Open Source CRM Galore for Salespeople, Manufacturers, and Even Freelancers
September 26, 2016
The article titled Top 10 Open Source CRM on Datamation weighs the customer relationship management (CRM) options based on individual needs in addition to features and functions. It highlights certain key benefits and points of strength such as EspoCRM’s excellent website, SugarCRM’s competitive edge over Salesforce, and the low cost of Dolibarr. The typical entry reads like this,
EPESI – The last in this list of Linux compatible CRM options is called EPESI. What makes it unique is the ability to take the mail page of the CRM and rearrange how things are laid out visually…it’s pretty nice to have when customizing ones workflow. In addition to expected CRM functionality, this tool also offers ERP options as well. With its modular design and cloud, enterprise and DIY editions, odds are there is a CRM solution available for everyone.
What strikes one the most about this list is how few familiar names appear. This list is certainly worth consulting to gain insights about the landscape, particularly since it does at least allude now and then to the specialty of several of the CRM software. For example, Dolibarr supports freelancers, Compiere is based around the needs of warehousing and manufacturing companies, and Zurmo was designed for salespeople. It is a good time to be in the market for CRM apps.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 26, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monographThere is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark Web meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
The Design of Our Future
September 26, 2016
An article at Co.Exist suggests we all pause to consider what we want our world to look like, in “We Need To Spend More Time Questioning Our Technology-Driven Future.” Along with the boundless potential of today’s fast-evolving technology come consequences, many of them unforeseen. Writer Ben Schiller cites futurist Gerd Leonhard, author of the book, Technology vs. Humanity. Far from a modern Luddite, Leonhard is a consultant for Google and a daily advocate for the wonders of advancing technology. His thorough understanding of the topic allows him to see potential pitfalls, as well.
The shape of technology today calls for society to update the way it approaches doing business, says Leonhard, and move past the “industrial-age paradigm of profit and growth at all costs, or some outmoded technological imperative that may have served us well in the 1980s.” He also points to the environmental problems created by fossil fuel companies as an example—if we aren’t careful, the AI and genetic engineering fields could develop their own “externalities,” or problems others will pay for, one way or another. Can we even imagine all the ways either of those fields could potentially cause harm?
Schiller writes of Leonhard:
The futurist outlines a philosophy he calls ‘exponential humanism’—the human equivalent of exponential technology. As a species we’re not developing the necessary skills and ethical frameworks to deal with technology that’s moving faster than we are, he says. We may be able to merge biology and technology, augment our minds and bodies, become superhuman, end disease, and even prolong life. But we’re yet to ask ourselves whether, for example, extending life is actually a good thing (as a society—there will always be individuals who for some reason want to live to 150). And, more to the point, will these incredible advances be available to everyone, or just a few people? To Leonhard, our current technological determinism—the view that technology itself is the purpose—is as dangerous as Luddism was 200-odd years ago. Without moral debate, we’re trusting in technology for its own sake, not because it actually improves our lives.
The write-up gives a few ideas on how to proactively shape our future. For example, Facebook could take responsibility for the content on its site instead of resting on its algorithm. Leonhard also suggests companies that replace workers with machines pay a tax that would help soften the blow to society, perhaps even with a minimum guaranteed income. Far-fetched? Perhaps. But in a future with fewer jobs and more freely-available products, a market-driven economy might just be doomed. If that is the case, what would we prefer to see emerge in its place?
Cynthia Murrell, September 26, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark Web meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
Bam! Pow! Zap! Palantir Steps Up Fight with US Army
September 25, 2016
Many moons ago I worked at that fun loving outfit Booz, Allen & Hamilton. I recall one Master of the Universe telling me, “Keep the client happy.” Today an alternative approach has emerged. I term it “Fight with the client.” I assume the tactic works really well.
I read “Palantir Claims Army Misled to Keep It Out of DCGS-A Program.” As I understand the Mixed Martial Arts cage match, the US Army wants to build its own software system. Like many ideas emerging from Washington, DC, the system strikes me as complex and expensive. The program’s funding stretches back a decade. My hunch is that the software system will eventually knit together the digital information required by the US Army to complete its missions. Like many other US government programs, there are numerous vendors involved. Many of these are essentially focused on meeting the needs of the US government.
Palantir Technologies is a Sillycon Valley construct. The company poked its beak though a silicon shell in 2003 and opened for “real” business in 2004. That makes the company 12 years old. Like many disruptive unicorns, Palantir appears to be convinced that its Gotham system can do what the US Army wants done. The Shire and its Hobbits are girding for battle. What are the odds that a high technology company can mount its unicorns and charge into battle and win?
The Palantirians’ reasoning is, by Sillycon Valley standards, logical. Google, by way of comparison, believes that it can solve death and compete with AT&T in high speed fiber. Google may demonstrate that the Sillycon Valley way is more than selling ads, but for now, Google is not gaining traction in some of its endeavors. Palantir wants to activate its four wheel drive and power the US Army to digital nirvana.
The Defense News’s write up is a 1,200 word explanation of Palantir’s locker room planning. I noted this passage:
The Palo Alto-based company has argued the way the Army wrote its requirements in a request for proposals to industry would shut out Silicon Valley companies that provide commercially available products. The company contended that the Army’s plan to award just one contract to a lead systems integrator means commercially available solutions would have to be excluded.
Palantir is seeking to show the court that its data-management product — Palantir Gotham Platform — does exactly what DCGS-A is trying to do and comes at a much lower cost.
I like the idea of demonstrating the capabilities of Gotham to legal eagles. I know that lawyers are among the most technologically sophisticated professionals in the world. In addition, most lawyers are really skilled at technical problem solving and can work math puzzles while waiting for a Teavana Shaken Iced Tea.
The article also references “a chain of emails.” Yep, emails can be an interesting component of a cage match. With some Palantir proprietary information apparently surfacing in Buzzfeed, perhaps more emails will be forthcoming.
I have formulated three hypotheses about this tussle with the US Army:
- Palantir Technologies is not making progress with Gotham because of the downstream consequences of the i2 Analyst’s Notebook legal matter. The i2 product is owned by IBM, and IBM is a potentially important vendor to the US Army. IBM also has some chums in other big outfits working on the DCGS project. Palantir wants to be live in the big dogs’ kennel, but no go.
- Palantir’s revenue may need the DCGS contracts to make up for sales challenges in other market sectors. Warfighting and related security jobs can more predictable than selling a one off to a hospital chain in Tennessee.
- Palantir’s perception of Washington may be somewhat negative. Sillycon Valley companies “know” that their “solutions” are the “logical” ones. When Sillycon Valley logic confronts the reality of government contracting, sparks may become visible.
For me, I think the Booz, Allen & Hamilton truism may be on target. Does one keep a customer happy by fighting a public battle designed to prove the “logic” of the Sillycon Valley way?
I don’t think most of the DCGS contractors are lining up to mud wrestle the US Army. I would enjoy watching how legal eagles react to the Gotham wheel menu and learning how long it takes for a savvy lawyer to move discovery content into the Gotham system.
My seeing stone shows an messy five round battle and a lot of clean up and medical treatment after the fight.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2016
Social Media: Forever?
September 24, 2016
I love categorical affirmatives. These are statements which apply a concept to an infinite class of objects, entities, and actions. Forever is a long, long time, and it is one of my favorite words to read in high-technology analyses by wizards. Consider “5 Ways Social Media Has Changed Business Forever.” Let me be clear. I have difficulty with the concept forever. Infinity was enough of a challenge when Miss Martens, my freshman math teacher, introduced the concept of performing mathematical operations on collections of infinitudes.
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Grecian urn versus Snapchat. Which is forever? How about neither?
But for social media, forever it is.
The write up identifies five consequences of communication. For me, social media is communications. Granted the mechanisms are not face to face yapping over the fence. But I will suspend disbelief and highlight the five “forever” changes that social media hath wrought:
- Targeted advertising. I assume this means the ads I see when I visit a Web site using cookies which “know” me. Note that we use a variety of methods to make some of our online activity slightly less transparent. Details of some of the methods will appear in our forthcoming Dark Web Notebook, which if you want a copy can be reserved by writing benkent2020 at yahoo dot com.
- Organic marketing “like never before.” Another categorical. I recall that Genghis Khan did some organic marketing which worked quite well. True, he did not have an online connection, but the social folks diffused his message quickly.
- Fears of being trashed on social media by social media users. I understand fear. Ah, Columbia and other far off lands. Believe me. Social media criticism can appear on the fear scale, but the key difference is the ease and speed with which negative information diffuses. But whispering worked pretty well for some folks in Stalin’s social construct. Perhaps there is “fear” and “FEAR.”
- Real time customer service. Give me a break. What customer service? A chatbot may not be able to answer my questions about dead links in iTunes or where my lost suitcase is.
- Flexibility in content “dissemination.” I love flexibility. But when I worked in my first “real” job at Halliburton Nuclear, we had paper. We had fax machines. We had film-based transparency “presentations.” We had conference calls. We had face to face meetings. We had jet travel to whisk us really lucky types from New York to lovely Cleveland in a nonce. We had a PR firm to talk, spam, and fast dance. I am not sure how much more flexible I would be if I did not have the censoring services intermediating life for today’s marketers.
Forever. Think of this statement by John Keats:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Social media is just like a hand crafted, old fashioned Grecian urn. Well, maybe a tweet, a Facebook post, or a Snapchat may not last a few millennia. Close enough for millennials.
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2016
Yahoo Security Breach: The Pee-Wee Purple Solecism
September 23, 2016
Remember ShrinkyDinks. Kids decorate pieces of plastic. The plastic then gets smaller when heated. I believe the ShrinkyDink management process has been disclosed. The innovator? Marissa Mayer, the former Google search guru turned business management maven.
What’s the ShrinkyDink approach to running a business? Take a revenue stream, decorate it with slick talk, and then reduce revenues and reputation. The result is a nifty entity with less value. Bad news? No. The upside is that Vanity Fair puts a positive spin on how bad news just get worse. A purple paradox!
ShrinkyDink Management. Pop business thinking into a slightly warmed market and watch those products and revenues become tinier as you watch in real time. Small is beautiful, right? I can envision a new study from Harvard University’s business school on the topic. Then comes an HBR podcast interview with Marissa Mayer, the Xoogler behind the ShrinkyDink method. A collaboration with Clayton Christensen is on deck. A book. Maybe a movie deal with Oliver Stone? As a follow up to “Snowden,” Stone writes, produces, and directs “Marissa: Making Big Little.” The film stars Ms. Mayer herself as the true Yahoo.
I read “Yahoo Verizon Deal May Be Complicated by Historic Hack.” Yahoo was “hacked,” according to the write up. Okay, but I read “hack” as a synonym for “We did not have adequate security in place.”
The write up points out:
The biggest question is when Yahoo found out about the breach and how long it waited to disclose it publicly, said Keatron Evans, a partner at consulting firm Blink Digital Security. (Kara Swisher at Recode reported that Verizon isn’t happy about Yahoo’s disclosures about the hack.)
CNBC points out that fixing the “problem” will be expensive. The write up includes this statement from the Xoogler run Yahoo:
“Such events could result in large expenditures to investigate or remediate, to recover data, to repair or replace networks or information systems, including changes to security measures, to deploy additional personnel, to defend litigation or to protect against similar future events, and may cause damage to our reputation or loss of revenue,” Yahoo warned.
Of interest to me is the notion that information about 500 million users was lost. The date of the problem seems to be about two years ago. My thought is that information about the breach took a long time to be discovered and disclosed.
Along the timeline was the sale of Yahoo to Verizon. Verizon issued a statement about this little surprise:
Within the last two days, we were notified of Yahoo’s security incident. We understand that Yahoo is conducting an active investigation of this matter, but we otherwise have limited information and understanding of the impact. We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities. Until then, we are not in position to further comment.
I highlighted in bold the two points which snagged my attention:
First, Verizon went through its due diligence and did not discover that Yahoo’s security had managed to lose 500 million customers’ data. What’s this say about Yahoo’s ability to figure out what’s going on in its own system? What’s this say about Yahoo management’s attention to detail? What’s this say about Verizon’s due diligence processes?
Second, Verizon seems to suggest that if its “interests” are not served, the former Baby Bell may want to rethink its deal to buy Yahoo. That’s understandable, but it raises the question, “What was Verizon’s Plan B if Yahoo presented the company with a surprise?” It seems there was no contingency, which is complementary with its approach to due diligence.
The decision making process at Yahoo has been, for me, wonky for a long time. The decision to release the breach information after the deal process and before the Verizon deal closes strikes me as an interesting management decision.
A Congressman Seems to Support Palantir Gotham for US Army Personnel
September 23, 2016
I read “Commentary: The US Army Should Rethink Its Approach to DCGS.” The write up is interesting because it helped me understand the relationships which exist between an elected official (Congressman Duncan Hunter, Republican from California) and a commercial enterprise (Palantir Technologies). Briefly: The Congressman believes the US Army should become more welcoming to Palantir Technologies’ Gotham system.
A representation of the Department of Defense’s integrated defense acquisition, technology, and life cycle management system.
The write up points out that the US Army is pretty good with tangible stuff: Trucks, weapons, and tanks. The US Army, however, is not as adept with the bits and the bytes. As a result, the US Army’s home brew Distributed Common Ground System is not sufficiently agile to keep pace with the real world. DCGS has consumed about $4 billion and is the product of what I call the “traditional government procurement.”
The Congressman (a former Marine) wants to US Army to embrace Palantir Gotham in order to provide a better, faster, and cheaper system for integrating different types of information and getting actionable intelligence.
US Marine Captain Duncan Hunter before becoming a Congressman. Captain Hunter served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Captain Hunter was promoted to major in 2012.
The write up informed me:
Congress, soldiers and the public were consistently misinformed and the high degree of dysfunction within the Army was allowed to continue for too long. At least now there is verification—through Army admittance—of the true dysfunction within the program.
Palantir filed a complaint which was promptly sealed. The Silicon Valley company appears to be on a path to sue the US Army because Palantir is not the preferred way to integrate information and provide actionable intelligence to US Army personnel.
The Congressman criticizes a series of procedures I learned to love when I worked in some of the large government entities. He wrote:
he Army and the rest of government should take note of the fact that the military acquisition system is incapable of conforming to the lightening pace and development targets that are necessary for software. This should be an important lesson learned and cause the Army—especially in light of repeated misleading statements and falsehoods—to rethink its entire approach on DCGS and how it incorporates software for the Army of the future.
The call to action in the write up surprised me:
The Army has quality leaders in Milley and Fanning, who finally understand the problem. Now the Army needs a software acquisition system and strategy to match.
My hunch is that some champions of Palantir Gotham were surprised too. I expected the Congressman to make more direct statements about Palantir Gotham and the problems the Gotham system might solve.
After reading the write up, I jotted down these observations:
- The DCGS system has a number of large defense contractors performing the work. One of them is IBM. IBM bought i2 Group. Before the deal with IBM, i2 sued Palantir Technologies, alleging that Palantir sought to obtain some closely held information about Analyst’s Notebook. The case was settled out of court. My hunch is that some folks at IBM have tucked this Palantir-i2 dust up away and reference it when questions about seamless integration of Gotham and Analyst’s Notebook arise.
- Palantir, like other search and content processing vendors, needs large engagements. The millions, if not billions, associated with DCGS would provide Palantir with cash and a high profile engagement. A DCGS deal would possibly facilitate sales of Gotham to other countries’ law enforcement and intelligence units.
- The complaint may evolve into actual litigation. Because the functions of Gotham are often used for classified activities, the buzz might allow high-value information to leak into the popular press. Companies like Centrifuge Systems, Ikanow, Zoomdata, and others would benefit from a more open discussion of the issues related to the functioning of DCGS and Gotham. From Palantir’s point of view, this type of information in a trade publication would not be a positive. For competitors, the information could be a gold mine filled with high value nuggets.
Net net: The Congressman makes excellent points about the flaws in the US Army procurement system. I was disappointed that a reference to the F 35 was not included. From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, the F 35 program is a more spectacular display of procurement goofs.
More to come. That’s not a good thing. A fully functioning system would deliver hardware and software on time and on budget. If you believe in unicorns, you will like me have faith in the government bureaucracy.
Stephen E Arnold, September 23, 2016
Digital Currencies: Anonymity and Trust Not Working at Peak Efficiency
September 23, 2016
No one knows if I am an addled goose. That’s part of the magic of the mostly anonymous Internet unless a person wants to create a “real” identity. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin operate on fancy technology and trust.
A single Bitcoin is trading at about $600 per token, frequent hacks are trashing reputation of the cryptocurrency for some users.
In an article that appeared on CryptoCoinNews.com, and titled Hacked BitcoinTalk.org User Data Goes Up for Sale on Dark Web, the author reveals that –
In May 2015, BitcoinTalk was the victim of a social engineering attack after an unknown hacker targeted an employee of NFOrce, BitcoinTalk’s ISP. In a revelation on Reddit at the time, forum operator and administrator Theymos hinted that password hashes, private messages, emails and other user details could be compromised.
The stolen data can be used to gain access to user accounts that further can be utilized for stealing Bitcoins. Earlier in August 2016, Bitcoins worth $72 million were stolen from the Bitfinex exchange in Hong Kong.
Other major issue with Bitcoin is that it is unregulated. It can lose its entire value in a single day. Moreover, its exchange rate and monetary value is still pegged against the mighty Greenback.
As a reminder of the risk associated with cryptocurrencies, the hacked Bitcoin.org data is on sale on Dark Net for 1 Bitcoin token.
Governments are trying to find a way to corral Bitcoin and other digital currencies. As Bitcoins are unregulated, and pose threat for conventional currencies, governments and financial institutions are up in arms against entities that use this digital currency. As tracking technology improves, we think the anonymity of some digital transactions will be stripped away.
Vishal Ingole, September 23, 2016
Improvements in News and Military Technology Coming
September 23, 2016
I read two stories. These stories seem unrelated. The first is “Defense Department Reaffirms Its Commitment to Venture Investing.” The second is “Facebook and Twitter Join Coalition to Improve Social Media Newsgathering.”
Let’s look at the short item about the US Department of Defense reaffirming its interest in funding new technology. In my forthcoming, Dark Web Notebook, I point to a Web page which contains a run down of more than 100 open source software components. The software does information collection and processing functions. But the main point is that the organizations creating the code is one of the more interesting lists of entities performing next generation innovation for the Department of Defense. The write up cited above states:
Not everyone is comfortable with a government entity backing what can be sensitive technologies (not to mention the privacy issues wrought by the NSA’s practices and deployment of new tech tools).
My view is that In-Q-Tel is a more visible entity than some of the Department of Defense activities. DoD, in fact, has been in the innovation far longer than In-Q-Tel. One might suggest that substantive innovation emerges from the DoD programs; for example, the DoD is the progenitor of the Internet. My view is that more disruption may be evident in what the DoD is funding than in what the In-Q-Tel organization is funding. The write up misses an important point in my opinion. DoD looks out the windshield of innovation and In-Q-Tel looks at the world via a rear view mirror. Case in point: funding open source software related to Dark Web actions. In-Q-Tel funding companies which often have been in existence for years prior to receiving an infusion of cash and some help making sales calls in the US government.
The second write up also underscores a need for change. The idea is that old fashioned approaches are not needed. New fangled approaches are the cat’s pajamas. The problem is that the new fangled methods make some interesting errors. To fix this, high profile social media companies are going to invent a fix via a coalition.
A method with practiced for news gathering exists. Traditional newspapers illustrate the method. The process works reasonably well. More accurately, the process worked when resources were available to employ individuals who conducted interviews and performed research.
The traditional method changed with software able to count who clicked on what, people with many digital friends, and systems which collect information and figure out what is important.
Now after some interesting mistakes, Internet giants are eager to improve what I call the millennial news method:
Channel 4 News, the Telegraph, the New York Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, ABC News in Australia and Agence France-Presse are among more than 20 news organizations to have signed up to the partner network, which is being organized through Google-backed First Draft.
Now Facebook (big dog) and Twitter (starving dog) are in the game. The point is that the millennial methods appear to work. Unfortunately fake news and other oddities creep into the smart systems. The new methods also help foster tension between the remaining traditional news outfits and the comparative newcomers or disruptors.
The idea of teaming up to improve smart software is interesting. The goal, of course, is to obtain high value information at the lowest possible cost; that is, with the fewest number of humans as possible.
When I read these two articles, I noted three ideas which struck me as worth thinking about:
- Methods exist which work yet interest gravitates away from what works to a need to find a better, more innovative process
- The perception that traditional methods practiced by the Department of Defense and old school newspapers are less useful than “new” approach may slow down innovation or, even worse, get the focus fuzzy.
- The Silicon Valley fascination with the bright and shiny may produce wasteful, duplicate efforts.
Stephen E Arnold, September 23, 2016
Geoparsing Is More Magical Than We Think
September 23, 2016
The term geoparsing sounds like it has something to do with cartography, but according to Directions Magazine in the article, “Geoparsing Maps The Future Of Text Documents” it is more like an alchemical spell. Geoparsing refers to when text documents into a geospatial database that allows entity extraction and disambiguation (aka is geotagging). It relies on natural language processing and is generally used to analyze text document collections.
While it might appear that geoparsing is magical, it actually is a complex technological process that relies on data to put information into context. Places often have the same name, so disambiguation would have difficulty inputting the correct tags. Geoparsing has important applications, such as:
Military users will not only want to exploit automatically geoparsed documents, they will require a capability to efficiently edit the results to certify that the place names in the document are all geotagged, and geotagged correctly. Just as cartographers review and validate map content prior to publication, geospatial analysts will review and validate geotagged text documents. Place checking, like spell checking, allows users to quickly and easily edit the content of their documents.
The article acts as a promo piece for the GeoDoc application, however, it does delve into the details into how geoparsing works and its benefits.
Whitney Grace, September 23, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark Web meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
For the Paranoid at Heart: New Privacy Concerns from Columbia University and Google
September 23, 2016
The article on PhysOrg titled Location Data on Two Apps Enough to Identify Someone, Says Study illustrates the inadequacy of deleting names and personal details from big data sets. Location metadata undermines the anonymity of this data. Researchers at Columbia University and Google teamed up to establish that individuals can easily be identified simply by comparing their movements across two data sets. The article states,
What this really shows is that simply removing identifying information from large-scale data sets is not sufficient,” said Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab who was not involved in the study. “We need to move to a model of privacy-through-security. Instead of anonymizing data and making it public, there should be technical controls over who gets access to the data, how it is used, and for what purpose.
Just by bringing your phone with you, (and who doesn’t?) you create vast amounts of location metadata about yourself, often without your knowledge. As more and more apps require you to offer your location, it becomes less difficult for various companies to access the data. If you are interested in exploring how easy it is to figure out your identity based on your social media usage, visit You Are Where You Go.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 23, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark Web meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
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