Tag: money

New Economics Theories for the new Tech World

When I was doing my MBA (a decade ago), one of the principal theories on why corporations exist was 1) Shareholder Value creation (grow wealth for investors) and a notable second was 2) Stakeholder Value creation- creating jobs for societies, providing tax to countries, providing employees with stable employment and incentives,  and of course creating monetary value for shareholders.

There were two ways you could raise money- debt or equity. Debt had the advantage of interest payments being tax deductible. Debt payments had to be met regularly. Equity had the advantage that equity holders were the last ones to be paid in case of closing the company down, which justified that rate of return on equity is generally higher than cost of debt.  Dividend payouts to stockholders could be deferred in a low revenue year or due to planning reasons.

Or in plain English, over the long term borrowing money from share holders in lieu of stocks was more expensive than selling bonds or borrowing from the banks.

Hybrid combinations of debt and equity were warrants and debentures that started off as one form of instrument and over a period of time gave much more flexibility and risk safety nets to both issuers and subscribers of capital. Another hybrid was stock options (now considered as a default option of rewarding employees in technology companies, but this was not always the case).

The use of call and put options in debentures, and the idea of vesting period in stock options was to promote lone term stability and minimize fluctuations in stock prices, employee attrition, besides of course to minimize the weighted average cost of capital. Venture capital was another class of capital known for both huge rates of return and risk taking (?)

But in today’s world where a Google has three classes of shares, companies trade shares before IPOs, and valuations of technology companies sink and rise by huge % over weeks (especially as they near IPO dates)- I wonder if traditional theories in finance need a much stronger overhaul.

or do markets need a regulatory overhaul, that would enable stock exchanges to have once more the credibility they had as the primary sources of raising capital.

 

Who will guard the guardians? Their conscience- the regulators or the news media?

There are ways of raising money that are not evil.

But they are not perfectly fair as well.

Facebook Search- The fall of the machines

Increasingly I am beginning to search more and more on Facebook. This is for the following reasons-

1) Facebook is walled off to Google (mostly). While within Facebook , I get both people results and content results (from Bing).

Bing is an okay alternative , though not as fast as Google Instant.

2) Cleaner Web Results When Facebook increases the number of results from 3 top links to say 10 top links, there should be more outbound traffic from FB search to websites.For some reason Google continues to show 14 pages of results… Why? Why not limit to just one page.

3) Better People Search than  Pipl and Google. But not much (or any) image search. This is curious and I am hoping the Instagram results would be added to search results.

4) I am hoping for any company Facebook or Microsoft to challenge Adsense . Adwords already has rivals. Adsense is a de facto monopoly and my experiences in advertising show that content creators can make much more money from a better Adsense (especially ) if Adsense and Adwords do not have a conflict of interest from same advertisers.

Adwords should have been a special case of Adsense for Google.com but it is not.

5) Machine learning can only get you from tau to delta tau. When ad click behavior is inherently dependent on humans who behave mostly on chaotic , or genetic models than linear CPC models. I find FB has an inherent advantage in the quantity and quality of data collected on people behavior rather than click behavior. They are also more aggressive and less apologetic about behavorially targeted  ads.

Additional point- Analytics for Google Analytics is not as rich as analytics from Facebook pages in terms of demographic variables. This can be tested by anyone.

 

How to learn Hacking Part 2

Now that you have read the basics here at http://www.decisionstats.com/how-to-learn-to-be-a-hacker-easily/ (please do read this before reading the below)

 

Here is a list of tutorials that you should study (in order of ease)

1) LEARN BASICS – enough to get you a job maybe if that’s all you wanted.

http://www.offensive-security.com/metasploit-unleashed/Main_Page

2) READ SOME MORE-

Lena’s Reverse Engineering Tutorial-“Use Google.com  for finding the Tutorial”

Lena’s Reverse Engineering tutorial. It includes 36 parts of individual cracking techniques and will teach you the basics of protection bypassing

01. Olly + assembler + patching a basic reverseme
02. Keyfiling the reverseme + assembler
03. Basic nag removal + header problems
04. Basic + aesthetic patching
05. Comparing on changes in cond jumps, animate over/in, breakpoints
06. “The plain stupid patching method”, searching for textstrings
07. Intermediate level patching, Kanal in PEiD
08. Debugging with W32Dasm, RVA, VA and offset, using LordPE as a hexeditor
09. Explaining the Visual Basic concept, introduction to SmartCheck and configuration
10. Continued reversing techniques in VB, use of decompilers and a basic anti-anti-trick
11. Intermediate patching using Olly’s “pane window”
12. Guiding a program by multiple patching.
13. The use of API’s in software, avoiding doublechecking tricks
14. More difficult schemes and an introduction to inline patching
15. How to study behaviour in the code, continued inlining using a pointer
16. Reversing using resources
17. Insights and practice in basic (self)keygenning
18. Diversion code, encryption/decryption, selfmodifying code and polymorphism
19. Debugger detected and anti-anti-techniques
20. Packers and protectors : an introduction
21. Imports rebuilding
22. API Redirection
23. Stolen bytes
24. Patching at runtime using loaders from lena151 original
25. Continued patching at runtime & unpacking armadillo standard protection
26. Machine specific loaders, unpacking & debugging armadillo
27. tElock + advanced patching
28. Bypassing & killing server checks
29. Killing & inlining a more difficult server check
30. SFX, Run Trace & more advanced string searching
31. Delphi in Olly & DeDe
32. Author tricks, HIEW & approaches in inline patching
33. The FPU, integrity checks & loader versus patcher
34. Reversing techniques in packed software & a S&R loader for ASProtect
35. Inlining inside polymorphic code
36. Keygenning

If you want more free training – hang around this website

http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cheat_Sheets

OWASP Cheat Sheet Series

Draft OWASP Cheat Sheets

3) SPEND SOME MONEY on TRAINING

http://www.corelan-training.com/index.php/training/corelan-live/

Course overview

Module 1 – The x86 environment

  • System Architecture
  • Windows Memory Management
  • Registers
  • Introduction to Assembly
  • The stack

Module 2 – The exploit developer environment

  • Setting up the exploit developer lab
  • Using debuggers and debugger plugins to gather primitives

Module 3 – Saved Return Pointer Overwrite

  • Functions
  • Saved return pointer overwrites
  • Stack cookies

Module 4 – Abusing Structured Exception Handlers

  • Abusing exception handler overwrites
  • Bypassing Safeseh

Module 5 – Pointer smashing

  • Function pointers
  • Data/object pointers
  • vtable/virtual functions

Module 6 – Off-by-one and integer overflows

  • Off-by-one
  • Integer overflows

Module 7 – Limited buffers

  • Limited buffers, shellcode splitting

Module 8 – Reliability++ & reusability++

  • Finding and avoiding bad characters
  • Creative ways to deal with character set limitations

Module 9 – Fun with Unicode

  • Exploiting Unicode based overflows
  • Writing venetian alignment code
  • Creating and Using venetian shellcode

Module 10 – Heap Spraying Fundamentals

  • Heap Management and behaviour
  • Heap Spraying for Internet Explorer 6 and 7

Module 11 – Egg Hunters

  • Using and tweaking Egg hunters
  • Custom egghunters
  • Using Omelet egghunters
  • Egghunters in a WoW64 environment

Module 12 – Shellcoding

  • Building custom shellcode from scratch
  • Understanding existing shellcode
  • Writing portable shellcode
  • Bypassing Antivirus

Module 13 – Metasploit Exploit Modules

  • Writing exploits for the Metasploit Framework
  • Porting exploits to the Metasploit Framework

Module 14 – ASLR

  • Bypassing ASLR

Module 15 – W^X

  • Bypassing NX/DEP
  • Return Oriented Programming / Code Reuse (ROP) )

Module 16 – Advanced Heap Spraying

  • Heap Feng Shui & heaplib
  • Precise heap spraying in modern browsers (IE8 & IE9, Firefox 13)

Module 17 – Use After Free

  • Exploiting Use-After-Free conditions

Module 18 – Windows 8

  • Windows 8 Memory Protections and Bypass
TRAINING SCHEDULES AT

ALSO GET CERTIFIED http://www.offensive-security.com/information-security-training/penetration-testing-with-backtrack/ ($950 cost)

the syllabus is here at

http://www.offensive-security.com/documentation/penetration-testing-with-backtrack.pdf

4) HANG AROUND OTHER HACKERS

At http://attrition.org/attrition/

or The Noir  Hat Conferences-

http://blackhat.com/html/bh-us-12/training/bh-us-12-training_complete.html

or read this website

http://software-security.sans.org/developer-how-to/

5) GET A DEGREE

Yes it is possible

 

See http://web.jhu.edu/jhuisi/

The Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute (JHUISI) is the University’s focal point for research and education in information security, assurance and privacy.

Scholarship Information

 

The Information Security Institute is now accepting applications for the Department of Defense’s Information Assurance Scholarship Program (IASP).  This scholarship includes full tuition, a living stipend, books and health insurance. In return each student recipient must work for a DoD agency at a competitive salary for six months for every semester funded. The scholarship is open to American citizens only.

http://web.jhu.edu/jhuisi/mssi/index.html

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN SECURITY INFORMATICS PROGRAM

The flagship educational experience offered by Johns Hopkins University in the area of information security and assurance is represented by the Master of Science in Security Informatics degree.  Over thirty courses are available in support of this unique and innovative graduate program.

———————————————————–

Disclaimer- I havent done any of these things- This is just a curated list from Quora  so I am open to feedback.

You use this at your own risk of conscience ,local legal jurisdictions and your own legal liability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

iPhones Siri to replace call centers . Is it doable

I was wondering why the planet  spends  so much money in the $150-billion business process outsourcing industry, especially in voice calls to call centers.

If your iPhone Siri phone can be configured to answer any query, Why can’t it be configured to be  a virtual assistant, customer support, marketing outbound or even a super charged call center interactive voice response .

Can we  do and run some tests on this?

Interview: Hjálmar Gíslason, CEO of DataMarket.com

Here is an interview with Hjálmar Gíslason, CEO of Datamarket.com  . DataMarket is an active marketplace for structured data and statistics. Through powerful search and visual data exploration, DataMarket connects data seekers with data providers.

 

Ajay-  Describe your journey as an entrepreneur and techie in Iceland. What are the 10 things that surprised you most as a tech entrepreneur.

HG- DataMarket is my fourth tech start-up since at age 20 in 1996. The previous ones have been in gaming, mobile and web search. I come from a technical background but have been moving more and more to the business side over the years. I can still prototype, but I hope there isn’t a single line of my code in production!

Funny you should ask about the 10 things that have surprised me the most on this journey, as I gave a presentation – literally yesterday – titled: “9 things nobody told me about the start-up business”

They are:
* Do NOT generalize – especially not to begin with
* Prioritize – and find a work-flow that works for you
* Meet people – face to face
* You are a sales person – whether you like it or not
* Technology is not a product – it’s the entire experience
* Sell the current version – no matter how amazing the next one is
* Learn from mistakes – preferably others’
* Pick the right people – good people is not enough
* Tell a good story – but don’t make them up

I obviously elaborate on each of these points in the talk, but the points illustrate roughly some of the things I believe I’ve learned … so far 😉

9 things nobody told me about the start-up business

Ajay-

Both Amazon  and Google  have entered the public datasets space. Infochimps  has 14,000+ public datasets. The US has http://www.data.gov/

So clearly the space is both competitive and yet the demand for public data repositories is clearly under served still. 

How does DataMarket intend to address this market in a unique way to differentiate itself from others.

HG- DataMarket is about delivering business data to decision makers. We help data seekers find the data they need for planning and informed decision making, and data publishers reaching this audience. DataMarket.com is the meeting point, where data seekers can come to find the best available data, and data publishers can make their data available whether for free or for a fee. We’ve populated the site with a wealth of data from public sources such as the UN, Eurostat, World Bank, IMF and others, but there is also premium data that is only available to those that subscribe to and pay for the access. For example we resell the entire data offering from the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) (link: http://datamarket.com/data/list/?q=provider:eiu)

DataMarket.com allows all this data to be searched, visualized, compared and downloaded in a single place in a standard, unified manner.

We see many of these efforts not as competition, but as valuable potential sources of data for our offering, while others may be competing with parts of our proposition, such as easy access to the public data sets.

 

Ajay- What are your views on data confidentiality and access to data owned by Governments funded by tax payer money.

HG- My views are very simple: Any data that is gathered or created for taxpayers’ money should be open and free of charge unless higher priorities such as privacy or national security indicate otherwise.

Reflecting that, any data that is originally open and free of charge is still open and free of charge on DataMarket.com, just easier to find and work with.

Ajay-  How is the technology entrepreneurship and venture capital scene in Iceland. What things work and what things can be improved?

HG- The scene is quite vibrant, given the small community. Good teams with promising concepts have been able to get the funding they need to get started and test their footing internationally. When the rapid growth phase is reached outside funding may still be needed.

There are positive and negative things about any location. Among the good things about Iceland from the stand point of a technology start-up are highly skilled tech people and a relatively simple corporate environment. Among the bad things are a tiny local market, lack of skills in international sales and marketing and capital controls that were put in place after the crash of the Icelandic economy in 2008.

I’ve jokingly said that if a company is hot in the eyes of VCs it would get funding even if it was located in the jungles of Congo, while if they’re only lukewarm towards you, they will be looking for any excuse not to invest. Location can certainly be one of them, and in that case being close to the investor communities – physically – can be very important.

We’re opening up our sales and marketing offices in Boston as we speak. Not to be close to investors though, but to be close to our market and current customers.

Ajay- Describe your hobbies when you are not founding amazing tech startups.

HG- Most of my time is spent working – which happens to by my number one hobby.

It is still important to step away from it all every now and then to see things in perspective and come back with a clear mind.

I *love* traveling to exotic places. Me and my wife have done quite a lot of traveling in Africa and S-America: safari, scuba diving, skiing, enjoying nature. When at home I try to do some sports activities 3-4 times a week at least, and – recently – play with my now 8 month old son as much as I can.

About-

http://datamarket.com/p/about/team/

Management

Hjalmar GislasonHjálmar Gíslason, Founder and CEO: Hjalmar is a successful entrepreneur, founder of three startups in the gaming, mobile and web sectors since 1996. Prior to launching DataMarket, Hjalmar worked on new media and business development for companies in the Skipti Group (owners of Iceland Telecom) after their acquisition of his search startup – Spurl. Hjalmar offers a mix of business, strategy and technical expertise. DataMarket is based largely on his vision of the need for a global exchange for structured data.

hjalmar.gislason@datamarket.com

To know more, have a quick  look at  http://datamarket.com/

Using Cloud Computing for Hacking

This is not about hacking the cloud. Instead this is about using the cloud to hack

 

Some articles last year wrote on how hackers used Amazon Ec2 for hacking/ddos attacks.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/216434/cloud_computing_used_to_hack_wireless_passwords.html

Roth claims that a typical wireless password can be guessed by EC2 and his software in about six minutes. He proved this by hacking networks in the area where he lives. The type of EC2 computers used in the attack costs 28 cents per minute, so $1.68 is all it could take to lay open a wireless network.

and

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-15/sony-attack-shows-amazon-s-cloud-service-lures-hackers-at-pennies-an-hour.html

Cloud services are also attractive for hackers because the use of multiple servers can facilitate tasks such as cracking passwords, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Inc. Amazon could improve measures to weed out bogus accounts, he said.

 

and this article by Anti-Sec pointed out how one can obtain a debit card anonymously

https://www.facebook.com/notes/lulzsec/want-to-be-a-ghost-on-the-internet/230293097062823

VPN Account without paper trail

  • Purchase prepaid visa card with cash
  • Purchase Bitcoins with Money Order
  • Donate Bitcoins to different account

 

Masking your IP address to log on is done by TOR

https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en

and the actual flooding is done by tools like LOIC or HOIC

http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/

and

http://www.4shared.com/rar/UmCu0ds1/hoic.html

 

So what safeguards can be expected from the next wave of Teenage Mutant Ninjas..?

 

Why LinkedIn and Twitter are up for grabs in 2012-14?

Given Facebook’s valuation at $60-$100 billion , Apple’s $100 billion cash pile, Microsoft’s cash of $ 52 billion, Google’s cash of 43 billion $ , there is a lot of money floating. I am not counting Amazon as it deals with its own Fire issues.

But what is left to buy. In terms of richness of data available for data mining for better advertising- it is Twitter and LinkedIn that have the best sources of data.

and LinkedIn is worth only 9 billion dollars and Twitter is only $8.5 billion dollars. Throw in a competitive dynamic  premium, and you can get 50 % of both these companies at 13 billion dollars. if owners dont want to sell 100%, well buy a big big stake.

Makes a good case- buy the company- buy the data- sell them ads- sell them better products.

What do you think?