Jargon Watch: De-Risking
February 8, 2016
“De-Risking Technology Projects” presents some interesting factoids; for example: “Fewer than one in three software projects present successful outcomes.”
The factoid comes from a mid tier consulting firm’s “Chaos” report. The diligent folks who did the research analyzed 50,000 projects.
But the hook which snagged me was the use of the term “de-risking.” The idea is that one takes an assignment at work, works on it, and keeps one’s job even if the project goes down in flames.
How can this state of regular paycheck nirvana be achieved? The write up offers some advice which is obvious and probably has been embraced by those who crank out a collapsing bridge or a search and content processing system which cannot locate information or keep pace with inflows of content.
Here are the tips in case you napped during one of your business school lectures:
- Balance scope and time available
- Figure out how and what to deliver
- Design and implement the solution
- Prioritize simplicity and performance.
Now how does one get from high rates of failure to success?
Let’s consider implementing a search, content processing, and discovery solutions. Most of the information access systems with which I have examined deliver disappointment. Years ago I reported on the satisfaction users of enterprise search systems reported. The rate of dissatisfaction fell somewhere between 55 and 75 percent of users.
This means that if one third of enterprise software projects like search and content processing fail, the two thirds which survive crank out astounding users who are not happy with the deployed system.
The question “How does one make an enterprise search and content processing?” a success calls into question the products, interfaces, and functionality of many vendors’ work.
My view is that users cope. The belief that information access technology is making corporate work a joy is widely held. Like some other beliefs, reality may not match up.
Wonder why vendors are embracing open source technology? It is part of the de-risking approach. Let others figure out how to fix this stuff.
Does de-risking deliver excellence? In my experience, nope. Jargon is a means of closing a deal. Making something work for its users is a different challenge.
Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2016
Google Search Appliance: Like Glass It Broke
February 8, 2016
I read “So Long Google Search Appliance.” Farewell, happy yellow and blue boxes. So long integrators who have been supporting these wildebeests for a decade. Au revoir easy-as-pie search.
According to the write up:
The tech giant told its reseller and consulting partners the news via email on Thursday, noting that they can continue to sell one-year license renewals for existing hardware customers through 2017, but that they will be unable to sell new hardware. Renewals will end in 2018.
I recall writing about the Google Search Appliance when I was reporting about enterprise search for specialist publications. I was the first or one of the first to run down the pricing for the wonky boxes. I pointed out that a redundant multi million document system would ring the Google cash register in the high six figures with seven figures not out of sight. I thought I mentioned that the number of engineeers supporting the GSA had dwindled to a couple of folks. I thought I pointed out that the assumption a Web search system would work like a champ on corporate content was a wild and crazy notion.l
Like so many others who assumed enterprise search was not a tough problem, the Alphabet Google thing has bailed. Google essentially failed to revolutionize enterprise search. Cheaper and more usable appliances are available, including products from Maxxcat and Thunderstone. There are reasonable cloud solutions. And there is a cornucopia of outfits offering repackaged open source systems. Heck, if one pokes around long enough, a bold enterprise can license a system from companies with proprietary information access systems; 3RDi, Fabasoft, Lexmark, etc.
What will organizations do without the Google Search Appliance? Yard sale, Goodwill?
Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2016
Hackers Revive Dark Web Forum Called Hell
February 8, 2016
After personal details of over four million Adult Friend Finder users was found on the Dark Web site called Hell, this notorious internet hacking forum was shut down by authorities around July 2015. Reported by Instant Tricks, an article Hell is back with Hell Reloaded on the Dark Web explains Hell is currently accessible again on the Dark Web. The article states,
“The exact date of the website’s returning on-line is troublesome to determine, for the posts don’t have a date next to them for security functions. However, judgement by the quantity of posts, it’s honest to mention that the web site came back simply over every week past. Hell is a web portal on the Dark internet that’s employed by hackers everywhere the globe to share their hacking tricks moreover as transfer and post taken knowledge.”
Hell is one of the world’s largest hacking forums on the Dark Web and, as such, is difficult to imagine the site will ever kick the bucket. Interestingly, in its re-emergence, it has been rendered with the same branding as if nothing had changed. “Stephen E Arnold’s Dark Web Notebook” describes this Dark Web resource. We recommend this read for security, law enforcement and information technology officials as these industries’ landscapes evolve due to the enduring presence of sites like Hell on the Dark Web.
Megan Feil, February 08, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
How Often Do You Use Vocal Search
February 8, 2016
Vocal search is an idea from the future: you give a computer a query and it returns relevant information. However, vocal search has become an actual “thing” with mobile assistants like Siri, Cortana, and build in NLP engines on newer technology. I enjoy using vocal search because it saves me from having to type my query on a tiny keyboard, but when I’m in a public place I don’t use it for privacy reasons. Search Engine Watch asks the question, “What Do You Need To Know About Voice Search?” and provides answers for me more questions about vocal search.
Northstar Research conducted a study that discovered 55% percent of US teens used vocal search, while only 41% of US adults do. An even funnier fact is that 56% of US adults only use the search function, because it makes them feel tech-savvy.
Vocal Search is extremely popular in Asia due to the different alphabets. Asian languages are harder to type on a smaller keyboard. It is also a pain on Roman alphabet keyboards!
Tech companies are currently working on new innovations with vocal search. The article highlights how Google is trying to understand the semantic context behind queries for intent and accuracy.
“Superlatives, ordered items, points in time and complex combinations can now be understood to serve you more relevant answers to your questions…These ‘direct answers’ provided by Google will theoretically better match the more natural way that people ask questions in speech rather then when typing something into a search bar, where keywords can still dominate our search behaviour.”
It translates to a quicker way to access information and answer common questions without having to type on a keyboard. Now it would be a lot easier if you did not have to press a button to activate the vocal search.
Whitney Grace, February 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Semantic Mitosis: Attensity Splits Apart
February 7, 2016
Attensity is now two outfits. According to “Attensity Europe Breaks from US Parent Company.” The write up does not address the loss of synergy between the US and European sides of the semantic coin.
I learned:
The parties involved have agreed to not disclose any information on the purchase price or further terms of the transaction.
Not too helpful.
The news release points out that the European version of Attensity which is named Attensity Europe GmbH will focus on the customer support line of business; specifically:
the [Attensity Europe] company will focus on the growth segment of omni-channel customer service. Attensity Europe’s core product is the market-leading solution “Respond”, a multilingual and omni-channel response management software, which was designed by the German team of developers in Saarbrücken and has been systematically developed into the market-leading enterprise solution for omni-channel customer service over recent years.I assume that the US Attensity does not have a market leading product; otherwise, why not mention it? Omni-channel gets quite a bit of play. But I am not sure what “omni channel means.”
As an aside, Saarbrücken divorced itself from Germany: Once in 1925 and again in 1947. Might the water in the Saar be a factor in the split ups?
Many questions percolate through my discount coffee pot brain, but these are the questions I routinely ask when reverse mergers, no investment acquisitions, and de-synergies are at work.
My hunch is that US Attensity may have been perceived as slowing down the speeding bullet of Attensity Europe. Worth monitoring the situation.
Stephen E Arnold, February 7, 2016
Googlies: Post Financial Factoids
February 7, 2016
I read a number of articles about Google’s stunning financial results. I took out my trusty 5×8 note cards and jotted down the items which I found interesting.
Here are the Googlies for February 2016:
- The Google science club projects cost $3.6 billion in losses. (Source: “Big Bets Cost Alphabet…”) Does this mean that Google has no other revenue streams except online advertising which was inspired by GoTo, Overture, and Yahoo?
- Google wants to control Android and be more like Apple, the second most valuable company in Bubble Land. (Source: “Google Wants to Take Apple Like Control over Nexus Devices) Perhaps Eric Schmidt should rejoin the Apple Board of Directors.
- Gmail has a handful of users, about one billion. Okay, that’s a start. (Source: “Gmail Now Has More than 1 Billion Monthly Active Users…”)
- YouTube aficionados consume more video than the Zuckeroids. (Source: Google’s CEO Reminded Investors…” Question: Has Facebook turned on the spigot for video or is Facebook’s video sort of a limited test?
- The Alphabet Google thing has more than 61,000 employees. (Source: “Google’s Parent Company Now Has…”)
I assume that online advertising is not subject to saturation. Does this mean that Google’s revenue is infinite? Sure it is, but it might be a comfort to some stakeholders if, after 15 years, Google had additional revenue streams. Look at Amazon. It is going to do the brick and mortar bookstore thing to raise dough.
Monocultures are fascinating.
Stephen E Arnold, February 7, 2016
Google Versus Russia: Does Google Have SU 35 Capabilities?
February 6, 2016
I read “Kremlin Considering Google Tax on Technology Services.” The article suggests that Russia may tax online services. The services named include Google, Facebook, and Apple. I know that Facebook works hard to avoid certain conflicts. Apple has its hands full with the specter of not having any hot products in 2016. So the Google?
The world’s most valuable company may have to pay more than a UK “get out of jail” fine if the write up is accurate. I learned from the “real” news source:
Klimenko, an early Russian Internet innovator, was appointed as President Vladimir Putin’s Internet adviser in December. His suggestion of a kind of value-added tax on technology services in Russia comes only days after he asserted that Google, Facebook, and other social-media companies will be blocked in Russia “sooner or later” if they do not comply with a law enacted in August requiring them to locate facilities that store Russia data in Russia. And it comes after Russian news agencies reported that Putin on January 29 signed an executive order asking federal agencies to work with Klimenko on amending legislation to ensure equal operating conditions for companies within Russia with respect to the Internet.
Google may get a chance to demonstrate its potency if Russia boosts taxes. I recall that Mr. Brin’s space flight did not work out. Will this new chess match result in Google’s sitting on the sidelines in Russia?
Worth monitoring. Now about that source and its “real” journalists? Nah, never mind.
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2016
Leaky Web Pages a Call To Criminals
February 6, 2016
The Dark Web relies on the Tor network’s complex, multi-layered encryption technology to hide Web URLs and traffic sources. As we learned in “Basic Error Can Reveal Hidden Dark Web sites, however, not all hidden searches are actually hidden. Apache, the most widely used Web server software, includes a module that could make it easy for criminals to watch what Dark Web users are doing. A Facebook wizard points out that Apache’s “out-of-the-box” configuration, which is used to hide server-status page information, could inadvertently help hackers follow users as they meander through the Deep Web.
In 2012, Popular Web Sites Were Leaking System Status Information, Private Data and Passwords” confirmed what many had long suspected. Then, in 2015, a researcger discovered a Dark Web search engine not only showed what people were searching for. This begs the question:
What if a malicious actor had found that page instead of Muffet. They could have used it to assemble a trove of search data and, as we learned from the 2006 AOL search data leak, that can be enough Big Data to start unmasking people. And it gets worse. Exposed server status pages are a potential threat to users, but under some circumstances, they can completely unravel the protection that Tor provides to hidden websites.
In a perfect world, only localhost would have access to the mod-status feature. But Tor daemon also runs on localhost. All hackers have to do to access sensitive data is to exploit this weakness and anyone can see what people are looking at in the Deep Web.
Locard’s Principle tells us that criminal not only bring something of themselves to a crime scene, bad actors leave something behind, too. This clues, no matter how small, may help analysts and investigators shine a light on Dark Web criminals.
Martin A. Matisoff, MSc, February 6, 2016.
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publishers of the CyberSINT monograph.
3RDi for Enterprise Search
February 5, 2016
Health and medical search need an upgrade? T/DG 3RDi might be just what the doctor ordered. You search blues will disappear when you have natural language processing, semantic search, search relevancy, search analytics, research tools, and data integration. Very comprehensive it seems.
T/DG offers 3RDi. Now try to search for these entities. To locate the services firm offering the 3RDi system, one has to figure out how to make Bing, Google, and Yandex point to the correct entities.
Naming products and companies is tricky. Let me save you the hassle of wading through false drops.
- T/DG means “The Digital Group,” an outfit founded in 1999 and operating from New Jersey.
- 3RDi means “relevant, deep insights.” (I don’t know what the 3 means.)
The search system appears to be a “platform” based on open source technology. Here’s a block diagram of 3RDi:
Source: The Digital Group, 2015
The company’s most recent push is health care. The search system performs the type of functions which I associate with a system like the ones Autonomy and Fast Search & Transfer described in the late 1990s. There is also a hefty dose of “platformitis.” The idea is that a licensee can use the system to meet the needs of users. The support for controlled vocabularies is helpful in domain specific deployments, but these have to be maintained, which can be a financial and resource burden for some licensees.
3RDi embraces the semantic marketing jargon enthusiastically; for example, this diagram shows how “knowledge” and “semantics” make the “experience” work for licensees:
Source: The Digital Group, 2015
Users of the system do not have to deal with results lists. The system presents information in a visual manner; for example:
Source: The Digital Group, 2015
In short, 3RDi appears to deliver the type of utility I associate with systems from outfits like BAE Systems and Palantir.
If your organization wants an open source system with the bells and whistles found in seven figure platforms, you may want to explore 3RDi.
The urls you need are:
I assume that the company will make the “3” clearer going forward. There is a live demo available. You will need to register. The system balks at non commercial domains like my Yahoo account.
The recent marketing push given 3RDi signals that the enterprise search sector is alive and well. As the company says, “Start experiencing.” I wonder what the “3” means.
Stephen E Arnold, February 5, 2016
HP Enterprise Investigative Analytics
February 5, 2016
Shiver me timbers. Batten the hatches. There is a storm brewing in the use of Autonomy-type methods to identify risks and fraud. To be fair, HP Enterprise no longer pitches Autonomy, but the sprit of Dr. Mike Lynch’s 1990s technology is there, just a hint maybe, but definitely noticeable to one who has embraced IDOL.
For the scoop, navigate to “HPE Launches Investigative Analytics, Using AI and Big Data to Identify Risk.” I was surprised that the story’s headline did not add “When Swimming in the Data Lake.” But the message is mostly clear despite the buzzwords.
Here’s a passage I highlighted:
The software is initially geared toward financial services organizations, and it combines existing HPE products like Digital Safe, IDOL, and Vertica all on one platform. By using big data analytics and artificial intelligence, it can analyze a large amount of data and help pinpoint potential risks of fraudulent behavior.
Note the IDOL thing.
The write up added:
Investigative Analytics starts by collecting both structured sources like trading systems, risk systems, pricing systems, directories, HR systems, and unstructured sources like email and chat. It then applies analysis to query “aggressively and intelligently across all those data sources,” Patrick [HP Enterprise wizard] said. Then, it creates a behavior model on top of that analysis to look at certain communication types and see if they can define a certain problematic behavior and map back to a particular historical event, so they can look out for that type of communication in the future.
This is okay, but the words, terminology, and phrasing remind me of more than 1990 Autonomy marketing collateral, BAE’s presentations after licensing Autonomy technology in the late 1990s, the i2 Ltd. Analyst Notebook collateral, and, more recently, the flood of jabber about Palantir’s Metropolitan Platform and Thomson Reuters’ version of Metropolitan called QA Direct or QA Studio or QA fill in the blank.
The fact that HP Enterprise is pitching this new service developed with “one bank” at a legal eagle tech conference is a bit like me offering to do my Dark Web Investigative Tools lecture at Norton Elementary School. A more appropriate audience might deliver more bang for each PowerPoint slide, might it not?
Will HP Enterprise put a dent in the vendors already pounding the carpeted halls of America’s financial institutions?
HP Enterprise stakeholders probably hope so. My hunch is that a me-too, me-too product is a less than inspiring use of the collection of acquired technologies HP Enterprise appears to put in a single basket.
Stephen E Arnold, February 5, 2016
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