Falcon Searches Through Browser History
October 21, 2016
Have you ever visited a Web site and then lost the address or could not find a particular section on it? You know that the page exists, but no matter how often you use an advanced search feature or scour through your browser history it cannot be found. If you use Google Chrome as your main browser than there is a solution, says GHacks in the article, “Falcon: Full-Text history Search For Chrome.”
Falcon is a Google Chrome extension that adds full-text history search to a browser. Chrome usually remembers Web sites and their extensions when you type them into the address bar. The Falcon extension augments the default behavior to match text found on previously visited Web Sites.
Falcon is a search option within a search feature:
The main advantage of Falcon over Chrome’s default way of returning results is that it may provide you with better results. If the title or URL of a page don’t contain the keyword you entered in the address bar, it won’t be displayed by Chrome as a suggestion even if the page is full of that keyword. With Falcon, that page may be returned as well in the suggestions.
The new Chrome extension acts as a delimiter to recorded Web history and improves a user’s search experience so they do not have to sift through results individually.
Whitney Grace, October 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Labor Shortage of Cyber Security Professionals
October 13, 2016
It’s no surprise that hackers may be any age, but that teenagers could cause 60 million pounds worth of damage to a corporation is newsworthy, regardless of age. The Telegraph published an article, From GCHQ to Google: the battle to outpace hackers in the cyber race, reporting on this. A 15-year-old boy hacked the TalkTalk computer network stole personal data, including financial information, of 157,000 customers. This comes at a time when the UK government announced plans to invest £1.9 billion in cyber security over the next five years. We also learned,
No amount of money will help overcome one of the greatest difficulties in the security industry though: the lack of skilled people. By 2019 there will be a global shortfall of 1.5 million security professionals, according to ISC Squared, a security certification and industry education body. And the numbers could in fact be significantly higher, given that there are already more than 1 million cybersecurity positions unfilled worldwide, according to a 2015 Cisco report. Heading up the government’s move to train more cyber defenders is spook agency GCHQ, which sponsors academic bursaries, runs summer camps and training days, holds competitions and has created a cyber excellence accreditation for top universities and masters programmes. The intention is to spot talent in children and nurture them through their education, with the end goal being a career in the industry.
The problem of for any rocketing industry ready to blast off always seems to boil down to people. We have seen it with big data in all of it’s forms from electronic medical records to business analytics to cyber security. It seems industry is most fertile when people and technology work best stride-by-stride.
Megan Feil, October 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Bing Finally Turned a Profit
October 7, 2016
Bing is the redheaded stepchild of search engines, but according to the Motley Fool the Microsoft owned search engine started to earn a profit during its last fiscal year. The Motley Fool shares the story in “Bing Became Profitable Last Year. Can It Keep Up?” Bing’s search advertising generated $5.5 billion in estimated revenue, which is more than what Twitter and Tencent earned. Into 2016, Bing continues to turn a profit.
Bing’s revenue grew in Microsoft’s last fiscal year quarter and in June 40% of the search revenue came from Windows 10 devices. When the free Windows 10 upgrade ends soon and thus will end the growth, as Bing will no longer be see a high adoption rate. Microsoft will continue to grow Bing and profit is predicted to continue to rise:
One important factor is that Microsoft outsourced its display advertising business at the beginning of fiscal 2016. That has allowed the company to focus its sales team on its search advertisements, which generally carry higher prices and margins than display ads. That makes the sales team more cost-efficient for Microsoft to run while it collects high-margin revenue from outsourcing its display ads.
This means Microsoft will raise its ad prices and will focus on selling more ads to appear with search results. Bing will never compete with Google’s massive revenue, but it has proven that it is less of a copycat and a stable, profit generating search engine.
Whitney Grace, October 7, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Lexmark Upgrades Its Enterprise Search
September 30, 2016
Enterprise search has taken a back a back seat to search news regarding Google’s next endeavor and what the next big thing is in big data. Enterprise search may have taken a back seat in my news feed, but it is still a major component in enterprise systems. You can even speculate that without a search function, enterprise systems are useless.
Lexmark, one of the largest suppliers of printers and business solutions in the country, understand the importance of enterprise search. This is why they recently updated the description of its Perceptive Enterprise Search in its system’s technical specifications:
Perceptive Enterprise Search is a suite of enterprise applications that offer a choice of options for high performance search and mobile information access. The technical specifications in this document are specific to Perceptive Enterprise Search version 10.6…
A required amount of memory and disk space is provided. You must meet these requirements to support your Perceptive Enterprise Search system. These requirements specifically list the needs of Perceptive Enterprise Search and do not include any amount of memory or disk space you require for the operating system, environment, or other software that runs on the same machine.
Some technical specifications also provide recommendations. While requirements define the minimum system required to run Perceptive Enterprise Search, the recommended specifications serve as suggestions to improve the performance of your system. For maximum performance, review your specific environment, network, and platform capabilities and analyze your planned business usage of the system. Your specific system may require additional resources above these recommendations.”
It is pretty standard fare when it comes to technical specifications, in other words, not that interesting but necessary to make the enterprise system work correctly.
Whitney Grace, September 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
EasyAsk Has a Sticky Search
September 29, 2016
When I first began reading the EasyAsk article, “Search Laboratory: Rock ‘n’ Roll Lab Rats” it has the typical story about search difficulties and the importance about an accurate, robust search engine. They even include video featuring personified search engines and the troubles a user goes through to locate a simple item, although the video refers to Google Analytics. The article pokes fun at EasyAsk employees and how they develop the Search Lab, where they work on improving search functions.
One of the experiments that Search Lab worked on is “sticky search.” What is sticky search? Do you throw a keyword reel covered in honey into the Web pool and see what returns? Is it like the Google “I Feel Lucky” button. None of these are correct. The Search Lab conducted an experiment where the last search term was loaded into the search box when a user revisited. The Search Lab tracked the results and discovered:
As you can see, the sticky search feature was used by close-to one third of the people searching from the homepage, but by a smaller proportion of people on other types of page. Again, this makes sense as you’re more likely to use the homepage as a starting point when your intention is to return to a previously viewed product. We had helped 30% of people searching from our homepage get to where they wanted to go more quickly, but added inconvenience to the other two thirds (and 75% of searchers across the site as a whole) because to perform their searches, rather than just tapping the search box and beginning to type they now had to erase the old (sticky) search term too.
In other words, it was annoying. Search Lab retracted the experiment, but it was a decent effort to try something new even if the results could have been predicted. Keep experimenting with search options SearchLab, but keep the search box empty.
Whitney Grace, September 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Googley Spin-Offs Underwhelm
September 29, 2016
One might think that starting out as a derivative of one of the most successful companies in the world would be a sure path to profits. Apparently one would be wrong. The Telegraph reports, “Alphabet’s Spin-Offs are Struggling to Repeat the Google Success Story.” Readers will recall that Alphabet was created last year as the holding company for Google and its derivatives, like Calico, Google Capital, Nest, Google Ventures, Verily, and X. Writer James Titcomb explains the logic behind the move:
The theory behind Alphabet, when Page laid it out in August, made sense. Google had become more than just an internet services and advertising company, even though the main internet business still made all the money. Google had set up units such as Calico, a life sciences division trying to eradicate death; Project Loon, which is trying to beam the internet to rural Asia with gigantic space balloons; and Boston Dynamics, which is trying to build humanoid robots.
These ‘moonshots’ weren’t able to realize their potential within the confines of a company focused on selling pay-per-click internet advertising, so they were separated from it. Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s two co-founders, left the everyday running of the internet business to their trusted lieutenant, Sundar Pichai, who had been effectively doing it anyway.
Being liberated from Google, the moonshots were supposed to thrive under the Alphabet umbrella. Have they? The early signs are not good.
The article concedes that Alphabet expected to lose money on some of these derivative projects, but notes that the loss has been more than expected—to the tune of some $3.6 billion. Titcomb examines Nest, Google’s smart-thermostat initiative, as an example; its once-bright future is not looking up at the moment. Meanwhile, we’re reminded, Apple is finding much success with its services division. See the article for more details on each company.
Will Alphabet continue to use Google Search’s stellar profits to prop up its pet projects? Consider that, from the beginning, one of the companies’ winning strategies has been to try anything and run with what proves successful; repeated failure as a path to success. I predict Alphabet will never relinquish its experimental streak.
Cynthia Murrell, September 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Microsoft Looks Slightly Desperate Paying People to Use Edge and Bing
September 28, 2016
The article on Business Insider titled Microsoft Will Actually Pay You to Use Its Newest Web Browser shows the evolution of Microsoft’s program from using Bing Rewards to their own Microsoft Rewards. Originally, just using Bing could earn users points towards Starbucks, Amazon, and Hulu, to name a few. Microsoft is now rebranding and expanding the program to incentivize users to spend time on Microsoft Edge, the child of Internet Explorer. The article states,
So long as you’re actively using Microsoft Edge — defined as having the Edge window open and actually using it to browse the web…— you’ll accrue points that can be redeemed for prizes, up to 30 hours’ worth a month. While Windows 10 is on over 350 million active devices, the Edge browser hasn’t quite made the splash that Microsoft had hoped for. Current numbers place Edge usage at just over 4.2% of the overall browser market.
The article makes a point of mentioning that for this program to work for users, they can’t just have Microsoft Edge open. They also must use Microsoft Bing as their default search engine. Without that setup, no points for you. Some users might jump at the chance to get paid for doing practically nothing, but others might be less than willing to expose themselves to being tracked by Microsoft. Still others might wince at the idea of giving up their Google default. Microsoft Edge: the broke person’s Google Chrome.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 28, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Uncertain Fate of OpenOffice
September 27, 2016
We are in danger of losing a popular open-source alternative to the Microsoft Office suite, we learn from the piece, “Lack of Volunteer Contributors Could Mean the End for OpenOffice” at Neowin. Could this the fate of open source search, as well?
Writer William Burrows observes that few updates for OpenOffice have emerged of late, only three since 2013, and the last stable point revision was released about a year ago. More strikingly, it took a month to patch a major security flaw over the summer, reports Burrows. He goes on to summarize OpenOffice’s 14-year history, culminating it the project’s donation to Apache by Oracle in 2011. It appears to have been downhill from there. The article tells us:
It was at this point that a good portion of the volunteer developer base reportedly moved onto the forked LibreOffice project. Since becoming Apache OpenOffice, activity on project has diminished significantly. In a statement by Dennis Hamilton, the project’s volunteer vice president, released in an email to the mailing list it was suggested that “retirement of the project is a serious possibility” citing concerns that the current team of around six volunteer developers who maintain the project may not have sufficient resources to eliminate security vulnerabilities. There is still some hope for OpenOffice, though, with some of the contributors suggesting that discussion about a shutdown may be a little premature, and that attracting new contributors is still possible.
In fact, OpenOffice was downloaded over 29 million times last year, so obviously it still has a following. LibreOffice is currently considered more successful, but that could change if OpenOffice manages to attract a resurgence of developers willing to contribute to the project. Any volunteers?
Cynthia Murrell, September 27, 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/
Open Source Log File Viewer Glogg
September 21, 2016
Here is an open source solution for those looking to dig up information within large and complex log files; BetaNews shares, “View and Search Huge Log Files with Glogg.” The software reads directly from your drive, saving time and keeping memory free (or at least as free as it was before.) Reviewer, Mike Williams tells us:
Glogg’s interface is simple and uncluttered, allowing anyone to use it as a plain text viewer. Open a log, browse the file, and the program grabs and displays new log lines as they’re added. There’s also a search box. Enter a plain text keyword, a regular or extended regular expression and any matches are highlighted in the main window and displayed in a separate pane. Enable ‘auto-refresh’ and glogg reruns searches as lines are added, ensuring the matches are always up-to-date. Glogg also supports ‘filters’, essentially canned searches which change text color in the document window. You could have lines containing ‘error’ displayed as black on red, lines containing ‘success’ shown black on green, and as many others as you need.
Williams spotted some more noteworthy features, like a quick-text search, highlighted matches, and helpful Next and Previous buttons. He notes the program is not exactly chock-full of fancy features, but suggests that is probably just as well for this particular task. Glogg runs on 64-bit Windows 7 and later, and on Linux.
Cynthia Murrell, September 21, 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/
Is the UK Tolling the App Death Knell for Government Services?
September 14, 2016
The article titled Why Britain Banned Mobile Apps on GovInsider introduces Ben Terret and the innovative UK Government Digital Service program, the first of its kind in the world. Terret spearheaded a strict “no apps” policy in favor of websites while emphasizing efficiency, clarity, cost savings, and relevance of the information. This all adds up to creating a simple and streamlined experience for UK citizens. Terret explains why this approach is superior in an app-crazed world,
Apps are “very expensive to produce, and they’re very very expensive to maintain because you have to keep updating them when there are software changes,” Terrett says. “I would say if you times that by 300, you’re suddenly talking about a huge team people and a ton of money to maintain that ecosystem”…Sites can adapt to any screen size, work on all devices, and are open to everyone to use regardless of their device.
So what do these websites look like? They are clean, simple, and operated under the assumption that “Google is the homepage.” Terrett measures the success of a given digital services by monitoring how many users complete a transaction, or how many continued to search for additional information, documents, or services. Terrett’s argument against apps is a convincing one, especially based on the issue of cutting expenses. Whether this argument translates into the private sector is another question.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 14, 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/
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