Cryptocurrency: A New Tool for Factions?
April 18, 2018
Cryptocurrency like BitCoin have been gaining a foothold as legitimate forms of financial transaction over the last several years. However, one of the richest areas in the world, The Middle East, has been reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. Religious beliefs have prohibited many Islamic investors from using crypto currency, though that may change according to a recent Economic Times story, “Cryptocurrency Traders Use Old Gold to Lure Islamic Investors.”
According to the story, “OneGram, is issuing a gold-backed cryptocurrency — part of efforts to convince Muslims that investing in crypto currencies complies with their faith.
“But because they are products of financial engineering and objects of speculation, crypto currencies sit uneasily with Islam. Sharia principles, in addition to banning interest payments, emphasize real economic activity based on physical assets and frown on pure monetary speculation.”
The Islamic world may not have to wait long. Just today a 22-page research paper was released that declared Bitcoin is compliant with Sharia Law and therefore acceptable in the Islamic religion. We are not ready to fully buy into this, since the story appeared on Bitcoin’s own Web site. However, if this is true, it could mean another massive surge in investors as the cryptocurrency gains more and more momentum.
For more information, learn more about the Dark Web, check out Dark Web Notebook.
Patrick Roland, April 18, 2018
Taking Time for Search Vendor Limerance
April 18, 2018
Life is a bit hectic. The Beyond Search and the DarkCyber teams are working on the US government hidden Web presentation scheduled this week. We also have final research underway for the two Telestrategies ISS CyberOSINT lectures. The first is a review of the DarkCyber approach to deanonymizing Surface Web and hidden Web chat. The second focuses on deanonymizing digital currency transactions. Both sessions provide attendees with best practices, commercial solutions, open source tools, and the standard checklists which are a feature of my LE and intel lectures.
However, one of my associates asked me if I knew what the word “limerance” meant. This individual is reasonably intelligent, but the bar for brains is pretty low here in rural Kentucky. I told the person, “I think it is psychobabble, but I am not sure.”
The fix was a quick Bing.com search. The wonky relevance of the Google was the reason for the shift to the once indomitable Microsoft.
Limerance, according to Bing’s summary of Wikipedia means “a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person typically including compulsive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to form or maintain a relationship and have one’s feelings reciprocated.”
Upon reflection, I decided that limerance can be liberated from the woozy world of psychologists, shrinks, and wielders of water witches.
Consider this usage in the marginalized world of enterprise search:
Limerance: The state of mind which causes a vendor of key word search to embrace any application or use case which can be stretched to trigger a license to the vendor’s “finding” system.
About That Google Question Answering: Books, Scholar, and Open Source at Its Talon Tips
April 17, 2018
Googzilla prides itself on consuming search queries. Answering those questions? That’s a matter for discussion. Note that here in Harrod’s Creek we understand that if Google does not point to an entity, Web site, or factoid—that entity, Web site, or factoid does not exist. Who knew that those in Harrod’s Creek were into epistemology?
However, Pagal Parrot found “10 Questions Even Google Can’t Answer.” Let us talk a look at the write up’s exemplary 10 questions:
“1. Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
2. Why are boxing rings square?
3.What is Satan’s last name?
4. Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?
5. Why is Google not the most translated website?
6. Why do banks charge a fee on ‘insufficient funds’ when they know there is not enough?
7. Why is it that people say they ‘slept like a baby’ when babies wake up, like, every two hours?
8. Why do Baidu lead Google in China?
9. Do Atheist also swear by the Bible /Quran when they go to court?
10. Why do people get angry each time another passenger sits beside them in a seat?”
These questions also beg another question: Do people spend time trying to dumbfound Google? It appears that the answer is, “Folks do try to bedevil the GOOG.”
The article is mostly for giggles, but there are definitely more than 10 questions Google cannot answer. Here is one: When will Google answer questions with precision and recall balanced for relevance and “accuracy”? Would advertisers respond to the functionality?
Whitney Grace, April 17, 2018
Online Tracking of Weapons Can Be a Challenge
April 17, 2018
Gun sales online are prompting a lot of governmental concern, but not just in America. Australia, a nation with one of the lowest gun violence rates in the world, recently began cracking down on dark web sales of firearms with the help of US authorities. The results were promising, but still a little concerning. We learned more from a recent Daily Mail article, “Gun Trafficking Groups Selling to Australia Have Been Sentenced.”
According to the story, a seller of guns that were sent to Australia recently got three years in prison for the illegal transactions. We learned:
“The Atlanta-based group advertised guns for sale on the underground website BlackMarketReloaded that operated on The Onion Router, which masks the identity of its users, according to prosecutors.”
However, finding them through the murky waters of covert internet sites was nearly as tough as physically locating the guns. The story also pointed out, “In an attempt to avoid detection in the US Post or overseas the group hid the firearms in electronic equipment before placing them in packages.”
The Herculean effort needed to capture this dark web gun lord sounds similar to the recent arrest of one of Europe’s biggest online arms dealers, who was tracked down in Spain. This was the result of multiple countries and multiple agencies working for months to find this single person.
Clearly, the task of wiping the Dark Web clean of guns is difficult, but thankfully not impossible. We hope to hear about more success stories like this in the future. For more information, learn more about CyberOSINT (the Dark Web) here.
Patrick Roland, April 17, 2018
DarkCyber for April 17, 2018, Is Now Available
April 17, 2018
DarkCyber for April 17, 2018, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/264827844
DarkCyber is a weekly video news and analysis program about the Dark Web and lesser known Internet services.
Push back from different organizations suggests that the unregulated, free wheeling days of digital currencies are winding down. France and Japan have taken action to curtail some digital currency practices. Plus Google and Twitter have banned ads for digital currencies.
In March 2018, Stephen E Arnold, producer of DarkCyber, was named to International Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Human Trafficking & Child Sex Abuse. He points out that as censorship increases, bad actors will step up their pace of innovation.
He said, “An uptick in the use of pastesites and encrypted chat make it increasingly difficult for investigators to identify and take action against those engaged in human trafficking and related crimes. Additional funding and faster cycle procurements of next generation are important priorities in the next six to nine months.”
DarkCyber answers a viewer’s question about the Katim secure mobile phone created by DarkMatter, a cyber security firm in the United Arab Emirates. The Katim device may be a market test or a way to determine interest in secure devices.
VPNs promise increased security for users. DarkCyber points out that a number of VPNs leak user data. Protocol flaws and VPN operators who keep logs of user behaviors make it clear that VPNs may be virtual, just not private.
For more information about DarkCyber, write us at darkcyber333 at yandex.com.
Kenny Toth, April 17, 2018
More about the Math Club Syndrome: Hey, Bro!
April 16, 2018
It was not that long ago that being a geek or nerd had negative connotations. Geeks and nerds were and continue to be targets for bullies, but the social stigma has changed. It is now okay to be smart, to be interested in science-fiction and fantasy, to watch cartoons in your adulthood, and to be good at something other than sports. Geeks and nerds always knew they would inherit the Earth…er…rule over society…er…find acceptance. Just as the underdogs thought they were gaining a foothold, Scientific American springs this on them: “Superior IQs Associated With Mental And Physical Disorders, Research Suggests.”
Being smart has many advantages, the article points out, including longer life, have healthier lives, and less likely to experience negative events. The journal Intelligence published a study that shows the downside of high IQs. Ruth Karpinsku from Pitzer College emailed a psychological and physiological disorder survey to Mensa members and the results found that smart people are more likely to have some serious disorders. The questions included ones about mood, anxiety, autism, and ADHD disorders and also asthma, allergies, and autoimmune problems. The respondents were asked if they were diagnosed or suspected they had the disorders and 75% of the Mensa said yes. Here are some more numbers:
“The biggest differences between the Mensa group and the general population were seen for mood disorders and anxiety disorders. More than a quarter (26.7%) of the sample reported that they had been formally diagnosed with a mood disorder, while 20% reported an anxiety disorder—far higher than the national averages of around 10% for each. The differences were smaller, but still statistically significant and practically meaningful, for most of the other disorders. The prevalence of environmental allergies was triple the national average (33% vs. 11%).”
Some of Karpinski’s findings and interpretations have been discussed in the scientific community before. Most of the findings that state more intelligent people spend more time analyzing and feeling anxiety over events like a boss’s comment is not new. The better question to ask is if Mensa people are more different from the average person, because they spend their time with intellectual pursuits instead of exercise or social interaction.
This is just another study about the difference between average and above average people. More research needs to be done before definitive conclusions can be drawn. Equality? Sure, anyone can join the Math Club. Will the real members tell you when the “real” meeting is? Duh.
Whitney Grace, April 16, 2018
Real Time Translation: Chatbots Emulate Sci Fi
April 16, 2018
The language barrier is still one of the world’s major problems. Translation software, such as Google Translate is accurate, but it still makes mistakes that native speakers are needed to correct. Instantaneous translation is still a pipe dream, but the technology is improving with each new development. Mashable shares a current translation innovation and it belongs to Google: “Google Pixel Buds Vs. Professional Interpreters: Which Is More Accurate?”
Apple angered many devout users when it deleted the headphone jack on phones, instead replacing it with Bluetooth headphones called AirPods. They have the same minimalist sleek design as other Apple products, but Google’s Pixel Buds are far superior to them because of real time translation or so we are led to believe. Author Raymond Wong tested the Pixel Buds translation features at the United Nations to see how they faired against professional translators. He and his team tested French, Arabic, and Russian. The Pixel Buds did well with simple conversations, but certain words and phrases caused errors.
One hilarious example was when Google translated the Arabic for, “I want to eat salad” to “I want to eat power” in English. When it comes to real time translation, the experts are still the best because they can understand the context and other intricacies, such as tone, that comes with human language. The professional translators liked the technology, but it still needs work:
“Ayad and Ivanova both agreed that Pixel Buds and Google Translate are convenient technologies, but there’s still the friction of holding out a Pixel phone for the other person to talk into. And despite the Pixel Buds’ somewhat speedy translations, they both said it doesn’t compare to a professional conference interpreters, who can translate at least five times faster Google’s cloud.”
Keep working on those foreign language majors kids. Marketing noses in front of products that deliver in my view.
Whitney Grace, April 17, 2018
Fake Fighters Flourish: Faux or No?
April 16, 2018
An article at Buyers Meeting Point draws our attention to a selection of emerging tools meant to stem the tsunami of false information online. In “Will New Startup NewsGuard Address Fake News in Internet Research?” editor Kelly Barner cites an article in the Wall Street Journal by NewsGuard creator L. Gordon Crovitz when she describes:
“The premise of the NewsGuard value proposition is interesting – Crovitz detailed the challenges caused by what has become a ‘news supply chain’. In many cases, we don’t get our news directly from the publisher, like we did in the olden days of newspapers. Instead we get news from another platform that is probably not dedicated to news: Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This obscures our awareness of the actual source and increases the risk of reading and sharing fake news. NewsGuard, set to be released in advance of the Midterm elections this November, will charge platforms – not publishers – to rate the reliability of the news sources running content on their site. ‘Instead of black-box algorithms, NewsGuard will use human beings to rate news brands Green, Yellow or Red depending on whether they are trying to produce real journalism, fail to disclose their interests, or are intentional purveyors of fake news.’ (WSJ, 3/4/2018). The largest investor in NewsGuard is Publicis Groupe, a France-based multi-national advertising and public relations agency. According to the Commentary piece, the ratings will be based on both NewsGuard’s experts and wisdom of the crowd. We are all wise to be concerned about the fake news in our midst. Is this the right solution?”
Good question. There are several competing AI tools designed to root out fake news, and the article lists Factmata, Storyzy, Trive, and Our.News, among others, as examples. (See the piece for more details.) Our primary question, however, remains—do they work?
The post reminds us that nothing can really replace critical thinking skills. As Barner concludes, “readers and researchers bear the ultimate responsibility for the information and sources they cite.” Indeed.
Cynthia Murrell, April 16, 2018
Google and the Great Forgetting
April 16, 2018
I noted the glee with which the Gray Lady explained “Facebook Takes the Punches While Rest of Silicon Valley Ducks.” Newspapers may be pummeled, but the New York Times has enough zip to remind me that Silicon Valley luminaries know how to do the ostrich thing.
However, I noticed that another newspaper was not distracted by the Facebook road show. The write up which caught my attention was “Google Loses Landmark Right to Be Forgotten Case.” I don’t know about the legal wrangling, but I understood that when a person is supposed to be expunged from the Google public-facing indexes, that means the indexes which the average user can access.
The issue is that Google indexes content and plugs the pointers, metadata, accession numbers, and other goodies into its system for fielding queries. Queries can come from a human or from a system process.
The Google method is a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine. The guts buried deep within wrapper upon wrapper of software is edging close to 20 years of service. Furthermore, getting information out of a sprawling, fragmented collection of data is not easy. Mostly pointers are deleted. But some of the information is spirited away by automated processes and tucked into digital nooks and crannies. Deleting some information can cause dependencies to return unexpected results. Deletions can translate to excitement quickly.
The write up points out none of the concerns about Google’s plumbing. The write up reported:
The information is of scant if any apparent relevance to any business activities that he seems likely to engage in,” the judge added. He said his key conclusion in relation to NT2’s claim was that “the crime and punishment information has become out of date, irrelevant and of no sufficient legitimate interest to users of Google search to justify its continued availability”.
What’s ahead?
Definitely some data pointer removals. And, of course, the thrill of figuring out if glitches become more than a minor annoyance. Perhaps criminals have the right to be forgotten? Beyond Search wonders, “Will those harmed by illegal actions will lose their memories as well.”
Here in Harrod’s Creek we think the task of removing pointers may be a prelude to a flood of metadata removal work.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2018
Russia and the US 2016 Elections
April 15, 2018
A Twitter storm pointed to a source claiming to have video from a Dutch TV crew showing Russians hacking the US elections. While the internet went predictably nuts, it was surprising how quickly reputable sources like Mother Jones picked up on what was later proved to be obviously fake. Steemit had a good perspective on the debacle in an article titled, “10 Reasons the Dutch-Russian Hacking Story is Fake News.”
According to the story:
“It never ceases to amaze me how intelligence agency narratives never fail to trip over their own shoelaces. How soon they forget, that one of their biggest attempts to discredit NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was over revelations he made about the USA hacking a major Chinese university, that were published by the South China Morning Post in June, 2013.”
Despite Mr. Zuckerberg’s confidence in artificial intelligence, smart software, Big data and algorithms teams continue to try to find digital solutions to this growing oddity, but it’s tough. The world of fake news is slippery and tough for human and AI eyes to pin down. We think people need to keep fighting this good fight, but ultimately common sense is the best fake news detector in the business. If it sounds too good or too bad to be true, it probably is. More importantly, perhaps assertions about the capabilities of smart software are themselves fake news?
Patrick Roland, April 15, 2018
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