Why European Start Ups Are Non Starters at Scale
September 17, 2016
I read an interesting and probably irritating article “Why European Startups Fail to Scale.” I was sufficiently intrigued with the premise of the essay to send it to some executives at European start ups which have failed to scale. Nota bene: None of these managers wrote me back which suggests that the content of the article was not germane to their firms’ commercial success.
I learned from the article:
European startups fail to recognize that when they expand to a new market they have to adjust themselves to the rules, standards and requirements of that specific market.
Interesting idea. I have noticed in my own experience that companies from some countries struggle when they try to sell their search systems to the US government. The procurement process and some of the regulations make no sense. What’s interesting is that in some European countries one must have a receipt for utilities before being able to rent an apartment makes perfect sense. The notion that a software vendor’s code must be verified to be backdoor free makes zero sense to European vendors who want to take money from the US government.
The write up points out:
No matter if the startup was located in Western, Central, or Eastern Europe somehow most people did not understand that there could be fundamental differences between themselves and consumers inside this new market they were planning to enter.
How does one address this issue? The write up offers some suggestions; for example:
you need to optimize your product for your new markets.
Seems obvious. Another tip is that the company trying to cash in on the exciting US market should have a value proposition and pricing scheme suitable for the savvy American buyer.
The US, unlike some countries, is big. It is, therefore, expensive to advertise “on social media or search engines.”
Whereas a lot of B2C companies in Eastern Europe are talking about Euro cents, in the US a click might cost several Dollars.
The idea I highlighted in grammar gray was:
text is far more important. Whereas Europeans are lenient to typo’s or faulty grammar, Americans are not and expect to be addressed in the catchiest way possible.
How have search engines from Europe managed in the US market? Let me highlight several examples from my historical archives:
- Antidot. Announced a footprint in San Francisco a couple of years ago. The traces of the company are faint.
- Autonomy. Sold to HP for $11 billion after more than a decade in business. Since the sale, Autonomy has been a legal and M&A football engaged in continuous knock abouts
- Fast Search & Transfer. The founder ended up in legal hot water because of some tiny math errors resulting in allegedly misstating revenue. Microsoft ignored these gaffes and paid $1.2 billion for the system.
- Exalead. Made a splash and ended up selling to Dassault. Largely invisible in the US market after a run at the US government market and the usual commercial targets.
- Pertimm. Dabbled in the US market and ended up forging a deal with a European company for a Euro centric search system.
- Sinequa. Announced a push into the US a year or two ago. No one seemed to notice.
At this time, the major success seems to be Elastic, the open source search vendor. One assumes that the European search vendors who have failed to gain traction in the US market would emulate this firm. But if a European search vendor does not acknowledge that Elastic is doing something that works, why change?
Some European search vendors and “experts” are pitching governance and indexing. These are two market segments which strike me as either difficult to sell or very narrow. Change and sustainable may be difficult to achieve regardless of the lipstick applied for the theater of marketing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2016
Online Searching Proves Shakespeare Ripped Off Words and Phrases
September 16, 2016
Original phrases? Bah. Neologisms? Poppycock. William Shakespeare, like Mozart, ripped off other people. Imagine that. Listening to people, noting interesting turns of phrases, and learning new words from those around him. Where was the DCMA and copyright when we really needed them?
I read “The Game Is Up: Shakespeare’s Language Not As Original As Dictionaries Think.” My first reaction was, “Do dictionaries think?” I thought dictionaries were compilations of the work of individuals who chased down the meanings of words. Who am I but a lonely recluse in rural Kentucky? I know that real journalists know much more about dictionaries than I. So think they do.
But the guts of the story is that a person working at a university ran online queries across the digitized text of early British texts. Guess what? When running a query for the phrase “It’s Greek to me”,
the academic points out that searching for it in the digital resource Early English Books Online throws up its usage in Robert Greene’s The Scottish History of James the Fourth, printed in 1598 but possibly written in 1590.
Who said Shakespeare was a wordsmithing genius? The answer, gentle reader, are those folks who compile dictionaries.
But that’s not the only rip off performed by the guy who wrote plays loved by students the world over. He stole “wild goose chase.”
The article pointed out that the Bard seems to have saddled up his imagination and actually created the phrase “to make an ass of oneself.”
The repercussions from this discovery are significant. The lively and flexible editors of the Oxford English Dictionary will hop to making the necessary changes. I will have to replace my copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in due course. What if I learn that “wild goose chase” is not a coinage of a fellow suspected of being a closet Catholic.
Online is good for something. “Lord, what fools these mortals be.” No wonder creating a link is a violation of the law. If a recusant does not own up to the source, punishment is needed. Bad Sharkespeare.
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2016
Algorithm Bias in Beauty Contests
September 16, 2016
I don’t read about beauty contests. In my college dorm, I recall that the televised broadcast of the Miss America pageant was popular among some of the residents. I used the attention grabber as my cue to head to the library so I could hide reserved books from my classmates. Every little bit helps in the dog eat dog world of academic achievement.
“When Artificial Intelligence Judges a Beauty Contest, White People Win” surprised me. I thought that algorithms were objective little numerical recipes. Who could fiddle 1=1=2?
I learned:
The foundation of machine learning is data gathered by humans, and without careful consideration, the machines learn the same biases of their creators. Sometimes bias is difficult to track, but other times it’s clear as the nose on someone’s face—like when it’s a face the algorithm is trying to process and judge.
Its seems that an algorithm likes white people. The write up informed me:
An online beauty contest called Beauty.ai, run byYouth Laboratories (that lists big names in tech like Nvidia and Microsoft as “partners and supporters” on the contest website), solicited 600,000 entries by saying they would be graded by artificial intelligence. The algorithm would look at wrinkles, face symmetry, amount of pimples and blemishes, race, and perceived age. However, race seemed to play a larger role than intended; of the 44 winners, 36 were white.
Oh, oh. Microsoft and its smart software seem to play a role in this drama.
What’s the fix? Better data. The write up includes this statement from a Microsoft expert:
“If a system is trained on photos of people who are overwhelmingly white, it will have a harder time recognizing non-white faces,” writes Kate Crawford, principal researcher at Microsoft Research New York City, in a New York Times op-ed. “So inclusivity matters—from who designs it to who sits on the company boards and which ethical perspectives are included. Otherwise, we risk constructing machine intelligence that mirrors a narrow and privileged vision of society, with its old, familiar biases and stereotypes.”
In the last few months, Microsoft’s folks were involved in Tay, a chatbot which allegedly learned to be racist. Then there was the translation of “Daesh” as Saudi Arabia. Now algorithms appear to favor folks of a particular stripe.
Exciting math. But Microsoft has also managed to gum up webcams and Kindle access in Windows 10. Yep, the new Microsoft is a sparkling example of smart.
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2016
Enterprise Technology Perspective on Preventing Security Breaches
September 16, 2016
When it comes to the Dark Web, the enterprise perspective wants solutions to prevent security breaches. Fort Scale released an article, Dark Web — Tor Use is 50% Criminal Activity — How to Detect It, speaking to this audience. This write-up explains the anonymizer Tor as The Onion Router, a name explained by the multiple layers used to hide an IP address and therefore the user’s identity. How does the security software works to detect Tor users? We learned,
There are a couple of ways security software can determine if a user is connecting via the Tor network. The first way is through their IP address. The list of Tor relays is public, so you can check whether the user is coming from a known Tor relay. It’s actually a little bit trickier than that, but a quality security package should be able to alert you if user behaviors include connecting via a Tor network. The second way is by looking at various application-level characteristics. For example, a good security system can distinguish the differences between a standard browser and a Tor Browser because among other things,Tor software won’t respond to certain history requests or JavaScript queries.
Many cybersecurity software companies that exist offer solutions that monitor the Dark Web for sensitive data, which is more of a recovery strategy. However, this article highlights the importance of cybersecurity solutions which monitor enterprise systems usage to identify users connecting through Tor. While this appears a sound strategy to understand the frequency of Tor-based users, it will be important to know whether these data-producing software solutions facilitate action such as removing Tor users from the network.
Megan Feil, September 16, 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/
UltraSearch Releases Version 2.1
September 16, 2016
Now, after more than a year, we have a new version of a popular alternative to Windows’ built-in Desktop Search, UltraSearch. We learn the details from the write-up at gHacks.net, “UltraSearch 2.1 with File Content Search.” The application works by accessing a system’s master file table, so results appear almost instantly. Writer Martin Brinkmann informs us:
The list of changes on the official UltraSearch project website is long. While some of them may affect only some users, others are useful or at least nice to have for all. Jam Software, the company responsible for the search program, have removed the advertising banner from the program. There is, however, a new ‘advanced search’ menu option which links to the company’s TreeSize program in various ways. TreeSize is available as a free and commercial program.
As far as functional changes are concerned, these are noteworthy:
- File results are displayed faster than before.
- New File Type selection menu to pick file groups or types quickly (video files, Office files).
- Command line parameters are supported by the program now.
- The drive list was moved from the bottom to the top.
- The export dialog displays a progress dialog now.
- You may deactivate the automatic updating of the MFT index under Options > Include file system changes.
Brinkmann emphasizes that these are but a few of the changes in this extensive update, and suggests Windows users who have rejected it before give it another chance. We remind you, though, that UltraSearch is not your only Windows Desktop Search alternative. Some others include FileSearchEX, Gaviri Pocket Search, Launchy. Locate32, Search Everything, Snowbird, Sow Soft’s Effective File Search, and Super Finder XT.
Launched back in 1997, Jam Software is based in Trier, Germany. The company specializes in software tools to address common problems faced by users, developers, and organizations., like TreeSize, SpaceObserver, and, of course, UltraSearch. Though free versions of each are available, the company makes its money by enticing users to invest in the enhanced, professional versions.
Cynthia Murrell, September 16, 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/
Making Elsevier, Springer, and Wolters Kluwer Nervous: The Free Scientific Paper Ploy
September 15, 2016
I read “Europe Announces That All Scientific Papers Should Be Free by 2020.” Sounds exciting for the major STEM publishers operating in the business-friendly European Community. The problem is the “should be”. Quite parental.
The write up calls attention to an outfit called the Competitiveness Council. The idea is that STEM content funded by the government I presume but one never knows in EC land.
I noted this passage:
Indeed, at the present time, the council has provided scarce details related to how countries can expect to make the full transition to open access and meet the deadline, which is less than four years away. That’s not too surprising, as the announcement was only just made a few days ago. But given the current state of scientific literacy, and the sad state of science communication, well, the sciences need all the help they can get. So this commitment is almost unanimously welcomed by those working in STEM and associated careers.
Google may want to commiserate with some of the publishers likely to be impinged upon if this adult idea becomes a reality. No, hold that thought. Some European publishers don’t like Google and would use a meet up with the Googlers as an opportunity to talk about getting compensated for their content.
Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2016
In-Q-Tel Wants Less Latency, Fewer Humans, and Smarter Dashboards
September 15, 2016
I read “The CIA Just Invested in a Hot Startup That Makes Sense of Big Data.” I love the “just.” In-Q-Tel investments are not like bumping into a friend in Penn Station. Zoomdata, founded in 2012, has been making calls, raising venture funding (more than $45 million in four rounds from 21 investors), and staffing up to about 100 full time equivalents. With its headquarters in Reston, Virginia, the company is not exactly operating from a log cabin west of Paducah, Kentucky.
The write up explains:
Zoom Data uses something called Data Sharpening technology to deliver visual analytics from real-time or historical data. Instead of a user searching through an Excel file or creating a pivot table, Zoom Data puts what’s important into a custom dashboard so users can see what they need to know immediately.
What Zoomdata does is offer hope to its customers for less human fiddling with data and faster outputs of actionable intelligence. If you recall how IBM i2 and Palantir Gotham work, humans are needed. IBM even snagged Palantir’s jargon of AI for “augmented intelligence.”
In-Q-Tel wants more smart software with less dependence on expensive, hard to train, and often careless humans. When incoming rounds hit near a mobile operations center, it is possible to lose one’s train of thought.
Zoomdata has some Booz, Allen DNA, some MIT RNA, and protein from other essential chemicals.
The write up mentions Palantir, but does not make explicit the need to reduce t6o some degree the human-centric approaches which are part of the major systems’ core architecture. You have nifty cloud stuff, but you have less nifty humans in most mission critical work processes.
To speed up the outputs, software should be the answer. An investment in Zoomdata delivers three messages to me here in rural Kentucky:
- In-Q-Tel continues to look for ways to move along the “less wait and less weight” requirement of those involved in operations. “Weight” refers to heavy, old-fashioned system. “Wait” refers to the latency imposed by manual processes.
- Zoomdata and other investments whips to the flanks of the BAE Systems, IBMs, and Palantirs chasing government contracts. The investment focuses attention not on scope changes but on figuring out how to deal with the unacceptable complexity and latency of many existing systems.
- In-Q-Tel has upped the value of Zoomdata. With consolidation in the commercial intelligence business rolling along at NASCAR speeds, it won’t take long before Zoomdata finds itself going to big company meetings to learn what the true costs of being acquired are.
For more information about Zoomdata, check out the paid-for reports at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2016
Automated Tools for Dark Web Data Tracking
September 15, 2016
Naturally, tracking stolen data through the dark web is a challenge. Investigators have traditionally infiltrated chatrooms and forums in the effort—a tedious procedure with no guarantee of success. Now, automated tools may give organizations a leg up, we learn from the article, “Tools to Track Stolen Data Through the Dark Web” at GCN. Reporter Mark Pomerleau informs us:
“The Department of Veterans Affairs last month said it was seeking software that can search the dark web for exploited VA data improperly outside its control, distinguish between VA data and other data and create a ‘one-way encrypted hash’ of VA data to ensure that other parties cannot ascertain or use it. The software would also use VA’s encrypted data hash to search the dark web for VA content. We learned:
Some companies, such as Terbium Labs, have developed similar hashing technologies. ‘It’s not code that’s embedded in the data so much as a computation done on the data itself,’ Danny Rogers, a Terbium Labs co-founder, told Defense One regarding its cryptographic hashing. This capability essentially enables a company or agency to recognize its stolen data if discovered. Bitglass, a cloud access security broker, uses watermarking technology to track stolen data. A digital watermark or encryption algorithm is applied to files such as spreadsheets, Word documents or PDFs that requires users to go through an authentication process in order to access it.
We’re told such watermarks can even thwart hackers trying to copy-and-paste into a new document, and that Bitglass tests its tech by leaking and following false data onto the dark web. Pomerleau notes that regulations can make it difficult to implement commercial solutions within a government agency. However, government personnel are very motivated to find solutions that will allow them to work securely outside the office.
The article wraps up with a mention of DARPA’s Memex search engine, designed to plumb the even-more-extensive deep web. Law enforcement is currently using Memex, but the software is expected to eventually make it to the commercial market.
Cynthia Murrell, September 15, 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/
Law Enforcement Utilizes New and Traditional Methods for Dark Web Matters
September 15, 2016
While the Dark Web may be thought of as a home to drug dealers, several individuals have been apprehended by law enforcement. Edinburgh News published a report: FBI Helps Catch Edinburgh Man Selling Drugs on ‘Dark Web’. David Trail was convicted for creating a similar website to eBay, but on the Dark Web, called Topix2. Stolen credit card information from his former employer, Scotweb were found in the search of his home. The article states,
Detective Inspector Brian Stuart, of the Cybercrime Unit, said: ‘Following information from colleagues in FBI, Germany’s West Hessen Police and the UK’s National Crime Agency, Police Scotland identified David Trail and his operation and ownership of a hidden website designed to enable its users to buy and sell illegal drugs anonymously and beyond the reach of law enforcement. His targeting of a previous employer, overcoming their security, almost had a devastating effect on the company’s ability to remain in business.
As this piece notes, law enforcement used a combination of new and traditional policing techniques to apprehend Trail. Another common practice we have been seeing is the cooperation of intelligence authorities across borders — and across levels of law enforcement. In the Internet age this is a necessity, and even more so when the nature of the Dark Web is taken into account.
Megan Feil, September 15, 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/
Instance of the LinkedIn Blue Pencil
September 15, 2016
I love LinkedIn. I love the wonky email inducements to pay. I love the quirky information posted by people who are looking for jobs, consulting gigs, or a digital water cooler.
But what I love most is learning about alleged instances of bowdlerization, restrictions, information black outs, and what might be labeled “censorship.”
Let me be clear. The example comes from an individual with whom I have worked for 12, maybe 15 years. I am reporting this alleged suppression of information to shine some light on what seems to be one more step in restricting factoids and opinions. As I said, I love LinkedIn, which I have described as the social Clippy now that Microsoft will embrace the system in its services. Eager am I. I loved Bob too.
I learned from a person who was a US Marine officer and also a former Central Intelligence Agency professional that a post about the democratic candidate for the presidency was deleted. The author was put in LinkedIn’s dunce cap. You can read the original “Owl” post at this link.
Here’s what I learned. Note that this information came to me from Robert David Steele Vivas, the person who was summarily sent to sit in the corner of the LinkedIn virtual professional meet up on September 13, 2016.
Steele says:
Yesterday I was censored by LinkedIn when I tried to post a story on “The Madness of Queen Hillary.” Coming as it does in the aftermath of Google manipulating both search and spam results in favor of Hillary Clinton, Facebook blocking YouTubes from Alex Jones, and Twitter censoring trending results associated with Hillary Clinton’s health, I have realized that the major social media enterprises have become part of a police state where the opinions of we “unredeemable deplorables” are easily censored.
Intrigued, I ask Steele what happened then? He says:
My three attempts to post were blocked, and then I found that my profile was restricted from posting. I immediately deleted the account, LinkedIn, while efficient at censoring, is inefficient at elective deletions, so it will take a few days.
How were you told about this action? Steele states:
I was neither warned nor notified. I discovered the censorship when I found that I had lost functionality.
In a time when smart software promotes false news stories, I wanted to know if Steele knew if the action was taken by a human or an artificially smart chunk of code. Steele replies:
Presumably this was a software-driven trigger that closes down commentaries using negative words in association with Hillary Clinton. However I have also noticed that both the Clinton camp and the Israeli lobby have perfected the use of spam reports to silence critics — there is no court of appeals if you are maliciously labeled a spammer. I suspect the censorship resulted from a mix of the two anti-thought measures.
Why I asked myself would LinkedIn censor a member’s essay about a campaign that is dominating the news cycle in just about every form of media I check out? I asked Steele this question, and he writes:
Eric Schmidt is on record as saying that he has the right and the ability to control “hate speech” online. The “digital innovators” in the White House are all committed to Hillary Clinton in part so they can keep their jobs and continue to play with new means of manipulating the information environment. This happened because the White House ignored my 1994 letter calling for major investments in the integrity and security of the cyber domain (and actually allowed NSA to gut what security existed, with the complicity of IT CEOs, for the convenience of our mass surveillance program), and because in the absence of legitimate oversight in the public interest, social media enterprises will trend toward the abuse of their power, much as banks and corporations have in the material world.
Living in rural Kentucky, I am not certain that I am qualified to comment about the actions of smart software and even smarter executives. I have several thoughts I want to capture before I leave this vallis lacrimarum:
- LinkedIn has some content which strikes me as subpar. If the outfit is editing and blocking content, the process seems a bit hit and miss. I prefer some substantive, thought provoking information, not recycled marketing jargon.
- What other content has been blocked? Is there a Web site or social media stream where instances of censorship are captured and commented upon? I checked several pastesites and drew a blank.
- I assume that LinkedIn operates like a mall; that is, the mall owner can run the mall any old way he or she wishes. But how does one evaluate a professional who may be qualified for a job or a consulting gig if the information that professional supplies to LinkedIn is blocked. Doesn’t this distort the picture of the potential hire? What about a felon who creates an identify on LinkedIn and then is revealed by another LinkedIn user. Will LinkedIn block the revelatory information and allow the felon to cruise along with a false background?
As I said, the LinkedIn system is a fave at Beyond Search. I think it is difficult to make an informed decision without having access to information created by a LinkedIn member. What else is missing from the LinkedIn data pool?
Stephen E Arnold, September xx, 2016
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