The Cyber Why: What We Read This Week...

... and why you should too! (3/22/24)

Welcome to The Cyber Why newsletter. This week, the team’s reading list took a bit of a departure from the deep cyber technical content you are used to and elevated to a learning and general technology focus. The Cyber Why isn’t just about cybersecurity - it’s about bettering ourselves across the board and learning from other sources than just the hacker tried and true.

In this week’s newsletter, we talk about the Apple / DOJ lawsuit, the WWW turns 35 and its inventor weaves an open letter full of sadness and fear, Wiz pushes AI capabilities towards better MTTR, a deep dive into ARR metric assumptions, and something Elon touches actually does GOOD in the world. All this and more in this week’s - The Cyber Why!

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The DOJ Takes a Byte Out Of Apple

DOJ sues Apple over iPhone monopoly in landmark antitrust case (CNBC)
Justice Department Sues Apple for Monopolizing Smartphone Markets (DOJ)
Apple slams DOJ case as misguided attempt to turn iPhone into Android (TechCrunch)

(Rick pick) This week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched its opening salvo at Apple, alleging the tech giant's monopolistic practices in the smartphone market, particularly its restrictive control of the App Store. The DOJ contends that Apple's dominance in mobile apps suppresses competition. Tim Cook’s infamous “buy your mom an iPhone” quote was even mentioned. In response, Apple countered, likening the DOJ's lawsuit to an attempt to convert an iPhone into an Android device. Apple also asserts that its App Store's strict regulations are vital for security and privacy. The decentralized nature of Android’s app distribution model results in multiple stores, some of which frequently have malicious apps. So, part of what Apple says is accurate; however, they don't mention all the additional money they make from their app store approach. Going after Big Tech seems to be bipartisan, yet it's critical to strike a balance between curbing monopolies and fostering American innovation. Full disclosure: I'm an Apple user but not a fanboy. I'm all in on the Apple ecosystem. it makes my life easier. However, I also want to be able to send a group text that includes someone with an Android device. Is that too much to ask? Also, could we get a touchscreen MacBook while we are at it?

Editors Note: I’m an Android guy and the following image sums up my interactions with the rest of my friends. #FML!

Happy Birthday, WWW - You’re KILLING Us!

Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter (Tim Berners-Lee)

The World Wide Web is 35 years old, and the inventor of the technology we have built our society on is worried. In this open letter to the world, Tim Berners-Lee outlines the abuses and issues that have come in the past 35 years of the web’s existence. In his brief essay, he says:

It was to be a tool to empower humanity. The first decade of the web fulfilled that promise — the web was decentralised with a long-tail of content and options, it created small, more localised communities, provided individual empowerment and fostered huge value. Yet in the past decade, instead of embodying these values, the web has instead played a part in eroding them.

Tim believes that greed and profiteering have taken innovation and the Internet down a path that was never intended. He says that in the last 5-7 years, the self-interest of several leading corporations has eroded the web’s value and led to a breakdown and societal harm.

Wow, that’s some heady stuff. Comparing the value generated by the web versus the societal impact is one heck of a philosophy class debate. I, for one, believe that the positive effects over the last 35 years dramatically outweigh the erosion of privacy and society on a day-to-day basis. However, I also think that we can all do better. The real problem is how to impact positive change. The capitalistic nature of our world will make it nearly impossible to execute significant transformation. Something to chew on this weekend over a pipe and a bourbon! (old man deep thought mode activated)

Wiz Makes AI Actionable Lowering MTTR

Improve MTTR with Wiz’ AI-powered remediation guidance using Microsoft Azure OpenAI service (Wiz)

(Katie Pick) This past week, Wiz, one of the world’s largest cloud security companies, announced that it has incorporated Azure OpenAI Service’s GenAI models into its product to help improve customers’ remediation guidance. The functionality allows Wiz customers to use the large learning model (LLM) to generate simplified text in service of speeding up the process of fixing cloud security issues and making remediation guidance “more accessible to development and engineering teams that don’t have security expertise.”

At a general level, Wiz added AI to its product back in Q4. The capabilities were focused on “mean time to remediation.” By all accounts, the company’s AI-assisted attack path analysis proved highly beneficial to Wiz’s clients, so the company decided to go one step further. Given organizations' persistent problems with securing cloud environments, anything vendor technologies can do to add context and streamline workflows is a welcome offering.

Business Nerd Content Alert! Metrics++

Clouded Judgement 3.22.24 - ERR vs ARR and the Conundrum of AI Revenue Streams Today (Clouded Judgement)

This article is chock-full of detailed metric information that every entrepreneur, founder, investor, and employee should understand. It’s a challenging read (you might need to review it twice… I had to!), but the resulting knowledge bomb is excellent. The article helps the reader understand the differences between recurring, reoccurring, ARR, ERR, MRR, retention, churn, and why SaaS based business are traditionally valued as a multiple of revenue. It also pokes holes in some assumptions in the SaaS / ARR-backed valuation model - some of which have perplexed me for a while now. The one biggie that I’ve always wondered about is the “recurring” part of revenue. Valuing a business as a multiple of ARR makes a massive assumption against your retention capability. If you can’t retain (or better yet grow) your customers over time, then the entire concept of SaaS being a long-term annuity is flawed. Grab your reading glasses and deep dive into this one with a sharp pencil and an open notebook. I promise you’ll learn a LOT!

Neuralink's Breakthrough Is The Feel-Good Story of the Year

Musk's Neuralink shows first brain-chip patient playing online chess (Reuters)
Neuralink's Brain Chip Is Running in a Human. Your Skull Is Safe, for Now (CNET)

(Rick Pick) Typically, we reserve the fifth story of the week for something light-hearted or amusing. However, this week, we want to share a remarkable story from Elon Musk's Neuralink. We've previously covered Neuralink when the company faced scrutiny for its treatment of animals, but this story is different and could have significant implications. This week, Neuralink live-streamed a quadriplegic patient playing chess using a brain implant. Regardless of your opinions on Elon Musk (and our team at TCW certainly has plenty), it's undeniable that his companies (excluding X) are pushing the boundaries of innovation. Neuralink's next project, Blindsight, aims to restore vision for individuals who are blind. Of course, we cover cybersecurity here, so how attackers will abuse these technologies is something to track. After all, it can be accessed if it has an interface, and if it runs code, it is vulnerable.

Quick Hits and Hidden Gems

• Employee Facing Termination For Using A 'Mouse Jiggler' To Appear Active At Work While Doing Four Jobs At Once (Your Tango) - This isn’t the kind of “Mouse Jiggler” Rick thought it was!

• Facebook's Shrimp Jesus, Explained (404 Media) - Why did Shrimp Jesus become a viral sensation? Because he wanted to show that miracles can be quite shellfish!

• $50 million plus per founder: Cyber M&A flurry creates new list of millionaires (Calcalist) - Flow, Avalor, and Gem acquisitions pay founders $50M EACH to exit. Well done to each of you. I hope you remember to take care of your employees.

• Reddit pops 48% in NYSE debut after selling shares at top of range (CNBC) - POP! Let’s hope this opens the floodgates for private market liquidity!

• How Do Values Change? (Overcoming Bias) - Discussion on learning algorithms that change core value positions. Great read!

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If you’ve made it this far, you either found our musings at least semi-entertaining, OR you enjoyed the pain and kept going regardless. No matter how you made it to this point, you should know that we appreciate you. Please do us a solid and share The Cyber Why with your friends. We would love to reach a bigger audience, and referrals are how we do it. Help us out, and we’ll see you next week!