Tumblr Tumbles, Marking yet Another Poor Investment Decision by Yahoo
April 14, 2016
The article on VentureBeat titled As Tumblr’s Value Head to Zero, a Look at Where It Ranks Among Yahoo’s 5 Worst Acquisition Deals pokes fun at Yahoo’s tendency to spend huge amounts of cash for companies only to watch them immediately fizzle. In the number one slot is Broadcast.com. Remember that? Me neither. But apparently Yahoo doled out almost $6B in 1999 to wade into the online content streaming game only to shut the company down after a few years. And thusly, we have Mark Cuban. Thanks Yahoo. The article goes on with the ranking,
“2. GeoCities: Yahoo paid $3.6 billion for this dandy that let people who knew nothing about the Web make web pages. Fortunately, this was also mostly shut down, and nearly all of its content vanished, saving most of us from a lot GIF-induced embarrassment. 3. Overture: Yahoo paid $1.63 billion in 2003 for this search engine firm after belatedly realizing that some upstart called Google was eating its lunch. Spoiler alert: Google won.”
The article suggests that Tumblr would slide into fourth place given the $1.1B price tag and two year crash and burn. It also capitulates that there are other ways of measuring this list, such as: levels of hard to watch. By that metric, cheaper deals with more obvious mismanagement like the social sites Flickr or Delicious might take the cake.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Database Divide: SQL or NoSQL
April 13, 2016
I enjoy reading about technical issues which depend on use cases. When I read “Big Data And RDBMS: Can They Coexist?”, I thought about the premise, not the article. Information Week is one of those once, high flying dead tree outfits which have embraced digital. My hunch is that the juicy headline is designed less to speak to technical issues and more to the need to create some traffic.
In my case, it worked. I clicked. I read. I ignored because obviously specific methods exist because there are different problems to solve.
Here’s what I read after the lusted after click:
Peaceful coexistence is turning out to be the norm, as the two technologies prove to be complementary, not exclusive. As much as casual observers would like to see big data technologies win the future, RDBMS (the basis for SQL and database systems such as Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB82, Oracle, and MySQL) is going to stick around for a bit longer.
So this is news? In an organization, some types of use cases are appropriate for the row and column approach. Think Excel. Others are better addressed with a whizzy system like Cassandra or a similar data management tool.
The write up reported that Codd based systems are pretty useful for transactions. Yep, that is accurate for most transactional applications. But there are some situations better suited to different approaches. My hunch is that is why Palantir Technologies developed its data management middleware AtlasDB, but let’s not get caught in a specific approach.
The write up points out that governance is a good idea. The context for governance is the SQL world, but my experience is that figuring out what to analyze and how to ensure “good enough” data quality is important for the NoSQL crowd as well.
I noted this statement from the wizard “Brown” who authored Data Mining for Dummies:
Users are not always clear [RDBMS and big data] are different products,” Brown said. “The sales reps are steering them to whatever product they want [the users] to buy.”
Yep, sales. Writing about data can educate, entertain, or market.
In this case, the notion that two technologies themselves content for attention does little to help one determine what method to use and when. Marketing triumphs.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2016
The Story of Google and How It Remains Reliable
April 13, 2016
I noted that Google Books offers a preview of “Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production System” by a gaggle of Googlers. The book will soon be available from O’Reilly which has given its permission to Google to provide a preview of a book about Google written by Google. You can also find a “summary” of the book at this link. I am not sure who DanLuu is, but the individual “likes this book a lot.” I would, therefore, conclude that he is either a Googler, a Xoogler, or a Googler in waiting.
From the introduction available on Google Books, it seems that the authors are Googlers. The information appears to be an explanation of some of the innovations produced by the Google in the last 15 years, a lot of the philosophy of speed and efficiency, and a bit of Google cheerleading.
What’s the book cover? Here’s a sampling of the subjects:
- A run down of Google’s philosophy of site reliability engineering
- The principles of SRE (eliminating boring manual work, simplicity, etc.)
- Practices (handling problems like cascading failure, data integrity). I would point out that Palantir moved beyond Google’s methods in its rework of Percolator to achieve greater reliability.)
- Management (more of engineering practices than orchestrating humans)
- Conclusions (Google learns which suggests other organizations do not learn).
Each of these sections is chopped into smaller segments. In generate, the writing is less academic than the approach into the technical papers which Googlers deliver at conferences.
You can order the book on Amazon too.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2016
Battlefield Moves Online Forming Cyber Industrial Complex
April 13, 2016
Undoubtedly, in recent decades many processes and products have moved online. Warfare may not be exempt from this migration. Meet The Cyber-Industrial Complex: Private Contractors May Get $7B Windfall From Pentagon’s Cyberwar On ISIS, an article from International Business Times, tells us more. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently confirmed U.S. development of digital weapons and training of online soldiers. According to the article,
“Cyberwar threatens to cause havoc worldwide, but it could be good for the U.S. economy and a handful of publicly listed companies. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, as part of a $582.7 billion budget request to fund his department through 2017, recently said nearly $7 billion of that will be allocated toward improving the military’s ability to develop and deploy offensive cyberweapons. That’s great news for a number of private contractors, who stand to benefit from the spending., and the highly skilled individuals they may end up hiring.”
The article explains these capabilities have been utilized by the U.S. in the past, such as the Kosovo war, but now the U.S. is claiming these tools and tactics. It is an interesting leap to visualize what attacks will evolve to look like on an online battlefield. Equally interesting is the article’s point about conflict being a business opportunity for some; it may also be true to say more problems, more money.
Megan Feil, April 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Tips on How to Make the Most of Big Data (While Spending the Least)
April 13, 2016
The article titled The 10 Commandments of Business Intelligence in Big Data on Datanami offers wisdom written on USB sticks instead of stone tablets. In the Business Intelligence arena, apparently moral guidance can take a backseat to Big Data cost-savings. Suggestions include: Don’t move Big Data unless you must, try to leverage your existing security system, and engage in extensive data visualization sharing (think Github). The article explains the importance of avoiding certain price-gauging traps,
“When done right, [Big Data] can be extremely cost effective… That said…some BI applications charge users by the gigabyte… It’s totally common to have geometric, exponential, logarithmic growth in data and in adoption with big data. Our customers have seen deployments grow from tens of billions of entries to hundreds of billions in a matter of months. That’s another beauty of big data systems: Incremental scalability. Make sure you don’t get lowballed into a BI tool that penalizes your upside.”
The Fifth Commandment remind us all that analyzing the data in its natural, messy form is far better than flattening it into tables due to the risk of losing key relationships. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments step back and look at the big picture of data analytics in 2016. What was only a buzzword to most people just five years ago is now a key aspect of strategy for any number of organizations. This article reminds us that thanks to data visualization, Big Data isn’t just for data scientists anymore. Employees across departments can make use of data to make decisions, but only if they are empowered to do so.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Inbenta on Track for Millions in Funding
April 12, 2016
Make sure you note the spelling of the company’s name. It is i-n-b-e-n-t-a. The company is involved in artificial intelligence and semantics. There is a Wikipedia entry here. I read “Barcelona AI Startup Inbenta To Close €10 Million Series B.” The write up points out that Inbenta opened its doors in 2005, which makes the company more than 10 years old. Nevertheless, the article describes Inbenta as a start up. The company generates more than US$8 million in annual revenue and is growing at a reported 60 percent each year. That is remarkable. Few companies engaged in search and content processing have been able to generate robust growth in the current economic thrill ride.
The write up reported:
Inbenta offers support features to businesses that want to make search better and smarter on their website. They do this through semantic search and artificial intelligence, and according to themselves decrease support costs and increase conversion rates.
The company’s Web site states:
Intelligent search for your customers. Provide search results that actually make sense. Let your customers find what they are searching for on your website. Reduce support cost and increase conversion.
These statements suggest that Inbenta is in the ecommerce search space which embraces companies like Endeca, EasyAsk, and SLI, among others.
I noted these technologies which are part of the Inbenta solution:
- Artificial intelligence
- Natural language technology
- Semantic clustering.
The company’s most recent news reports a solution called “hybrid chat.” The idea is that an “AI powered virtual assistance combined with human live chat [sic].” I think of this approach as “augmented intelligence.” Palantir has used this human-software method with some measure of success. Will Inbenta work a similar magic and hit a multi-billion dollar valuation as Palantir did?
What interested me was that Inbenta like Coveo has positioned search and content processing as a customer support solution. Inbenta seems to be nosing into the self service niche in ecommerce.
Those investing in Inbenta will be eager to watch the company’s growth rate because today’s investment in a 10 year old start up could grow into the next big thing. Inbenta’s apparent success might, however, spark some interest from Palantir-type companies to compete in this augmented service sector.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2016
AnalyzeThe.US, the 2016 Version?
April 12, 2016
I read “With Government Data Unlocked, MIT Tries to Make It Easier to Soft Through.” I came away from the write up a bit confused. I recall that Palantir Technologies offered for a short period of time a site called AnalyzeThe.US. It disappeared. I also recalled seeing a job posting for a person with a top secret clearance who knew Tableau (Excel on steroids) and Palantir Gotham (augmented intelligence). Ii am getting old but I thought that Michael Kim, once a Deloitte wizard, gave a lecture about how one can use Palantir for analytics.
Why is this important?
The write up points out that MIT worked with Deloitte which, I learned:
provided funding and expertise on how people use government data sets in business and for research.
The Gray Lady’s article does not see any DNA linking AnalyzeThe.US, Deloitte, and the “new” Data USA site. Palantir’s Stephanie Yu gave a talk at MIT. I wonder if those in that session perceive any connection between Palantir and MIT. Who knows. I wonder if the MIT site makes use of AngularJS.
With regard to US government information, www.data.gov is still online. The information can be a challenge for a person without Tableau and Palantir expertise to wrangle in my experience. For those who don’t think Palantir is into sales, my view is that Palantir sells via intermediaries. The deal, in this type of MIT case, is to try to get some MIT students to get bitten by the Gotham and Metropolitan fever. Thank goodness I am not a real journalist trying to figure out who provides what to whom and for what reason. Okay, back to contemplating the pond filled with Kentucky mine run off water.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2016
ID Agent Alerts Government Contractors to Cyber Risk
April 12, 2016
All kinds of information shows up on the Dark Web, including thousands of emails of federal contractors. A recent article from Fierce Government IT, Report: Thousands of contractor emails found on Dark Web, shares several findings from a study conducted by ID Agent, a firm promoting its Dark Web security intelligence product. The study, “Federal Supply Chain Analysis: Cyber Threats from the Dark Web” relied on historical data loss information regarding numbers of email accounts stolen to analyze contracting areas based on their cyber risk.
The write-up expands on where ID Agent sees opportunity,
“Having cyber criminals with access to these accounts is scary enough, but malicious actors operating on the Dark Web have also taken many more forms in recent years. “While stolen personal information is concerning, national and corporate espionage continues to play a major role in the activities conducted via the Dark Web,” the report noted. ID Agent is by no means a disinterested party in disclosing the risk of these email accounts, as it hopes to market its Dark Web ID product that regularly provides this sort of threat intelligence to customers. Still, the study’s findings are a wake-up call to government contractors and the agencies employing them.”
ID Agent uses a proprietary algorithm for situating the risk of various companies and organizations. While this is a new market space, they are certainly not the only game in town when it comes to security and intelligence solutions which take the Dark Web into account. This appears to be an expanding ecosystem.
Megan Feil, April 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
FBI Runs Child Porn Website to Take down Child Porn Website
April 12, 2016
The article on MotherBoard titled How The FBI Located Suspected Administrator of the Dark Web’s Largest Child Porn Site provides a comprehensive overview of the events that led to the FBI being accused of “outrageous conduct” for operating a child pornography site for just under two weeks in February of 2015 in order to take down Playpen, a dark web child porn service. The article states,
“In order to locate these users in the real world, the agency took control of Playpen and operated it from February 20 to March 4 in 2015, deploying a hacking tool to identify visitorsof the site. The FBI hacked computers in the US, Greece, Chile, and likely elsewhere.
But, in identifying at least two high ranking members of Playpen, and possibly one other, the FBI relied on information provided by a foreign law enforcement agency (FLA), according to court documents.”
Since the dial-up era, child pornographers have made use of the Internet. The story of comedian Barry Crimmins exposing numerous child pornographers who were using AOL’s early chat rooms to share their pictures is a revealing look at that company’s eagerness to turn a blind eye. In spite of this capitulation, the dark web is the current haven for such activities, and the February 2015 hacking project was the largest one yet.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
==
MarkLogic: Not Much Information about DI2E on the MarkLogic Web Site
April 11, 2016
Short honk: I have been thinking about MarkLogic in the context of Palantir Technologies. The two companies are sort of pals. Both companies are playing the high stakes game for next generation augmented intelligence systems for the Department of Defense. Palantir’s approach has been to generate revenues from sales to the intelligence community. MarkLogic’s approach has been to ride on the Distributed Common Ground System which is now referenced in some non-Hunter circles as Di2E.
You can get a sense of what MarkLogic makes available by navigating to www.marklogic.com and running a query for DI2E or DCGS.
The Plugfest documents provide a snapshot of the vendors involved as of December 2015 in this project. Here’s a snippet from the unclassified set of slides “Plugfest Industry Day: Plugfest/Mashup 2016.”
What caught my attention is that Palantir, which has its roots in CIA-type thought processes, is in the same “industry partner” illustration as MarkLogic. I noticed that IBM (the DB2 folks) and Oracle (the one-time champion in database technology) are also “partners.”
The only hitch in this “plugfest” partnering deal is Palantir’s quite interesting AlphaDB innovation and the disclosure of data management systems and methods in US 2016/0085817, “System and Method for Investigating Large Amounts of Data”, an invention of the now not-so-secret Hobbits Geoffrey Stowe, Chris Fischer, Paul George, Eli Bingham, and Rosco Hill.
Palantir’s one-two punch is AtlasDB and its data management method. The reason I find this interesting is that MarkLogic is the NoSQL, XML, slice-and-dice advanced technology which some individuals find difficult to use. IBM and Oracle are decidedly old school.
MarkLogic may not publicize its involvement in DCGS/DI2E, but the revenue is important for MarkLogic and the other vendors in the “partnering” diagram. Palantir, however, has been diversifying with, from what I hear, considerable success.
MarkLogic is a Silicon Valley innovator which opened its doors in 2001. Yep, that’s 15 years ago. Palantir Technologies is the newer kid on the block. The company was set up in 2003, that 13 years ago. What I find interesting is that MarkLogic’s approach is looking a bit long in the tooth. Palantir’s approach is a bit more current, and its user experience is more friendly than wrestling with XQuery and its extensions.
What happens if Palantir becomes the plumbing for the DCGS/DI2E system? Perhaps IBM or Oracle will have to think about acquiring Palantir. With technology IPOs somewhat rare, Palantir stakeholders may find that thinking the unthinkable is attractive.
What happens if Palantir takes its commercial business into a separate company and then formulates a deal to sell only the high-vitamin augmented intelligence business? MarkLogic may be faced with some difficult choices. Simplifying its data management and query systems may be child’s play compared to figuring out what its future will be if either IBM or Oracle snap up the quite interesting Palantir technologies, particularly the database and data management systems.
Watch for my for-fee report about Palantir Technologies. There will be a discounted price for law enforcement and intelligence professionals and another price for those not engaged in these two disciplines. Expect the report in early summer 2016. A small segment of the Palantir special report will appear in the forthcoming “Dark Web Notebook”, which I referenced in the Singularity 1 on 1 interview in mid-March 2016. To reserve copies of either of these two new monographs, write benkent2020 at Yahoo dot com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 11, 2016
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