Just a Blogger, but he raises an
interesting question or two...
"Are you ready for the imagery
war — the
war against personal photography and capturing of video? You'd
better be. 'In some cities, like New York, the
surveillance-industrial complex has its fangs deeply into government
for the big bucks. It's there we heard the Police Commissioner —
just hours ago, really — claim that "privacy
is off the table." And of course, there's the rise of
wearable cameras and microphones by law enforcement, generally
bringing praise from people who assume they will reduce police
misconduct, but also dangerously ignoring a host of critical
questions. Will officers be able to choose when the video is
running? How will the video be protected from tampering? How long
will it be archived? Can it be demanded by courts? ... All of this
and more is the gung-ho, government surveillance side of the
equation. But what about the personal photography and video side? W
hat of individual or corporate use of these technologies in public
and private spaces? Will the same politicians promoting
government surveillance in all its glory take a similar stance toward
nongovernmental applications? Writing already on the wall
suggests not. Inklings of the battles to come are already visible,
if you know where to look."
“We've got so much data we can't
possibly reach a wrong conclusion!”
April 27, 2013
The
Rise of Big Data How It's Changing the Way We Think About the World
Kenneth Neil Cukier and Viktor
Mayer-Schoenberger, May/June 2013- Foreign Affairs
- "...This kind of data is being put to incredible new uses with the assistance of inexpensive computer memory, powerful processors, smart algorithms, clever software, and math that borrows from basic statistics... Using great volumes of information in this way requires three profound changes in how we approach data. The first is to collect and use a lot of data rather than settle for small amounts or samples, as statisticians have done for well over a century. The second is to shed our preference for highly curated and pristine data and instead accept messiness: in an increasing number of situations, a bit of inaccuracy can be tolerated, because the benefits of using vastly more data of variable quality outweigh the costs of using smaller amounts of very exact data. Third, in many instances, we will need to give up our quest to discover the cause of things, in return for accepting correlations. With big data, instead of trying to understand precisely why an engine breaks down or why a drug’s side effect disappears, researchers can instead collect and analyze massive quantities of information about such events and everything that is associated with them, looking for patterns that might help predict future occurrences. Big data helps answer what, not why, and often that’s good enough." [“Good enough” isn't Bob]
(Related)
April 27, 2013
FCW:
Boston probe's big data use hints at the future
FCW.com
- Frank Konkel: "Less than 24 hours after two
explosions killed three people and injured dozens more at the April
15 Boston Marathon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had compiled
10 terabytes of data in hopes of finding
needles in haystacks of information that might lead to the suspects.
The tensest part of the ongoing investigation – the death of one
suspect and the capture of the second – concluded four days later
in part because the FBI-led investigation analyzed mountains of cell
phone tower call logs, text messages, social media data, photographs
and video surveillance footage to quickly pinpoint the suspects...
[and here I thought it was the phone call from the
car jacking victim Bob] Still, the investigation showed
a glimpse of what big data and data analytics can do -- and
highlighted how far we yet have to go."
Just like WikiLeaks, but without all
the fuss.
… The Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars has launched a new
digital archive containing recently declassified materials from
some 100 different international collections
… Because the world’s biggest
issues tend to have long roots, there is a lot of material here that
echoes today’s headlines. Here, the Soviet Minister of Foreign
Affairs records a 1958 memo about his assessment of North
Korea’s plans for a nuclear program.
How not to collect evidence. Another
really good 'bad example' for my Computer Forensics class...
Apparently, the “MPAA executive” was not even scolded for
altering evidence.
"TorrentFreak reports on an
internet piracy case from Finland, which saw four men found guilty
and fined €45,000. During the trial, the defense attorney took
note of inconsistencies in log files used as evidence against the
men. An investigator for international recording industry
organization IFPI revealed
after questioning that the files had been tampered with. He
said an MPAA executive was present when the evidence gathering took
place, and altered the files to hide the identity of 'one of their
spies.' 'No one from the MPAA informed the defense that
the edits had been made and the tampering was revealed at the worst
possible time – during the trial. This resulted in the prosecutor
ordering a police investigation into the changes that had been made.
"Police then proceeded by comparing the 'work copy' that the
IFPI investigator produced with the material that police and the
defending counsels had received. Police found out that the material
had differences in over 10 files," Hietanen reveals.'"
[From the article:
Considering the effort that had gone
into the case, the outcome was somewhat of a disappointment. Two men
were completely cleared and the four who were found guilty escaped
with suspended jail sentences. The six million euros in damages
claimed by the rightsholders was reduced to just 45,000 euros.
An interesting application for Near
Field technology.
Budweiser's
intimate, dangerous way to make Facebook friends
So you've had a couple of beers.
You meet a nice person of your target
sex. Well, they seem nice, given that you've had a couple of beers.
At some point, one of you raises your
beer cup to clink cups with the other.
The minute the cups clink, you are
indelibly linked. At least you are if you're using Budweiser's
special Facebook-friending cups.
… The so-called "Buddy Cup"
requires you to use your cell phone to expose your Facebook profile
to the chip that's embedded in the cup.
Then, as you continue to drink and make
friends, all you need to identify them (and yourself as being with
them) is to clink cups and your two Facebook profiles will be linked
for all the world (or enough of it, at least) to see.
“Got jobs?”
April 26, 2013
BLS
- Occupational Outlook Handbook
2012-2013
Occupational Outlook Handbook: "Welcome to the Nation′s
premier source for career information! The profiles featured here
cover hundreds of occupations and describe What They Do, Work
Environment, How to Become One, Pay, and more. Each profile also
includes BLS employment projections for the 2010–20 decade."
This could be an interesting tool for
our tutors.
… a new website called Reflap lets
you connect with your friends and family through video chatting with
the greatest of ease.
Once signed up, Reflap gives you a
permanent address where anyone can call you. You can set up a quick
call from your dashboard when you are available and just send the
link over so that anyone can open it and talk to you.
You can also make quick group
conferences similar to Google Hangouts, with Reflap’s Kickback
feature. With Kickback, you can have up to four friends in the group
chat, and anyone who knows the link can join in without having to
sign up.
Reflap runs on Flash and requires you
to use a desktop with a webcam to enjoy video chats. The idea of
having a permanent address to receive video calls makes it a
worthwhile alternative to Skype or Facebook. However, the app may
have missed the boat by not having a mobile option.
[Bummer. That's where the market is going Bob]
… The fact that you do not have to
sign up to join a Kickback or a Quick Call reduces a lot of hassles.
Will laptops that cost less than
textbooks change my teaching style?
"Outbound Intel CEO Paul
Otellini created quite a stir when mentioning that touchscreen
laptops would reach a $200 price point. CNET is now reporting in an
interview with Intel chief product officer Dadi Perlmutter that these
touchscreen laptops will run Android on Intel Atom processors at
first. 'Whether Windows 8 PCs hit that price largely depends on
Microsoft, he said. "We have a good technology that enables a
very cost-effective price point," Perlmutter said. The price of
Windows 8 laptops "depends on how Microsoft prices Windows 8.
It may be a slightly higher price point." ... Perlmutter didn't
specify what the Android notebooks will look like, but it's probable
they'll be convertible-type devices. He also noted that he expects
the PC market to pick up in the back half of the year and heading
into 2014 as new devices become available."
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