Data Silos: Here to Stay
October 20, 2016
Data silos have become a permanent part of the landscape. Even if data reside in a cloud, some data are okay for certain people to access. Other data are off limits. Whether the data silo is a result of access controls or because an enthusiastic marketer has a one off storage device in his or her cubbies’ desk drawer, we have silos.
I read “Battling Data Silos: 3 Tips to Finance and Operations Integration.” This is a very good example of providing advice which is impossible to implement. If I were to use the three precepts in an engagement, I have a hunch that a barrel of tar and some goose feathers will be next to my horse and buggy.
What are the “tips”? Here you go.
- Conduct a data discovery audit.
- Develop a plan
- And my fave “Realize the value of the cloud for high performance and scalability.”
Here we go, gentle reader.
The cost of a data discovery audit can be high. The cost of the time, effort, and lost productivity mean that most data audits are limp wash rags. Few folks in an organization know what data are where, who manages those data, and the limits placed on the data. Figuring out the answers to these questions in a company with 25 people is tough. Try to do it for a government agency with dozens of locations and hundreds of staff and contractors. Automated audits can be a help, but there may be unforeseen consequences of sniffing who has what. The likelihood of a high value data discovery audit without considerable preparation, budgeting, and planning is zero. Most data audits like software audits never reach the finish line without a trip to the emergency room.
The notion of a plan for consolidating data is okay. Folks love meetings with coffee and food. A plan allows a professional to demonstrate that work has been accomplished. The challenge, of course, is to implement the plan. That’s another kettle of fish entirely. MBA think does not deliver much progress toward eliminating silos which proliferate like tweets about zombies.
The third point is value. Yep, value. What is value? I don’t know. Cloud value can be demonstrated for specific situations. But the thought of migrating data to a cloud and then making sure that no regulatory, legal, or common sense problems have been avoided is a work in progress. Data management, content controls, and security tasks nudge cloud functions toward one approach: Yet another data silo.
Yep, YADS. Three breezy notions crater due to the gravitational pull of segmented content repositories under the control of folks who absolutely love silos.
Stephen E Arnold, October 20, 2016
Semantiro and Ontocuro Basic
October 20, 2016
Quick update from the Australian content processing vendor SSAP or Semantic Software Asia Pacific Limited. The company’s Semantiro platform now supports the new Ontocuro tool.
Semantiro is a platform which “promises the ability to enrich the semantics of data collected from disparate data sources, and enables a computer to understand its context and meaning,” according to “Semantic Software Announces Artificial Intelligence Offering.”
I learned:
Ontocuro is the first suite of core components to be released under the Semantiro platform. These bespoke components will allow users to safely prune unwanted concepts and axioms; validate existing, new or refined ontologies; and import, store and share these ontologies via the Library.
The company’s approach is to leapfrog the complex interfaces other indexing and data tagging tools impose on the user. The company’s Web site for Ontocuro is at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, October 20, 2016
Google and the Mobile Traffic Matter
October 20, 2016
I read a couple of writes up about “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic.” Quite surprisingly there was a response to these “stealing” articles by Google. You can read the explanation in a comment by Malte Ubl in the original article (link here).
I noted these comments in the response to the stealing article:
- Mr. Ubl says, ““stealing traffic” is literally the opposite of what AMP is for.”
- Mr. Ubl says, “there are audience measurement platforms that attribute traffic to publishers. They might in theory wrongly attribute AMP traffic to the AMP Cache (not Google) rather than to a publisher because they primarily use referrer information. That is why we worked with them in worldwide outreach to get this corrected (where it was a problem), so that traffic is correctly attributed to the publisher. If this is still a problem anywhere, AMP treats it as a highest priority to get it resolved.”
- Mr. Ubl says, “AMP supports over 60 ad networks (2 of them are owned by Google) with 2-3 coming on board every week and makes absolutely no change to business terms whatsoever. There is no special revenue share for AMP.”
- Mr. Ubl says, “The Android users might have already noticed that it is now scrolling out of the way and the same is coming soon for iOS (we’re just fighting a few jank issues in Safari).”
AMP is, therefore, not stealing traffic.
I went back to my 2007 monograph “Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator,” and pulled out this diagram from a decade ago:
The user interacts with the Google, not the Internet for certain types of content. The filtering is far from perfect, but it an attempt to gain control over the who, what, why, when, and where of information access and delivery. © Stephen E Arnold, 2007, All rights reserved.
I offer this diagram as a way to summarize my understanding of the architecture which Google had spelled out in its patent documents and open source technical documents. (Yep, the GOOG did pay me a small amount of money, but that is supposed to be something you cannot know.) However, my studies of Google — The Google Legacy, Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator, and Google: The Digital Gutenberg— were written with open source content only.
Now back to the diagram. My research suggested that Google, like Facebook, envisioned that it would be the “Internet” for most people. In order to reduce latency and derive maximum efficiency from its global infrastructure, users would interact with Google via services like search. The content or information would be delivered from Google’s servers. In its simplest form, there is a Google cache which serves content. The company understood the cost of passing every query back to data centers, running each query, and then serving the content. Common sense said, “Hey, let’s store this stuff and knock out unnecessary queries.” In a more sophisticated form, the inventions of Ramanathan Guha and others illustrated a system and method for creating a sliced-and-diced archive of factoids. A user query for digital cameras would be handled by pulling factoids from a semantic database. (I am simplifying here.,)
In one of my unpublished presentations, I show a mobile phone user interacting with Google’s caches in order to eliminate the need to send the user to the source of the factoid.
Perhaps I misunderstood the technical information my researchers and I analyzed.
I don’t think Google is doing anything different today. The “stealing” idea comes from a person who finally takes a look at how the Google systems maximize efficiency and control the users. In order to sell ads, Google has to know who does what, when, where, and under what circumstances.
Today’s Google is now a legacy system. I know this is heretical, but Google is not a search company. The firm is using its legacy platform to deliver revenue and maximize that revenue. Facebook (which has lots of Xooglers running around) is doing essentially the same thing but with plumbing variations.
I am probably wildly out of step with youthful Googlers and the zippy mobile AMPers. But from my vantage point, Google has been delivering a closed garden solution for a long time.
My Google trilogy is now out of print. I can provide a fair copy with some production glitches for $250. If you are interested, write my intrepid marketer, Benny Kent at benkent2020@yahoo.com.
Stephen E Arnold, October 20, 2016
Multiple Vendors Form Alliance to Share Threat Intelligence
October 20, 2016
In order to tackle increasing instances of digital security threats, multiple intelligence threat vendors have formed an alliance that will share the intelligence gathered by each of them.
An article that appeared on Network World titled Recorded Future aligns with other threat intelligence vendors states that stated:
With the Omni Intelligence Partner Network, businesses that are customers of both Recorded Future and participating partners can import threat intelligence gathered by the partners and display it within Intelligence Cards that are one interface within Recorded Future’s platform
Apart from any intelligence, the consortium will also share IP addresses that may be origin point of any potential threat. Led by Recorded Future, the other members of the alliance include FireEye iSIGHT, Resilient Systems and Palo Alto Networks
We had earlier suggested about formation inter-governmental alliance that could be utilized for sharing incident reporting in a seamless manner. The premise was:
Intelligence gathered from unstructured data on the Internet such as security blogs that might shed light on threats that haven’t been caught yet in structured-data feeds
Advent of Internet of Things (IoT) will exacerbate the problems for the connected world. Will Omni Intelligence Partner Network succeed in preempting those threats?
Vishal Ingole, October 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
What Lurks in the Dark Web?
October 20, 2016
Organizations concerned about cyber security can effectively thwart any threats conditionally they know a threat is lurking in the dark. An Israeli SaaS-based startup claims it can bridge this gap by offering real-time analysis of data on Dark Web.
TechCrunch in an article Sixgill claims to crawl the Dark Web to detect future cybercrime says:
Sixgill has developed proprietary algorithms and tech to connect the Dark Web’s dots by analyzing so-called “big data” to create profiles and patterns of Dark Web users and their hidden social networks. It’s via the automatic crunching of this data that the company claims to be able to identify and track potential hackers who may be planning malicious and illegal activity.
By analyzing the data, Sixgill claims that it can identify illegal marketplaces, data leaks and also physical attacks on organizations using its proprietary algorithms. However, there are multiple loopholes in this type of setup.
First, some Dark Web actors can easily insert red herrings across the communication channels to divert attention from real threats. Second, the Dark Web was created by individuals who wished to keep their communications cloaked. Mining data, crunching it through algorithms would not be sufficient enough to keep organizations safe. Moreover, AI can only process data that has been mined by algorithms, which is many cases can be false. TOR is undergoing changes to increase the safeguards in place for its users. What’s beginning is a Dark Web arms race. A pattern of compromise will be followed by hardening. Then compromise will occur and the Hegelian cycle repeats.
Vishal Ingole, October 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Quote to Note: Enterprise Search As a Black Hole
October 19, 2016
Here’s a quote to note from “Slack CEO Describes Holy Grail of Virtual Assistants.” Slack seeks to create smart software capable of correlating information from enterprise applications. Good idea. The write up says:
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield has an audacious goal: Turning his messaging and collaboration platform into an uber virtual assistant capable of searching every enterprise application to deliver employees pertinent information.
Got it. Employees cannot locate information needed for their job. Let me sidestep the issue of hiring people incapable of locating information in the first place.
Here’s the quote I noted:
And if Slack succeeds, it could seal the timeless black hole of wasted productivity enterprise search and other tools have failed to close.
I love the “timeless black hole of wasted productivity of enterprise search.” Great stuff, particularly because outfits like Wolters Kluwer continue to oscillate between proprietary search investments like Qwant.com and open source solutions like Lucene/Solr.
Do organizations create these black holes or is software to blame? Information is a slippery fish, which often find “timeless black holes” inhospitable.
Stephen E Arnold, October 19, 2016
Twitter: Hitting the Character Limit
October 19, 2016
I read “Why Twitter is Dying.” I liked the write up. Unlike some of the twits twittering about the throttling of Twitter, the write up delivers useful analysis.
The article points out that some big names do not want to buy the darling of the Sillycon Valley set. Why? The author offers three possibilities:
- Either someone is trying to pull down Twitter’s price so that they can buy into it cheap or possibly take it over, salvage it.
- It is certainly not growing at a pace comparable to that of its new challengers.
- Today’s Twitter so very different from what they had originally signed up for that they are switching out.
Okay, MBA analysis. I circled in passionate purple this passage:
But worse than what the politicians have done to Twitter is what business has done. Sponsored trends and paid-for tweets are the biggest turn-off on today’s Twitter. What was once the world’s most charming flea market has now been hijacked by big business. With Trump loudly trumpeting his views to his 12 million followers, how can you hear the voice of the Dalai Lama who, in any case, speaks in hushed whispers? This brings me to my last question: Have we lost the ability to build and sustain new utopias? The virtual worlds we build are eventually becoming an exact replica of our own dystopian society. In the fall of Twitter lies that tragic realization.
Twitter reflects the modern world. Who would have guessed amidst the Kardashian-, Trump-, and other important matters of today?
We tweet headlines of the stories in Beyond Search. I know from examining usage reports, no one in the mass world cares much about the topics I find interesting. Some folks will miss Twitter if it flames out. Geofeedia is but one example. Then there is the business model. I know, “What business model?”
Stephen E Arnold, October 19, 2016
Sugar Polluted Scientific Research
October 19, 2016
If your diet includes too much sugar, it is a good idea to cut back on the amount you consume. If also turns out if you have too much sugar in your research, the sugar industry will bribe you to hide the facts. Stat News reports that even objective academic research is not immune from corporate bribes in the article, “Sugar Industry Secretly Paid For Favorable Harvard Research.”
In the 1960s, Harvard nutritionists published two reviews in medical journals that downplayed the role sugar played in coronary heart disease. The sugar industry paid Harvard to report favorable results in scientific studies. Dr. Cristin Kearns published a paper in JAMA Internal Medicine about her research into the Harvard sugar conspiracy.
Through her research, she discovered that Harvard nutrionists Dr. Fredrick Stare and Mark Hegsted worked with the Sugar Research Foundation to write a literature review that countered early research that linked sucrose to coronary heart disease. This research would later help the sugar industry increase its market share by convincing Americans to eat a low-fat diet.
Dr. Walter Willett, who knew Hegsted and now runs the nutrition department at Harvard’s public health school, defended him as a principled scientist…‘However, by taking industry funding for the review, and having regular communications during the review with the sugar industry,’ Willett acknowledged, it ‘put him [Hegsted] in a position where his conclusions could be questioned. It is also possible that these relationships could induce some subtle bias, even if unconscious,’ he added.
In other words, corporate funded research can skew scientific data so that it favors their bottom dollar. This fiasco happened in the 1960s, have things gotten worse or better? With the big competition for funding and space in scientific journals, the answer appears to be yes.
Whitney Grace, October 19, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
McPaper Broils Marissa Mayer: The Yahoo Saga Continues
October 19, 2016
I read “Marissa Mayer’s Diminishing Legacy at Yahoo.” My first reaction was, “What legacy?” I know that Yahoo, like Hewlett Packard, will become fodder for business school case studies. But legacy? The write up surprised me too. The write up includes some juicy quotes from “experts” about the firm; for example:
The most recent revelations (of spying) “are just kind of piling on,” says Rita McGrath, professor of management at Columbia Business School, who, like other management experts, concede Mayer’s failure to turn around Yahoo will shadow her. “I don’t think it’s like she was a goddess and now these revelations have destroyed her. It’s almost along the lines of, ‘We almost expected that.'”
Okay, a Xoogler fails. But “We almost expected that.” I knew Yahoo was struggling when the outfit hired a person with a questionable academic past. The Yahooligans have, in fact, had management issues for years. Anyone remember Terry Semel, who wanted to make Yahoo into a “media company.” I still don’t know what a “media company” means.
The write up states:
Nearly 50 members of Congress on Friday asked the Obama administration for more information “as soon as possible” on Yahoo’s cooperation with the government. Yahoo, in turn, has called itself a “law-abiding company.”
In today’s fractious political environment, getting 50 politicos to agree on anything suggests that the Yahoo thing is a big deal.
I found this statement fascinating because [a] it assumes that the Verizon deal will actually take place and [b] that Ms. Mayer is performing in an above average manner, which does not match up with my analysis. Anyway, here’s the expert’s sunny statement:
“She’ll be remembered as the CEO who sold Yahoo to Verizon,” says Greg Sterling, a contributing editor at Search Engine Land, a site that covers the search industry. He gives Mayer a “B” for her stint at Yahoo. “Her legacy will be judged, in part, on what Verizon does with Yahoo.”
I love the “B.”
A good turn of phrase is “suicide mission.” The idea that no manager could survive Yahoo is one that probably resonates with some Yahoohooligans. For me, I think of the company as YaHOOT: More of a comedy of craziness than an outfit ready for the 21st century.
The legacy notion caps the write up. The point, it seems to me, is that USA Today is happy with Ms. Mayer because she is a female CEO in the often testosterone fueled Sillycon Valley scene. I highlighted the following statement in apologetic purple:
Elizabeth Ames, senior vice president of alliances, marketing and programs at the Anita Borg Institute: “With so few women in these high-profile positions, it is a test case — and that’s a pretty big burden for anyone. And it holds true for minorities in the same situation.” Mayer also brought buzz, appeal and interest to Yahoo after two of her predecessors — Carol Bartz and Scott Thompson — damaged the company’s brand, according to Search Engine’s Sterling. “The burden of expectations was too great,” he says. “She herself couldn’t revive that company. She did as well as anybody can, but she couldn’t get the rock all the way up the hill.”
About that “B”: Were the acquisitions given a pass.
Stephen E Arnold, October 19, 2016
Fama Technologies: HR Gets Social
October 19, 2016
I read “The Tech That Hiring Managers Are Using to Screen All of Your Social Media Posts.” The “all” is a bit of an annoyance. There are social media posts which commercial enterprises may have some difficulty accessing. A couple of quick examples include forum comments placed in Dark Web discussion groups, certain encrypted messages, and content posted under a false identity (sock puppet or legend).
Moving on, the write up points to a company doing business as Fama Technologies. I circled this passage as a key point:
Los Angeles-based Fama Technologies has software that automates social media and web analysis to help companies make hiring decisions. The company uses artificial intelligence to pick up on any “red flags” that exist within a person’s online persona.
The idea is that before a person gets hired, companies are apparently now figuring out that looking at social media provides useful information. My thought: Why the big rush? Social media’s been around for more than a week or two.
What’s the cost of the Fama system? Subscriptions ring the cash register between $15,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
The company, according to the write up, has raised $1.7 million.
My goslings tell me that filtering “all” social media will require lots of money and some nifty work arounds. Mapping a false identity to a real person can be a difficult task. And there is that “all” notion.
Stephen E Arnold, October 19, 2016
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