Wikipedia Relies on Crowdsourcing Once More
May 9, 2016
As a non-profit organization, the Wikimedia Foundation relies on charitable donations to fund many of its projects, including Wikipedia. It is why every few months, when you are browsing the Wiki pages you will see a donation bar pop to send them money. Wikimedia uses the funds to keep the online encyclopedia running, but also to start new projects. Engadget reports that Wikipedia is interested in taking natural language processing and applying it to the Wikipedia search engine, “Wikipedia Is Developing A Crowdsourced Speech Engine.”
Working with Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Wikimedia researchers are building a speech engine to enable people with reading or visual impairments to access the plethora of information housed in the encyclopedia. In order to fund the speech engine, the researchers turned to crowdsourcing. It is estimated that twenty-five percent, 125 million monthly users, will benefit from the speech engine.
” ‘Initially, our focus will be on the Swedish language, where we will make use of our own language resources,’ KTH speech technology professor Joakim Gustafson, said in a statement. ‘Then we will do a basic English voice, which we expect to be quite good, given the large amount of open source linguistic resources. And finally, we will do a rudimentary Arabic voice that will be more a proof of concept.’”
Wikimedia wants to have a speech engine in Arabic, English, and Swedish by the end of 2016, then they will focus on the other 280 languages they support with their projects. Usually, you have to pay to have an accurate and decent natural language processing machine, but if Wikimedia develops a decent speech engine it might not be much longer before speech commands are more commonplace.
Whitney Grace, May 9, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
European Cybersecurity Companies
May 8, 2016
We’ve run across an interesting list of companies at Let’s Talk Payments, “Europe’s Elite Cybersecurity Club.” The bare-bones roster names and links to 28 cybersecurity companies, with a brief description of each. See the original for the descriptions, but here are their entries:
SpamTitan, Gemalto, Avira, itWatch, BT, Sophos, DFLabs, ImmuniWeb, Silent Circle, Deep-Secure, SentryBay , AVG Technologies, Clearswift, ESNC, DriveLock, BitDefender, neXus, Thales, Cryptovision, Secunia, Osirium, Qosmos, Digital Shadows, F-Secure, Smoothwall, Brainloop, TrulyProtect, and Enorasys Security Analytics
It is a fine list as far as it goes, but we notice it is not exactly complete. For example, where is FinFisher’s parent company, Gamma International? Still, the list is a concise and valuable source for anyone interested in learning more about these companies.
Cynthia Murrell, May 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
How Hackers Hire
May 7, 2016
Ever wonder how hackers fill job openings, search-related or otherwise? A discussion at the forum tehPARADOX.COM considers, “How Hackers Recruit New Talent.” Poster MorningLightMountain cites a recent study by cybersecurity firm Digital Shadows, which reportedly examined around 100 million websites, both on the surface web and on the dark web, for recruiting practices. We learn:
“The researchers found that the process hackers use to recruit new hires mirrors the one most job-seekers are used to. (The interview, for example, isn’t gone—it just might involve some anonymizing technology.) Just like in any other industry, hackers looking for fresh talent start by exploring their network, says Rick Holland, the vice president of strategy at Digital Shadows. ‘Reputation is really, really key,’ Holland says, so a candidate who comes highly recommended from a trusted peer is off to a great start. When hiring criminals, reputation isn’t just about who gets the job done best: There’s an omnipresent danger that the particularly eager candidate on the other end of the line is actually an undercover FBI agent. A few well-placed references can help allay those fears.”
Recruiters, we’re told, frequently advertise on hacker forums. These groups reach many potential recruits and are often password-protected. However, it is pretty easy to trace anyone who logs into one without bothering to anonymize their traffic. Another option is to advertise on the dark web— researchers say they even found a “sort of Monster.com for cybercrime” there.
The post goes on to discuss job requirements, interviews, and probationary periods. We’re reminded that, no matter how many advanced cybersecurity tools get pushed to market, most attack are pretty basic; they involve approaches like denial-of-service and SQL injection. So, MorningLightMountain advises, any job-seeking hackers should be good to go if they just keep up those skills.
Cynthia Murrell, May 7, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
IBM Uses Watson Analytics Freebie Academic Program to Lure in Student Data Scientists
May 6, 2016
The article on eWeek titled IBM Expands Watson Analytics Program, Creates Citizen Data Scientists zooms in on the expansion of the IBM Watson Analytics academic program, which was begun last year at 400 global universities. The next phase, according to Watson Analytics public sector manager Randy Messina, is to get Watson Analytics into the hands of students beyond computer science or technical courses. The article explains,
“Other examples of universities using Watson Analytics include the University of Connecticut, which is incorporating Watson Analytics into several of its MBA courses. Northwestern University is building Watson Analytics into the curriculum of its Predictive Analytics, Marketing Mix Models and Entertainment Marketing classes. And at the University of Memphis Fogelman College of Business and Economics, undergraduate students are using Watson Analytics as part of their initial introduction to business analytics.”
Urban planning, marketing, and health care disciplines have also ushered in Watson Analytics for classroom use. Great, so students and professors get to use and learn through this advanced and intuitive platform. But that is where it gets a little shady. IBM is also interested in winning over these students and leading them into the data analytics field. Nothing wrong with that given the shortage of data scientists, but considering the free program and the creepy language IBM uses like “capturing mindshare among young people,” one gets the urge to warn these students to run away from the strange Watson guy, or at least proceed with caution into his lair.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Why the UK Shouldn’t Be Concerned About the Gobbling up of Their Tech Industry
May 5, 2016
The article on MotherBoard titled Why the US Is Buying Up So Many UK Artificial Intelligence Companies surveys the rising tech community in the UK. There is some concern about the recent trend in UK AI and machine learning startups being acquired by US giants (HP and Autonomy, Google and DeepMind, Microsoft and Swiftkey, and Apple and VocalIQ.) It makes sense in terms of the necessary investments and platforms needed to support cutting-edge AI which are not available in the UK, yet. The article explains,
“And as AI increasingly becomes core to many tech products, experts become a limited resource. “All of the big US companies are working on the subject and then looking at opportunities everywhere—“…
Many of the snapped-up UK firms are the fruits of research at Britain’s top universities—add to the list above Evi Technologies (Amazon), Dark Blue Labs (Google), Vision Factory (also Google) that are either directly spun out of Cambridge, Oxford, or University College London…”
The results of this may be more positive for the UK tech industry than it appears at first glance. There are some companies, like DeepMind, that demand to stay in the UK, and there are other industry players who will return to the UK to launch their own ventures after spending years absorbing and contributing to the most current technologies and advancements.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Mastering SEO Is Mastering the Internet
May 5, 2016
Search engine optimization, better known as SEO, is one of the prime tools Web site owners must master in order for their site to appear in search results. A common predicament most site owners find themselves in is that they may have a fantastic page, but if a search engine has not crawled it, the site might as well not exist. There are many aspects to mastering SEO and it can be daunting to attempt to make a site SEO friendly. While there are many guides that explain SEO, we recommend Mattias Geniar’s “A Technical Guide To SEO.”
Some SEO guides get too much into technical jargon, but Geniar’s approach uses plain speak so even if you have the most novice SEO skills it will be helpful. Here is how Geniar explains it:
“If you’re the owner or maintainer of a website, you know SEO matters. A lot. This guide is meant to be an accurate list of all technical aspects of search engine optimisation. There’s a lot more to being “SEO friendly” than just the technical part. Content is, as always, still king. It doesn’t matter how technically OK your site is, if the content isn’t up to snuff, it won’t do you much good.”
Understanding the code behind SEO can be challenging, but thank goodness content remains the most important aspect part of being picked up by Web crawlers. These tricks will only augment your content so it is picked up quicker and you will receive more hits on your site.
Whitney Grace, May 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
A Not-For-Profit Search Engine? That’s So Crazy It Just Might Work
May 4, 2016
The Common Search Project has a simple and straightforward mission statement. They want a nonprofit search engine, an alternative to the companies currently running the Internet (ahem, Google.) They are extremely polite in their venture, but also firmly invested in three qualities for the search engine that they intend to build and run: openness, transparency, and independence. The core values include,
“Radical transparency. Our search results must be explainable and reproducible. All our code is open source and results are generated only using publicly available data. Transparency also extends to our governance, finances and day-to-day operations. Independence. No single person, company or special interest must be able to influence the order of our search results to their benefit. … Public service. We want to build and operate a free service targeted at a large, mainstream audience.”
Common Search currently offers a Demo version for searching homepages only. They are an exciting development compared to the other David’s who have swung at Google’s Goliath. Common Search makes DuckDuckGo, the search engine focused on ensuring user privacy, look downright half-assed. They are calling for, and creating, a real alternative with a completely fresh perspective that isn’t solely about meeting user needs, but insisting on user standards related to privacy, control, and clarity of results.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 4, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Do Businesses Have a Collective Intelligence?
May 4, 2016
After working in corporate America for several years, I was amazed by the sheer audacity of its stupidity. I came to the conclusion that many people in corporate America lack intelligence and are slowly skirting insanity’s edge, so when I read Xconomy’s article, “Brainspace Aims To Harness ‘Collective Intelligence’ Of Businesses” made me giggle. I digress. Intelligence really does run rampant in businesses, especially in IT departments the keep modern companies up and running. The digital workspace has created a collective intelligence within a company’s enterprise system and the information is either accessed directly from the file hierarchy or through (the usually quicker) search box.
Keywords within the correct context pertaining to a company are extremely important to semantic search, which is why Brainspace invented a search software that creates a search ontology for individual companies. Brainspace says that all companies create collective intelligence within their systems and their software takes the digitized “brain” and produces a navigable map that organizes the key items into clusters.
“As the collection of digital data on how we work and live continues to grow, software companies like Brainspace are working on making the data more useful through analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine-learning techniques. For example, in 2014 Google acquired London-based Deep Mind Technologies, while Facebook runs a program called FAIR—Facebook AI Research. IBM Watson’s cognitive computing program has a significant presence in Austin, TX, where a small artificial intelligence cluster is growing.”
Building a search ontology by incorporating artificial intelligence into semantic search is a fantastic idea. Big data relies on deciphering information housed in the “collective intelligence,” but it can lack human reasoning to understanding context. An intelligent semantic search engine could do wonders that Google has not even built a startup for yet.
Whitney Grace, May 4, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google Relies on Freebase Machine ID Numbers to Label Images in Knowledge Graph
May 3, 2016
The article on Seo by the Sea titled Image Search and Trends in Google Search Using FreeBase Entity Numbers explains the transformation occurring at Google around Freebase Machine ID numbers. Image searching is a complicated business when it comes to differentiating labels. Instead of text strings, Google’s Knowledge Graph is based in Freebase entities, which are able to uniquely evaluate images- without language. The article explains with a quote from Chuck Rosenberg,
“An entity is a way to uniquely identify something in a language-independent way. In English when we encounter the word “jaguar”, it is hard to determine if it represents the animal or the car manufacturer. Entities assign a unique ID to each, removing that ambiguity, in this case “/m/0449p” for the former and “/m/012×34” for the latter.”
Metadata is wonderful stuff, isn’t it? The article concludes by crediting Barbara Starr, a co-administrator of the Lotico San Diego Semantic Web Meetup, with noticing that the Machine ID numbers assigned to Freebase entities now appear in Google Trend’s URLs. Google Trends is a public web facility that enables an exploration of the hive mind by showing what people are currently searching. The Wednesday that President Obama nominated a new Supreme Court Justice, for example, had the top search as Merrick Garland.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 3, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Be the CIA Librarian
May 3, 2016
Research is a vital tool for the US government, especially the Central Intelligence Agency which is why they employee librarians. The Central Intelligence Agency is one of the main forces of the US Intelligence Community, focused on gathering information for the President and the Cabinet. The CIA is also the topic of much fictionalized speculation in stories, mostly spy and law enforcement dramas. Having played an important part in the United States history, could you imagine the files in its archives?
If you have a penchant for information, the US government, and a library degree then maybe you should apply to the CIA’s current job opening: as a CIA librarian. CNN Money explains one of the perks of the job is its salary: “The CIA Is Hiring…A $100,000 Librarian.” Beyond the great salary, which CNN is quick to point out is more than the typical family income. Librarians server as more than people who recommend decent books to read, they serve as an entry point for research and bridge the gap between understanding knowledge and applying it in the actual field.
“In addition to the cachet of working at the CIA, ‘librarians also have opportunities to serve as embedded, or forward deployed, information experts in CIA offices and select Intelligence Community agencies.’ Translation: There may be some James Bond-like opportunities if you want them.”
Most of this librarian’s job duties will probably be assisting agents with tracking down information related to intelligence missions and interpreting it. It is just a guess, however. Who knows, maybe the standard CIA agent touts a gun to the stacks?
Whitney Grace, May 3, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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