IBM and Digital Piracy: Just Three Ways?
November 27, 2015
I read “Preventing Digital Piracy: 3 Ways to Use Big Data to Protect Content.” I love making complicated issues really easy. Remember the first version of the spreadsheet? Easy. Just get a terminal, wrangle the team to install LANPAR, and have at it. Easy as 1-2-3, which came after VisiCalc.
Ah, LANPAR. You remember that, right. I have fond memories of Language for Programming Arrays at Random, don’t you? I still think the approach embodied in that software was a heck of a lot more user friendly than filling in tiny rectangular areas with a No. 4 pencil and adding and subtracting columns using an adding machine.
IBM has cracked digital piracy by preventing it. Now I find that notion fascinating. On a recent trip, I noted that stolen software and movies were more difficult to find. However, a question or two of the helpful folks at a computer store in Cape Town revealed a number of tips for snagging digital content. One involved a visit to a storefront in a township. Magic. Downloaded stuff on a USB stick. Cheap, fast, unmonitored.
IBM’s solution involve streaming data. Okay, but maybe streaming for some content is not available; for example, a list of firms identified by an intelligence agency as “up and comers.”
IBM also wants me to build a real time feedback loop. That sounds great, but the angle is not rules. The IBM approach is social media. This fix also involves live streaming. Not too useful when the content is not designed to entertain.
The third step wants me to perform due diligence. I am okay with this, but then what? When I worked at a blue chip consulting firm, the teams provided specific recommendations. The due diligence is useless without informed, affordable options and the resources to implement, maintain, and tune the monitoring activity.
I am not sure what IBM expects me to do with these three steps. My initial reaction is that I would do what charm school at Booz, Allen taught decades ago; that is, figure out the problem, identify the options, and implement the approach that had the highest probability of resolving the issue. The job is not to generalize. Proper scope helps ensure success.
If I wanted to prevent digital privacy, I would look to companies which have sophisticated, automatable methods to identify and remediate issues.
IBM, for example, does not possess the functionality of a company like Terbium Labs. There are other innovators dealing with leaking data. I could use LANPAR to do certain types of spreadsheet work. But why? Forward looking solutions do more than offer trivial 1-2-3.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2015
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