These Are the False Records of the Starship Google
August 12, 2016
Star Trek technology was/is designed by prop masters and special effects artists based on preconceived notations of the time. The original Trek series ran on analog, while the franchise reboot has holograms and streamlined ships free of the 1960s “groovy” design. Google wants to make Star Trek technology a reality and in manner ways they have with a search engine and a digital assistant that responds to vocal commands. Is Google getting too big for its britches, however? STAT asked the question in its story, “’Silicon Valley Arrogance’? Google Misfires As It Strives To Turn Star Trek Fiction Into Reality.”
Google wanted to create the Star Trek tricorder, a handheld computer that records, scans, and processes any type of data from soil samples to medical information. Google created a biotech venture, Verily Life Sciences, to invent a cancer scanning tricorder, but the project is not doing so well. The cancer tricorder is only one example of Google’s misfire in medical technology. Verily appears to be working on projects that are more in the realm of science fantasy and are used as marketing devices to promote Google as the “technology company of the future.”
Google wants to maker new scientific inroads in medical technology, pulling on their expertise with big data and their initiative:
“’Part of the Silicon Valley ethos is about changing the world, about disruptive technology, about ignoring existing business models,’ and ‘taking on grand challenges,’ …
‘That’s admirable,’…but in Verily’s case, ‘it also feels pretty quixotic.’”
Fantasy drives innovation, which is why science fiction series like Star Trek are inspiration. Much of the technology from the original Trek series and later installations are available now, but we are still far from making everything from the show a reality. We should not halt experimentation on new technology, but big claims like Google’s are probably best kept silent until there is a working prototype.
Whitney Grace, August 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden /Dark Web meet up on August 23, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233019199/
Baidu Hopes Transparency Cleans up Results
July 28, 2016
One of the worries about using commercial search engines is that search results are polluted with paid links. In the United States, paid results are differentiated from organic results with a little banner or font change. It is not so within China and Seeking Alpha shares an interesting story about a Chinese search engine, “Baidu Cleans Up Search Site, Eyes Value.” Baidu recently did a major overhaul of its search engine, which was due a long, long time ago. Baidu was more interested in generating profits than providing its users a decent service. Baidu neglected to inform its users that paid links appeared alongside organic results, but now they have been separated out like paid links in the US.
Results are cleaner, but it did not come in time to help one user:
“For anyone who has missed this headline-grabbing story, the crisis erupted after 21-year-old cancer patient Wei Zexi used Baidu to find a hospital to treat his disease. He trusted the hospital he chose partly because it appeared high in Baidu’s results. But he was unaware the hospital got that ranking because it paid the most in an online auctioning system that has helped to make Baidu hugely profitable. Wei later died after receiving an ineffective experimental treatment, though not before complaining loudly about how he was misled.”
The resulting PR nightmare forced Baidu to clean up its digital act. This example outlines one of the many differences between US and Chinese business ethics. On average the US probably has more educated consumers than China, who will call out companies when they notice ethical violations. While it is true US companies are willing to compromise ethics for a buck, at least once they are caught they cannot avoid the windfall. China on the other hand, does what it wants when it wants.
Whitney Grace, July 28, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Microsoft Makes Fresh Effort to Position Bing
June 21, 2016
Microsoft is gearing up for a fresh challenge to Google, with a Bing rebranding effort centered on the new “Bing Network.” This marks a different approach to leveraging the MS search platform, we learn from the piece, “Microsoft Rebrands Bing, Challenges Google” at SearchMarketingDaily. The incorporation of Yahoo has a lot to do with it. Reporter Laurie Sullivan writes:
“Microsoft’s message says the network pulls together in-the-moment data from across its mobile, global and local partners to support products that people use daily. And that network continues to grow. With the transition of all U.S. accounts, people and account management from Yahoo to Bing, the network represents an expanding set of partnerships such as AOL, and The Wall Street Journal, which adds more searches and clicks to the network daily, wrote Stephen Sirich, GM of advertising and consumer monetization group at Microsoft, in a post.”
Sullivan later reminds us:
“The shift in brand strategy also marks an end to the Yahoo-Bing Network. The renegotiated search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo in April 2015, five years into the 10-year deal, has ad sales and account management returning to their respective companies.”
The article discusses reasons Microsoft has struggled so to position Bing as an alternative to Google. For example, says one professional, Bing should not have tried to change the model Google had set up, and users had grown accustomed to, for Internet search. Also, Bing’s brand recognition has always lagged behind that of Google. Perhaps that is about to change with this renewed effort. See the article for some more background and stats on Bing’s performance.
Cynthia Murrell, June 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Speculation About Beyond Search
June 2, 2016
If you are curious to learn more about the purveyor of the Beyond Search blog, you should check out Singularity’s interview with “Stephen E Arnold On Search Engine And Intelligence Gathering.” A little bit of background about Arnold is that he is an expert specialist in content processing, indexing, online search as well as the author of seven books and monographs. His past employment record includes Booz, Allen, & Hamilton (Edward Snowden was a contractor for this company), Courier Journal & Louisville Times, and Halliburton Nuclear. He worked on the US government’s Threat Open Source Intelligence Service and developed a cost analysis, technical infrastructure, and security for the FirstGov.gov.
Singualrity’s interview covers a variety of topics and, of course, includes Arnold’s direct sense of humor:
“During our 90 min discussion with Stephen E. Arnold we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why he calls himself lucky; how he got interested in computers in general and search engines in particular; his path from college to Halliburton Nuclear and Booze, Allen & Hamilton; content and web indexing; his who’s who list of clients; Beyond Search and the core of intelligence; his Google Trilogy – The Google Legacy (2005), Google Version 2.0 (2007), and Google: The Digital Gutenberg (2009); CyberOSINT and the Dark Web Notebook; the less-known but major players in search such as Recorded Future and Palantir; Big Brother and surveillance; personal ethics and Edward Snowden.”
When you listen to the experts in certain fields, you always get a different perspective than what the popular news outlets gives. Arnold offers a unique take on search as well as the future of Internet security, especially the future of the Dark Web.
Whitney Grace, June 2, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Paid Posts and PageRank
May 27, 2016
Google users rely on the search engine’s quality-assurance algorithm, PageRank, to serve up the links most relevant to their query. Blogger and Google engineer Matt Cutts declares, reasonably enough, that “Paid Posts Should Not Affect Search Engines.” His employer, on the other hand, has long disagreed with this stance. Cutts concedes:
“We do take the subject of paid posts seriously and take action on them. In fact, we recently finished going through hundreds of ‘empty review’ reports — thank you for that feedback! That means that now is a great time to send us reports of link buyers or sellers that violate our guidelines. We use that information to improve our algorithms, but we also look through that feedback manually to find and follow leads.”
Well, that’s nice to know. However, Cutts emphasizes, no matter how rigorous the quality assurance, there is good reason users may not want paid posts to make it through PageRank at all. He explains:
“If you are searching for information about brain cancer or radiosurgery, you probably don’t want a company buying links in an attempt to show up higher in search engines. Other paid posts might not be as starkly life-or-death, but they can still pollute the ecology of the web. Marshall Kirkpatrick makes a similar point over at ReadWriteWeb. His argument is as simple as it is short: ‘Blogging is a beautiful thing. The prospect of this young media being overrun with “pay for play” pseudo-shilling is not an attractive one to us.’ I really can’t think of a better way to say it, so I’ll stop there.”
Cynthia Murrell, May 27, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Tech Savvy Users Turn to DuckDuckGo
May 18, 2016
A recent report from SimilarWeb tells us what sorts of people turn to Internet search engine DuckDuckGo, which protects users’ privacy, over a more prominent engine, Microsoft’s Bing. The Search Engine Journal summarizes the results in, “New Research Reveals Who is Using DuckDuckGo and Why.”
The study drew its conclusions by looking at the top five destinations of DuckDuckGo users: Whitehatsec.com, Github.com, NYtimes.com, 4chan.org, and YCombinator.com. Note that four of these five sites have pretty specific audiences, and compare them to the top five, more widely used, sites accessed through Bing: MSN.com, Amazon.com, Reddit.com, Google.com, and Baidu.com.
Writer Matt Southern observes:
“DuckDuckGo users also like to engage with their search engine of choice for longer periods of time — averaging 9.38 minutes spent on DuckDuckGo vs. Bing.
“Despite its growth over the past year, DuckDuckGo faces a considerable challenge when it comes to getting found by new users. Data shows the people using DuckDuckGo are those who already know about the search engine, with 93% of its traffic coming from direct visits. Only 1.5% of its traffic comes from organic search.
“Roy Hinkis of SimilarWeb concludes by saying the loyal users of DuckDuckGo are those who love tech, and they use they use DuckDuckGo as an alternative because they’re concerned about having their privacy protected while they search online.”
Though Southern agrees DuckDuckGo needs to do some targeted marketing, he notes traffic to the site has been rising by 22% per year. It is telling that the privacy-protecting engine is most popular among those who understand the technology.
Cynthia Murrell, May 18, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Mastering SEO Is Mastering the Internet
May 5, 2016
Search engine optimization, better known as SEO, is one of the prime tools Web site owners must master in order for their site to appear in search results. A common predicament most site owners find themselves in is that they may have a fantastic page, but if a search engine has not crawled it, the site might as well not exist. There are many aspects to mastering SEO and it can be daunting to attempt to make a site SEO friendly. While there are many guides that explain SEO, we recommend Mattias Geniar’s “A Technical Guide To SEO.”
Some SEO guides get too much into technical jargon, but Geniar’s approach uses plain speak so even if you have the most novice SEO skills it will be helpful. Here is how Geniar explains it:
“If you’re the owner or maintainer of a website, you know SEO matters. A lot. This guide is meant to be an accurate list of all technical aspects of search engine optimisation. There’s a lot more to being “SEO friendly” than just the technical part. Content is, as always, still king. It doesn’t matter how technically OK your site is, if the content isn’t up to snuff, it won’t do you much good.”
Understanding the code behind SEO can be challenging, but thank goodness content remains the most important aspect part of being picked up by Web crawlers. These tricks will only augment your content so it is picked up quicker and you will receive more hits on your site.
Whitney Grace, May 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
A Not-For-Profit Search Engine? That’s So Crazy It Just Might Work
May 4, 2016
The Common Search Project has a simple and straightforward mission statement. They want a nonprofit search engine, an alternative to the companies currently running the Internet (ahem, Google.) They are extremely polite in their venture, but also firmly invested in three qualities for the search engine that they intend to build and run: openness, transparency, and independence. The core values include,
“Radical transparency. Our search results must be explainable and reproducible. All our code is open source and results are generated only using publicly available data. Transparency also extends to our governance, finances and day-to-day operations. Independence. No single person, company or special interest must be able to influence the order of our search results to their benefit. … Public service. We want to build and operate a free service targeted at a large, mainstream audience.”
Common Search currently offers a Demo version for searching homepages only. They are an exciting development compared to the other David’s who have swung at Google’s Goliath. Common Search makes DuckDuckGo, the search engine focused on ensuring user privacy, look downright half-assed. They are calling for, and creating, a real alternative with a completely fresh perspective that isn’t solely about meeting user needs, but insisting on user standards related to privacy, control, and clarity of results.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 4, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
An Open Source Search Engine to Experiment With
May 1, 2016
Apache Lucene receives the most headlines when it comes to discussion about open source search software. My RSS feed pulled up another open source search engine that shows promise in being a decent piece of software. Open Semantic Search is free software that cane be uses for text mining, analytics, a search engine, data explorer, and other research tools. It is based on Elasticsearch/Apache Solrs’ open source enterprise search. It was designed with open standards and with a robust semantic search.
As with any open source search, it can be programmed with numerous features based on the user’s preference. These include, tagging, annotation, varying file format support, multiple data sources support, data visualization, newsfeeds, automatic text recognition, faceted search, interactive filters, and more. It has the benefit that it can be programmed for mobile platforms, metadata management, and file system monitoring.
Open Semantic Search is described as
“Research tools for easier searching, analytics, data enrichment & text mining of heterogeneous and large document sets with free software on your own computer or server.”
While its base code is derived from Apache Lucene, it takes the original product and builds something better. Proprietary software is an expense dubbed a necessary evil if you work in a large company. If, however, you are a programmer and have the time to develop your own search engine and analytics software, do it. It could be even turn out better than the proprietary stuff.
Whitney Grace, May 1, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Duck Duck Go as a Privacy Conscious Google Alternative
April 26, 2016
Those frustrated with Google may have an alternative. Going over to the duck side: A week with Duck Duck Go from Search Engine Watch shares a thorough first-hand account of using Duck Duck Go for a week. User privacy protection seems to be the hallmark of the search service and there is even an option to enable Tor in its mobile app. Features are comparable, such as one designed to compete with Google’s Knowledge Graph called Instant Answers. As an open source product, Instant Answers is built up by community contributions. As far as seamless, intuitive search, the post concludes,
“The question is, am I indignant enough about Google’s knowledge of my browsing habits (and everyone else’s that feed its all-knowing algorithms) to trade the convenience of instantly finding what I’m after for that extra measure of privacy online? My assessment of DuckDuckGo after spending a week in the pond is that it’s a search engine for the long term. To get the most out of using it, you have to make a conscious change in your online habits, rather than just expecting to switch one search engine for another and get the same results.”
Will a majority of users replace “Googling” with “Ducking” anytime soon? Time will tell, and it will be an interesting saga to see unfold. I suppose we could track the evolution on Knowledge Graph and Instant Answers to see the competing narratives unfold.
Megan Feil, April 26, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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