January 6, 2021
I noted “Best Paper Awards in Computer Science Since 1996.” The year caught my attention because that was the point in time at which software stagnation gained traction. See “The Great Software Stagnation” for the argument.
The Best Papers tally represents awards issued to the “best papers”. Hats off to the compiler Jeff Huang and his sources and helpers.
I zipped through the listings which contained dozens upon dozens of papers I knew absolutely zero about. I will probably be pushing up daisies before I work through these write ups.
I pulled out several observations which answered questions of interest to me.
First, the data illustrate the long tail thing. Stated another way, the data reveal that if an expert wants to win a prestigious award, it matters which institution issues one’s paycheck:
Second, what are the most prestigious “names” to which one should apply for employment in computer science? Here’s the list of the top 25. The others are interesting but not the Broadway stars of the digital world:
| 1 | Microsoft | 56.4 |
| 2 | University of Washington | 50.5 |
| 3 | Carnegie Mellon University | 47.1 |
| 4 | Stanford University | 43.3 |
| 5 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 40.2 |
| 6 | University of California, Berkeley | 29.2 |
| 7 | University of Michigan | 20.6 |
| 8 | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | 18.5 |
| 9 | Cornell University | 17.4 |
| 10 | 16.8 | |
| 11 | University of Toronto | 15.8 |
| 12 | University of Texas at Austin | 14.5 |
| 13 | IBM | 13.7 |
| 14 | University of British Columbia | 12.4 |
| 15 | University of Massachusetts Amherst | 11.2 |
| 16 | Georgia Institute of Technology | 10.3 |
| 17 | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | 10.1 |
| 18 | University of Oxford | 9.6 |
| 19 | University of California, Irvine | 9.4 |
| 20 | Princeton University | 9.1 |
| 21 | University of Maryland | 8.9 |
| 22 | University of California, San Diego | 8.7 |
| 23 | University of Cambridge | 8.6 |
| 24 | University of Wisconsin–Madison | 8 |
| 25 | Yahoo | 7.9 |
Note that Microsoft, the once proud Death Star of the North, is number one. For comparison, the Google is number 10. But the delta in average “bests” is an intriguing 39.6 papers. The ever innovative IBM is number 13, and the estimable Yahoo Oath Verizon confection is number 25.
I did not spot a Chinese University. A quick scan of the authors reveals that quite a few Chinese wizards labor in the research vineyards at these research-oriented institutions. Short of manual counting and analysis of names, I decided to to calculate authors by nationality. I think that’s a good task for you, gentle reader.
What about search as a research topic in this pool? I used a couple of online text analysis tools like Writewords, a tool on my system, and the Madeintext service. The counts varied slightly, which is standard operating procedure for counting tools like these. The 10 most frequently used words in the titles of the award winning papers are:
| data 63 times |
| based 56 times |
| learning 53 times |
| using 49 times |
| design 45 times |
| analysis 38 times |
| software 36 times |
| time 36 times |
| search 35 times |
| Web 30 times |
The surprise is that “search” was, based on my analysis of the counts I used, was the ninth most popular word in the papers’ titles. Who knew? Almost as surprising was “social” ranking a miserable 46th. Search, it seems, remains an area of interest. Now if that interest can be transformed into sustainable revenue and sufficient profit to fund research, bug fixes, and enhancements — life would be better in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, January 5, 2020
November 19, 2020
Do you want to write like Ernest Hemmingway? You can. Navigate to this link. Click on edit and be guided to the promised land of a famous author. You remember Mr. Hemmingway, right? The cats? The drinking? The poster with the word “Endurance” in big type. Big like a despairing fish.
I wrote this passage using the Hemingway app:
The App Is a Fish
Coders in distress. Improve communication. Land the fish. The sun blazed across my insight. The result? Blindness. Will it swim away? Will I remain in the dark like the creatures of the sea.
I clicked the button, a clean, sharp edged button. Here’s my score:
Grade 1. Smart software is fine, like a sword thrust through a bull on a hot afternoon in Madrid. Does that hurt, Jake?
Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2020
October 20, 2020
I spotted “Gartner Reveals the Top Strategic Tech Trends for 2021.” The write up is an information croquembouche. Here’s what Wikipedia offers as a typical confection whipped up by trained chefs:
This is a croquembouche. A tower of sugar-filled balls, filled with custard. Caramel enlivens the gourmet experience.
What are those delicate balls of goodness? Maybe empty calories or evidence of the wisdom for the saying, “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips?” The write up states without one reference to a poire à la Beaujolaise or tasty teurgoule. I had to content myself with the jargon and buzzword equivalent of pièce montée.
Here are some examples. Please, consult the original article or the menu available directly from Gartner for the complete list:
To wrap up, what’s in a croquembouche, a cream puff tower. For starters one needs:
Perfect those cream puff towers of knowledge and deep thoughts. Who wants seconds?
Stephen E Arnold, October 20, 2020
June 30, 2020
DarkCyber spotted this story:
How Hackers Extorted $1.14m from University of California, San Francisco
One would think that UCSF, an educational institution with tech savvy professionals located in the cradle of the US high-technology industry would have effective security systems in place. Wouldn’t one?
The write up reports:
The Netwalker criminal gang attacked University of California San Francisco (UCSF) on 1 June. IT staff unplugged computers in a race to stop the malware spreading. And an anonymous tip-off enabled BBC News to follow the ransom negotiations in a live chat on the dark web.
The article is one of those “how to be a bad actor” write ups which DarkCyber often finds discomfiting. Do these “real” news people want to provide information, or is there an inner desire to step outside the chummy walls of reporting? DarkCyber does not know.
The BBC points out:
Most ransomware attacks begin with a booby-trapped emaiI and research suggests criminal gangs are increasingly using tools that can gain access to systems via a single download. In the first week of this month alone, Proofpoint’s cyber-security analysts say they saw more than one million emails with using a variety of phishing lures, including fake Covid-19 test results, sent to organizations in the US, France, Germany, Greece, and Italy.
DarkCyber has a few questions; to wit:
Skip the how to, please. Focus on the facts that create the vulnerability. Just a thought.
Stephen E Arnold, June 30, 2020
November 28, 2019
Who knows if one can forget a murder or a murderer? If the information is not available, then the murderer may not be a murderer. The logic seems a bit hippy dippy, almost millennial, but it is turkey day with time to ponder “German Ex-Con Wins Right to Have Any Murders He May Have Committed Forgotten” reports:
Although the case stretches back to the early Eighties, the issue really emerged when German magazine Der Spiegel published some archive articles about the case in 1999. In 2002, Gunther The Ripper was released from jail, and in 2009 became aware that the articles were floating about. Gunther argued that the news articles were inhibiting his “ability to develop his personality,” and went to federal court.
If a murder were committed and the victim a child, will the parents forget? What if this story is accurate and the murderer wants to work coaching a youth football team, would the alleged murderer forget he may have killed before?
Ah, forget it.
Stephen E Arnold, November 28, 2019
August 27, 2019
Short honk: Looking for free music samples? A collection of samples is available on “Free Sound Samples.” Queries via search engines for samples produces some wonky results. Worth noting.
Stephen E Arnold, August 27, 2018
August 27, 2019
The Next Web reported, “This Terrifying AI Generates Fake Articles from Any News Site.” Now, the point here is to create an AI that can easily detect fake news, but researchers at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence began with one that could generate such content. Basically, it takes one to know one. We learn:
“A team of researchers at the institute recently developed Grover, a neural network capable of generating fake news articles in the style of actual human journalists. In essence, the group is fighting fire with fire because the better Grover gets at generating fakes, the better it’ll be at detecting them. … Most fake news is generated by humans and then spread on social media. But the rise of robust systems such as OpenAI’s controversial GPT-2 point toward a future where AI-generated articles are close enough to the real thing to obfuscate nearly any issue. While it’s easy enough to search a website to see if an article is legitimate, not everyone is going to do that. And if an article goes viral, no matter how false it is, some people will be convinced.”
Writer Tristan Greene shares some passages Grover wrote, so see the article if you wish to read those. They are pretty convincing, especially if one just skims the text (as many readers do).. One example aptly mimics President Obama’s writing/ speaking style, while another seems to spook Greene with how well it captures his own writing essence. The article concludes with this link, where each of us can take Grover for a test drive. Modern life is fun.
Cynthia Murrell, August 27, 2019
July 1, 2019
Data are often difficult to locate. Once located, verfication is a great deal of work. Nevertheless, you may find the “numbers” in “Examining Online Fraud in Southeast Asia (Infographic),” a useful reference point. Some data are in paragraphs like this one:
In 2018, the region’s internet economy hit US$72 billion in 2018 – double what it was in 2015. Southeast Asia is well on its way to exceed Google’s prediction of hitting US$200 billion by 2025, with ecommerce players such as Lazada, Shopee, and Tokopedia expanding their efforts in the region to meet the demands of consumers.
Others appear in graphics. Here a single item:
DarkCyber will comment on the methods used by fraudsters in an upcoming DarkCyber video.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2019
April 24, 2019
Ah, data, big and small, are everywhere. Believe ’em or not:
5. Number of US airports with facial recognition systems. Source: Quartz
2. Number of towns in Kansas which gave Facebook-infused educational program an F. Source: New York Times
12,000. Number of factoids the UK government added to Alexa. Source: The Inquirer
10 percent. Percentage of Americans who do not use the Internet. Source: Pew Research Center
$2.7 billion. FBI’s calculation of the losses to cyber crime in 2018. Source: DarkReading
$30 million. Amount Apple spends for Amazon services. Source: Apple Insider
1 million. Number of robotaxis Elon Musk promises in 2020. Source: Engadget
48 percent. Percentage of Canadians who would be broke if they had to come up with more than $200. Source: BNN Bloomberg
90 minutes. Length of time it took The Weather Channel to recover rom a ransomeware attack. Source: ZDNet
33 percent. Percentage of companies using open source to reduce costs. Source: Enterprisers Project
23 million, Number of people in the US using 123456 as a password. Source: Slashdot
40 million. Number of cyber attacks on Ecuador since forcing Wikileaks’ founder out of the UK Ecuador embassy. Source: The Inquirer
28 percent. Number of US drivers who ignore the road due to mobile phone use. Source: CNet
50 percent. Amount of alcohol 10 percent of Australian drinkers imbibe. Source: Online Library Wiley
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2019
December 26, 2018
I read “Welcome to Dystopia : China Introduces AI Powered Tracking Uniform in Schools.” The article explains that “China has started to introduce school uniforms which track pupils all the time.”
The “all” is problematic. A student equipped with the new uniform has to take it off, presumably for normal body maintenance and the inevitable cleaning process.
The overstatement, I assume, is designed to make the point that China is going to keep social order using smart software and other tools.
The new uniform “comes with two chips embedded in the shoulder areas and works with an AI-powered school entrance system, which is equipped with facial recognition cameras.”
Combined with other monitoring gizmos, the question, “Where’s Wong? can be answered in a jiffy. The write up explains:
The entrance system, powered by facial recognition camera, can capture a 20-second-long video of each pupil going in or coming out of the school. The footage will be uploaded onto an app in real time for teachers and parents to watch.An alarm will go off if the school gate detects any pupil who leaves the school without permission,
The article suggests that location and identification takes seconds.
One presumes the search results will be objective and ad free.
Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2018
