The Tor software protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked.
The Tor Browser Bundle lets you use Tor on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser, and is self-contained. The Tor IM Browser Bundleadditionally allows instant messaging and chat over Tor. If you would prefer to use your existing web browser, install Tor permanently, or if you don’t use Windows, see the other ways to download Tor.
Freedom House has produced a video on how to find and use the Tor Browser Bundle. If you don’t see a video below, view it at Youtube . Know of a better video or one translated into your language? Let us know!
and if you now want to see or check your own website for a Denial of Service attack , download this
This is the software for which 32 Turkish teenagers got arrested for bringing down their govt websites. Do NOT USE it for ILLEGAL purposes,
because 1) it is hosted on a western website that due to Patriot Act would tracking downloads as well as most likely be inserting some logging code into your computer (especially if you are still on Windows)
2) Turkey being a NATO member got rather immediate notice of this – which makes it very likely that this tool is compromised in the Western Hemisphere. You can probably use this in Eastern Hemisphere country excluding Israel, Turkey, China, India ,Korea or Japan because these countries do have sophisticated hackers working for the government as well.
3) This is just a beginners tool to understand how flooding a website with requests work.
Note the Failed Tab tells you how good or bad this method is.
Note – it wont work on my blogs hosted on wordpress.com- but then those blogs had a root level breach some time back. It did work on both my blogspot and my tumblr blogs, and it completely shattered my son’s self hosted wordpress blog (see below)
Here is an announcement from Predictive Analytics World, the worlds largest vendor neutral conference dedicated to Predictive Analytics alone. Decisionstats has been a blog partner of PAWCON since inception. This is cool stuff!
Video Testimonials: Reasons to Attend Predictive Analytics World Oct 2011, NY
What’s Predictive Analytics World (PAW) all about and why should you go? See and hear experiences from those who have attended PAW. The video recorded at PAW San Francisco 2011 includes statements from Thomas Davenport, conference chair Eric Siegel, and other conference participants and VIPs.
Join your peers October 17-21, 2011 at the Hilton New York for Predictive Analytics World, the business event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today’s commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors.
Register using the code REDC before June 15th and 10% of your registration proceeds will be donated to American Red Cross Midwest Tornado Relief Effort. Also, take advantage of Super Early Bird Pricing and realize $400 in savings.
Discover new content covering all the latest topics and advanced methods by participating in PAW’s workshops, case studies, and educational sessions. View full agenda and topics online now.
Keynotes from Tom Davenport, President’s Distinguished Professor, Babson College, Author, Competing on Analytics and Eric Siegel, Conference Program Chair, Predictive Analytics World
Special plenary sessions from industry heavyweights, Usama Fayyad, Ph.D., CEO, Open Insights and John F. Elder, CEO and Founder, Elder Research
Full day workshops that cover the topics of Decisioning, Core Methods, Net Lift Modeling, Hands-On Intro, Hands-On R, Intro to Predictive Analytics and Intro to Business Analytics
Topics covering black box trading, churn modeling, crowdsourcing, demand forecasting, ensemble models, fraud detection, healthcare, insurance applications, law enforcement, litigation, market mix modeling, mobile analytics, online marketing, risk management, social data, supply chain management, targeting direct marketing, uplift modeling (net lift), and other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.
Thomas Davenport
Author, Competing on Analytics
VIP from IBM Research (TBA)
Keynote on Jeopardy-Winning Watson and DeepQA
Eric Siegel, Ph.D
Program Chair, Predictive Analytics World
Usama Fayyad, Ph.D
CEO, Open Insights
John F. Elder IV, Ph.D
Chief Scientist, Elder Research, Inc.
Become an invaluable resource to your organization by discovering new processes and tactics that your peers are using to optimize with the best methods that leverage data – bringing their business results to the next level.
New Financial Services Track — You Asked and We Delivered
October’s event will include a new conference track of sessions dedicated to the Financial Services industry. This track will feature something for users of all levels, whether you’re deploying your first initiative or learning new ways to position analytics within your organization.
Win a trip to Vegas and a chance for $2,000 & an iPad2
Are you a business, finance or real estate geek? This contest is for you! In cooperation with The Economist Ideas Economy conference, the Tableau Software Interactive “Viz” Contest will focus on business, finance and real estate data… Find some data then use Tableau Public to analyze and visualize it. That’s all it takes.
What you’ll win
A 3-day trip to Las Vegas and a chance to win $2,000 & an iPad2
The winner chosen by our judges will also take away a free roundtrip ticket to attend the2011 Tableau Customer Conference. This includes 3 night’s accommodations at theEncore and a chance to compete in the Iron Viz championship with the winners of two other contests. The winner of Iron Viz will take away a new iPad2, and $2,000.
Cash for the crowd favorite
After entering you’ll receive a custom bit.ly link to your viz. Tweet, Facebook and e-mail that link to everyone you can! Whoever gets the most clicks through their link will become our Crowd Favorite and receive a $250 debit card.
Recognition from The Economist Ideas Economy
Your winning entry will be announced live on stage at The Economist Ideas Economy conference, and Tableau will issue a national press release naming the winner.
Everyone who enters gets a t-shirt!
Everyone who enters will get a very cool Tableau t-shirt. The winner will also receive increased Tableau Public limits and a free copy of Tableau Desktop (a $1999 value)!
How it works
(Click on the steps to expand and get the details.)
Check the box to view all steps and details.
Step 1
Download the FREE Tableau Public tool
Step 2
Create and publish your “viz” to your blog or website
Step 3
Submit your entry formFill out the entry form and submit by June 3, 2011. A panel of judges will evaluate all submissions based on overall appeal, design elements, and data analysis/findings.
Contest Rules Summary
The following contest is open to legal residents of the United Sates only. You must publish your “viz” on your blog or website to be qualified. Submission form must be submitted by June 3, 2011. Winners will be notified by June 7, 2010. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.
If you do a Google search for Data Mining Blog- for the past several years one Blog will come on top. data mining blog – Google Search http://bit.ly/kEdPlE
To honor 5 years of Sandro Saitta’s blog (yes thats 5 years!) , we cover an exclusive interview with him where he reveals his unique sauce for cool techie blogging.
Ajay- Describe your journey as a scientist and data miner, from early experiences, to schooling to your work/research/blogging.
Sandro- My first experience with data mining was my master project. I used decision tree to predict pollen concentration for the following week using input data such as wind, temperature and rain. The fact that an algorithm can make a computer learn from experience was really amazing to me. I found it so interesting that I started a PhD in data mining. This time, the field of application was civil engineering. Civil engineers put a lot of sensors on their structure in order to understand how they behave. With all these sensors they generate a lot of data. To interpret these data, I used data mining techniques such as feature selection and clustering. I started my blog, Data Mining Research, during my PhD, to share with other researchers.
I then started applying data mining in the stock market as my first job in industry. I realized the difference between image recognition, where 99% correct classification rate is state of the art, and stock market, where you’re happy with 55%. However, the company ambiance was not as good as I thought, so I moved to consulting. There, I applied data mining in behavioral targeting to increase click-through rates. When you compare the number of customers who click with the ones who don’t, then you really understand what class imbalance mean. A few months ago, I accepted a very good opportunity at SICPA. I’m looking forward to resolving new challenges there.
Ajay- Your blog is the top ranked blog for “data mining blog”. Could you share some tips on better blogging for analytics and technical people
Sandro- It’s always difficult to start a blog, since at the beginning you have no reader. Writing for nobody may seem stupid, but it is not. By writing my first posts during my PhD I was reorganizing my ideas. I was expressing concepts which were not always clear to me. I thus learned a lot and also improved my English level. Of course, it’s still not perfect, but I hope most people can understand me.
Next come the readers. A few dozen each week first. To increase this number, I then started to learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by reading books and blogs. I tested many techniques that increased Data Mining Research visibility in the blogosphere. I think SEO is interesting when you already have some content published (which means not at the very beginning of your blog). After a while, once your blog is nicely ranked, the main task is to work on the content of the blog. To be of interest, your content must be particular: original, informative or provocative for example. I also had the chance to have a good visibility thanks to well-known people in the field like Kevin Hillstrom, Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, Will Dwinnell / Dean Abbott, Vincent Granville, Matthew Hurst and many others.
Ajay- Whats your favorite statistical software and what are the various softwares that you have worked with. Could you compare and contrast these software as well.
Sandro- My favorite software at this point is SAS. I worked with it for two years. Once you know the language, you can perform ETL and data mining so easily. It’s also very fast compared to others. There are a lot of tools for data mining, but I cannot think of a tool that is as powerful as SAS and, in the same time, has a high-level programming language behind it.
I also worked with R and Matlab. R is very nice since you have all the up-to-date data mining algorithms implemented. However, working in the memory is not always a good choice, especially for ETL. Matlab is an excellent tool for prototyping. It’s not so fast and certainly not done for ETL, but the price is low regarding all the possibilities for data mining. According to me, SAS is the best choice for ETL and a good choice for data mining. Of course, there is the price.
Ajay- What are your favorite techniques and training resources for learning basics of data mining to say statisticians or business management graduates.
Sandro- I’m the kind of guy who likes to read books. I read data mining books one after the other. The fact that the same concepts are explained differently (and by different people) helps a lot in learning a topic like data mining. Of course, nothing replaces experience in the field. You can read hundreds of books, you will still not be a good practitioner until you really apply data mining in specific fields. My second choice after books is blogs. By reading data mining blogs, you will really see the issues and challenges in the field. It’s still not experience, but we are closer. Finally, web resources and networks such as KDnuggets of course, but also AnalyticBridge and LinkedIn.
Ajay- Describe your hobbies and how they help you ,if at all in your professional life.
Sandro- One of my hobbies is reading. I read a lot of books about data mining, SEO, Google as well as Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I’m a big fan of Asimov by the way. My other hobby is playing tennis. I think I simply use my hobbies as a way to find equilibrium in my life. I always try to find the best balance between work, family, friends and sport.
Ajay- What are your plans for your website for 2011-2012.
Sandro- I will continue to publish guest posts and interviews. I think it is important to let other people express themselves about data mining topics. I will not write about my current applications due to the policies of my current employer. But don’t worry, I still have a lot to write, whether it is technical or not. I will also emphasis more on my experience with data mining, advices for data miners, tips and tricks, and of course book reviews!
Standard Disclosure of Blogging- Sandro awarded me the Peoples Choice award for his blog for 2010 and carried out my interview. There is a lot of love between our respective wordpress blogs, but to reassure our puritan American readers- it is platonic and intellectual.
About Sandro S-
Sandro Saitta is a Data Mining Research Engineer at SICPA Security Solutions. He is also a blogger at Data Mining Research (www.dataminingblog.com). His interests include data mining, machine learning, search engine optimization and website marketing.
DECISION STATS 