okay Julian got hacked by the oldest hack trap in the world but it is still pertinent.
So how the fuck do we control these evil hackers.
Show them money
Show them Jesus
Throw them in Jail
The correct solution to bring talented members of the technical community back into the nice air contioned corporate tent of technology is to-
Sponsor Hack My Website Contests- Winners have to share techniques
Sponsor Hack this Search Engine Rank Contests- Winners have to share technique
General Amnesty for people who have hacked before provided they share techniques and agree to join security teams.
Sponsor hack this login id contests- Winners have to share techniques and work to develop fool proof system.
Unfortunately this will never happen. even the big grand Daddy , Google is willing to define hacking contests only in the narrow frame o technical hacks, rather than a system breach hack. Because system breach hacks generally happen at the people level.
Internal cover your assets mentality prevents technology and media employees from reaching out and helping create a secure online platform, thus harming shareholders.
Destruction testing (even in a controlled sandbox) of online systems would reveal the underbelly of corporate information technology.
I mean who wants to sponsor a hack contest that makes you look bad, when it is much more expensive to have a hacking attacks that decreases share price, but doesnot affect your salary.
We have gone in for crowd sourced coding.
How about incentivizing crowd sourced systems design for secure and free internet.
I just saw the Bollywood Movie , Ready (2011) starring Salman Khan and Asin. Salman Khan has been the Charlie Sheen of Indian Cinema for some time now, and the movie plays up to his charm, slapstick humor and slap full action.
Asin is a great actor, and this is not art for the sake of art- it is art to make the people laugh.
Enjoy it but with tempered expectations that you are in for some stupendous Bollywoodish humor.
For some time now, I had been hoping for a place where new package or algorithm developers get at least a fraction of the money that iPad or iPhone application developers get. Rapid Miner has taken the lead in establishing a marketplace for extensions. Is there going to be paid extensions as well- I hope so!!
This probably makes it the first “app” marketplace in open source and the second app marketplace in analytics after salesforce.com
It is hard work to think of new algols, and some of them can really be usefull.
Can we hope for #rstats marketplace where people downloading say ggplot3.0 atleast get a prompt to donate 99 cents per download to Hadley Wickham’s Amazon wishlist. http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/1Y65N3VFA613B
Do you think it is okay to pay 99 cents per iTunes song, but not pay a cent for open source software.
I dont know- but I am just a capitalist born in a country that was socialist for the first 13 years of my life. Congratulations once again to Rapid Miner for innovating and leading the way.
Over the years, many of you have been developing new RapidMiner Extensions dedicated to a broad set of topics. Whereas these extensions are easy to install in RapidMiner – just download and place them in the plugins folder – the hard part is to find them in the vastness that is the Internet. Extensions made by ourselves at Rapid-I, on the other hand, are distributed by the update server making them searchable and installable directly inside RapidMiner.
We thought that this was a bit unfair, so we decieded to open up the update server to the public, and not only this, we even gave it a new look and name. The Rapid-I Marketplace is available in beta mode at http://rapidupdate.de:8180/ . You can use the Web interface to browse, comment, and rate the extensions, and you can use the update functionality in RapidMiner by going to the preferences and entering http://rapidupdate.de:8180/UpdateServer/ as the update server URL. (Once the beta test is complete, we will change the port back to 80 so we won’t have any firewall problems.)
As an Extension developer, just register with the Marketplace and drop me an email (fischer at rapid-i dot com) so I can give you permissions to upload your own extension. Upload is simple provided you use the standard RapidMiner Extension build process and will boost visibility of your extension.
Looking forward to see many new extensions there soon!
Disclaimer- Decisionstats is a partner of Rapid Miner. I have been liking the software for a long long time, and recently agreed to partner with them just like I did with KXEN some years back, and with Predictive AnalyticsConference, and Aster Data until last year.
I still think Rapid Miner is a very very good software,and a globally created software after SAP.
Welcome to the Rapid-I Marketplace Public Beta Test
The Rapid-I Marketplace will soon replace the RapidMiner update server. Using this marketplace, you can share your RapidMiner extensions and make them available for download by the community of RapidMiner users. Currently, we are beta testing this server. If you want to use this server in RapidMiner, you must go to the preferences and enter http://rapidupdate.de:8180/UpdateServer for the update url. After the beta test, we will change the port back to 80, which is currently occupied by the old update server. You can test the marketplace as a user (downloading extensions) and as an Extension developer. If you want to publish your extension here, please let us know via the contact form.
Here is an interview with Rob La Gesse ,Chief Disruption Officer ,Rackspace Hosting.
Ajay- Describe your career journey from not finishing college to writing software to your present projects?
Rob- I joined the Navy right out of High School. I had neither the money for college, or a real desire for it. I had several roles in the Navy, to include a Combat Medic station with the US Marine Corps and eventually becoming a Neonatal Respiratory Therapist.
After the Navy I worked as a Respiratory Therapist, a roofer, and I repaired print shop equipment. Basically whatever it took to make a buck or two. Eventually I started selling computers. That led me to running a multi-line dial-up BBS and I taught myself how to program. Eventually that led to a job with a small engineering company where we developed WiFi.
After the WiFi project I started consulting on my own. I used Rackspace to host my clients, and eventually they hired me. I’ve been here almost three years and have held several roles. I currently manage Social Media, building 43 and am involved in several other projects such as the Rackspace Startup Program.
Rob-Building43 is a web site devoted to telling the stories behind technology startups. Basically, after we hired Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica we were figuring out how best we could work with them to both highlight Rackspace and customers. That idea expanded beyond customers to highlighting anyone doing something incredible in the technology industry – mostly software startups. We’ve had interviews with people like Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of FaceBook. We’ve broken some news on the site, but it isn’t really a news site. It is a story telling site.
Rackspace has met some amazing new customers through the relationships that started with an interview.
Ajay- How is life as Robert Scoble’s boss. Is he an easy guy to work with? Does he have super powers while he types?
Rob- Robert isn’t much different to manage than the rest of my employees. He is a person – no super powers. But he does establish a unique perspective on things because he gets to see so much new technology early. Often earlier than almost anyone else. It helps him to spot trends that others might not be seeing yet.
Ajay – Hosting companies are so so many. What makes Rackspace special for different kinds of customers?
Rob- I think what we do better than anyone is add that human touch – the people really care about your business. We are a company that is focused on building one of the greatest service companies on the planet. We sell support. Hosting is secondary to service. Our motto is Fanatic Support®
and we actually look for people focused on delivering amazing customer experiences during our interviewing and hiring practices. People that find a personal sense of pride and reward by helping others should apply at
Rackspace. We are hiring like crazy!
Ajay – Where do you see technology and the internet 5 years down the line? (we will visit the answers in 5 years 🙂 )?
Rob- I think the shift to Cloud computing is going to be dramatic. I think in five years we will be much further down that path. The scaling, cost-effectiveness, and on-demand nature of the Cloud are just too compelling for companies not to embrace. This changes business in fundamental ways – lower capital expenses, no need for in house IT staff, etc will save companies a lot of money and let them focus more on their core businesses. Computing will become another utility. I also think mobile use of computing will be much more common than it is today. And it is VERY common today. Phones will replace car keys and credit cards (they already are). This too will drive use of Cloud computing because we all want our data wherever we are – on whatever computing device we happen tobe using.
Ajay- GoDaddy CEO shoots elephants. What do you do in your spare time, if any.
Rob- Well, I don’t hunt. We do shoot a lot of video though! I enjoy playing poker, specifically Texas Hold ’em. It is a very people oriented game, and people are my passion.
My technical background includes working on the development of WiFi, writing wireless applications for the Apple Newton, mentoring/managing several software-based start-ups, running software quality assurance teams and more. In 2008 I joined Rackspace as an employee – a “Racker”. I was previously a 7 year customer and the company impressed me. My initial role was as Director of Software Development for the Rackspace Cloud. It was soon evident that I was better suited to a customer facing role since I LOVE talking to customers. I am currently the Director of Customer Development Chief Disruption Officer. I manage building43 and enjoy working with Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica to make that happen. The org chart says they work for me. Reality tells me the opposite
Go take a look – I’m proud of what we are building there (pardon the pun!).
I do a lot of other stuff at Rackspace – mostly because they let me! I love a company that lets me try. Rackspace does that.Going further back, I have been a Mayor (in Hawaii). I have written successful shareware software. I have managed employees all over the world. I have been all over the world. I have also done roofing, repaired high end print-shop equipment, been a Neonatal Respiratory Therapist, done CPR on a boat, in a plane, and in a hardware store (and of course in hospitals).
I have treated jumpers from the Golden Gate Bridge – and helped save a few. I have lived in Illinois (Kankakee), California (San Diego, San Francisco and Novato), Texas (Corpus Christi and San Antonio), Florida (Pensacola and Palm Bay), Hawaii (Honolulu/Fort Shafter) and several other places for shorter durations.
For the last 8+ years I have been a single parent – and have done an amazing job (yes, I am a proud papa) thanks to having great kids. They are both in College now – something I did NOT manage to accomplish. I love doing anything someone thinks I am not qualified to do.
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.
