The Dark Web and Surface Web Connection
January 11, 2017
IBM is doing its part to educate about the Dark Web. IBM Big Data and Analytics Hub shared a podcast episode entitled, Should we shut down the Dark Web?, which addresses the types of illegal activities on the Dark Web, explains challenges for law enforcement and discusses the difficulty in identifying Dark Web actors. Senior product manager of cyber analysis with IBM i2 Safer Planet, Bob Stasio, hosts the podcast. We found what one of the guests, Tyler Carbone, had to say quite interesting,
The parts of the internet we’re particularly interested in is where stolen information is posted and traded. What’s interesting is that that’s happening not through Tor…For what we’re interested in, a lot of stolen information is posted (traded and sold) on lite web sites — you can access them in Internet Explorer or Chrome. They’re just hosted in countries that aren’t particularly listed. One of the most well-known carding marketplaces…is hosted on a .cm….That’s not hidden within Tor at all. The problem is that individuals are logging in in an anonymous way so we can’t follow up with the individuals.
The line between the Surface Web and the Dark Web may be blurring or blurred. Ultimately, the internet is rooted in connection, so it’s hard to imagine clear separation between actors and activities being relegated to one or the other. We recommend giving this podcast a listen to ruminate on questions such as whether the Dark Web could and should be shut down.
Megan Feil, January 11, 2017
Yahoo May Become Altaba
January 10, 2017
I read a US government filing which revealed that after Verizon allegedly buys the core assets of Yahoot. Sorry, I meant “Yahoo”, the remaining part of the Internet old timer will be called Altaba.
Darn. I was hoping that the non core assets of Yahoot. Sorry, I meant Yahoo would have a more mellifluous name; for example:
- Hooty
- Marissa Ville
- Yabba-dabba-doo.
My pick is “Yabba-dabba-doo” in a nice sans serif font. I would probably recall the new name as “Yabba-dabba-hoot.” As I age, my mind plays tricks on me. Kudos to the artist who designed a possible new logo for the company which should be named Yabba-dabba-hoo.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2017
Et Tu, Brutus? Oracle Database on the Way Out
January 10, 2017
i read “NoSQL to Undo Oracle’s Database Reign.” The author is a person who once worked at Oracle. Like Brutus, the author knows Julius Caesar. Sorry, I meant the jet loving, top dog at Oracle.
The tussle between Oracle and MarkLogic seems likely to continue in 2017. The write up explains that Oracle has become a lot like IBM. I learned:
Like IBM did in the past, Oracle and the other incumbents are adding features to old technologies in an attempt to meet today’s challenges — features such as in-memory, graph, JSON and XML support. None of them have changed their underlying architectures so their efforts will fall short, just as IBM’s did in the last generational shift of the database industry 35 years ago. What’s more, their widely publicized moves of shifting old technology to the cloud changes the deployment model but doesn’t help solve the modern data challenges their customers are facing. An outdated database technology on the cloud is still an outdated database.
The new champion of the data management world is MarkLogic, the outfit where Gary Bloom labors. MarkLogic, I concluded, is one of the “emergent winners.”
That’s good.
MarkLogic is an XML centric data management system. XML is ideal for slicing and dicing once the data have been converted to validated XML. For some folks, changing a legacy AS/400 Ironside output into XML might be interesting. But, it seems, that MarkLogic has cracked the data conversion, transformation, extraction, and loading processes. Anyone can do it. Perhaps not everyone because there are some proprietary tweaks to the open source methods required by the MarkLogic system. No problem, but volume, time, and cost constraints might be an issue for some use cases.
I noted this passage in the undated write up:
There is definitely shake out of the NoSQL vendors and MarkLogic is one of the emergent victors. As an enterprise-ready NoSQL database that handles multiple models natively and doesn’t care if you have two or hundreds of data silos, MarkLogic is becoming the database platform for those with complex data integration problems. In fact, some companies are skipping the relational generation altogether and going straight from the mainframe to NoSQL. Virginia’s Fairfax County recently migrated years of historical data from its 30-year-old mainframe system to MarkLogic’s NoSQL. Residents and employees can now more easily and quickly search all the data—including property records going back to the 1950s and both old and new data coming from multiple data silos.
MarkLogic, however, is no spring chicken. The company was founded in 2001, which works out to 16 years old. Oh, you might recall that the total equity funding is $173.23 million with the most recent round contributing $102 million in May 2015 if the Crunchbase data are on the money. Some of that $102 million came from Gary Bloom, the author of the write up. (No wonder he is optimistic about MarkLogic. Hope is better than fear that one might have to go look for another job.)
My view is that MarkLogic wants a big fight with Oracle. That adds some zip to what is one of the less magnetic types of software in a business world excited by Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tesla, and Uber. Personally I find data management exciting, but I gravitate to the systems and methods articulated by Googler Ramanathan Guha. Your mileage may vary.
The challenge for MarkLogic is to generate sufficient sustainable revenue to achieve one of these outcomes:
- A sale of the company to a firm which believes in the XML tinted world of the XML rock stars. (Yes, there’s is an XML rock star video at this link.) Obviously a lucrative sale would make the folks watching their $173 million grow into a huge payday would find this exit worthy of a happy face emoji.
- A surge in the number of companies convinced that MarkLogic and not an open source, now license fee alternative writing checks for multi year licenses and six figure service deals. Rapid revenue growth and high margin services may not get the $172 million back, but life would be less stressful if those numbers soar.
- MarkLogic goes public fueled in part by a PR battle with Oracle.
Will systems like MarkLogic’s become the future of next generation operational and transaction systems? MarkLogic believes NoSQL is the future. Will Oracle wake up and buy MarkLogic? Will Google realize its error when it passed on a MarkLogic buy out? Will Amazon figure out that life will be better without the home brew approach to data management that Amazon has taken since it shifted from an Oracle type fixation? Will Facebook see MarkLogic as a solution to some of its open source data management hassles?
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we still remember the days when MarkLogic was explaining that it was an enterprise search system, an analytics system, and a content production system. A database can be many things. The one important characteristic, however, is that the data management system generate substantial revenue and juicy profits.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2017
Hot Trends in Smart Software Methods
January 10, 2017
I read “Summary of NIPS 2016.” The write up includes a list of presentations the author found interesting. For me, I noted the three hot trends:
- Generative adversarial networks
- Reinforcement learning
- Bayesian Deep Learning.
You will want to read the documents linked in the original paper.
What struck me about the three hot trends was that none of them were new new. Artificial intelligence has been in the recycling business for decades. The systems and methods are constructed of well known procedures taught in university classes or summarized in books like Peter Norvig’s “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.”
A good example of this is the tried and true Bayesian method which makes an appearance in the worlds of GANs and RLs. Old chestnut algorithms get new life with plentiful computing and lots of RAM.
If you want to get a sense of what’s in store for smart software, the write up is a useful place to begin.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2016
HonkinNews for 10 January 2017 Now Available
January 10, 2017
This week’s HonkinNews introduces the concept of cacaphones. Check out the snippets of images. Tasty. We also discuss LucidWorks effort to generate revenue. The firm’s most recent dog paddle is with the USS IBM Watson’s life preserver. If you did not know, predictive analytics has given up the ghost. Don’t mourn, however. A better approach to analytics is driving the digital analysis Hummer now. Our favorite government search and content processing system is not sufficient for the US Air Force. BAE Systems will build custom software to “bridge gaps” and perform other feats of digital magic. Enjoy.
Kenny Toth, January 10, 2017
Dark Web Offers Tools for Vengeance to Disgruntled Workers
January 10, 2017
It seems the dark web is now making it easier for disgruntled employees to take their revenge to the next level, we learn from the KrebsOnSecurity article, “Rise of Darknet Stokes Fear of the Insider.” The article cites Gartner analyst Avivah Litan; she reports a steep increase in calls from clients concerned about vindictive employees, current or former, who might expose sensitive information on the dark web. Not surprisingly, companies with a lot of intellectual property at stake are already working with law-enforcement or private security firms to guard against the threat.
How, exactly, is the dark web making worker retaliation easier than ever before? Writer Brian Krebs explains:
Noam Jolles, a senior intelligence expert at Diskin Advanced Technologies, studies darknet communities. I interviewed her last year in ‘Bidding for Breaches,’ a story about a secretive darknet forum called Enigma where members could be hired to launch targeted phishing attacks at companies. Some Enigma members routinely solicited bids regarding names of people at targeted corporations that could serve as insiders, as well as lists of people who might be susceptible to being recruited or extorted.
Jolles said the proliferation of darkweb communities like Enigma has lowered the barriers to entry for insiders, and provided even the least sophisticated would-be insiders with ample opportunities to betray their employer’s trust.
I’m not sure everyone is aware of how simple and practical this phenomena looks from adversary eyes and how far it is from the notion of an insider as a sophisticated disgruntled employee,’ Jolles said. ‘The damage from the insider is not necessarily due to his position, but rather to the sophistication of the threat actors that put their hands on him.
According to research by Verizon, few vengeful employees turn out to have been in management positions. Most are workers lower on the totem pole who had to be given access to sensitive information to perform their jobs. The Verizon report cheerfully advises, “At the end of the day, keep up a healthy level of suspicion toward all employees.” What fun.
See the article for more about this threat, and how organizations might go about protecting themselves.
Cynthia Murrell, January 10, 2017
Medical Records Are the Hot New Dark Web Commodity
January 10, 2017
From emails to Netflix and Uber account information to other personally identifiable information has long been for sale on the Dark Web. A recent article from Fast Company, On The Dark Web, Medical Records Are A Hot Commodity, shares that medical records are the latest offerings for sale on the Dark Web. Medical records sold in these marketplaces usually include an individual’s name, birthdate, social security number and medical information. They fetch the relatively high price of $60 a piece, in comparison to social security numbers at $15. The article explains more,
On the dark web, medical records draw a far higher price than credit cards. Hackers are well aware that it’s simple enough to cancel a credit card, but to change a social security number is no easy feat. Banks have taken some major steps to crack down on identity theft. But hospitals, which have only transitioned en masse from paper-based to digital systems in the past decade, have far fewer security protections in place.
Cybercrime of medical records is potentially life-threatening because oftentimes during the theft of medical records, data showing allergies and other vital information is erased or swapped. Hopefully, the amount of time it took the medical industry to transition from paper to electronic health records is not representative of the time it will take the industry to increase security measures.
Megan Feil, January 10, 2017
The Disconnect: Big Data and Business Strategy
January 9, 2017
Imagine that: Big Data may not have a direct impact on business strategy.
I read “Why Big Data and Algorithms Won’t Improve Business Strategy.” I learned that Big Data learns by playing algorithmic chess. The “moves” can be converted to patterns. The problem is that no one knows what the game is.
The write up points out:
White’s control panel is just a shadow of the landscape and the sequence of presses lacks any positional information or consistent understanding of movement on the board. When faced with a player who does understand the environment then no amount of large scale data analysis on combinations of sequences of presses through the control panel or application of artificial intelligence or algorithms that is going to help you.
The idea is that a disconnect occurs.
Data does not equal strategy for the game of “real” chess.
The write up includes an analysis of a famous battle. An accurate map may be more useful than an MBA analysis of a situationally ignorant analysis. Okay, I understand.
The write up points out:
In the game of Chess above, yes you can use large scale data analytics, AI and algorithms to discover new patterns in the sequences of presses and certainly this will help you against equally blind competitors. Such techniques will also help you in business improve your supply chain or understand user behavior or marketing or loyalty programs or operational performance or any number of areas in which we have some understanding of the environment.
The author adds:
But this won’t help you in strategy against the player with better situational awareness. Most business strategy itself operates in a near vacuum of situational awareness. For the vast majority then I’ve yet to see any real evidence to suggest that big data is going to improve this. There are a few and rare exceptions but in general, the key is first to understand the landscape and that a landscape exists.
The write up leaves me with an opportunity to hire the author. What’s clear is that content marketing and business strategy do connect. That’s reassuring. No analysis needed. No map either.
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2017
IBM and Its Five Year Vision: Nothing Like Vision Instead of Revenue
January 9, 2017
I read “IBM’s 5 Year Vision Focuses on New Technology for Visualizing the World.” The author is a Kevin Murnane who is the author of Nutrition for Cyclists: Eating and Drinking Before, During and After the Ride. Seems like excellent preparation for the low fat approach to IBM technology, doesn’t it?
The write up in the capitalist tool Forbes Magazine recycles information from “IBM 5 in 5. Five Innovations That Will Help Change Our Lives within Five Years: The Invisible Made Visible.” Now that’s a title designed for Web search engines.
The IBM write up identifies these technologies as life changers:
- Artificial intelligence like IBM Watson
- Superhero vision via “hyperimaging”
- Macroscopes
- Medical labs on a chip
- Smart sensors.
What I found interesting was this comment from the nutritionist:
People would be wise to listen when IBM talks about future technology. Their past achievements include the invention of floppy discs and hard drives, the relational database and SQL, Fortran, DRAM, the virtual machine, the ATM machine, magnetic stripe cards and the Universal Bar Code. Their employees have won five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science. IBM has a long history of looking forward, thinking big and accomplishing what they set out to do. If their future is like their past, IBM’s 5 in 5 will be more than pie in the sky.
Unfortunately the Nobel Prizes, the Turing Awards, the National Medals for Technology and the five National Medals of Science are not translating to top line revenue growth and juicy profits for stakeholders. IBM’s vision does not include expanding aggressively the i2-type technology at a time when IBM Federal Systems might be in for a a bit of Gotham shock.
Give me that old fashioned revenue growth, please. I am not sure that macroscopes and superhero vision can change how I see the company’s last fifteen quarterly reports. One does not get fit on a low calorie revenue diet, does one?
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2017
Yahoo Takes on ISIS, in Its Way
January 9, 2017
The article on VentureBeat titled Yahoo Takes Steps to Remove Content Posted From ISIS and Other Terrorist Groups remarks on the recent changes Yahoo made to its community guidelines. The updated guidelines now specify that any content or accounts involved with terrorist organizations, even those that “celebrate” violence connected to terrorist activity are up for deletion or deactivation. The article speaks to the relevance of these new guidelines that follow hard upon the heels of Orlando and San Bernardino,
Twitter has responded as well, “suspending over 125,000 accounts” related to terrorism. Messaging app Telegram has also blocked 78 channels that engaged in ISIS-related activity. Kathleen Lefstad, Yahoo’s policy manager for trust and safety, wrote that this new category is in addition to other types of content that are flagged, including hate speech, bullying or harassment, and sharing adult or sexualized content of someone without their consent.
ISIS has grown infamous for its social media presence and ability to draw foreign supporters through social media platforms. Yahoo’s crackdown is a welcome sign of awareness that these platforms must take some responsibility for how their services are being abused. Priorities, folks. If Facebook’s machine learning content security can remove any sign of a woman’s nipple within 24 hours, shouldn’t content that endorses terrorism be deleted in half the time?
Chelsea Kerwin, January 9, 2017
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