Ixquick and StartPage Become One
March 25, 2016
Ixquick was created by a person in Manhattan. Then the system shifted from the USA to Europe. I lost track. I read “Ixquick Merges with StartPage Search Engine.” Web search is a hideously expensive activity to fund. Costs can be suppressed if one just passes the user’s query to Bing, Google, or some other Web indexing search system. The approach delivers what is called a value-added opportunity. Vivisimo used the approach before it morphed into a unit of IBM and emerged not as a search federation system but a Big Data system. Most search traffic flows to the Alphabet Google advertising system. Those who use federated search systems often don’t know the difference and, based on my observations, don’t care.
According to the write up:
The main difference between StartPage and the current version of Ixquick is that the former is powered exclusively by Google search results while the latter aggregates data from multiple search engines to rank them based on factors such as prominence and quantity. Both search engines are privacy orientated, and the merging won’t change the fact. IP addresses are not recorded for instance, and data is not shared with third-parties.
Like DuckDuckGo.com, Ixquick.com and StartPage.com “protect the user’s privacy. My thought is that I am not confident Tor sessions are able to protect a user’s privacy. A general interest search engine which delivers on this assertion is interesting indeed.
If you want to use the Ixquick function that presents only Google results, navigate to www.ixquick.eu. There are other privacy oriented systems; for example, Gibiru and Unbubble.
Sorry, I won’t/can’t go into the privacy angle. You may want to poke around how secure a VPN session, Tails, and Tor are. The exploration may yield some useful information. Make sure your computing device does not have malware installed, please. Otherwise, the “privacy” issue is off the table.
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2016
Some News, Maybe None That Is Not Sort of True?
March 25, 2016
I read “Proposed Truthfulness Law Spooks Russian News Aggregators.” I came away a little puzzled. My perception is that the “news,” regardless of country, is a weird amalgam of infotainment, bias, and theater (political, social, and William Wycherley fare). Whenever the notion of “real,” “accurate,” “objective,” and “true” enter from stage right or left, I wonder what these folks’ definition of the glittering generalities are.
According to the write up, “Russia has tight media controls that include a requirement to make sure all print, broadcast and online news is true.”
A new bill (not yet a law, gentle reader) “would effectively say that news aggregators are the same as mass media operations.” News aggregators like Yandex and the Alphabet Google thing:
would become liable if they spread false information and state agencies complain about it.
The write up, a “real” journalism outfit observes:
Although the law would create a handy way of further restricting information flows, when the bill came out, the Russian communications ministry indicated it was not keen on the idea. That said, the Kremlin has already been making life hard for big online players, particularly by mandating that they store users’ personal data on servers in Russia.
May I suggest a quick romp through Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes?
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2016
Not So Weak. Right, Watson?
March 25, 2016
I read an article which provided to be difficult to find. None of my normal newsreaders snagged the write up called “The Pentagon’s Procurement System Is So Broken They Are Calling on Watson.” Maybe it is the singular Pentagon hooked with the plural pronoun “they”? Hey, dude, colloquial writing is chill.
Perhaps my automated systems’ missing the boat was the omission of the three impressive letters “IBM”? If you follow the activities of US government procurement, you may want to note the article. If you are tracking the tension between IBM i2 and Palantir Technologies, the article adds another flagstone to the pavement that IBM is building to support it augmented intelligence activities in the Department of Defense and other US government agencies.
Let me highlight a couple of comments in the write up and leave you to explore the article at whatever level you choose. I noted these “reports”:
The Air Force is currently working with two vendors, both of which have chosen Watson, IBM’s cognitive learning computer, to develop programs that would harness artificial intelligence to help businesses and government acquisitions officials work through the mind-numbing system.
The write up identifies one of the vendors working on IBM Watson for the US Air Force. The company is Applied Research.
I circled this quote: “The Pentagon’s procurement system is the “perfect application for Watson.”
The goslings and I love “perfect” applications.
How does Watson learn about procurement? The approach is essentially the method used in the mid 1990s by Autonomy IDOL. Here’s a passage I highlighted:
But first Watson must be trained. The first step is to feed it all the relevant documents. Then its digital intellect will be molded by humans, asking question after question, about 5,000 in all, to help understand context and the particular nuance that comes with federal procurement law.
How does this IBM deal fit into the Palantir versus IBM interaction? That’s a good question. What is clear is that the US Air Force has embraced a solution which includes systems and methods first deployed two decades ago.
What’s that about the pace of technology?
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2016
Play Search the Game
March 25, 2016
Within the past few years, gamers have had the privilege to easily play brand new games as well as the old classics. Nearly all of the games ever programmed are available through various channels from Steam, simulator, to system emulator. While it is easy to locate a game if you know the name, main character, or even the gaming system, but with the thousands of games available maybe you want to save time and not have use a search engine. Good news, everyone!
Sofotex, a free software download Web site, has a unique piece of freeware that you will probably want to download if you are a gamer. Igrulka is a search engine app programmed to search only games. Here is the official description:
Igrulka is a unique software that helps you to search, find and play millions of games in the network.
“Once you download the installer, all you have to do is go to the download location on your computer and install the app.
Igrulka allows you to search for the games that you love either according to the categories they are in or by name. For example, you get games in the shooter, arcade, action, puzzle or racing games categories among many others.
If you would like to see more details about the available games, their names as well as their descriptions, all you have to do is hover over them using your mouse as shown below. Choose the game you want to play and click on it.”
According to the description, it looks like Igrulka searches through free games and perhaps the classics from systems. In order to find out what Irgulka can do, download and play search results roulette.
Whitney Grace, March 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Bigger Picture Regarding Illegal Content Needed
March 25, 2016
Every once in awhile an article on the Dark Web comes along that takes a step back from the latest action on Tor and offers a deep-dive on the topic at large. Delving into the World of the Dark Web was recently published on Raconteur, for example. In this article, we learned the definition of darknets: networks only accessible through particular software, such as Tor, and trusted peer authorization. The article continues,
“The best known, and by far the most popular, darknet is the Onion Router (Tor), which was created by the US Naval Research Labs in the 90s as an enabler of secure communication and funded by the US Department of Defense. To navigate it you use the Tor browser, similar to Google Chrome or Internet Explorer apart from keeping the identity of the person doing the browsing a secret. Importantly, this secrecy also applies to what the user is looking at. It is because servers hosting websites on the Tor network, denoted by their .onion (dot onion) designation, are able to mask their location.”
Today, the Dark Web is publicly available to be used anonymously by anyone with darknet software and home to a fair amount of criminal activity. Researchers at King’s College London scraped the .onion sites and results suggested about 57 percent of Tor sites host illegal content. We wonder about the larger context; for example, what percent of sites viewed on mainstream internet browsers host illegal content?
Megan Feil, March 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
DocPoint and Concept Searching: The ONLY Choice. Huh?
March 24, 2016
DocPoint is a consulting and services firm focusing on the US government’s needs. The company won’t ignore commercial firms’ inquiries, but the line up of services seems to be shaped for the world of GSAAdvantage users.
I noted that DocPoint has signed on to resell the Concept Searching indexing system. In theory, the SharePoint search service performs a range of indexing functions. In actual practice, like my grandmother’s cookies, many of the products are not cooked long enough. I tossed those horrible cookies in the trash. The licensees of SharePoint don’t have the choice I did when eight years old.
DocPoint is a specialist firm which provides what Microsoft cannot or no longer chooses to offer its licensees. Microsoft is busy trying to dominate the mobile phone market and doing bug fixes on the Surface product line.
The scoop about the DocPoint and Concept Searching deal appears in “DocPoint Solutions Adds Concept Searching To GSA Schedule 70.” The Schedule 70 reference means, according to WhatIs.com:
a long-term contract issued by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to a commercial technology vendor. Award of a Schedule contract signifies that the GSA has determined that the vendor’s pricing is fair and reasonable and the vendor is in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Purchasing from pre- approved vendors allows agencies to cut through red tape and receive goods and services faster. A vendor doesn’t need to win a GSA Schedule contract in order to do business with U.S. government agencies, but having a Schedule contract can cut down on administrative costs, both for the vendor and for the agency. Federal agencies typically submit requests to three vendors on a Schedule and choose the vendor that offers the best value.
To me, the deal is a way for Concept Searching to generate revenue via a third party services firm.
In the write up about the tie up, I highlighted this paragraph which is a single paragraph with an amazing assertion:
A DocPoint partner since 2012, Concept Searching is the only [emphasis added] company whose solutions deliver automatic semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and powerful taxonomy tools running natively in all versions of SharePoint and SharePoint Online. By blending these technologies with DocPoint’s end-to-end enterprise content management (ECM) offerings, government organizations can maximize their SharePoint investment and obtain a fully integrated solution for sharing, securing and searching for mission-critical information.
Note the statement “only company whose solutions deliver…” “Only” means, according to the Google define function:
No one or nothing more besides; solely or exclusively.
Unfortunately the DocPoint assertion about Concept Searching as the only firm appears to be wide of the mark. Concept Search is one of many companies offering the functions set forth in the content marketing “news” story. In my files, I have the names of dozens of commercial firms offering semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy tools. I wonder if Layer2 or Smartlogic have an opinion about “only”?
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2016
Short Honk: Alphabet Google and Health Investments
March 24, 2016
Short honk: This is an important article in my opinion. “Sergey Brin’s Search for a Parkinson’s Cure” reports that Mr. Brin exercises. He dives. I noted this passage:
With every dive, Brin gains a little bit of leverage—leverage against a risk, looming somewhere out there, that someday he may develop the neurodegenerative disorder Parkinson’s disease. Buried deep within each cell in Brin’s body—in a gene called LRRK2, which sits on the 12th chromosome—is a genetic mutation that has been associated with higher rates of Parkinson’s.
Also, I highlighted this passage:
It sounds so pragmatic, so obvious, that you can almost miss a striking fact: Many philanthropists have funded research into diseases they themselves have been diagnosed with. But Brin is likely the first who, based on a genetic test, began funding scientific research in the hope of escaping a disease in the first place.
A number of questions zipped through my mind. I won’t raise them. Perhaps the write up explains the “solving death” project and provides some insight into various Alphabet Google investments. In short, an article with information of some import to those who seek to understand the Alphabet Google thing.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2016
Confused about Hadoop, Spark, and MapReduce? Not Necessary Now
March 24, 2016
I read “MapReduce vs. Apache Spark vs. SQL: Your questions answered here and at #StrataHadoop.” The article strikes at the heart of the Big Data boomlet. The options one has are rich, varied, and infused with consequences.
According to the write up:
Forester is predicting total market saturation for Hadoop in two years, and a growing number of users are leveraging Spark for its superior performance when compared to MapReduce.
Yikes! A mid tier consulting firm is predicting the future again. I almost stopped reading, but I was intrigued. Exactly what are the differences among these three systems, which appear to be, really different. MapReduce is a bit of a golden oldie, and there is the pesky thought in my mind that Hadoop is a close relative of MapReduce. The Spark thing is an open source effort to create a system which runs quickly enough to make performance mesh with the idea that engineers have weekends.
The write up states:
As I mentioned in my previous post, we’re using this blog series to introduce some of the key technologies SAS will be highlighting at Strata Hadoop World. Each Q&A features the thought leaders you’ll be able to meet when you stop by the SAS booth #1022. Next up is Brian Kinnebrew who explains how new enhancements to SAS Data Loader for Hadoop can support Spark.
Yikes, yikes. The write up is a plea for booth traffic. In the booth a visitor can learn about the Hadoop, Spark, and MapReduce options.
The most interesting thing about the article is that it presents a series of questions and some SAS-skewed answers. The point is that SAS, the statistics company every graduate student in psychology learns to love, has a Data Loader Version 2.4 which is going to make life wonderful for the Big Data crowd.
I wondered, “Is this extract, transform, and load” all over again?”
The answer is not to get tangled up in the substantive differences among Hadoop, Spark and MapReduce like the title of the article implied. The point is that one can use NoSQL and regular SQL.
So what did I learn about the differences among Hadoop, Spark, and MapReduce?
Nothing. Just content marketing without much content in my view.
SAS, let me know if you want me to explain the differences to someone in your organization.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2016
Wikipedia Grants Users Better Search
March 24, 2016
Wikipedia is the defacto encyclopedia to confirm fact from fiction, although academic circles shun its use (however, scholars do use it but never cite it). Wikipedia does not usually make the news, unless it is tied to its fundraising campaign or Wikileaks releases sensitive information meant to remain confidential. The Register tells us that Wikipedia makes the news for another reason, “Reluctant Wikipedia Lifts Lid On $2.5m Internet Search Engine Project.” Wikipedia is better associated with the cataloging and dissemination of knowledge, but in order to use that knowledge it needs to be searched.
Perhaps that is why the Wikimedia Foundation is “doing a Google” and will be investing a Knight Foundation Grant into a search-related project. The Wikimedia Foundation finally released information about the Knight Foundation Grant, dedicated to provide funds for companies invested in innovative solutions related to information, community, media, and engagement.
“The grant provides seed money for stage one of the Knowledge Engine, described as “a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy information on the Internet”. It’s all about search and federation. The discovery stage includes an exploration of prototypes of future versions of Wikipedia.org which are “open channels” rather than an encyclopedia, analysing the query-to-content path, and embedding the Wikipedia Knowledge Engine ‘via carriers and Original Equipment Manufacturers’.”
The discovery stage will last twelve months, ending in August 2016. The biggest risk for the search project would be if Google or Yahoo decided to invest in something similar.
What is interesting is that former Wiki worker Jimmy Wales denied the Wikimedia Foundation was working on a search engine via the Knowledge Engine. Wales has since left and Andreas Kolbe reported in a Wikipedia Signpost article that they are building a search engine and led to believe it would be to find information spread cross the Wikipedia portals, rather it is something much more powerful.
Here is what the actual grant is funding:
“To advance new models for finding information by supporting stage one development of the Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia, a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the Internet.”
It sounds like a search engine that provides true and verifiable search results, which is what academic scholars have been after for years! Wow! Wikipedia might actually be worth a citation now.
Whitney Grace, March 24, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
VPN Disables Right to Be Forgotten for Users in European Union
March 24, 2016
Individuals in the European Union have been granted legal protection to request unwanted information about themselves be removed from search engines. An article from Wired, In Europe,You’ll Need a VPN to See Real Google Search Results, explains the latest on the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” laws. Formerly, privacy requests would only scrub sites with European country extensions like .fr, but now Google.com will filter results for privacy for those with a European IP address. However, European users can rely on a VPN to enable their location to appear as if it were from elsewhere. The article offers context and insight,
“China has long had its “Great Firewall,” and countries like Russia and Brazil have tried to build their own barriers to the outside ‘net in recent years. These walls have always been quite porous thanks to VPNs. The only way to stop it would be for Google to simply stop allowing people to access its search engine via a VPN. That seems unlikely. But with Netflix leading the way in blocking access via VPNs, the Internet may yet fracture and localize.”
The demand for browsing the web using surreptitious methods, VPN or otherwise, only seems to be increasing. Whether motivations are to uncover personal information about certain individuals, watch Netflix content available in other countries or use forums on the Dark Web, the landscape of search appears to be changing in a major way.
Megan Feil, March 24, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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