome would exist in its current form.
By the way when I've developed websites, I've noticed the exact same JavaScript bugs in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome. I wonder how that could have happened. It could just be a coincidence.
As I said before even if you have the entire source of Android read by people around the world, it still isn't secure. There are so many other lines of attack outside the handset.
Quote>problems, except for the facts that
Isn't the core of iOS based on the Open Source operating system FreeBSD? FreeBSD rocks.
Apple's Safari web browser is based on the Open Source component WebKit, which is turn in based on the Open Source web browser Konqueror. Apple's JavaScript to machine code compiler (used in their web browser Safari) is again Open Source.
WebKit is a HTML5 and CSS renderer and supports multimedia and much more.
Google based their Chrome web browser on Apple's WebKit. If it wasn't for Apple, Google Chrome would exist in its current form.
By the way when I've developed websites, I've noticed the exact same JavaScript bugs in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome. I wonder how that could have happened. It could just be a coincidence.
As I said before even if you have the entire source of Android read by people around the world, it still isn't secure. There are so many other lines of attack outside the handset.
0#8 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 19:15
OK you do have a valid point. A mainly Open Source operating system has to be more secure.
But really there are so many lines of attack.
By default Android does not have good security - who you communicate with can still be tracked. You need to get 3rd party software to be really secure on Android.
Building an operating system from source code is a difficult operation. There will be so many dependencies. Not many people will be able to do this.
I may make mistakes in some of my points, but you are meant to read all of what I say and take it as a whole.
> Your multiple posts here
Isn't that an ad hominem attack?
I am not a fool. Nor am I something that has crawled out of the woodwork.
I run a small business that sells a relatively inexpensive product to a very large number of people. I've sold my product to Microsoft, Intel, Apple and a vast number of other companies. I am not a fool. I've even sold my product to at least two companies that Google has taken over.
You are incidentally one of my favourite guest speakers to appear on the Keiser Report. You concisely summarize Google's business model as cost-shifting. I can see the smartness is saying things concisely.
I do advertise on bing.com and on other websites as well. They charge $0.05 to $0.15 per click. As a lot of companies only get 1 sale per 100 website visitors, this is a fair charge.
Google charging $0.80 to $5 per click is excessive. I don't know why Google does this. Surely the number of potential advertising customers they have is vast. They should aim to have low costs and make it up on the volume. To extent this is what I do.
Look I am really trying to make a valid point here and what I say is echoed across the Internet.
Google charges advertisers too much. All their money for acquisitions and their internal army of people that can't write software anymore without getting a check book out and buying it has a cost. That cost is borne by advertisers.
All I am saying is that Google is a hard man over money.
I have studied all the other companies in my niche. I see competition selling products at a very low cost if they don't use Google advertising. I see competitors charge 50% more than me when they turn on Google Adwords.
I just want to get a word out that having everybody use Google has a cost. That cost is the increased cost of products sold by everybody that is not Google.
Google spanks you if you use the display network as they say your click-rate is lower and so your cost per click on the search network has to go up.
If you use an exact phrase match with the words x, y and z and another company with nothing to do with you occasionally advertisers with the words a, b and z, then Google will spank you again as they say the competition is paying more, when they aren't really your competition at all.
I see the cost of products sold on the Internet go up 50% and all the cash rolls into Google.
Monopolies are bad. People need to use other search engines such as ixquick.com and duckduckgo.com
QuoteBut really there are so many lines of attack.
By default Android does not have good security - who you communicate with can still be tracked. You need to get 3rd party software to be really secure on Android.
Building an operating system from source code is a difficult operation. There will be so many dependencies. Not many people will be able to do this.
I may make mistakes in some of my points, but you are meant to read all of what I say and take it as a whole.
> Your multiple posts here
Isn't that an ad hominem attack?
I am not a fool. Nor am I something that has crawled out of the woodwork.
I run a small business that sells a relatively inexpensive product to a very large number of people. I've sold my product to Microsoft, Intel, Apple and a vast number of other companies. I am not a fool. I've even sold my product to at least two companies that Google has taken over.
You are incidentally one of my favourite guest speakers to appear on the Keiser Report. You concisely summarize Google's business model as cost-shifting. I can see the smartness is saying things concisely.
I do advertise on bing.com and on other websites as well. They charge $0.05 to $0.15 per click. As a lot of companies only get 1 sale per 100 website visitors, this is a fair charge.
Google charging $0.80 to $5 per click is excessive. I don't know why Google does this. Surely the number of potential advertising customers they have is vast. They should aim to have low costs and make it up on the volume. To extent this is what I do.
Look I am really trying to make a valid point here and what I say is echoed across the Internet.
Google charges advertisers too much. All their money for acquisitions and their internal army of people that can't write software anymore without getting a check book out and buying it has a cost. That cost is borne by advertisers.
All I am saying is that Google is a hard man over money.
I have studied all the other companies in my niche. I see competition selling products at a very low cost if they don't use Google advertising. I see competitors charge 50% more than me when they turn on Google Adwords.
I just want to get a word out that having everybody use Google has a cost. That cost is the increased cost of products sold by everybody that is not Google.
Google spanks you if you use the display network as they say your click-rate is lower and so your cost per click on the search network has to go up.
If you use an exact phrase match with the words x, y and z and another company with nothing to do with you occasionally advertisers with the words a, b and z, then Google will spank you again as they say the competition is paying more, when they aren't really your competition at all.
I see the cost of products sold on the Internet go up 50% and all the cash rolls into Google.
Monopolies are bad. People need to use other search engines such as ixquick.com and duckduckgo.com
#7 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security —ReggieMiddleton 2013-07-14 15:59
I have a very balanced view. Your multiple posts here show that your view may be less than balanced. If you have a problem with Google's advertising methods, you should choose another provider. There are alternatives, particularly in social media. You can also alter your approach to Google. The algorithm change was likely more to improve the credibility of search results than to hurt your business. Either way, you can find experts that maximize efficacy of coding for Google search results. Comparing to Bing, Yahoo, etc. is less relevant they have inferior products when one factors in capabilities, which is likely why they have less market share.
The network effect creates an unfair advantage, yes.... but to obtain the network effect advantage you likley had a superior product to begin with. Ask users of Microsoft Office...
QuoteThe network effect creates an unfair advantage, yes.... but to obtain the network effect advantage you likley had a superior product to begin with. Ask users of Microsoft Office...
#6 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security —ReggieMiddleton 2013-07-14 15:53
Quoting Betty B.:
Just listen to the objections you are raising and you can see how and why Android is safer to the populace than all of the popular competition. Windows and iOS all have the same problems, except for the facts that
Quote> Who has the time to read through a mountain of computer source code? Computer source is difficult to read and understand. Reading source code written by other people and understanding it, will take longer than writing it yourself.
Nah! We are not protected.
Just listen to the objections you are raising and you can see how and why Android is safer to the populace than all of the popular competition. Windows and iOS all have the same problems, except for the facts that
- You dont have access to the code
- You don't have the ability to submit changes to even be considered for acceptance
- With Android, you don't need for Google to accept your personal changes, you can simply roll your own personal version and use it for yourself which should be the preference for the paranoid types. You can't do this with any other popular OS.
- The amound of independent eyes on Android trumps that of any other OS, by far. If something has a chance of getting caught (ex. spy code) it will likely get caught on Android code base. This has already happened, read XDA developers code posts for the HTC Evo
0#5 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 14:22
Forgot to say, you can do anything you want with software.
There is nothing to stop someone taking Open Source software and just before building it into runnable code, adding a crack to make intercepting or decrypting communication easier.
How can one little change be spotted in reams of incomprehensibl y machine code assuming you even know what version of all the different source code modules to compare against? Even if you read through all the code it would take you a lifetime.
There is nothing to stop someone taking Open Source software and just before building it into runnable code, adding a crack to make intercepting or decrypting communication easier.
How can one little change be spotted in reams of incomprehensibl y machine code assuming you even know what version of all the different source code modules to compare against? Even if you read through all the code it would take you a lifetime.
#4 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 13:20
> This means that anyone and everyone can
> modify the code base and if those
> modifications (improvements) are
> accepted into the official code base
Yes, but there is still Google sitting as a referee deciding what gets into the official code base.
Suppose I want to triple the bit length they use for SSL / https, will Google let me submit the changes?
If all communication is being snooped then you have no protection. Even if you use encryption, the NSA will still have a record of who you are communicating with and how much traffic goes between you and where they are located.
Even if you use encryption, if the bitlength isn't high enough President ODumber will crack it. I don't know enough about cryptography, but if the algorithm has a flaw then you are vulnerable as well.
They can still tell what search terms you are using.
Do you use an encrypted email client? Encrypted voice over a phone line? How do you know for sure the software you download doesn't have a flaw in it. Very few people are smart enough to understand the level of mathematics to determine this, plus have knowledge of software as well. Who has the time to read through a mountain of computer source code? Computer source is difficult to read and understand. Reading source code written by other people and understanding it, will take longer than writing it yourself.
Nah! We are not protected.
Quote> modify the code base and if those
> modifications (improvements) are
> accepted into the official code base
Yes, but there is still Google sitting as a referee deciding what gets into the official code base.
Suppose I want to triple the bit length they use for SSL / https, will Google let me submit the changes?
If all communication is being snooped then you have no protection. Even if you use encryption, the NSA will still have a record of who you are communicating with and how much traffic goes between you and where they are located.
Even if you use encryption, if the bitlength isn't high enough President ODumber will crack it. I don't know enough about cryptography, but if the algorithm has a flaw then you are vulnerable as well.
They can still tell what search terms you are using.
Do you use an encrypted email client? Encrypted voice over a phone line? How do you know for sure the software you download doesn't have a flaw in it. Very few people are smart enough to understand the level of mathematics to determine this, plus have knowledge of software as well. Who has the time to read through a mountain of computer source code? Computer source is difficult to read and understand. Reading source code written by other people and understanding it, will take longer than writing it yourself.
Nah! We are not protected.
0#3 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 11:31
Perhaps Reggie should try to get a more balanced view of Google. I can't say enough monopolies are really bad for the world. Maybe consumers can get some free stuff in the short term. But free doesn't exist. If one person gets a freebee, someone else is getting screwed out of money.
The Internet freed people to produce innovative goods without high start-up costs of having to have bricks-n-mortar shops. I myself started up a company producing a product head-and-shoulders above all of the competition. My website used to be at the top of Google's search results. Whether it is intentional or not, Google have jacked up my advertising costs and bang! in one search algorithm update knocked me off the front page. On bing.com and other alternative search engines, I'm near the top.
When I started out, my website didn't have good natural search results. But I could reach a large number of customers cheaply via cheap click rates. That time has passed now. Google's greed is blocking off the Internet for small companies wishing to start up with limited advertising budgets.
Reggie get a balanced view of what is going on and look at the links below.
benedelman.org/.../...
www.benedelman.org/
QuoteThe Internet freed people to produce innovative goods without high start-up costs of having to have bricks-n-mortar shops. I myself started up a company producing a product head-and-shoulders above all of the competition. My website used to be at the top of Google's search results. Whether it is intentional or not, Google have jacked up my advertising costs and bang! in one search algorithm update knocked me off the front page. On bing.com and other alternative search engines, I'm near the top.
When I started out, my website didn't have good natural search results. But I could reach a large number of customers cheaply via cheap click rates. That time has passed now. Google's greed is blocking off the Internet for small companies wishing to start up with limited advertising budgets.
Reggie get a balanced view of what is going on and look at the links below.
benedelman.org/.../...
www.benedelman.org/
0#2 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — Betty B. 2013-07-14 11:23
Reggie Middleton is a smart man and I always enjoy listening to his insights.
But there is a flip-side to Google and Reggie should think about this as well.
Reggie waxes lyrical about Google’s cost shifting and cheaper-than-free goodies. There is a real cost to this.
I have advertised on Google Adwords for years. That experience has made me dislike Google as a company. I got stung with obvious click fraud. I emailed Google at least twice. They denied click fraud ever takes place. I have paid Google vast sums of money over the years and as a long-standing customer they should have taken the time to examine the evidence I gave them. My whole daily budget was used up immediately at the start of each day on an Indian screensaver website. Yes, immediately. When I turned off the display network, my daily budget wasn’t used up in a whole day when my adverts displayed direct on google.com. Plus I looked in my webserver logs and I had no real visitors from this 3rd party publisher.
Google Adwords contains a mass of code trying to extract as much money as possible for Google from advertisers, even at the expense of making it uneconomic to advertise with them.
I displayed for a while on the display network, where typically the click-through rates are lower. I emailed Google about my eye-wateringly high click costs on the search network. I was told the display network was making my search network costs higher! This is wrong. There should be no linkage between the two as everybody knows the click through rates on the display network as lower than it someone was doing a specific search direct on google.com. If you get low click through rates, Google bumps up your cost per click.
For long stretches of time, I have had no competition in my niche advertising on Google. I sell low cost products and quite frankly none of my competition can afford Google’s high costs in a low product cost market. Yet my click-rates are uneconomically high in the absence of direct competition. This is so wrong. Google's auction model is opaque at best.
Google explains this via broad matching and synonyms. It seems if a big company – with a totally unrelated product to yours – uses broad matching for their keywords, then even only a 1 keyword overlap in a phrase of 3 -4 keywords, will bump up your click costs. This is wrong.
If bing.com can charge $0.05 for a click, then why doe greedy Google need to charge at least a whole order of magnitude more and often much more than that?
I should also mention that I set a daily budget. Google regularly went over that increasing my monthly costs to well over what I can reasonably pay. I searched the Internet and I found out Google has been sued over exceeding peoples’ set budgets.
My response was to set my daily budget 20% below that wish I wish to pay. Everything is geared up by default to sting people – perhaps unintentionally .
QuoteBut there is a flip-side to Google and Reggie should think about this as well.
Reggie waxes lyrical about Google’s cost shifting and cheaper-than-free goodies. There is a real cost to this.
I have advertised on Google Adwords for years. That experience has made me dislike Google as a company. I got stung with obvious click fraud. I emailed Google at least twice. They denied click fraud ever takes place. I have paid Google vast sums of money over the years and as a long-standing customer they should have taken the time to examine the evidence I gave them. My whole daily budget was used up immediately at the start of each day on an Indian screensaver website. Yes, immediately. When I turned off the display network, my daily budget wasn’t used up in a whole day when my adverts displayed direct on google.com. Plus I looked in my webserver logs and I had no real visitors from this 3rd party publisher.
Google Adwords contains a mass of code trying to extract as much money as possible for Google from advertisers, even at the expense of making it uneconomic to advertise with them.
I displayed for a while on the display network, where typically the click-through rates are lower. I emailed Google about my eye-wateringly high click costs on the search network. I was told the display network was making my search network costs higher! This is wrong. There should be no linkage between the two as everybody knows the click through rates on the display network as lower than it someone was doing a specific search direct on google.com. If you get low click through rates, Google bumps up your cost per click.
For long stretches of time, I have had no competition in my niche advertising on Google. I sell low cost products and quite frankly none of my competition can afford Google’s high costs in a low product cost market. Yet my click-rates are uneconomically high in the absence of direct competition. This is so wrong. Google's auction model is opaque at best.
Google explains this via broad matching and synonyms. It seems if a big company – with a totally unrelated product to yours – uses broad matching for their keywords, then even only a 1 keyword overlap in a phrase of 3 -4 keywords, will bump up your click costs. This is wrong.
If bing.com can charge $0.05 for a click, then why doe greedy Google need to charge at least a whole order of magnitude more and often much more than that?
I should also mention that I set a daily budget. Google regularly went over that increasing my monthly costs to well over what I can reasonably pay. I searched the Internet and I found out Google has been sued over exceeding peoples’ set budgets.
My response was to set my daily budget 20% below that wish I wish to pay. Everything is geared up by default to sting people – perhaps unintentionally .
0#1 RE: Irish Fraud, Google, Glass, NSA and a False Sense of Security — jason lantz 2013-07-13 16:35
this is one of the most uninformed statements I've ever heard.
So, let's revisit Glass. Glass is a cool device, but from a hardware perspective, it's not expensive to build once engineered. If the Moto X can be sold for $200, that will likely be the ceiling for Glass, which would probably be sold for less if subsidized by Google. Throw in a half billion dollar ad budget (Glass is already extremely popular and is not advertised or even for sale yet) and you have a definite game changer in the mix.
Imagine if these computer glasses that changes the way we do everything sold for $150, with the full marketing awareness powers of Google behind them. Uh Oh, it's a whole new world.
Glass vs iPhone subsidized
Subscribers, click the following links for my updated price targets on Google (click here to subscribe) and read Google Q2 2013 Update: Valuing Possibly The Most Powerful Co. In The World?:
Google Q1 2013 Valuation Note - Retail
(Technology)- Google Q1 2013 Valuation Note - Professional & Institutional
(Technology)
The biggest risks to these price points are:
- A market that's being levitated by central bank magicians running short on magic spells...
- Regulatory pressure, which I feel is quite material and inevitable, but will not be a major factor in the near term.
