What Lurks in the Dark Web?
October 20, 2016
Organizations concerned about cyber security can effectively thwart any threats conditionally they know a threat is lurking in the dark. An Israeli SaaS-based startup claims it can bridge this gap by offering real-time analysis of data on Dark Web.
TechCrunch in an article Sixgill claims to crawl the Dark Web to detect future cybercrime says:
Sixgill has developed proprietary algorithms and tech to connect the Dark Web’s dots by analyzing so-called “big data” to create profiles and patterns of Dark Web users and their hidden social networks. It’s via the automatic crunching of this data that the company claims to be able to identify and track potential hackers who may be planning malicious and illegal activity.
By analyzing the data, Sixgill claims that it can identify illegal marketplaces, data leaks and also physical attacks on organizations using its proprietary algorithms. However, there are multiple loopholes in this type of setup.
First, some Dark Web actors can easily insert red herrings across the communication channels to divert attention from real threats. Second, the Dark Web was created by individuals who wished to keep their communications cloaked. Mining data, crunching it through algorithms would not be sufficient enough to keep organizations safe. Moreover, AI can only process data that has been mined by algorithms, which is many cases can be false. TOR is undergoing changes to increase the safeguards in place for its users. What’s beginning is a Dark Web arms race. A pattern of compromise will be followed by hardening. Then compromise will occur and the Hegelian cycle repeats.
Vishal Ingole, October 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Summize, an App with the Technology to Make Our Children Learn. But Is They?
August 2, 2016
The article on TheNextWeb titled Teenagers Have Built a Summary App that Could Help Students Ace Exams might be difficult to read over the sound of a million teachers weeping into their syllabi. It’s no shock that students hate to read, and there is even some cause for alarm over the sheer amount of reading that some graduate students are expected to complete. But for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and even undergrads in college, there is a growing concern about the average reading comprehension level. This new app can only make matters worse by removing a student’s incentive to absorb the material and decide for themselves what is important. The article describes the app,
“Available for iOS, Summize is an intelligent summary generator that will automatically recap the contents of any textbook page (or news article) you take a photo of with your smartphone. The app also supports concept, keyword and bias analysis, which breaks down the summaries to make them more accessible. With this feature, users can easily isolate concepts and keywords from the rest of the text to focus precisely on the material that matters the most to them.”
There is nothing wrong with any of this if it is really about time management instead of supporting illiteracy and lazy study habits. This app is the result of the efforts of an 18-year-old Rami Ghanem using optical character recognition software. A product of the era of No Child Left Behind, not coincidentally, exposed to years of teaching to the test and forgetting the lesson, of rote memorization in favor of analysis and understanding. Yes, with Summize, little Jimmy might ace the test. But shouldn’t an education be more than talking point mcnuggets?
Chelsea Kerwin, August 2, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Expert Systems Acquires TEMIS
June 22, 2015
In a move to improve its product offerings, Expert System acquired TEMIS. The two companies will combine their assets to create a leading semantic provider for cognitive computing. Reuters described the acquisition in very sparse details: “Expert System Signs Agreement To Acquire French TEMIS SA.”
Reuters describes the merger as:
“Reported on Wednesday that it [Expert System] signed binding agreement to buy 100 percent of TEMIS SA, a French company offering solutions in text analytics
- Deal value is 12 million euros ($13.13 million)”
TEMIS creates technology that helps organizations leverage, manage, and structure their unstructured information assets. It is best known for Luxid, which identifies and extracts information to semantically enrich content with domain-specific metadata.
Expert System, on the other hand, is another semantically inclined company and its flagship product is Cogito. The Cogito software is designed to understand content within unstructured text, systems, and analytics. The goal is give organizations a complete picture of your information, because Cogitio actually understand what is processing.
TEMIS and Expert System have similar goals to make unstructured data useful to organizations. Other than the actual acquisition deal, details on how Expert System plans to use TEMIS have not been revealed. Expert System, of course, plans to use TEMIS to improve its own semantic technology and increase revenue. Both companies are pleased at the acquisition, but if you consider other buy outs in recent times the cost to Expert System is very modest. Thirteen million dollars underscores the valuation of other text analysis companies. Other text analysis companies would definitely cost more than TEMIS.
Whitney Grace, June 22, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Data From eBay Illustrates Pricing Quirk
June 8, 2015
The next time you go to sell or buy an item, pay attention to the message the price is sending. Discover reports that “The Last Two Digits of a Price Signal Your Desperation to Sell.” Researchers at UC Berkeley’s business school recently analyzed data from eBay, tracking original prices and speed of negotiations. Writer Joshua Gans shares a chart from the report, and explains:
“The chart shows that when the posted initial price is of a round number (the red dots), like $1,000, the average counteroffer is much lower than if it is a non-round number (the blue circles), like $1,079. For example, the graph suggests that you can actually end up with a higher counteroffer if you list $998 rather than $1,000. In other words, you are better off initially asking for a lower price if price was all you cared about. [Researchers] Backus et al postulate that what is going on here is ‘cheap talk’ – that is, an easy-to-make statement that may be true or untrue with no consequences for dishonesty – and not an otherwise reliable signal. There are some sellers who don’t just care about price and, absent any other way of signaling that to buyers, they set their price at a round number. Alternatively, you can think that the more patient sellers are using non-round numbers to signal their toughness. Either way, the last two digits of the price is cheap talk.”
Gans notes that prices ending in “99” are apparently so common that eBay buyers treat them the same as those ending in round numbers. The team performed a similar analysis on real estate sales data and found the same pattern: properties priced at round numbers sell faster. According to the write-up, real estate agents are familiar with the tendency and advise clients accordingly. Now you, too, can send and receive signals through prices’ last two digits.
Cynthia Murrell, June 8, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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