Washington Hires Researchers to Spot Leakers Through Search
July 13, 2012
Wired’s Danger Room recently reported on “Fog Computing,” a spin off term from the cloud computing craze in the article “Feds Look to Fight Leaks With Fog of Disinformation.”
Gripped by a frenzy to capture insider leaks, in addition to going through the traditional methods of tapping phone lines and emails, Washington has hired researchers to come up with a plan to spot leakers by how they search. Darpa,the pentagon’s research arm, has also created prototype that will create decoy documents of believable misinformation to trap leakers in the act.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of faith in the effectiveness of this system. One of the tactics is to bury potentially useful information in worthless data which makes it more difficult for the leaker to know what to disclose.
Steven Aftergood, who studies classification policies for the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in an email:
“If only researchers devoted as much ingenuity to combating spurious secrecy and needless classification. Shrinking the universe of secret information would be a better way to simplify the task of securing the remainder. The Darpa approach seems to be based on an assumption that whatever is classified is properly classified and that leaks may occur randomly throughout the system. But neither of those assumptions is likely to be true.”
While the system still has some bugs, it does seem like this new technology has the potential to prevent another Wikileaks.
Jasmine Ashton, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by IKANOW
Mike Miller Joins the Digital Reasoning Team as Head of Sales
July 13, 2012
After receiving funding for a big data intelligence push last year, data analytics leader Digital Reasoning has been quite busy. Business Wire recently published a news release announcing “Mike Miller Named Digital Reasoning Executive Vice President of Sales.”
According to the story, Miller has over twenty years of experience in the software industry developing marketing strategies for a number of leading companies, in addition to serving as director of the Digital Reasoning Advisory board for nearly a decade. Under his new title, Miller will lead the Tennessee based firm’s client acquisition and retention in both government and commercial markets.
Rob Metcalf, Digital Reasoning’s President and Chief Operating Officer, stated:
“For nearly a decade, Mike has been a trusted advisor and director of Digital Reasoning, and we are extremely pleased that he can help us continue the acceleration of our business in an executive capacity. There are very few individuals who can match Mike’s experience in technology sales for public and private markets, and we’re thrilled to have him join our team.”
Based on Miller’s long tenure spent working as an executive for a multitude of software companies as well as his obvious passion for Digital Reasoning’s mission, we think that this is an excellent fit.
Jasmine Ashton, July 12, 2012
Some Search Solutions Difficult to Comprehend
July 13, 2012
Some bold assertions were made on Hortonworks which will likely be understood by azure chip consulting firms and “real journalists,” but were a little over this wee gosling’s head.
The article, “Search Data at Scale in Five Minutes with Pig, Wonderdog and ElasticSearch,” states how the three search solutions mentioned in the title make search easy, and then uses pieces of code and email to prove exactly how easy. However, the proofs given for Pig, Wonderdog, and ElasticSearch come up short. The article asserts:
“ElasticSearch makes search simple. ElasticSearch is built over Lucene and provides a simple but rich JSON over HTTP query interface to search clusters of one or one hundred machies. You can get started with ElasticSearch in five minutes, and it can scale to support heavy loads in the enterprise. […]
Apache Pig makes Hadoop simple. In a previous post, we prepared the Berkeley Enron Emails in Avro format.[…]
Wonderdog (contributed to open source via the Apache 2.0 license by Infochimps) makes searching Pig relations easy.”
The pieces of code and broken emails along with the general statements about simplicity above were not enough to convince us. We are struggling to comprehend Pig, Wonderdog, and ElasticSearch. However, we are just geese so our limitations are easily understandable.
Andrea Hayden, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google and Android Focus on Consumer Electronics
July 13, 2012
Reporter Galen Gruman suspects the youngsters at Google just want to be entertained. That’s one speculation he puts forth in InfoWorld’s “After I/O: Google Tries to be Sony, Hobbles Android’s Business Case.” The renaming of Android Marketplace to Google Play should have been our first clue that the company is veering toward the fun stuff, he says.
The article notes that, back in the day, Sony was a consumer-electronics powerhouse; the Walkman cassette player was as significant in its time as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad have been over the past few years. (Will I seem like a dinosaur if I admit I used to own one?) That pioneering company is the Sony of Gruman’s title, the example Google now seems to be reaching for.
Gruman provides several examples of both Google’s current consumer-electronics focus and ways in which the company is neglecting business applications; see the article for his logic and evidence. Search functionality, I suspect, falls into this apparently diminishing category. The article observes:
“That entertainment focus may be the right move for Google — there’s a lot of money in the space, and Apple is proving hard to beat in the business market even as Android does well in the consumer smartphone market. Furthermore, Google’s business is based on advertising, and having a play-oriented platform that collects data about where people spend their time and discretionary dollars — made possible in the new Google Now service in Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ — could reap Google billions as it sells individuals’ behavior profiles to consumer goods and services companies.”
Gruman speculates that Apple will move in to fill the business gap Android seems to be leaving. He also supposes that, as the median age of Google employees goes up, the company may return to a more business-oriented space. Perhaps.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Protected: Habit Changes Boost eDiscovery
July 13, 2012
Pros and Cons of Palantir?
July 12, 2012
It seems as though writer Dave Kellogg would love to hate analytics firm Palantir, if only he could. That’s my summary of his Kellblog entry, “Why Palantir Makes my Head Hurt.” Though he admits there are several things about the company he is forced to admire, his sense of fair play compels him to slam it in print.
Kellogg believes that Palantir is playing fast and loose with definitions for accounting reasons. For example, they claim to have no marketing, sales, or services. He also asserts that their positioning as a billion-dollar company is a stretch. (See the piece for his explanations.)
Kellogg admits to some bias borne of his experiences covering Palantir. He writes:
“It turns out being a naysayer isn’t fun work: for three years you sound like a whining, doubting-Thomas constantly on the back foot, constantly playing defense and then one day you’re proven right. But there’s no joy in it. And the naysaying doesn’t help sell newspapers so you don’t get much press coverage. And, in the end, all people remember is that ‘MicroStrategy was pretty cool back in the day’ and ‘Dave’s a grump.'”
Okay, so now we know where his head is at. Kellogg is conflicted, because he still thinks Palantir does several things very well; he calls them “the first SI to figure out how to build a world-class software business.” Sounds like he really admires the company. If only he didn’t despise them so.
Cynthia Murrell, July 12, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Protected: Random Sampling Aids Litigation Services
July 12, 2012
Food for Your Big Data Files
July 12, 2012
A couple of recent articles give us some observations about the field of big data. Karmasphere shares their research in “Karmasphere Unveils ‘Trends and Insights into Big Data Analytics’ Survey Results.” Meanwhile, Sys-Con Media answers the question, “Big Data & Analytics—What’s New?”
For the results of the Karmasphere study, click here (though you’ll have to register first.) The survey, performed this past May, assembled responses from 376 North American data analytics pros. One of the key findings: a lack of data experts in companies of all sizes is driving a need for self-service Hadoop access. Not surprisingly, SQL is seen as the primary skill set for data analytics. Also, big-data team members are widely being called upon to sport multiple (metaphorical) hats. Much, much more information is included; I think the full report is worth surrendering your email address.
In the Sys-Con article, Jnan Dash extols the progress of Hadoop. He writes:
“A friend of mine from my IBM days (an expert in Data Warehousing, BI, etc.) told me about the Hadoop conference he attended in San Jose few weeks back. When he attended the same conference two years ago in New York, there were hardly 200 attendees whereas this time, the number exceeded 2000 and it was a sold out event. This just proves how fast Hadoop has generated interest. He said that one theme in every presentation was the need for Hadoop skills as almost every presentation had a slide, ‘we are hiring’.”
Hiring is good. Very good. Make a note of it.
Dash shares his thoughts on three specific players in the Hadoop arena, Cloudera, Hortonworks, and MapR. He also plugs a couple of start-ups in the Hadoop-fueled business intelligence (BI) space, Datameer and Karmasphere. See the write up for more details.
He also notes that, because companies will not be eager to waste the existing investments in BI and analytics, integrating Hadoop with current technology will be a must going forward. Good observation.
Cynthia Murrell, July 12, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
The Ideal SharePoint User is You
July 12, 2012
Is everyone touched by SharePoint in their professional life, or does it just seem that way? The latest SharePoint infographic provides pretty good evidence for just that fact. If SharePoint wants to cater to their ideal user, and broaden their appeal to additional users, how do you define those user groups? Rackspace Hosting tackles the topic in, “Who Is The Ideal SharePoint User?”
The author makes the case:
Regardless of business size or industry, SharePoint’s vast tool set and custom application ecosystem is being used by both small and large industries in diverse business segments. More than 78 percent of Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint and 62 percent of workers use it everyday, according to numbers reported in our recently published SharePoint infographic. The Library of Congress, Viacom and Citibank all use SharePoint for different uses in their businesses. With such broad market penetration, SharePoint has found a way to deliver value to diverse types of organizations with highly specialized needs.
SharePoint has gained broad appeal and usage, but does it truly perform all of the specialized functions that different organizations need? Well yes, if you are willing and able to customize. For those who cannot afford a SharePoint consultant or a fulltime on-staff developer, a third party enterprise solution might be a good bet.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can work alongside an existing SharePoint deployment, or serve as a standalone solution. More importantly, it is highly intuitive and comes with the full support of the award-winning Mindbreeze team.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
British Confectionary Chooses Aras Solutions
July 12, 2012
Anyone who has ever worked in the food industry understands how tight the ship must be run. With health codes, regulatory issues and food lifespan to juggle food enterprises demand streamlined processes and little to no wasted time or materials. Those are the precise reasons Britain’s top confectioner, Kinnerton Confectionary, chose Aras PLM solutions as described in the article, “Kinnerton Confectionery Selects Aras Enterprise PLM”, on Virtual Strategy.
As the article details,
“Kinnerton Confectionery, Britain’s largest independent manufacturer of chocolate and novelty confectionery, has selected Aras enterprise PLM to drive productivity, improve efficiency and optimize product development. The Aras PLM solution suite will support Kinnerton’s large and diverse product portfolio through their Concept to Launch Process, workflow and process management, and product costing.”
Such a large enterprise requires a complicated and highly efficient PLM solution which Aras is more than able to offer. Smaller businesses quite often have just as high demands placed on them but do not have a budget to pay for expensive PLM solutions. For those small to midsized businesses needing PLM solutions but whom traditionally have been outside the PLM circle we recommend Inforbix. Their new data management solutions are customizable to fit any size enterprise and are also surprisingly affordable. Just because one’s company is not the largest in a country doesn’t mean one can’t benefit from the same PLM solutions.
Catherine Lamsfuss, July 12, 2012
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