Software That Contains Human Reasoning
April 20, 2016
Computer software has progressed further and keeps advancing faster than we can purchase the latest product. Software is now capable of holding simple conversations, accurately translating languages, GPS, self-driving cars, etc. The one thing that that computer developers cannot program is human thought and reason. The New York Times wrote “Taking Baby Steps Toward Software That Reasons Like Humans” about the goal just out of reach.
The article focuses on Richard Socher and his company MetaMind, a deep learning startup working on pattern recognition software. He along with other companies focused on artificial intelligence are slowly inching their way towards replicating human thought on computers. The progress is slow, but steady according to a MetaMind paper about how machines are now capable of answering questions of both digital images and textual documents.
“While even machine vision is not yet a solved problem, steady, if incremental, progress continues to be made by start-ups like Mr. Socher’s; giant technology companies such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google; and dozens of research groups. In their recent paper, the MetaMind researchers argue that the company’s approach, known as a dynamic memory network, holds out the possibility of simultaneously processing inputs including sound, sight and text.”
The software that allows computers to answer questions about digital images and text is sophisticated, but the data to come close to human capabilities is not only limited, but also nonexistent. We are coming closer to understanding the human brain’s complexities, but artificial intelligence is not near Asimov levels yet.
Whitney Grace, April 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Data on Dark Web Not Excused from Fact or Fiction Debate
April 19, 2016
Remember when user information was leaked from the extramarital affairs website AshleyMadison? While the leak caused many controversies, the release of this information specifically on the Dark Web gives reason to revisit an article from Mashable, Another blow for Ashley Madison: User emails leaked on Dark Web as a refresher on the role Tor played. A 10-gigabyte file was posted as a Torrent on the Dark Web which included emails and credit card information among other user data. The article concluded,
“With the data now out there, Internet users are downloading and sifting through it for anything – or, rather, anyone – of note. Lists of email addresses of AshleyMadison users are being circulated on social media. Several appear to be connected to members of the UK government but are likely fake. As Wired notes, the site doesn’t require email verification, meaning the emails could be fake or even hijacked.”
The future of data breaches and leaks may be unclear, but the falsification of information — leaked or otherwise — always remains a possibility. Regardless of the element of scandal existing in future leaks, it is important to note that hackers and other groups are likely not above manipulation of information.
Megan Feil, April 19, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Mindbreeze Breaks into Slovak Big Data Market Through Partnership with Medialife
April 18, 2016
The article titled Mindbreeze and MEDIALIFE Launch Strategic Partnership on BusinessWire discusses what the merger means for the Slovak and Czech Republic enterprise search market. MediaLife emphasizes its concentrated approach to document management systems for Slovak customers in need of large systems for the management, processing, and storage of documents. The article details,
“Based on this partnership, we provide our customers innovative solutions for fast access to corporate data, filtering of relevant information, data extraction and their use in automated sorting (classification)… Powerful enterprise search systems for businesses must recognize relationships among different types of information and be able to link them accordingly. Mindbreeze InSpire Appliance is easy to use, has a high scalability and shows the user only the information which he or she is authorized to view.”
Daniel Fallmann, founder and CEO of Mindbreeze, complimented himself on his selection of a partner in MediaLife and licked his chops at the prospect of the new Eastern European client base opened to Mindbreeze through the partnership. Other Mindbreeze partners exist in Italy, the UK, Germany, Mexico, Canada, and the USA, as the company advances its mission to supply enterprise search appliances as well as big data and knowledge management technologies.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 18, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Microsoft Azure Plans Offers Goldilocks and Three Bears Strategy to Find Perfect Fit
April 15, 2016
The article on eWeek titled Microsoft Debuts Azure Basic Search Tier relates the perks of the new plan from Microsoft, namely, that it is cheaper than the others. At $75 per month (and currently half of for the preview period, so get it while it’s hot!) the Basic Azure plan has lower capacity when it comes to indexing, but that is the intention. The completely Free plan enables indexing of 10,000 documents and allows for 50 megabytes of storage, while the new Basic plan goes up to a million documents. The more expensive Standard plan costs $250/month and provides for up to 180 million documents and 300 gigabytes of storage. The article explains,
“The new Basic tier is Microsoft’s response to customer demand for a more modest alternative to the Standard plans, said Liam Cavanagh, principal program manager of Microsoft Azure Search, in a March 2 announcement. “Basic is great for cases where you need the production-class characteristics of Standard but have lower capacity requirements,” he stated. Those production-class capabilities include dedicated partitions and service workloads (replicas), along with resource isolation and service-level agreement (SLA) guarantees, which are not offered in the Free tier.”
So just how efficient is Azure? Cavanagh stated that his team measured the indexing performance at 15,000 documents per minute (although he also stressed that this was with batches organized into groups of 1,000 documents.) With this new plan, Microsoft continues its cloud’s search capabilities.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 15, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Force of the Dark Web May Not Need Sides
April 14, 2016
The name “Dark Web” has sensational language written all over it. Such a label calls for myth-busting articles to be published, such as the recent one from Infosecurity Magazine, The Dark Web — Is It All Bad?. This piece highlights the opinions of James Chappell, CTO and Co-founder of Digital Shadows, who argues the way the Dark Web is portrayed in the media pigeonholes sites accessible by Tor as for criminal purposes. Chappell is quoted,
“Looking at some of the press coverage you could be forgiven for thinking that the Dark Web is solely about criminality,” he told Infosecurity. “In reality, this is not the case and there are many legitimate uses alongside the criminal content that can be found on these services. Significantly – criminality is an internet-wide problem, rather than exclusively a problem limited to just the technologies that are labelled with the Dark Web.”
The author’s allusion to Star Wars’ divided force, between supposed “good” and “bad” seems an appropriate analogy to the two sides of the internet. However, with a slightly more nuanced perspective, could it not be argued that Jedi practices, like those of the Sith, are also questionable? Binaries may be our preferred cultural tropes, as well as the building blocks of computer software programming, but let’s not forget the elements of variability: humans and time.
Megan Feil, April 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Battlefield Moves Online Forming Cyber Industrial Complex
April 13, 2016
Undoubtedly, in recent decades many processes and products have moved online. Warfare may not be exempt from this migration. Meet The Cyber-Industrial Complex: Private Contractors May Get $7B Windfall From Pentagon’s Cyberwar On ISIS, an article from International Business Times, tells us more. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently confirmed U.S. development of digital weapons and training of online soldiers. According to the article,
“Cyberwar threatens to cause havoc worldwide, but it could be good for the U.S. economy and a handful of publicly listed companies. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, as part of a $582.7 billion budget request to fund his department through 2017, recently said nearly $7 billion of that will be allocated toward improving the military’s ability to develop and deploy offensive cyberweapons. That’s great news for a number of private contractors, who stand to benefit from the spending., and the highly skilled individuals they may end up hiring.”
The article explains these capabilities have been utilized by the U.S. in the past, such as the Kosovo war, but now the U.S. is claiming these tools and tactics. It is an interesting leap to visualize what attacks will evolve to look like on an online battlefield. Equally interesting is the article’s point about conflict being a business opportunity for some; it may also be true to say more problems, more money.
Megan Feil, April 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Tips on How to Make the Most of Big Data (While Spending the Least)
April 13, 2016
The article titled The 10 Commandments of Business Intelligence in Big Data on Datanami offers wisdom written on USB sticks instead of stone tablets. In the Business Intelligence arena, apparently moral guidance can take a backseat to Big Data cost-savings. Suggestions include: Don’t move Big Data unless you must, try to leverage your existing security system, and engage in extensive data visualization sharing (think Github). The article explains the importance of avoiding certain price-gauging traps,
“When done right, [Big Data] can be extremely cost effective… That said…some BI applications charge users by the gigabyte… It’s totally common to have geometric, exponential, logarithmic growth in data and in adoption with big data. Our customers have seen deployments grow from tens of billions of entries to hundreds of billions in a matter of months. That’s another beauty of big data systems: Incremental scalability. Make sure you don’t get lowballed into a BI tool that penalizes your upside.”
The Fifth Commandment remind us all that analyzing the data in its natural, messy form is far better than flattening it into tables due to the risk of losing key relationships. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments step back and look at the big picture of data analytics in 2016. What was only a buzzword to most people just five years ago is now a key aspect of strategy for any number of organizations. This article reminds us that thanks to data visualization, Big Data isn’t just for data scientists anymore. Employees across departments can make use of data to make decisions, but only if they are empowered to do so.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
What Not to Say to a Prospective Investor (Unless They Just Arrived via Turnip Truck)
April 11, 2016
The article on Pando titled Startups Anonymous: Things Founders Say to Investors That Are Complete BS is an installment from a weekly series on the obstacles and madness inherent in the founder/investor relationship. Given that one person is trying to convince the other to give them money, and the other is looking for reasons to not give money, the conversations often turn comical faster than it takes the average startup to go broke. The article provides a list of trending comments that one might overhear coming from a founder’s mouth (while their nose simultaneously turns red and elongates.) Here are a few gems, along with their translated meanings,
“Our growth has been all organic.” Translation: Our friends are using it. “My cofounder turned down a job at Google to focus on our company.” Translation: He applied for an internship a while back and it fell through. “We want to create a very minimalist design.” Translation: We’re not designers and can’t afford to hire a decent one. “This is a $50 billion per year untapped market.” Translation: I heard this tactic works for getting investors.”
The frustrations of fundraising is no joke, but founders get their turn to laugh at investors in the companion article titled What I’d Really Like to Say to Investors. For example: “If today, we had the revenue you’d like to see, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. It’s as simple as that.” Injecting honesty into these interactions is apparently always funny, perhaps because as founders get increasingly desperate, their BS artistry rises in correlation.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 11, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
UK Cybersecurity Director Outlines Agencys Failures in Ongoing Cyberwar
April 8, 2016
The article titled GCHQ: Spy Chief Admits UK Agency Losing Cyberwar Despite £860M Funding Boost on International Business Times examines the surprisingly frank confession made by Alex Dewdney, a director at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He stated that in spite of the £860M funneled into cybersecurity over the past five years, the UK is unequivocally losing the fight. The article details,
“To fight the growing threat from cybercriminals chancellor George Osborne recently confirmed that, in the next funding round, spending will rocket to more than £3.2bn. To highlight the scale of the problem now faced by GCHQ, Osborne claimed the agency was now actively monitoring “cyber threats from high-end adversaries” against 450 companies across the UK aerospace, defence, energy, water, finance, transport and telecoms sectors.”
The article makes it clear that search and other tools are not getting the job done. But a major part of the problem is resource allocation and petty bureaucratic behavior. The money being poured into cybersecurity is not going towards updating the “legacy” computer systems still in place within GCHQ, although those outdated systems represent major vulnerabilities. Dewdney argues that without basic steps like migrating to an improved, current software, the agency has no hope of successfully mitigating the security risks.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Missing Twitter Manual Located
April 7, 2016
Once more we turn to the Fuzzy Notepad’s advice and their Pokémon mascot, Evee. This time we visited the fuzz pad for tips on Twitter. The 140-character social media platform has a slew of hidden features that do not have a button on the user interface. Check out “Twitter’s Missing Manual” to read more about these tricks.
It is inconceivable for every feature to have a shortcut on the user interface. Twitter relies on its users to understand basic features, while the experienced user will have picked up tricks that only come with experience or reading tips on the Internet. The problem is:
“The hard part is striking a balance. On one end of the spectrum you have tools like Notepad, where the only easter egg is that pressing F5 inserts the current time. On the other end you have tools like vim, which consist exclusively of easter eggs.
One of Twitter’s problems is that it’s tilted a little too far towards the vim end of the scale. It looks like a dead-simple service, but those humble 140 characters have been crammed full of features over the years, and the ways they interact aren’t always obvious. There are rules, and the rules generally make sense once you know them, but it’s also really easy to overlook them.”
Twitter is a great social media platform, but a headache to use because it never came with an owner’s manual. Fuzzy notepad has lined up hint for every conceivable problem, including the elusive advanced search page.
Whitney Grace, April 7, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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