Russia Argues with Encrypted Telegram
August 23, 2017
One reason that the Dark Web flourishes are that if offers people an anonymous, encrypted way to communicate. Governments dislike encrypted services, especially when they are trying to keep an eye on their citizens. The Register explains how Russia is unhappy with encrypted messenger service Telegram: “Encrypted Chat App Telegram Warned By Russian Regulator: ‘Comply Or Goodbye.”
One hot argument between governments and their citizens is how much leeway the former has to monitor the latter’s communication. Russia is one country with a poor history of respecting its people’s privacy. It currently is very angry with encrypted chat app Telegram. Communications regulator Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov stated that Telegram is violating Russian legislation because it is not providing any information about its parent company.
Telegram’s parent company only has to complete a questionnaire with information that will be published in the country’s register of service providers. It is not an attack on encrypted communication. If the questionnaire remains unanswered, then Telegram will be banned.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov told newswire Reuters a ban would mean Russian government officials will be entrusting their communications to messenger apps written in other countries.
In playing the nationalism card, Durov cited WhatsApp, Viber, Apple and Google as companies who might carry messages from Russian officials and their friends.
He is skeptical that the regulator is mostly cranky about corporate structure.
The communication bureau and Telegram should stop fighting over the petty red tape. Playing the nationalist card is a good move on Telegram’s part, but why is it so hard to answer a standard questionnaire? If Russia’s security and government officials lose their home brewed encryption app, would they turn to something not from Mother Russia? This is yet another example of why people use the Dark Web over regular Web services.
Whitney Grace, August 23, 2017
Time to Ditch PowerPoint?
August 23, 2017
For decades, Microsoft PowerPoint has been used for making presentations. That is all set to change as a recent study indicates that PowerPoint presentations are ineffective.
According to an article published by Quartz and titled The Scientific Reason No One Wants to See Your PowerPoint Presentation, the publisher says:
Because the human brain process information both visually (using shapes and colors) and spatially (using location and distance, the researchers said, ZUI helps audiences by locating the information in a place, allowing them to mentally retrieve it later.
The problem with the study is that it appears to be too promotional. For instance, the article says tools like Prezi are better for making presentations because it offers a lot of animated options. Why not then use Gifographics or stock videos then?
The effectiveness of a presentation mostly depends on the person presenting it. Many speakers completely do away with any type of tools so that their audience can concentrate on what the speaker says. Moreover, the presentation can be made effective if the slides are designed professionally. Don’t be surprised if, in the near future, all presentations are made using VR headsets for that truly immersive experience.
Vishal Ingole, August 23, 2017
HonkinNews for 22 August 2017 Now Available
August 22, 2017
HonkinNews is going to take a different trajectory. Watch for details in the August 29, 2017, program. This week’s program contains “real” news; specifically, two items about eBay. Item 1: An eBay seller can bill a person looking at items who engages in a direct eBay Q&A session. No buy button click needed. No “are you sure” confirmation. Clever for the sellers and for eBay who needs the sale fees. Item 2: The other item is that if eBay corrupts a user’s date of birth, there is no user facing administrative control to find the error or correct it. Thanks, eBay. The Beyond Search goose enjoyed the one hour telephone drill to get a birthday error “fixed.” This week we report about Wired Magazine’s telling Google “enough is enough.” The videos that autoplay seems to have tipped the pro Silicon Valley publication off its inflatable round ball. Google’s annoying Wired may have been noted by Sogou, a Chinese search vendor. Sogou wants to target the US for its smart search system. Tor, we report, is mostly for good things. We agree, but there are enough interesting sites to make the Dark Web a magnet for certain types of activities. These “activities” can attract the attention of law enforcement and intelligence professionals. You can find this week’s video at this link.
Kenny Toth, August 22, 2017
Take a Hint Amazon, Bing Is Not That Great
August 22, 2017
It recently hit the new stands that Google Home was six times more likely than Amazon Alexa to answer questions. The Inquirer shares more about this development in the article, “Google Hoe Is Six Times Smarter Than Amazon’s Echo.”
360i conducted a test using their proprietary software that asked Amazon Alexa and Google Home 3,000 questions. We don’t know what the 3,000 questions were, but some of them did involve retail information. Google pulled on its Knowledge Graph to answer questions, while Amazon used Bing for its search. Amazon currently controls 70% of the voice assistant market and has many skills from other manufacturers. Google, however, is limited in comparison:
By comparison, Google Home has relatively few smart home control chops, relying primarily on IFTTT, which is limited in what it can achieve and often takes a long time between request and execution.
Alexa, on the other hand, can carry out native skill commands in a second or two.
The downside of the two, however, is that Google is Google and Amazon is just not as good. If Echo was able to access the Knowledge Graph, Google Music, and control Chromecasts, then it would be unassailable.
Amazon Alexa and Google Home are a set of rivals and the facts are is that one is a better shopper and the other better at search. While 360i has revealed their results, we need to see the test questions to fully understand how they arrived at the “six times smarter” statement?
Whitney Grace, August 22, 2017
Fake News Is Here to Stay
August 22, 2017
Morphed pictures and videos were the realms of experts. New tools, however, are making it easier for people with average computer skills to create hyper-realistic content.
As reported by Mashable in an article titled This Scary Video Tool Makes Fake News Look Legit, which says:
Researchers at the University of Washington recently announced a new video-editing tool that they used to superimpose audio — with realistic lip movements — onto a video of former U.S. president Barack Obama, making it appear as though he’s saying whatever they want him to.
The intention of making this tool was to help special effects artists in the entertainment industry. However, as is the case with any other tool, the tool as a test run was to create a fake news content. Couple this tool with other available tools like Google DeepMind AI and Lyrebird, a single person could be producing a number of fake videos sitting in the dungeon.
Social media platforms are already fighting the menace of fake news. However such tools make their tasks tougher. Facebook, for instance, employs an army of analysts to weed out fake news. Seems like until the problem of fake news or information is going to get worse.
Vishal Ingole, August 22, 2017
Math Professor Alleges Google Has Disappeared His Equations
August 21, 2017
I read “One Statistics Professor Was Just Banned By Google: Here Is His Story.” The Beyond Search goose is baffled. We learned that Salil Mehta’s email and blog are no longer online. I did not that the blog was “ads free.” Hmmm. Even the Beyond Search goose does the Google ads things. We noted this statement:
Now instead of mathematics, reporters have turned to this latest circus nightmare from Google as an example of how they are compounding bad decisions on good people anywhere and at any time. Can they not differentiate me from an evil person? Can they not see the large and reputable people and institutions that have relied on my work? Do they have better people who can coach them on how to make decisions with much better taste and finesse? What’s next, all CEOs and professors and politicians are going to be shut down from social media whenever it is least expected? Overnight hi-tech lynching squads are a thing of the past. We can’t have kangaroo courts and hope to lead with moral authority.
Keep Calm Studio will sell those stressed this excellent poster. Its message is germane to the allegations.
Oh, oh. This passage suggests to me that Google is a circus. But not any circus. A circus that invokes nightmares. Yikes. Google?
The passage does call attention to one of the very tiny issues some people have with smart software. Obviously the algorithm may have a bit of a drift because it is possible for smart software to learn that sites like the Daily Stormer are 0.000001 on the Google Quality Index and quite possible have misconstrued a discussion of statistical methods as problematic. Google is doing its best to stamp out hate speech, but statistical procedures, even when informed by Big Data, can deliver off point results.
The passage suggests that Google management needs a coach. Hey, that was Eric Schmidt’s job, and he did it well. Perhaps the author is unnecessarily critical of a company which makes an engineer into the technical equivalent of Lady Gaga.
The passage also raises the question of Google’s future endeavors. I don’t like to predict what Google will do, and I have mocked those who want to tell Google what to do. If Google asks, I output. If Google does not act, I just note the activity and go back to the pond filled with mine drainage. (It looked nice in the ecliptic gloaming.
I also note the phrase “hi-tech lynching squads.” This word choice will probably cause some types of analytic software to spit out an alert. (Maybe misspelling “high” will slip through the filter. Software, even Google’s, may have some idiosyncrasies.
As the write up moved to its conclusion, I circled in anguished ocher this paragraph:
We are going to be looking back on this time in Google’s history and those of other social media and know that they have done some very immoral and confusing things, and it has hurt their public reputation with decent people who wanted to grow into the next future with them.
I am not too keen on saying that the GOOG has done “immoral and confusing actions.” Here in Harrod’s Creek we are eagerly awaiting our Google Fiber T shirt with the message “Make the Internet More Googley.”
We don’t have any suggestions for rectifying the issue. If the author were a member of law enforcement or an intelligence professional, we can provide a “clean,” “untraceable” identity. But the person whose content disappeared is a professor, and I don’t provide untraceable identities to individuals who are disappeared.
May I suggest a new career? Microsoft Bing / LinkedIn may welcome the posts and the résumé?
Oh, the Daily Stormer is available on the Dark Web. My hunch is that not too many statisticians with disappeared content are into the Dot Onion thing.
Remember. The Beyond Search team is on board with the Google. We also try to stay on the search train if you get my drift because we don’t write articles that make Google look like the people from my high school’s machine shop class.
Stephen E Arnold, August 21, 2017
Google Home Still Knows More
August 21, 2017
Amazon has infiltrated our lives as our main shopping destination. Amazon is also trying to become our best friend, information source, and digital assistant via Alexa. Alexa provides a wealth of services, such as scheduling appointments, filling shopping orders, playing music, answering questions, and more. While Amazon Alexa has a steady stream of users, Ad Week says, “Google Home Is 6 Times More Likely To Answer Your Questions Than Amazon Alexa.”
The company 360i developed software that would determine which digital assistant was more accurate: Google Home or Amazon Alexa. Apparently Google Home is six times more likely to answer a question than Amazon Alexa. 360i arrived at this conclusion by using their software to ask both devices 3,000 questions. Alexa won when it came to questions related to retail information, but Google Home won over all with its search algorithms.
It’s relatively surprising, considering that RBC Capital Markets projects Alexa will drive $10 billion of revenue to Amazon by 2020—not to mention the artificial intelligence-based system currently owns 70 percent of the voice market.
Amazon might be the world’s largest market place, so Alexa would, of course, be the world’s best shopping assistant. The Internet is much larger than shopping and Google scours the entire Web. What does Amazon use to power Alexa’s searches?
Whitney Grace, August 21, 2017
Where Your Names Intersect
August 21, 2017
Google Maps might be the top navigational app in the world, but some apps like Crossing.us can help its users find intersections across the US with a choice of their names.
According to an article published by Forbes titled, “A New Search Engine Finds Quirky Intersections Across the U.S“, the author says:
Crossing.us can search for intersections anywhere in the country by name. Plug in two names – say, yours and your spouse’s – and you’ll likely find at least a handful of crossroads somewhere between Hawaii and Florida.
The app in the true sense is just for the novelty. Or probably for some investigator who wants to find out how many intersections exist in the country with a particular name. Apart from a couple of fancy functions for a very very niche audience, the app offers no real utility. Moreover, only a handful of players has so far been able to monetize their navigational apps. Thus the long term viability is still in question.
Vishol Ingole, August 21, 2017
Analytics for the Non-Tech Savvy
August 18, 2017
I regularly encounter people who say they are too dumb to understand technology. When people tell themselves this, they are hindering their learning ability and are unable to adapt to a society that growing more dependent on mobile devices, the Internet, and instantaneous information. This is especially harmful for business entrepreneurs. The Next Web explains, “How Business Intelligence Can Help Non-Techies Use Data Analytics.”
The article starts with the statement that business intelligence is changing in a manner equivalent to how Windows 95 made computers more accessible to ordinary people. The technology gatekeeper is being removed. Proprietary software and licenses are expensive, but cloud computing and other endeavors are driving the costs down.
Voice interaction is another way BI is coming to the masses:
Semantic intelligence-powered voice recognition is simply the next logical step in how we interact with technology. Already, interfaces like Apple’s Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are letting us query and interact with vast amounts of information simply by talking. Although these consumer-level tools aren’t designed for BI, there are plenty of new voice interfaces on the way that are radically simplifying how we query, analyze, process, and understand complex data.
One important component here is the idea of the “chatbot,” a software agent that acts as an automated guide and interface between your voice and your data. Chatbots are being engineered to help users identify data and guide them into getting the analysis and insight they need.
I see this as the smart people are making their technology available to the rest of us and it could augment or even improve businesses. We are on the threshold of this technology becoming commonplace, but does it have practicality attached to it? Many products and services are common place, but it they only have flashing lights and whistles what good are they?
Whitney Grace, August 18, 2017
Docurated Expands Salesforce to Broaden Search
August 18, 2017
Enterprise search is growing to make the user experience easier as the demand for everyday use by company employees not deemed ‘data analysts’ is growing. One company slowly making a name for themselves by providing such a service is Docurated.
CMSWire explains their new federated search within Salesforce as the following,
…both sides win with this solution. By delivering content through the native search bar in Salesforce.com — the most used feature of the platform — marketing gets to use the most trafficked channel to drive content consumption, while sales receives content in context…Its Content Cloud uses a combination of inputs and analytics about the effectiveness of content, combined with powerful search, to retrieve relevant content…It fully integrates with all existing cloud and on-premises content repositories and tracks versions of content, sharing only the latest and most accurate version within the organization.
We’re seeing this trend continue to grow with more search vendors making the search process more user-friendly and able to work in multiple functions and across applications. While Google is going ad-happy with their user experience, most search companies are realizing Google had the right idea in the beginning and are making strides to duplicate it within enterprise search.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 18, 2017
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