Google Search Results Are Politically Biased
December 7, 2016
Google search results are supposed to be objective and accurate. The key phrase in the last sentence was objective, but studies have proven that algorithms can be just as biased as the humans who design them. One would think that Google, one of the most popular search engines in the world, who have discovered how to program objective algorithms, but according to the International Business Times, “Google Search Results Tend To Have Liberal Bias That Could Influence Public Opinion.”
Did you ever hear Uncle Ben’s advice to Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility.” This advice rings true for big corporations, such as Google, that influence the public opinion. CanIRank.com conducted a study the discovered searches using political terms displayed more pages with a liberal than a conservative view. What does Google have to say about it?
The Alphabet-owned company has denied any bias and told the Wall Street Journal: ‘From the beginning, our approach to search has been to provide the most relevant answers and results to our users, and it would undermine people’s trust in our results, and our company, if we were to change course.’ The company maintains that its search results are based on algorithms using hundreds of factors which reflect the content and information available on the Internet. Google has never made its algorithm for determining search results completely public even though over the years researchers have tried to put their reasoning to it.
This is not the first time Google has been accused of a liberal bias in its search results. The consensus is that the liberal leanings are unintentional and is an actual reflection of the amount of liberal content on the Web.
What is the truth? Only the Google gods know.
Whitney Grace, December 7, 2016
Most Dark Web Content Is Legal and Boring
November 15, 2016
Data crunching done by an information security firm reveals that around 55% is legal and mundane like the clear or Open Web.
Digital Journal, which published the article Despite its Nefarious Reputation, New Report Finds Majority of Activity on the Dark Web is Totally Legal and Mundane, says that:
What we’ve found is that the dark web isn’t quite as dark as you may have thought,” said Emily Wilson, Director of Analysis at Terbium Labs. “The vast majority of dark web research to date has focused on illegal activity while overlooking the existence of legal content. We wanted to take a complete view of the dark web to determine its true nature and to offer readers of this report a holistic view of dark web activity — both good and bad.
The findings have been curated in a report The Truth About the Dark Web: Separating Fact from Fiction that puts the Dark Web in a new light. According to this report, around 55% of the content on Dark Web is legal; porn makes 7% of content on Dark Web, and most of it is legal. Drugs though is a favorite topic, only 45% of the content related to it can be termed as illegal. Fraud, extremism and illegal weapons trading on the other hand just make 5-7% of Dark Web.
The research methodology was done using a mix of machine intelligence and human intelligence, as pointed out in the article:
Conducting research on the dark web is a difficult task because the boundaries between categories are unclear,” said Clare Gollnick, Chief Data Scientist at Terbium Labs. “We put significant effort into making sure this study was based on a representative, random sample of the dark web. We believe the end result is a fair and comprehensive assessment of dark web activity, with clear acknowledgment of the limitations involved in both dark web data specifically and broader limitations of data generally.
Dark Web slowly is gaining traction as users of Open Web are finding utilities on this hidden portion of the Internet. Though the study is illuminating indeed, it fails to address how much of the illegal activity or content on Dark Web affects the real world. For instance, what quantity of drug trade takes place over Dark Web. Any answers?
Vishal Ingole, November 15, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Job Hunting in Secret Is Not So Secret
November 3, 2016
While the American economy has recovered from the recession, finding a job is still difficult. Finding a new job can be even harder has you try to be discreet while handling emails, phone calls, and Web traffic under the radar. A bit of advice is to not search for jobs while at your current position, but that is easier said than done in many respects. Social media is a useful job seeking tool and LinkedIn now offers a job search incognito mode. SlashGear discusses the new mode in the article, “LinkedIn’s Open Candidates Feature Helps You Find A Job In Secret.”
The Open Candidates feature allows LinkedIn users to search for a new job while hiding their job search activity from their current employer. It will try to hide your job search activity, while at the same time it will add a new search feature for recruiters that displays profiles of people who have listed themselves under the Open Candidates feature. The hope is that it will bring more opportunity to these people.
However, nothing is ever secret on the Internet and LinkedIn can only do its best to help you:
While the new feature will probably be welcome by people who would prefer to carry out a job search while ruffling as few feathers as possible, LinkedIn does warn that even it will try to prevent your current employer from seeing that you’ve listed yourself as an Open Candidate, it can’t guarantee that it will be able to identify all of the recruiters associated with your company. In other words, use at your own risk.
If you work in a company that tracks your online social life or for a tech organization, you will have difficulty using this feature. LinkedIn and Microsoft employees will definitely need to use the first piece of advice, search for a new job on your personal computer/device using your own Internet.
Whitney Grace, November 3, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Multiple Vendors Form Alliance to Share Threat Intelligence
October 20, 2016
In order to tackle increasing instances of digital security threats, multiple intelligence threat vendors have formed an alliance that will share the intelligence gathered by each of them.
An article that appeared on Network World titled Recorded Future aligns with other threat intelligence vendors states that stated:
With the Omni Intelligence Partner Network, businesses that are customers of both Recorded Future and participating partners can import threat intelligence gathered by the partners and display it within Intelligence Cards that are one interface within Recorded Future’s platform
Apart from any intelligence, the consortium will also share IP addresses that may be origin point of any potential threat. Led by Recorded Future, the other members of the alliance include FireEye iSIGHT, Resilient Systems and Palo Alto Networks
We had earlier suggested about formation inter-governmental alliance that could be utilized for sharing incident reporting in a seamless manner. The premise was:
Intelligence gathered from unstructured data on the Internet such as security blogs that might shed light on threats that haven’t been caught yet in structured-data feeds
Advent of Internet of Things (IoT) will exacerbate the problems for the connected world. Will Omni Intelligence Partner Network succeed in preempting those threats?
Vishal Ingole, October 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Law Enforcement Utilizes New and Traditional Methods for Dark Web Matters
September 15, 2016
While the Dark Web may be thought of as a home to drug dealers, several individuals have been apprehended by law enforcement. Edinburgh News published a report: FBI Helps Catch Edinburgh Man Selling Drugs on ‘Dark Web’. David Trail was convicted for creating a similar website to eBay, but on the Dark Web, called Topix2. Stolen credit card information from his former employer, Scotweb were found in the search of his home. The article states,
Detective Inspector Brian Stuart, of the Cybercrime Unit, said: ‘Following information from colleagues in FBI, Germany’s West Hessen Police and the UK’s National Crime Agency, Police Scotland identified David Trail and his operation and ownership of a hidden website designed to enable its users to buy and sell illegal drugs anonymously and beyond the reach of law enforcement. His targeting of a previous employer, overcoming their security, almost had a devastating effect on the company’s ability to remain in business.
As this piece notes, law enforcement used a combination of new and traditional policing techniques to apprehend Trail. Another common practice we have been seeing is the cooperation of intelligence authorities across borders — and across levels of law enforcement. In the Internet age this is a necessity, and even more so when the nature of the Dark Web is taken into account.
Megan Feil, September 15, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark Web meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
The Web, the Deep Web, and the Dark Web
July 18, 2016
If it was not a challenge enough trying to understand how the Internet works and avoiding identity theft, try carving through the various layers of the Internet such as the Deep Web and the Dark Web. It gets confusing, but “Big Data And The Deep, Dark Web” from Data Informed clears up some of the clouds that darken Internet browsing.
The differences between the three are not that difficult to understand once they are spelled out. The Web is the part of the Internet that we use daily to check our email, read the news, check social media sites, etc. The Deep Web is an Internet sector not readily picked up by search engines. These include password protected sites, very specific information like booking a flight with particular airline on a certain date, and the TOR servers that allow users to browse anonymously. The Dark Web are Web pages that are not indexed by search engines and sell illegal goods and services.
“We do not know everything about the Dark Web, much less the extent of its reach.
“What we do know is that the deep web has between 400 and 550 times more public information than the surface web. More than 200,000 deep web sites currently exist. Together, the 60 largest deep web sites contain around 750 terabytes of data, surpassing the size of the entire surface web by 40 times. Compared with the few billion individual documents on the surface web, 550 billion individual documents can be found on the deep web. A total of 95 percent of the deep web is publically accessible, meaning no fees or subscriptions.”
The biggest seller on the Dark Web is child pornography. Most of the transactions take place using BitCoin with an estimated $56,000 in daily sales. Criminals are not the only ones who use the Dark Web, whistle-blowers, journalists, and security organizations use it as well. Big data has not even scratched the surface related to mining, but those interested can find information and do their own mining with a little digging
Whitney Grace, July 18 , 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark
Web meet up on July 26, 2016.
Information is at this link: http://bit.ly/29tVKpx.
Technology Does Not Level the Playing Field
July 12, 2016
Among the many articles about how too much automation of the labor force will devastate humanity, I found another piece that describes how technology as tools are a false equalizer. The Atlantic published the piece titled: “Technology, The Faux Equalizer.” What we tend to forget is that technology consists of tools made by humans. These tools have consistently become more complicated as society has advanced. The article acknowledges this by having us remember one hundred years ago, when electricity was a luxurious novelty. Only the wealthy and those with grid access used electricity, but now it is as common as daylight.
This example points to how brand new technology is only available to a limited percentage of people. Technological process and social progress are not mutually inclusive. Another example provided, notes that Gutenberg’s printing press did not revolutionize printing for society, but rather the discovery of cheaper materials to make books. Until technology is available for everyone it is not beneficial:
“Just compare the steady flow of venture capital into Silicon Valley with the dearth of funding for other technological projects, like critical infrastructure improvements to water safety, public transit, disintegrating bridges, and so on. ‘With this dynamic in mind, I would suggest that there is greater truth to the opposite of Pichai’s statement,’ said Andrew Russell, a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. ‘Every jump in technology draws attention and capital away from existing technologies used by the 99 percent, which therefore undermines equality, and reduces the ability for people to get onto the ‘playing field’ in the first place.’”
In science-fiction films depicting the future, we imagine that technology lessens the gap between everyone around the world, but we need to be reminded that the future is now. Only a few people have access to the future, compare the average lifestyle of Europeans and Americans versus many African and Middle East nations. History tells us that this is the trend we will always follow.
Oh, oh. We thought technology would fix any problem. Perhaps technology exacerbates old sores and creates new wounds? Just an idle question.
Whitney Grace, July 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Who Will Connect the Internet of Things to Business
June 23, 2016
Remember when Nest Labs had all the hype a few years ago? An article from BGR reminds us how the tides have turned: Even Google views its Nest acquisition as a disappointment. It was in 2014 that Google purchased Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. Their newly launched products, a wifi smoke alarm and thermostat, at the time seemed to the position the company for greater and greater success. This article offers a look at the current state:
“Two and a half years later and Nest is reportedly in shambles. Recently, there have been no shortage of reports suggesting that Nest CEO Tony Fadell is something of a tyrannical boss cut from the same cloth as Steve Jobs (at his worst). Additionally, the higher-ups at Google are reportedly disappointed that Nest hasn’t been able to churn out more hardware. Piling it on, Re/Code recently published a report indicating that Nest generated $340 million in revenue last year, a figure that Google found disappointing given how much it spent to acquire the company. And looking ahead, particulars from Google’s initial buyout deal with Nest suggest that the pressure for Nest to ramp up sales will only increase.”
Undoubtedly there are challenges when it comes to expectations about acquired companies’ performance. But when it comes to the nitty gritty details of the work happening in those acquisitions, aren’t managers supposed to solve problems, not simply agree the problem exists? How the success of “internet of things” companies will pan out seems to be predicated on their inherent interconnectedness — that seems to apply at both the levels of product and business.
Megan Feil, June 23, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Libraries Will Save the Internet
June 10, 2016
Libraries are more than place to check out free DVDs and books and use a computer. Most people do not believe this and if you try to tell them otherwise, their eyes glaze offer and they start chanting “obsolete” under their breath. BoingBoing, however, agrees that “How Libraries Can Save The Internet Of Things From The Web’s Centralized Fate”. For the past twenty years, the Internet has become more centralized and content is increasingly reliant on proprietary sites, such as social media, Amazon, and Google.
Back in the old days, the greatest fear was that the government would take control of the Internet. The opposite has happened with corporations consolidating the Internet. Decentralization is taking place, mostly to keep the Internet anonymous. Usually, these are tied to the Dark Web. The next big thing in the Internet is “the Internet of things,” which will be mostly decentralized and that can be protected if the groundwork is laid now. Libraries can protect decentralized systems, because
“Libraries can support a decentralized system with both computing power and lobbying muscle. The fights libraries have pursued for a free, fair and open Internet infrastructure show that we’re players in the political arena, which is every bit as important as servers and bandwidth. What would services built with library ethics and values look like? They’d look like libraries: Universal access to knowledge. Anonymity of information inquiry. A focus on literacy and on quality of information. A strong service commitment to ensure that they are available at every level of power and privilege.”
Libraries can teach people how to access services like Tor and disseminate the information to a greater extent than many other institutes within the community. While this is possible, in many ways it is not realistic due to many factors. Many of the decentralized factors are associated with the Dark Web, which is held in a negative light. Libraries also have limited budgets and trying to install a program like this will need finances, which the library board might not want to invest in. Also comes the problem of locating someone to teach these services. Many libraries are staffed by librarians that are limited in their knowledge, although they can learn.
It is possible, it would just be hard.
Whitney Grace, June 10, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Half of Online News Produced by Just Ten Publishers
May 19, 2016
The wide-open Internet was supposed to be a counterweight to the consolidation of news media into fewer and fewer hands. Now, though, PublishersDaily reports that “10 Publishers Account for Half of All Online News.” The article cites a recent study from SimilarWeb, which examined 2015’s top online news publishers, on both mobile and desktop platforms. Writer Erik Sass summarizes:
“Overall, the top 10 publishers — together owning around 60 news sites — account for 47% of total online traffic to news content last year, with the next-biggest 140 publishers accounting for most of the other half, SimilarWeb found.
“The biggest online news publisher for the U.S. audience was MSN, owner of MSN.com, with just over 27 billion combined page views across mobile and desktop, followed by Disney Media Networks, owner of ESPN and ABC News, with 25.9 billion.
“Time Warner, owner of CNN and Bleacher Report, had 14.8 billion, followed by Yahoo with 10.3 billion, and Time, Inc. with 10.2 billion.
“A bit further down the totem poll were CBS Corp., owner of Cnet.com, with 9.9 billion combined page views; NBC Universal, with 9.5 billion; Matt Drudge, with 8.5 billion; Advance Publications, with 8 billion; and Fox Entertainment Group, owner of Fox News, with 7.9 billion.”
Sass goes on to cover page views for specific publications and outlines which outfits are leading in mobile. Interestingly, it seems smaller publishers are doing especially well on mobile platforms. See the write-up for more details.
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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