IBM OmniFind Vulnerabilities
November 22, 2010
In Washington, DC last week I learned that IBM OmniFind 8.x and 9.x had some hitherto unknown vulnerabilities. Built on Lucene, the news is likely to cause indigestion among some of the open source champions pounding the polished halls in the corridors of power.
A bit of poking around yielded a link to the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology. A bit of a surprise was my failure to locate information on the IBM Federal Web site, but that’s probably my failings as an open source researcher, not IBM’s.
The information at http://security.fatihkilic.de/advisory/fkilic-sa-2010-ibm-omnifind.txt is likely to be of interest to anyone running OmniFind’s recent release. The problems include cross site scripting, a method for showing cookies, and a trick to add an administrator to the account.
Some of the problems have been known since 2009. My view is that the sluggish response to the alleged vulnerabilities and the lack of easy to find information about the alleged issue indicates that search is not really a priority at IBM.
I also think the open source community has to do some poking around as well. And what about the azurini? Busy thinking about their grade point average for Sociology or Photography.
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2010
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EasyAsk: Exclusive Interview with Craig Bassin
November 22, 2010
EasyAsk was one of the first search vendors who demonstrated access to structured and unstructured data from a single interface. The firm is now under new ownership, and I wanted to get an update about the company and its technology.
Last week, I was able to talk with Craig Bassin, a former partner in an investment firm. Mr. Bassin is now pushing EasyAsk forward and made his excitement about the company, its technology, and future palpable. The full text of my interview with Mr. Bassin is available in the Search Wizards Speak series at this link.
I want to highlight two points from the one hour interview because each provides useful insight into a company that can compete with such firms as Endeca as well as vendors of technology to organizations struggling with information retrieval.
First, Mr. Bassin calls attention to the EasyAsk natural language processing method. He said:
While EasyAsk also supports the navigational style of search we go much further in helping customers find what they want quickly. EasyAsk’s natural language approach allows buyers to enter an entire descriptive phrase of exactly what they want. The natural language and semantic processing engine understands the context of the search and returns accurate results on the first page, greatly increasing conversion rates. With EasyAsk, customers can chose how they want to find products, and they will find them faster… EasyAsk enables e-commerce websites to always return search results, reducing the number of lost visitors.
My take is that NLP technology is getting more attention now that the limitations of key word searching and laundry lists of results are more well known. (In fact, my column each month for KMWorld will address the use of NLP and semantic technology in the enterprise starting in January 2011.)
Second, I probed Mr. Bassin about EasyAsk’s enterprise solution. He told me:
As you well know, the typical enterprise search product is geared towards allowing users to search unstructured or semi-structured data using keywords to find documents they need. This is good when a user is looking for a specific document, like a contract or performance review. EasyAsk Business Edition addresses a completely different problem – giving casual users faster, easier access to corporate data. At our core, EasyAsk is all about Natural Language linguistic processing, that is, understanding the ‘intent’ of any given question, or query. We’ve extended our intuitive search capability into corporate data allowing users to search, analyze, report and share results. … We designed EasyAsk for casual business users who need immediate access to data so they can make informed decisions improving their ability to increase sales, service customers and execute operational processes. And, they can’t wait a few weeks for IT or a data analyst to get them a custom report.
To learn more about EasyAsk, navigate to www.easyask.com. You can read other interviews in the Search Wizards Speak series at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, November 22, 2010
Freebie but there is always hope…
Tific Putting Search in Back Seat
November 21, 2010
Tific is taking the wheel and relegating search to the back seat in the customer support market. A press release, “Tific Releases version 8 of its Award Winning Support Automation Platform”, on the company’s website announced the availability of the latest version of its Support Automation Platform.
The new platform “is used to automatically detect and remediate tech problems at the end-point,” making search the back-up method. Other aspects of the new version include extensive performance improvements, a communication redesign that enables remote development of self-healing solutions, extended reporting and improved statistics, faster development of solutions, and an extended library of content with support for digital home and security. Because it is “self-healing,” Tific can dramatically reduce service-support costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Search vendors are going to need to shift into high gear if they want to compete with Tific’s platform.
Christine Sheley, November 21, 2010
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UK and eDisclosure: Indifferent or Distracted?
November 21, 2010
Businesses in the United Kingdom are slow to wake when it comes to eDisclosure practices despite a rising number of requests. Results from Recommind’s second annual UK eDisclosure survey relayed in the Information World Review article, “UK Enterprises Still Not Ready for eDisclosure”, state that one in two businesses have seen request increases, but two-thirds of the respondents dedicated less than 5% of their IT budget to meet those needs with 32% not even able to search e-mail archives.
Simon Price, Recommind’s European director, believes that while UK businesses are paying attention, they are unprepared to move beyond e-mail and meet today’s eDisclosure challenges. “Increasingly companies are finding themselves in situations where they are required to produce information from a variety of other sources, which can be a time consuming and expensive process if it’s a matter of searching through volumes of information which have been left to grow totally unmanaged.”
We say: In a lousy economy the legal climate may turn nasty and quickly.
Christina Sheley, November 21, 2010
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TEMIS and Its Birthday
November 21, 2010
Whoops! We forgot to send TEMIS a birthday card! Did you? According to a press release posted on PR Newswire, “TEMIS, the Leader in Text Mining Celebrates its Tenth Birthday and Continues to Expand”, they celebrated their tenth year as a company in October. (It is okay. TEMIS forgot to thank ArnoldIT.com for the contact information it provided for free in April 2010. You thought elephants had long memories. Geese are right up there in the memory department.)
The article goes on to detail TEMIS’s journey from a start-up in 2000 to accumulating revenue in excess of $10 million with growth over 13% last year. Much of that success seems to have come from market consolidation and the ability to “adapt its solutions to tackle diverse business needs (market intelligence, research and innovation, opinion mining, voice of customer) and to the specificities of several industries (homeland security, life sciences, enterprise, publishing).”
We concede TEMIS is a leader in the industry. Our card is in the mail…just don’t make us sing.
Christina Sheley, November 21, 2010
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ArnoldIT Loses Best Engineer
November 20, 2010
Short honk: Just a quick note about the death of Tyson (Kenliko Canadian Mist, 2003-2010), a former American Kennel Club show dog with a technical bent. He died as a result of an auto-immune disease on November 20, 2010.
Tyson’s parents hailed from Germany and the United States. In this photograph he is looking at one of the geese who winter in Harrod’s Creek. Chasing geese was one of his favorite activities after testing search algorithms.
Like our other computer-savvy engineers, Tyson contributed to numerous Google research projects, and he was particularly interested in new clients. His judgment was impeccable.
After many successful appearances in dog shows, he gave up the bright lights and female boxers to work on search and content processing in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
Not long ago, we asked him, “What do you think about the next-generation of enterprise search and content processing solutions.” He replied, “Not happy.”
He added, “Why can’t these vendors focus on facts when describing their products?”
You can see from his expression that he had more to say about search and the mid tier consultants, former English majors reinvented as programmers, and the marketing fast dancers in this sector.
He was a great worker and a colleague of few words. Now it’s back to work at ArnoldIT.
Just lonely today in the server room, though.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2010
No one paid me to write this.
Google and Its Off News Day Announcements
November 20, 2010
I have been dealing with government types without an Internet connection. Imagine my surprise a few minutes ago (about 8 pm Eastern on November 18, 2010) when I saw in my newsreader these hot stories:
- 10 Times More Android Apps. This is a Google story, and I find the order of magnitude interesting. I don’t use apps on any platform so the announcement strikes me as PR. What’s Apple got in the app department? Too many and I can’t locate much on any of the mobile app stores. At age 66, apps are not part of my equipment for living.
- FIOS and Google TV Ads. The point of this Google story is “big”. I don’t know if I want any vendors’ Web TV because I don’t care about TV. Even the Web is a little yesterday for me. And Google TV? Too complex by a half.
- Google Sky Map and Time Travel. Sorry. Don’t care about this either. Maps are okay but the time travel thing is not for me. Maybe some day, but I am not a sci-fi guy.
I may be tired. DC does that to me. But these are trivial announcements. What’s the Google trying to do?
A meaningful item can get lost in the trivial. The item I noted is that Google Apps get their teeth straightened. Click here for info.
Get a better PageRank for its own content. News like this reminds me of the charlatans who practice the search engine optimization barnyard. Surprising. How about some bug fixes for the Google Search Appliance? How about tweaking the performance of the gratuitous page displays? How about objective search results? Just some questions from the airport. Thin gruel for this information goose.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2010
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Socialtext Chases Salesforce Search
November 20, 2010
In “Socialtext 4.5 Searches Metadata & Connects Salesforce.com” CMS Wire reports that Socialtext has debuted its newest version which features a metadata search, called Socialtext Explore, and a Salesforce.com connector. The Salesforce connector brings together a shared activity stream and Socialtext uses metadata to make topics searchable. This shared work stream features not just documents and Web sites, but context around any shared work. Socialtext’s CEO Eugene Lee puts it this way: “”Right now, employees waste a day a week looking for people and information. By bridging information silos and making it simpler for people to share and discover work with colleagues, Socialtext 4.5 accelerates business performance and the speed with which employees can serve their customers.” This new version is debuting only six months after the 4.0 version, highlighting just how fast innovations in shared work across companies are appearing, and it sounds like Socialtext is staying ahead of the game with this one.
Alice Wasielewski, November 20, 2010
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No Longer Lost in Translation
November 20, 2010
As someone who worked for several years in South Korea dealing with the language barrier, I’m always interested in translation software. I’ve found that Google Translate has gotten better and better since its debut, but it still can’t truly translate accurately. Translation software still needs some human intervention, but yet companies need to automate as much as possible to decrease costs.
Two recent stories reflect the intersection the human and the machine in translation services, with the machine achieving increasing importance. SAIC Expands Human Language Technology Offerings for Federal and Commercial Customers tells of the Fortune 500 company’s acquisition of technology, intellectual property, and related assets from AppTek Partners, Applications Technology, and Media Mind. SAIC is expanding its already widely-used human translation and interpretation services through these faster automated services. In sum: “The deal will bolster SAIC’s existing portfolio of more than 70 languages and dialects, helping linguists provide enhanced translation, interpretation and analysis service to U.S. government and commercial firm decision makers.”
In related news, Lingotek Enables Users to Easily Translate SharePoint Content reports on the translation software’s new directly embedded language tool, which allows users to translate within SharePoint. The value to clients is that “By combining best-in-class machine translation solutions and real-time community translations, SharePoint users will be able to produce ‘real time’ volunteer translations in a third amount of the time while reducing large costs.” This is a boon for SharePoint users, who will no longer have to do their translation outside the program. Both these stories reflect that automated translation saves money, but I wonder if the machine will ever be able to completely replace the human factor.
Alice Wasielewski, November 20, 2010
Free Oracle Text Primer
November 19, 2010
From the blog Learn from Noah’s Ark, we have an excellent overview of Oracle Text. Oracle Text is built into the Standard and Enterprise versions of Oracle 11g, and “uses standard SQL to index, search, and analyze text stored in structured form inside Oracle database, or in unstructured form in either local file system, or on the Web.” Oracle Text supports multiple languages, offers many different ways of searching including keyword and Boolean, and allows users to receive search results in a variety of formats. The useful write-up of Oracle Text featured here includes information on the features of Oracle Text, an overview of the SQL API used in Oracle Text, a primer on creating indices in Oracle Text, and details on document services found within Oracle Text. A handy list of resources is useful for those who want or need more in-depth information on this product. No tips about improving performance on a shoestring, however.
Laura Amos, November 19, 2010
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