Amazon challenges Pentagon’s $10-billion cloud deal with Microsoft

The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program will see all military branches sharing information in a system boosted by artificial intelligence

Amazon has challenged the awarding of a USD 10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract to Microsoft, alleging “unmistakable bias” in the process.

The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, better known as JEDI, ultimately will see all military branches sharing information in a system boosted by artificial intelligence. “It’s critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence,” a spokesperson for Amazon Web Services said on Thursday.

“Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias.” Amazon said it filed a notice in US court last week signaling its intent to protest the handling of the bidding process. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Amazon and company founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. The newspaper is among US media outlets most critical in its coverage of Trump and his administration.

The president told reporters during a news conference in July that he had asked aides to investigate the JEDI contract, citing complaints from companies that compete with Amazon. “I’m getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon. … They’re saying it wasn’t competitively bid,” Trump said. “Some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it, having to do with Amazon and the Department of Defense, and I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what’s going on.”

Available online: This website exposes data stored by Indian firms

Indian firms caught napping as private details of individuals were leaked

A new website, created by an anonymous user, has exposed the lack of data security practices in major companies around the world, including some Indian firms. The website, which surfaced on the internet last week, seeks to collect all publicly available data from servers of Amazon Web Services’ storage buckets.

The website lists all publicly available data, which is sometimes harmless such as manuals for products or terms and conditions for web-based applications. However, technology experts in India have found data containing personal information, which can potentially be a big privacy scare. These “buckets” store information on lab test reports of lakhs of people from a Mysore-based health start-up, offer letters provided by food delivery aggregator Swiggy, online ticketing data by Justickets and bank account statements as well as income proofs submitted by people to a digital lender in Mumbai.

It was unearthed by Srikanth L, a software engineer, who found multiple data stores of Indian companies and promptly alerted them to fix the leak. “A Mysore based / #HealthTech company/startup with Mysore clientele exposing Lab reports, prescriptions, a scan of signatures (Yes, doctors yours too!) 1000+ documents,” he wrote on Twitter.

Srikanth said while public storage buckets on Amazon serves an important use case of disseminating publicly accessible information to users in a fast and effective manner, companies should be careful about putting up personally identifiable information/confidential documents there and restrict access if they do choose to upload on third-party servers. For instance, Swiggy has delegated its HR functions to a start-up Hirexp, which seems to have uploaded resumes, offer letters and recordings of interviews on Amazon servers. While the company said there was no leak from its end, Business Standard reviewed these documents and recordings, which were made private by Tuesday evening.(READ FULL ARTICLE)