Search: The Dead Cat Bounces
October 6, 2016
I read two articles about the future of search. The first was a series of remarks in a podcast by Christopher Issac Stone, aka Biz. In a nutshell, one finds information by asking people.
The other write up was “If I Ran Google (Why the Future of Search Will Diverge from Its Present and Past.” The author of this article is a “multi time bestselling author.” The “A” was capitalized.
The two views of the future of search underscores the perception that keyword search is dead. Text is uninteresting. Search systems are bouncing like a dead cat; that is, typing words in a search box and looking for germane information is not where the world of users wants to go. Hence, search is going to change.
 |
 |
Left clay tablet from the 4th millennium BCE. Right. clay tablets from 2016. Not much change it seems.
Here’s a statement which hits at the future of search. The quote comes from the multi time bestselling “Author”:
A lot of younger people don’t use Google as much as we might expect. They find things on YouTube (an Alphabet company), Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram or the like.
I agree. Pizza, cat videos, and even information about the future of search by many people will be sought and found using something other than the digital equivalent of a library card catalog. Thump. That’s the sound of the dead cat bouncing or hitting the pavement.
The thump means Google, the game changer, is going to have the game changed for itself.
The future is actionable intelligence. Ask a question and get an answer. Then order a pizza or watch a living cat video. Dead cats are not interesting.
Several thoughts:
First, there are numerous ways to look for information needed to answer a question. There are search boxes when one presumably is working on a research paper or maybe an article destined for publication. That is the old fashioned work which requires attention, note taking, and thinking about a topic and how to answer questions for which there is no single journal article or reliable data set. This type of research will not appeal to some people.
Second, there is the convenience of asking others for information. This is a useful type of information collection. Sometimes it works, and other times it forces the questioner to drag himself or herself back to the old fashioned method described in item one above.
Third, there is smart software which looks at behaviors and makes a best guess about what the person needs to know. When I drive to the airport, I want my GPS to show me which parking garage has an open space. No typing and no talking, please. Just the map with the answer.
In each of these broad categories of access — typing keywords, asking via text or voice, or smart software making best guesses — useful information can be located.
Most of the folks with whom I interact are not happy with search, a broad term used to describe a remarkable range of information access systems.
The problem with the future is that it is not going to bounce like the dead cat of the present.
If I have learned one thing in my years in the information access sector it is:
Information access methods do not die. Options become available.
Regardless of the future, some reading is necessary. Some talking to humans is necessary. Some smart software inputs are necessary.
Heck, here in Harrod’s Creek, people still use clay tablets to communicate. The message about the future is that “good enough” information access is more important than old fashioned checkpoints like precision, recall, provenance, and understanding.
Stephen E Arnold, October 6, 2016
MIT Embraces Google DeepMinds Intuitive Technology Focus
October 6, 2016
The article on MIT Technology Review titled How Google Plans to Solve Artificial Intelligence conveys the exciting world of Google DeepMind’s Labyrinth. Labyrinth is a 3D environment forged on an open-source platform where DeepMind is challeneged by tasks such as, say, finishing a maze. As DeepMind progresses, the challenges become increasingly complicated. The article says,
What passes for smart software today is specialized to a particular task—say, recognizing faces. Hassabis wants to create what he calls general artificial intelligence—something that, like a human, can learn to take on just about any task. He envisions it doing things as diverse as advancing medicine by formulating and testing scientific theories, and bounding around in agile robot bodies…The success of DeepMind’s reinforcement learning has surprised many machine-learning researchers.
Of the endless applications possible for intuitive technology, the article focuses on the medical, understanding text, and robotics. When questioned about the ethical implications of the latter, Demis Hassabis, the head of Google’s DeepMind team, gave the equivalent of a shrug, and said that those sorts of questions were premature. In spite of this, MIT’s Technology Review seems pretty pumped about Google, which makes us wonder whether IBM Watson has been abandoned. Our question for Watson is, what is the deal with MIT?
Chelsea Kerwin, October 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Is the Cloud Really Raining Dollar Signs?
October 5, 2016
Cloud computing offers people the ability to access their files from any place in the world as long as they have a good Internet connection and a cloud account. Many companies are transferring their mainframes to the cloud, so their employees can work remotely. Individuals love having their files, especially photos and music, on the cloud for instantaneous access. It is a fast growing IT business and Forbes reports that “Gartner Predicts $111B In IT Spend Will Shift To Cloud This Year Growing To Be $216B By 2020.”
Within the next five years it is predicted more companies will shift their inner workings to the cloud, which will indirectly and directly affect more than one trillion projected to be spent in IT. Application software spending is expected to shift 37% towards more cloud usage and business process outsourcing is expected to grow 43%, all by 2020.
Why wait for 2020 to see the final results, however? 2016 already has seen a lot of cloud growth and even more is expected before the year ends:
$42B in Business Process Outsourcing IT spend, or 35% of the total market, is forecast to shift to the cloud this year. 25% of the application software spending is predicted to shift to the cloud this year, or $36B.
Gartner is a respected research firm and these numbers are predicting hefty growth (here is the source). The cloud shift will surely affect more than one trillion. The bigger question is will cloud security improve enough by 2020 that more companies will shift in that direction?
Whitney Grace, October 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Busted Black Marketplace Pops Back Up
October 5, 2016
In June, a vendor of access to hacked servers, xDedic, was taken down. Now, reports intelligence firm Digital Shadows, it has resurrected itself as a Tor domain. Why am I suddenly reminded of the mythical hydra? We learn of the resurgence from SecurityWeek’s article, “Hacked Server Marketplace Returns as a Tor Domain.” The article tells us:
After Kaspersky Lab researchers revealed in mid-June that they counted over 70,000 hacked servers made available for purchase on xDedic, some for as low as just $6, the marketplace operators closed the virtual shop on June 16. However, with roughly 30,000 users a month, the storefront was too popular to disappear for good, and intelligence firm Digital Shadows saw it re-emerge only a week later, but as a Tor domain now.
In an incident report shared with SecurityWeek, Digital Shadows reveals that a user named xDedic posted on 24 Jun 2016 a link to the new site on the criminal forum exploit[.]in. The user, who ‘had an established reputation on the forum and has been previously identified as associated with the site,’ posted the link on a Russian language forum thread titled ‘xDedic ???????’ (xDedic burned).
We’re told that, though the new site looks just like the old site, the user accounts did not tag along. The now-shuttered site was attracting about 30,000 users monthly, so it should not take long to re-build their client list. Researchers are not able to assess the sites traffic, since it is now a Tor domain, but both Digital Shadows and Kaspersky Lab, another security firm, are “monitoring the situation.” We can rest assured they will inform law enforcement when they have more information.
Cynthia Murrell, October 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
World-Check Database Leaked by Third Party
October 4, 2016
This is the problem with sensitive data—it likes to wander from its confines. Motherboard reports, “Terrorism Database Used by Governments and Banks Leaked Online.” Security researcher Chris Vickery reported stumbling upon a copy of the World-Check intelligence database from mid-2014 that was made available by a third party. The database maintained by Thomson Reuters for use by governments, intelligence agencies, banks, and law firms to guard against risks. Reporter Joseph Cox specifies:
Described by Thomson Reuters as a ‘global screening solution,’ the World-Check service, which relies on information from all over the world, is designed to give deep insight into financial crime and the people potentially behind it.
We monitor over 530 sanctions, including watch and regulatory law and enforcement lists, and hundreds of thousands of information sources, often identifying heightened-risk entities months or years before they are listed. In fact, in 2012 alone we identified more than 180 entities before they appeared on the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list based on reputable sources identifying relevant risks,’ the Thomson Reuters website reads.
A compilation of sensitive data like the World-Check database, though built on publicly available info, is subject to strict European privacy laws. As a result, it is (normally) only used by carefully vetted organizations. The article notes that much the U.S.’s No Fly List, World-Check has been known to flag the innocent on occasion.
Though Vickery remained mum on just how and where he found the data, he did characterize it as a third-party leak, not a hack. Thomson Reuters reports that the leak is now plugged, and they have secured a promise from that party to never leak the database again.
Cynthia Murrell, October 4, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Pharmaceutical Research Made Simple
October 3, 2016
Pharmaceutical companies are a major power in the United States. Their power comes from the medicine they produce and the wealth they generate. In order to maintain both wealth and power, pharmaceutical companies conduct a lot of market research. Market research is a field based on people’s opinions and their reactions, in other words, it contains information that is hard to process into black and white data. Lexalytics is a big data platform built with a sentiment analysis to turn market research into useable data.
Inside Big Data explains how “Lexalytics Radically Simplifies Market Research And Voice Of Customer Programs For The Pharmaceutical Industry” with a new package called the Pharmaceutical Industry Pack. Lexalytics uses a combination of machine learning and natural language processing to understand the meaning and sentiment in text documents. The new pack can help pharmaceutical companies interpret how their customers react medications, what their symptoms are, and possible side effects of medication.
Our customers in the pharmaceutical industry have told us that they’re inundated with unstructured data from social conversations, news media, surveys and other text, and are looking for a way to make sense of it all and act on it,’ said Jeff Catlin, CEO of Lexalytics. ‘With the Pharmaceutical Industry Pack — the latest in our series of industry-specific text analytics packages — we’re excited to dramatically simplify the jobs of CEM and VOC pros, market researchers and social marketers in this field.
Along with basic natural language processing features, the Lexalytics Pharmaceutical Industry Pack contains 7000 sentiment terms from healthcare content as well as other medical references to understand market research data. Lexalytics makes market research easy and offers invaluable insights that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Whitney Grace, October 3, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Europol Internet Referral Unit Criticized for Methods
October 3, 2016
In July of 2015 Europol launched their Internet Referral Unit (IRU), tasked with identifying extremist propaganda online and asking ISPs to take it down. Now that the group has been operating for a year, it is facing criticism about its methods, we learn from “Europol’s Online Censorship Unit is Haphazard and Unaccountable Says NGO” at ArsTechnica. The NGO referred to in the headline is the international digital rights organization AccessNow.
As of the IRU’s July birthday, the European Commission reports the IRU has examined about 8,000 posts over some 45 platforms and has made about 7,000 removal requests. As of May 2016, the group also has the power to hunt down terrorists; it has begun working with the UK National Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit to swiftly pursue those behind dangerous posts.
Not everyone is happy with IRU’s methods. Writer Jennifer Baker reports:
However AccessNow, a global digital rights organization, said Europe’s approach to dealing with online extremism is ‘haphazard, alarming, tone-deaf, and entirely counter-productive.
According to AccessNow, ‘the IRU is outside the rule of law on several grounds. First, illegal content is just that—illegal. If law enforcement encounters illegal activity, be it online or off, it is expected to proceed in dealing with that in a legal, rights-respecting manner.
Second, relegating dealing with this illegal content to a third private party, and leaving analysis and prosecution to their discretion, is both not just lazy—but extremely dangerous. Third, illegal content, if truly illegal, needs to be dealt with that way: with a court order and subsequent removal. The IRU’s blatant circumvention of the rule of law is in direct violation of international human rights standards.
For its part, Europol points to the IRU’s success at removing propaganda, including such worrisome content as bomb-making instructions and inflammatory speeches designed to spur specific acts of violence. Does this mean Europol believes the urgency of the situation calls for discarding the rule of law? Caution is warranted; we’ve been down this road before.
Cynthia Murrell, October 3, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Lexmark Upgrades Its Enterprise Search
September 30, 2016
Enterprise search has taken a back a back seat to search news regarding Google’s next endeavor and what the next big thing is in big data. Enterprise search may have taken a back seat in my news feed, but it is still a major component in enterprise systems. You can even speculate that without a search function, enterprise systems are useless.
Lexmark, one of the largest suppliers of printers and business solutions in the country, understand the importance of enterprise search. This is why they recently updated the description of its Perceptive Enterprise Search in its system’s technical specifications:
Perceptive Enterprise Search is a suite of enterprise applications that offer a choice of options for high performance search and mobile information access. The technical specifications in this document are specific to Perceptive Enterprise Search version 10.6…
A required amount of memory and disk space is provided. You must meet these requirements to support your Perceptive Enterprise Search system. These requirements specifically list the needs of Perceptive Enterprise Search and do not include any amount of memory or disk space you require for the operating system, environment, or other software that runs on the same machine.
Some technical specifications also provide recommendations. While requirements define the minimum system required to run Perceptive Enterprise Search, the recommended specifications serve as suggestions to improve the performance of your system. For maximum performance, review your specific environment, network, and platform capabilities and analyze your planned business usage of the system. Your specific system may require additional resources above these recommendations.”
It is pretty standard fare when it comes to technical specifications, in other words, not that interesting but necessary to make the enterprise system work correctly.
Whitney Grace, September 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google and the Future of Search Engine Optimization
September 30, 2016
Regular readers know that we are not big fans of SEO (Search Engine Optimization ) or its champions, so you will understand our tentative glee at the Fox News headline, “Is Google Trying to Kill SEO?” The article is centered around a Florida court case whose plaintiff is e.ventures Worldwide LLC, accused by Google of engaging in “search-engine manipulation”. As it turns out, that term is a little murky. That did not stop Google from unilaterally de-indexing “hundreds” of e.ventures’ websites. Writer Dan Blacharski observes:
The larger question here is chilling to virtually any small business which seeks a higher ranking, since Google’s own definition of search engine manipulation is vague and unpredictable. According to a brief filed by e-ventures’ attorney Alexis Arena at Flaster Greenberg PC, ‘Under Google’s definition, any website owner that attempts to cause its website to rank higher, in any manner, could be guilty of ‘pure spam’ and blocked from Google’s search results, without explanation or redress. …
The larger question here is chilling to virtually any small business which seeks a higher ranking, since Google’s own definition of search engine manipulation is vague and unpredictable. According to a brief filed by e-ventures’ attorney Alexis Arena at Flaster Greenberg PC, ‘Under Google’s definition, any website owner that attempts to cause its website to rank higher, in any manner, could be guilty of ‘pure spam’ and blocked from Google’s search results, without explanation or redress.
We cannot share Blacharski’s alarm at this turn of events. In our humble opinion, if websites focus on providing quality content, the rest will follow. The article goes on to examine Google’s first-amendment based stance, and considers whether SEO is even a legitimate strategy. See the article for its take on these considerations.
Cynthia Murrell, September 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
EasyAsk Has a Sticky Search
September 29, 2016
When I first began reading the EasyAsk article, “Search Laboratory: Rock ‘n’ Roll Lab Rats” it has the typical story about search difficulties and the importance about an accurate, robust search engine. They even include video featuring personified search engines and the troubles a user goes through to locate a simple item, although the video refers to Google Analytics. The article pokes fun at EasyAsk employees and how they develop the Search Lab, where they work on improving search functions.
One of the experiments that Search Lab worked on is “sticky search.” What is sticky search? Do you throw a keyword reel covered in honey into the Web pool and see what returns? Is it like the Google “I Feel Lucky” button. None of these are correct. The Search Lab conducted an experiment where the last search term was loaded into the search box when a user revisited. The Search Lab tracked the results and discovered:
As you can see, the sticky search feature was used by close-to one third of the people searching from the homepage, but by a smaller proportion of people on other types of page. Again, this makes sense as you’re more likely to use the homepage as a starting point when your intention is to return to a previously viewed product. We had helped 30% of people searching from our homepage get to where they wanted to go more quickly, but added inconvenience to the other two thirds (and 75% of searchers across the site as a whole) because to perform their searches, rather than just tapping the search box and beginning to type they now had to erase the old (sticky) search term too.
In other words, it was annoying. Search Lab retracted the experiment, but it was a decent effort to try something new even if the results could have been predicted. Keep experimenting with search options SearchLab, but keep the search box empty.
Whitney Grace, September 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
