Yahoo: Discount News
February 25, 2017
I read “Verizon, Yahoo Agree to Lowered $4.48 Billion Deal.” The knock off price for an outfit with interesting security controls and a fine customer communication business process is $4.48 billion. Not bad for an aged Internet dowager which seems to have been drifting of late. The write up stated in real news fashion:
Under the amended terms, Yahoo and Verizon will split cash liabilities related to some government investigations and third-party litigation related to the breaches. Yahoo will continue to be responsible for liabilities from shareholder lawsuits and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations.
From my vantage pointing Harrod’s Creek, it is party time for the attorneys engaged in the many facets of Silicon Valley’s business school generation machine. Yahoooot or is it Yabba Dabba Hoot. I just get mixed up.
Stephen E Arnold, February 25, 2017
Intellisophic / Linkapedia
February 24, 2017
Intellisophic identifies itself as a Linkapedia company. Poking around Linkapedia’s ownership revealed some interesting factoids:
- Linkapedia is funded in part by GITP Ventures and SEMMX (possible a Semper fund)
- The company operates in Hawaii and Pennsylvania
- One of the founders is a monk / Zen master. (Calm is a useful characteristic when trying to spin money from a search machine.)
First, Intellisophic. The company describes itself this way at this link:
Intellisophic is the world’s largest provider of taxonomic content. Unlike other methods for taxonomy development that are limited by the expense of corporate librarians and subject matter experts, Intellisophic content is machine developed, leveraging knowledge from respected reference works. The taxonomies are unbounded by subject coverage and cost significantly less to create. The taxonomy library covers five million topic areas defined by hundreds of millions of terms. Our taxonomy library is constantly growing with the addition of new titles and publishing partners.
In addition, Intellisophic’s technology—Orthogonal Corpus Indexing—can identify concepts in large collections of text. The system can be sued to enrich an existing technology, business intelligence, and search. One angle Intellisophic exploits is its use of reference and educational books. The company is in the “content intelligence” market.
Second, the “parent” of Intellisophic is Linkapedia. This public facing Web site allows a user to run a query and see factoids, links about a topic. Plus, Linkapedia has specialist collections of content bundles; for example, lifestyle, pets, and spirituality. I did some clicking around and found that certain topics were not populated; for instance, Lifestyle, Cars, and Brands. No brand information appeared for me. I stumbled into a lengthy explanation of the privacy policy related to a mathematics discussion group. I backtracked, trying to get access the actual group and failed. I think the idea is an interesting one, but more work is needed. My test query for “enterprise search” presented links to Convera and a number of obscure search related Web sites.
The company is described this way in Crunchbase:
Linkapedia is an interest based advertising platform that enables publishers and advertisers to monetize their traffic, and distribute their content to engaged audiences. As opposed to a plain search engine which delivers what users already know, Linkapedia’s AI algorithms understand the interests of users and helps them discover something new they may like even if they don’t already know to look for it. With Linkapedia content marketers can now add Discovery as a new powerful marketing channel like Search and Social.
Like other search related services, Linkapedia uses smart software. Crunchbase states:
What makes Linkapedia stand out is its AI discovery engine that understands every facet of human knowledge. “There’s always something for you on Linkapedia”. The way the platform works is simple: people discover information by exploring a knowledge directory (map) to find what interests them. Our algorithms show content and native ads precisely tailored to their interests. Linkapedia currently has hundreds of million interest headlines or posts from the worlds most popular sources. The significance of a post is that “someone thought something related to your interest was good enough to be saved or shared at a later time.” The potential of a post is that it is extremely specific to user interests and has been extracted from recognized authorities on millions of topics.
Interesting. Search positioned as indexing, discovery, social, and advertising.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2017
A Famed Author Talks about Semantic Search
February 24, 2017
I read “An Interview with Semantic Search and SEO Expert David Amerland.” Darned fascinating. I enjoyed the content marketing aspect of the write up. I also found the explanation of semantic search intriguing as well.
This is the famed author. Note the biceps and the wrist gizmos.
The background of the “famed author” is, according to the write up:
David Amerland, a chemical engineer turned semantic search and SEO expert, is a famed author, speaker and business journalist. He has been instrumental in helping startups as well as multinational brands like Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, BOSCH, etc. create their SMM and SEO strategies. Davis writes for high-profile magazines and media organizations such as Forbes, Social Media Today, Imassera and journalism.co.uk. He is also part of the faculty in Rutgers University, and is a strategic advisor for Darebee.com.
Darebee.com is a workout site. Since I don’t workout, I was unaware of the site. You can explore it at Darebee.com. I think the name means that a person can “dare to be muscular” or “date to be physically imposing.” I ran a query for Darebee.com on Giburu, Mojeek, and Unbubble. I learned that the name “Darebee” does come up in the index. However, the pointers in Unbubble are interesting because the links identify other sites which are using the “darebee” string to get traffic. Here’s the Unbubble results screen for my query “darebee.”
What I found interesting is the system administrator for Darebee.com is none other than David Amerland, whose email is listed in the Whois record as david@amerland.co.uk. Darebee is apparently a part of Amerland Enterprises Ltd. in Hertfordshire, UK. The traffic graph for Darebee.com is listed by Alexa. It shows about 26,000 “visitors” per month which is at variance with the monthly traffic data of 3.2 million on W3Snoop.com.
When I see this type of search result, I wonder if the sites have been working overtime to spoof the relevance components of Web search and retrieval systems.
I noted these points in the interview which appeared in the prestigious site Kamkash.com.
On relevance: Data makes zero sense if you can’t find what you want very quickly and then understand what you are looking for.
On semantic search’s definition: Semantic search essentially is trying to understand at a very nuanced level, and then it is trying to give us the best possible answer to our query at that nuanced level of our demands or our intent.
On Boolean search: Boolean search essentially looks at something probabilistically.
On Google’s RankBrain: [Google RankBrain] has nothing to do with ranking.
On participating in Google Plus: Google+ actually allows you to be pervasively enough very real in a very digital environment where we are synchronously connected with lot of people from all over the world and yet the connection feels very…very real in terms of that.
I find these statements interesting.
Mobile App Usage on the Rise from 34% of Consumer Time in 2013 to 50% in 2016
February 24, 2017
Bad news, Google. The article titled Smartphone Apps Now Account for Half the Time Americans Spend Online on TechCrunch reveals that mobile applications are still on the rise. Throw in tablet apps and the total almost hits 60%. Google is already working to maintain relevancy with its In Apps feature for Androids, which searches inside apps themselves. The article explains,
This shift towards apps is exactly why Google has been working to integrate the “web of apps” into its search engine, and to make surfacing the information hidden in apps something its Google Search app is capable of handling. Our app usage has grown not only because of the ubiquity of smartphones, but also other factors – like faster speeds provided by 4G LTE networks, and smartphones with larger screens that make sitting at a desktop less of a necessity.
What apps are taking up the most of our time? Just the ones you would expect, such as Facebook, Messenger, YouTube, and Google Maps. But Pokemon Go is the little app that could, edging out Snapchat and Pinterest in the ranking of the top 15 mobile apps. According to a report from Senor Tower, Pokemon Go has gone beyond 180 million daily downloads. The growth of consumer time spent on apps is expected to keep growing, but comScore reassuringly states that desktops will also remain a key part of consumer’s lives for many years to come.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 24, 2017
U.S. Government Keeping Fewer New Secrets
February 24, 2017
We have good news and bad news for fans of government transparency. In their Secrecy News blog, the Federation of American Scientists’ reports, “Number of New Secrets in 2015 Near Historic Low.” Writer Steven Aftergood explains:
The production of new national security secrets dropped precipitously in the last five years and remained at historically low levels last year, according to a new annual report released today by the Information Security Oversight Office.
There were 53,425 new secrets (‘original classification decisions’) created by executive branch agencies in FY 2015. Though this represents a 14% increase from the all-time low achieved in FY 2014, it is still the second lowest number of original classification actions ever reported. Ten years earlier (2005), by contrast, there were more than 258,000 new secrets.
The new data appear to confirm that the national security classification system is undergoing a slow-motion process of transformation, involving continuing incremental reductions in classification activity and gradually increased disclosure. …
Meanwhile, ‘derivative classification activity,’ or the incorporation of existing secrets into new forms or products, dropped by 32%. The number of pages declassified increased by 30% over the year before.
A marked decrease in government secrecy—that’s the good news. On the other hand, the report reveals some troubling findings. For one thing, costs are not going down alongside classifications; in fact, they rose by eight percent last year. Also, response times to mandatory declassification requests (MDRs) are growing, leaving over 14,000 such requests to languish for over a year each. Finally, fewer newly classified documents carry the “declassify in ten years or less” specification, which means fewer items will become declassified automatically down the line.
Such red-tape tangles notwithstanding, the reduction in secret classifications does look like a sign that the government is moving toward more transparency. Can we trust the trajectory?
Cynthia Murrell, February 24, 2017
Google Loon Balloons: Still Aloft
February 23, 2017
I enjoy thinking about Google’s Loon balloons. Others are fascinated as well. For instance, the renowned journalistic outfit CBS News showed a happy face. Navigate to “Can Google’s Internet Beaming Balloons Beat the Wind?” The answer, I thought, is obvious, “Darn right.” The write up told me:
Engineers involved in the eccentric project, a part of the X Lab owned by Google’s corporate parent Alphabet Inc., say they have come up with algorithms that enable the high-flying balloons to do a better job anticipating shifting wind conditions so they hover above masses of land for several months instead of orbiting the earth.
The idea is that instead of being blown like a US government balloon from the DC area to Pennsylvania, the Loon balloon would circle an area. Smart software does the trick. The technology allows the Google to deploy fewer balloons to provide Internet access (and ads) to those parts of the world where water, not online connectivity, is a big deal.
The write up points out:
The Alphabet subsidiaries operating outside Google, a hodgepodge of far-flung projects, have lost a combined $7.1 billion during the past two years. In an acknowledgement of their lofty goals and risky nature, Alphabet CEO Larry Page calls them “moonshots.”
I noted that moon rhymes with loon.
The relative of Dr. Edward Teller allegedly said that the new approach plays “a game of chess with the wind.”
Anyone remember that old TV commercial, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”? With some interesting weather manifesting itself here in good old rural Kentucky and near the Oroville Dam, Google believes it will look that Mother Nature in the eye and say, “Checkmate.” Weather is not match for the Googlers.
Oh, one question: What does Google do if those now enabled with Google Loon balloons spend most of their time on Facebook? Can Google knock out the Zuck?
Stephen E Arnold, February 23. 2017
Tips for Finding Information on Reddit.com
February 23, 2017
I noted “The Right Way to Search Posts on Reddit.” I find it interesting that the Reddit content is not comprehensively indexed by Google. One does stumble across this type of results list in the Google if one knows how to use Google’s less than obvious search syntax. Where’s bad stuff on Reddit? Google will reveal some links of interest to law enforcement professionals. For example:
Bing does a little better with certain Reddit content. To be fair, neither service is doing a bang up job indexing social media content but lists a fraction of the Google index pointers. For example:
So how does one search Reddit.com the “right way.” I noted this paragraph:
As of 2015, Reddit had accumulated over 190 million posts across 850,000 different subreddits (or communities), plus an additional 1.7 billion comments across all of those posts. That’s an incredible amount of content, and all of it can still be accessed on Reddit.
I would point out that the “all” is not accurate. There is a body of content deleted by moderators, including some of Reddit.com’s top dogs, which has been removed from the site.
Reddit offers some search syntax to help the researcher locate what is indexed by Reddit.com’s search system. The write up pointed to these strings:
- title:[text] searches only post titles.
- author:[username] searches only posts by the given username.
- selftext:[text] searches only the body of posts that were made as self-posts.
- subreddit:[name] searches only posts that were submitted to the given subreddit community.
- url:[text] searches only the URL of non-self-post posts.
- site:[text] searches only the domain name of non-self-post posts.
- nsfw:yes or nsfw:no to filter results based on whether they were marked as NSFW or not.
- self:yes or self:no to filter results based on whether they were self-posts or not.
The article contains a handful of other search commands; for example, Boolean and and or. How does one NOT out certain words. Use the minus sign. The word not is apparently minus sign appropriate for the discerning Reddit.com searcher.
Stephen E Arnold, February 23, 2017
Anonymous Transparency Project Boldly Attacks Google for Secrecy Then Dives Back Under Rug
February 23, 2017
The article on Mercury News titled Secretive Foe Attacks Google Over Government Influence reports on the Transparency Project, an ironically super-secret group devoted to exposing Google’s insane level of influence. Of course, most of us are already perfectly aware of how much power Google holds over our politicians, our privacy, and our daily functions. Across Chrome, Google search, YouTube etc., not a day goes by that we don’t engage with the Silicon Valley Monster. The group claims,
Over the past decade, Google has transformed itself from the dominant internet search engine into a global business empire that touches on almost every facet of people’s lives — often without their knowledge or consent,” the group’s first report said. Another report, based on White House guest logs, cites 427 visits by employees of Google and “associated entities” to the White House since January 2009, with 21 “small, intimate” meetings between senior Google executives and Obama.
While such information may be disturbing, it is hardly revelatory. So just who is behind the Transparency Project? The article provides a list of companies that Google has pissed off and stomped over on its path to glory. The only company that has stepped up to claim some funding is Oracle. But following the money in this case winds a strange twisted path that actually leads the author back to Google— or at least former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. This begs the question: is there anything Google isn’t influencing?
Chelsea Kerwin, February 23, 2017
Unintended Side Effects of Technology Restrictions
February 23, 2017
Do lawmakers understand how much they do not understand about technology? An article at Roll Call tells us, “Proposed Tech-Export Rules Bashed by Companies, Researchers.” It is perfectly understandable that human-rights organizations have pressed for limits on the spread of surveillance technology and “intrusion software”—a broad term for technology that steals data from computers and mobile devices, including some tools that can hijack hardware. Several Western governments have taken up that banner, imposing restrictions designed to keep this technology out of the hands of bad actors. In fact, 41 nations pledged their commitment to the cause when they signed on to the Wassenarr Arrangement in 2013.
While the intentions behind these restrictions are good, many critics insist that they have some serious unintended side effects for the good guys. Writer Gopal Ratnam reports:
Although such technologies can be used for malicious or offensive purposes, efforts to curb their exports suggests that the regulators didn’t understand the nature of the computer security business, critics say. Unlike embargoes and sanctions, which prohibit dealing with specific countries or individuals, the proposed restrictions would have forced even individual researchers working on computer security to obtain licenses, they say.
The technologies the Wassenaar agreement tried to restrict ‘certainly can be used for bad purposes, but cybersecurity tools used by malicious hackers are also used for good purposes by technology companies and developers,’ says John Miller, vice president for global cybersecurity and privacy policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, a Washington-based group that represents technology companies. ‘Export control law usually doesn’t get into making distinctions on what the technology is going to be used for.’ And that’s ‘one of the reasons it’s difficult to regulate this technology,’ Miller says.
Besides, say some, the bad guys are perfectly capable of getting around the restrictions. Eva Galperin, of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, insists human rights would be better served by applying pressure generally to repressive regimes, instead of trying to stay ahead of their hackers. Ratnam goes on to discuss specific ways restrictions get in the way of legitimate business, like hampering penetration tests or impeding communication between researchers. See the article for more details.
Cynthia Murrell, February 23, 2017
Microsoft May Want to Help Make Global Policy
February 22, 2017
Denmark is ahead of the game. As we reported last week (February 14, 2017), Denmark has created an ambassador to liaise with big US high technology companies. Microsoft qualifies because it is big and has hundreds of employees in Plastic Fantastic Land and in San Francisco.
The policy idea appeared in “’Digital Geneva Convention’ Needed to Deter Nation-State Hacking: Microsoft President.” Sounds like a great idea. How do those “conventions” for use of certain types of weapons or building an arsenal work? How does one know if a party to the convention is playing by the rules? How does one determine if a clever 16 year old in Moldova is goofing off or working for a government entity or a cut out or a plain old bad guy?
Hey, annoying details, right?
The write up said:
Microsoft President Brad Smith on Tuesday pressed the world’s governments to form an international body to protect civilians from state-sponsored hacking, saying recent high-profile attacks showed a need for global norms to police government activity in cyberspace.
I noted this passage:
Smith likened such an organization, which would include technical experts from governments and the private sector, to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a watchdog based at the United Nations that works to deter the use of nuclear weapons.
Yeah, about those nuclear weapons.
Perhaps Microsoft will become the head of US cyber policy. Nice work if one can get it. Then Microsoft can use its Windows 10 upgrade expertise to convince people to do what the “policy” in the “convention” says. Microsoft may want to talk with IBM Watson about cybersecurity, or step back and think about the people compromising systems and the non US companies in this game.
Better yet, Microsoft could buy Gamma Group, Hacking Team, and five or six other companies and dig into their customer list, the tasks these outfits perform, and the ideological orientation of the companies’ employees.
Ah, Microsoft. Thinking big. Perhaps a trip to Denmark is next.
Stephen E Arnold, February 22, 2017
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