The Elusive Nature of Randomness and Random shuffles

After a lengthy legal battle, Microsoft and the European antitrust officials recently agreed on the implementation of a so-called ballot or choice screen, to be included in the rollout of Windows 7.

This approach will give European Windows 7 users an opportunity to download their prferred browser from a list of Microsoft's rivals.

These choices include Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox and Opera, as possible alternatives to Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer.

Randon Shuffle
The browser choice screen requires what we call a “random shuffle”. You start with an array of values and return those same values, but in a randomised order but how can you guarantee a 'truly random' result. Well, this computational problem has been known to programmers since the earliest days of computing.

Known approaches
There are 5 well-known approaches: 3 good solutions, 1 acceptable solution that is slower than necessary and 1 bad approach that doesn’t really work. Ubfortunately from this selection Microsoft appears to have picked the bad approach but it more likely to have been caused by inexperience or bad judgement rather than any ill-intention.

It is more in the nature of a “naive” algorithm, akin to the simple bubble sort. Something that inexperienced programmers inevitably fall headlong into when attempting to solve a given problem.

Inevitably, if we gave this same problem to 100 newly qualified computer scienctists, 1 or more of them would make the same basic mistake. Fortunately, with education and experience, programmers can learn about these things and certainly, one of the things they should learn about early on, is to reach for Donald Knuth's book on algorithms, programming and random shuffles.

The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 2, section 3.4.2 “Random sampling and shuffling” describes two solutions:

1. If the number of items to sort is small, then simply put all possible orderings in a table and select one ordering at random. In our case, with 5 browsers, the table would need 5! = 120 rows.
2. “Algorithm P” which Knuth attributes to Moses and Oakford (1963), but is now known to have been anticipated by Fisher and Yates (1938) so it is now called the Fisher-Yates Shuffle.
   

Random Generators - The Fisher-Yates Shuffle

The Fisher–Yates shuffle, named after Ronald Fisher and Frank Yates, also known as the Knuth shuffle, after Donald Knuth, is an algorithm for generating a random permutation of a finite set—in plain terms, for randomly shuffling the set.

A variant of the Fisher–Yates shuffle, known as Sattolo's algorithm, may be used to generate random cycles of length n instead.

Unbiased
Properly implemented, the Fisher–Yates shuffle is unbiased, so that every permutation is equally likely. The modern version of the algorithm is also rather efficient, requiring only time proportional to the number of items being shuffled and no additional storage space.

The process
The basic process of Fisher–Yates shuffling is similar to randomly picking numbered tickets out of a hat, or cards from a deck, one after another until there are no more left. What the specific algorithm provides is a way of doing this numerically in an efficient and rigorous manner that, properly done, guarantees an unbiased result.

The original Fisher and Yates' method
Their method was designed to be implemented using pencil and paper, with a precomputed table of random numbers as the source of randomness.

The basic method given for generating a random permutation of the numbers 1–N goes as follows: in their book The Fisher–Yates shuffle, in its original form, was described in 1938 by Ronald A. Fisher and Frank Yates; Statistical tables for biological, agricultural and medical research. (Later editions describe a somewhat different method attributed to C. R. Rao.)

1. Write down the numbers from one to N.
2. Pick a random number k between one and the number of unstruck numbers remaining (inclusive).
3. Counting from the low end, strike out the kth number not yet struck out, and write it down elsewhere.
4. Repeat from step 2 until all the numbers have been struck out.
5. The sequence of numbers written down in step 3 is now a random permutation of the original numbers.

Provided that the random numbers picked in step 2 above are truly random and unbiased, so will the resulting permutation be. Fisher and Yates took care to describe how to obtain such random numbers in any desired range from the supplied tables in a manner which avoids any bias.

They also suggested the possibility of using a simpler method — picking random numbers from one to N and discarding any duplicates—to generate the first half of the permutation, and only applying the more complex algorithm to the remaining half, where picking a duplicate number would otherwise become frustratingly common.

Donald Knuth - Father of Algorithms

Donald Knuth - the father of Algorithms at a reception for the Open Content Alliance, October 25, 2005

Donald Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University.

Author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming ("TAOCP"), Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms, contributing to the development of, and systematizing formal mathematical techniques for, the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms, and in the process popularizing asymptotic notation.

In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces.

A writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MMIX instruction set architecture.

To read the full article click here

Project Management of Application Development

Chinese Black Hat Security Consultant wrote anti-Google hack

US analysts believe a Chinese freelance security consultant with government ties was the author of the code used in cyberattacks on Google and other companies, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reported meanwhile that a prominent Asian hacking group that is likely Chinese may have been the perpetrators of last year's attacks on the Internet giant and as many as 33 other companies.

The FT, citing an unidentified researcher working for the US government, said a Chinese security consultant in his 30s wrote the part of the program that used a previously unknown security hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser to break into computers and insert spyware.

The newspaper said Chinese officials had special access to the work of the author, who posted pieces of the program to a hacking forum.

The man is not a full-time Chinese government worker and did not launch the attacks, the newspaper said, adding that he would "prefer not be used in such offensive efforts."

"If he wants to do the research he's good at, he has to toe the line now and again," the US analyst said. "He would rather not have uniformed guys looking over his shoulder, but there is no way anyone of his skill level can get away from that kind of thing.

"The state has privileged access to these researchers' work."

The FT also repeated claims made last week in The New York Times that the attacks had been traced to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School located in the eastern province of Shandong.

Both institutions have denied involvement, as have the Chinese authorities.

The Wall Street Journal said Monday that the group that attacked Google and others may have been involved in previous attacks tracked by intelligence and law-enforcement officials.

"It is the same folks that have been behind a hell of a lot of other attacks," the Journal quoted a person familiar with probes into some of the affected companies as saying.

The Journal said the group investigators are focusing on uses Chinese computer systems to mount its attacks and has a history of primarily attacking corporations -- not the US military or other government agencies.

The Journal said it is not clear whether the hackers have connections to the Chinese government or whether they are a "patriotic" hacking group that acts in the government's interests.

China has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks, which have strained US ties and prompted Google to threaten to leave the country.

Google vowed in January to stop bowing to Web censors in China in the wake of the cyberattacks aimed at the US firm's source code and at Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists around the world.

Google continues to filter searches as per Chinese law while trying to negotiate a compromise with officials there.

US President Barack Obama said last month that he was "troubled" by the cyberattacks on Google and wants answers from China.

How NOT To Use Powerpoint video : A Blog Around The Clock

Mobile phones become pocket banks in poor countries

An Afghan police officer gets his salary in a text message on his mobile phone. A Kenyan worker dials a few numbers to send money to his family.

The rise of banking transactions through mobile phones is giving a whole new meaning to pocket money in parts of the developing world that lack banks or cash machines.

Mobile money applications are emerging as potent financial tools in rural and remote areas of the globe, allowing people with no bank accounts to get paid, send remittances or settle their bills.

"One billion consumers in the world have a mobile phone but no access to a bank account," said Gavin Krugel, the director of mobile banking strategy at GSM Association, an industry group of 800 wireless operators.

"We see it as very big opportunity," he said this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the industry's annual four-day event that ended on Thursday.

Mobile banking began to emerge six years ago in the Philippines and South Africa, where 8.5 million and 4.5 million people, respectively, use such services.

Today, 40 million people worldwide use mobile money, and the industry is growing, according to the GSMA.

"Africa and Asia are the most active regions right now," Krugel said. "We expect Latin America pick up this year."

There are 18,000 new mobile banking users per day in Uganda, 15,000 in Tanzania and 11,000 in Kenya, he said.

Mobile phones can offer a wide range of banking solutions, from sending transfers to a relative to buying goods in a store or putting money aside for a rainy day -- all by dialing a few numbers on one's handset.

Mobile banking can also make life easier for people in parts of Africa where paying a simple bill can be time-consuming, said Reg Swart, regional executive of Fundamo, a company that makes banking applications.

"It takes one day to pay one bill. You have to physically go to the bank, then you must queue, a long queue," he said.

In Afghanistan, the national police has been testing a service from mobile operator Roshan to pay its officers -- a system that helps to limit corruption, the company said.

"We are currently moving from a trial to a full launch in paying the Afghan national police," said Roshan's head of mobile commerce, Zahir Jhoja.

Every month, police officers receive a text message in the language they prefer informing them they have received their salaries, Jhoja said.

A voice message is also left on the phone "because a lot of them are illiterate and cannot read," he said. The officer can then go get his money from an authorised Roshan agent.

Aimee Mullins Remarkable Woman - 12 Pairs of Legs

Aimee Mullins is an awe inspiring woman who blows away any ideas you might have about someone being disabled. In fact she goes beyond normal *abilities* to do things others only dream of.

She was born without fibular bones and had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was an infant. By the time she attended Georgetown she was so accomplished on her prosthetics that she became the first double amputee to compete in NCAA Division 1 track and field and then set world records in her performance at the Paralympic Games in 1996.

She went on to become a model, an actor and an activist. In this talk she gave at TED in February she discusses her current collection of legs. These include leopard legs and a pair that make her 6 inches taller! You can read more about this amazing woman at her personal website.

http://www.aimeemullins.com/

USB fingerprints identify 'pod slurping' data thieves

WOULD your company know if the blueprints for its next invention had been stolen by an office interloper, who had quietly copied them onto a memory stick or an iPod?

Probably not. But now a telltale "USB fingerprint" has been discovered that can identify which files have been targeted in so-called pod-slurping attacks.

Data theft via USB ports is rife, says Alexandra Brodie, an intellectual property lawyer with Wragge & Co in London. "We are encountering increasing volumes of IP theft committed this way, with companies losing their trade secrets and accumulated know-how," she says.

Pod slurpers might simply steal an individual document by copying it onto a USB stick. Hackers can also copy vast numbers of documents using document-scavenging tools such as USB Switchblade.

This too springs to life when a memory stick is plugged into a PC running some versions of Windows, including XP. It then automatically copies the contents of the My Documents folder and no one is any the wiser. Now there is a way to spot such data theft.

Vasilios Katos and Theodoros Kavallaris at the Democritus University of Thrace in Komotini, Greece, have been testing every make and model of USB stick and iPod/iPhone.

They have discovered that each one has a distinctive transfer rate when copying data from a PC's hard drive (Computers and Security, DOI: 10.1016/j.cose.2010.01.002).

This is due to the differences in the microcircuitry and components that go into making each type of device.

They are able to find out if files have been copied by consulting the Windows registry, which records the make and model of every USB device plugged into that computer with a time stamp.
The pair then check all document folders for any files that were accessed shortly after the USB device was plugged in - the computer registry counts copying as file access.

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Mindroom - Learning without boundaries

Mindroom - Learning without boundaries

A charity dedicated to helping children and adults with learning difficulties.

Mindroom was founded by Sophie Dow and her husband in response to the lack of support they found when they discovered that their daughter Annie, was suffering from learning difficulties.

Sphie Dow is originally from Sweden and her husband is Scottish. They raised their daughter in Scotland and despite the good intentions of the local health care providers, there was still a lot to be done to truly support the children and families.

Mindroom was set up to address some of the shortfalls and to act as a knowledgeable reference and trusted adviser service for teachers, parents and families, faced with the stress and bureaucratic maze that accompanies the many disorders that fall into the category of 'learning difficulties.'

Teaching the Next Generation of Geeks

China bugs and burgles Britain - Times Online

China bugs and burgles Britain - Times Online

THE security service MI5 has accused China of bugging and burgling UK business executives and setting up “honeytraps” in a bid to blackmail them into betraying sensitive commercial secrets.

A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.

The gifts — cameras and memory sticks — have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users’ computers.

MI5 says the Chinese government “represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK” because of its use of these methods, as well as widespread electronic hacking.

China closes biggest hacker training site | IT PRO

China closes biggest hacker training site IT PRO

The largest hacker training website in China has been closed down, seeing three of its members arrested in the process, according to reports.

The "Black Hawk Safety Net" website taught hacking techniques and provided malicious software downloads for its 12,000 members in exchange for a fee, the Wuhan Evening News newspaper reported this weekend, citing police in Huanggang, just east of Wuhan.

Hacking from China has received international attention since Google threatened to quit China last month after a serious hacking attempt originating from China, resulting in the theft of its intellectual property.

China has denied involvement in the hacking episode and said it does not condone hacking.

The website was shut in late November and three of its members arrested on suspicion of criminal activity, the newspaper reported, without saying why the news was only released now.

Wuhan happens to be home to the Communication Command Academy, which trains hackers, according to US congressional testimony by cyber expert James Mulvenon in 2008.

The popularity of hacking in China, and hackers' use of multiple addresses and servers, in Taiwan and elsewhere, makes it hard to prove how or by whom they are coordinated.

Would-be hackers in China do not have to look far to figure out how to do it, thanks to a healthy hacking industry and sites such as Black Hawk Safety Net (www.3800hk.com), which was unavailable on Monday.

Probably a mathematical theory of surprise!

Computer scientists in California have built a mathematical theory of surprise, working from first principles of probability theory applied to a digital environment, according to this news release from the University of Southern California (USC).

And the results of experiments recording eye movements of volunteers watching video seem to confirm it. Beyond vision applications, this new Bayesian theory of surprise could lead to new developments in data mining, as it can in principle be applied to any type of data, including visual, auditory or text."

This new mathematical theory of surprise has been developed by Laurent Itti, of the USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, his colleagues at his lab, and by Pierre Baldi, of the University of California Irvine’s Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics.

Before looking at their theory, here are some key definitions given by the computer engineers.

"By analyzing streams of electronic data making up a video image,]
researchers can isolate stimuli with visual attributes that are unique in the
mix by breaking down the signal into "feature channels," each describing a
particular attribute (i.e,, color) in the mix. Such features are called
"salient."

"A parallel analysis performs similar operations, but does so
over time, not space, looking for new elements suddenly appearing. This approach
is said to model "novelty."

"Finally, an analysis can be done purely in
terms of Shannon’s original equations, which can measure the level of
organization or detail found in the data flow, its entropy."

If you want to take a closer look at the theory of surprise, then you will find the full article here.....

Acts of space warfare likely by 2025

Report: Acts of space warfare likely by 2025 ZDNet.com

It’s no secret that the extension of military weapons beyond the atmosphere is a priority for space-faring nations that need to protect their increasing military and commercial assets in orbit.

For instance, in 2001, a commission headed by then US Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld warned about a possible “space Pearl Harbor” which led to the development of the Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) project.

But the concern over space supremacy runs deeper than threats of Russian anti-satellite weapons. A forecast published by the Military Space Transparency Project (MSTP) warns of a second arms race that can erupt if the international community doesn’t take steps toward a space treaty program.

“Given how easily information can spread about the globe today, it is inevitable that space warfare technologies will proliferate. Once one country sets its sights on space domination, other countries are sure to follow,” writes Matthew Hoey.

Hoey is MSTP’s founder and a former senior research associate at the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS), a United Nations non-governmental research organization located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he forecasted missile defense and military space technologies.

The report; Global Space Warfare Technologies - Influences, Trends & The Road Ahead, highlights the potential bridges and sequels between various existing and emerging technologies in the years leading up to 2025 that might culminate in acts of space warfare.

“The international community is in a race against time as technologies are evolving faster than ever before and will continue to accelerate exponentially in an almost biological fashion. If this process continues unabated, it will almost certainty result in the deterioration of peaceful collaborations, an increase in the creation of orbital debris, and the risk of an accidental or spasm nuclear event,” according to Hoey.

Armed with a strong technical aptitude, Hoey’s analysis of dual-use and emerging technologies that’ll lead to the weaponization of space–including artificial intelligence, robotics, directed energy and nanotechnology–is worth the read.

Negotiation tips for women - Gender Differences - Deborah Kolb

Negotiation tips for women from Deborah Kolb, the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Professor for Women and Leadership at the Simmons College School of Management.

The Future and Hyper Augmented Reality

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Who needs to be right all the time?

Cyber Crime and its Killing Ground: The Social Networks

How do you feel when you start to log-in to your internet banking site? Does it feel like you are entering a secure and safe environment, fully protected from the slings and arrows of outrageous criminal scammers?

Or, does it feel more tentative, like a bold Leap of Faith, a step into the unkown where one slip will bring your whole world crashing down?

Cyber crooks are rigging Social network sites with booby-trapped blog commentary, chat rooms, email messages and websites, according to a Websense report released Thursday.

Analysis of online threats during the second half of 2009 showed that 81 percent of email was rigged to deliver "malicious" code and 95 percent of comments posted to blog or chat forums were spam or links to nasty payloads.

SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) poisoning attacks were a favoured tactic, piggybacking on hot topics such as celebrity deaths or major disasters to lure people to websites designed to infect computers.

"It is pretty scary," said Websense security research manager Stephan Chenette. "Attackers have been moving in the same direction as Bing and Google with real-time search results."

The rival Internet search engines have been improving results pages to feature fresh content such as Twitter posts in real time.

Botnets
Hackers use armies of infected computers referred to as "botnets" to host a plethora of bogus websites and swiftly lift links high into Internet search results based on hot topics at any given moment, Chenette said.

"They use botnets nowadays to give them control over search engine rankings," Chenette said of hackers. "The are jumping on the band wagon of any big event; at a drop of a dime they can instruct botnets to run websites and raise those links high in searches."

Malware
Websense found that 13.7 percent of the time trick websites rigged with "malware" were included in the top 100 results for searches conducted using words from Yahoo! Buzz or Google Trend hot topics tracking services.

"Attackers are following every real-time event that is happening and changing, minute-by-minute, their rankings in Google search," Chenette said. "Attackers are as real time as any real-time search engine."

Threat Seeker Network
Websense gathered its data from a Threat Seeker Network that every hour scans more than 40 million Web sites for malicious code and nearly 10 million emails for nefarious content.

Scareware
A popular malicious payload is a "scareware" program designed to frighten people into paying to fix computer problems that don't exist.

Viruses
Computer viruses also typically install code that lets hackers commandeer control of machines, adding them to botnets.

The number of malicious websites more than doubled from the second half of 2008 to the same six-month period last year, according to Websense.

Trusted Websites
Making matters worse, hackers are also increasingly planting viruses on websites people have grown to trust.

Approximately 71 percent of the websites found by Websense to have malware were legitimate websites that had been compromised without the operators knowledge.

"It's almost as if you can't trust the sites you know," Chenette said. Hackers are also combining tactics.

For example, recent cyberattacks on some 30 firms including Google combined using trick emails and malicious software to invade company systems.

Summary
The cyber criminals are not going away, they are improving and refining their techniques and technology. The price of freedom on the internet is still vigilance in the form of virus checkers and firewalls but the most important thing is good inside information and intelligence.

Keeping up with the threats and attacks can be very difficult and the best way forward for individuals and companies alike is to stay informed. You can receive updates and alerts from the good guys via a number of 'safe' sites but remember that 'safe' is a dynamic concept in the virtual world.

Treat it like a military operation;

• establish a good strategy - put some forethought into what you are trying to achieve
• stay informed - Establish a good incoming stream of intelligence
• stay alert - post sentries by using your local or regional network of contacts
• seek consensus - Early adopters are the most vulnerable to scams. Never be the first to get conned.
• learn from others' misfortunes - Do some forensic checking after events
• build your barricades high - Put the better tools in place; Virus checking, firewalls, malware detection, etc

The key to countering the cyber criminals is to use the very same social network that the criminals are trying to penetrate. You must prepare to position your defense before you can defend your position.

Comments and feedback on your own experiences are always welcome.

Telling a Good Story Makes for Better Presentations

There should be a good story behind every business presentation and hopefully, a good storyteller too.

Whether you are simply making a speech to your extended family at your uncle's wedding or you are trying to persuade the venture capitalists to invest a $1M in your new company, the rules are the same.

Here are some tips to remember to make your presentation not only more convincing but also more memorable.

• Always have a great opening - an attention getter. This can be either a one liner or a visual joke


• Look for and play on the emotion in the story - Look beyond the facts and figures. When telling a good story you need the audience to be involved. So, draw them in.


• Show them the proof - A picture paints a thousand words and an interactive demonstration is more convincing than any picture.


• Repetition is re-enforcement - Don't be afraid to state the same thing in different ways or to simply re-state your argument. It is convincing and shows focus.


• Use Silence as a speaking tool - Don't forget to pause occasionally and wait for the audience to breath and think for a few seconds. Some people need time to allow the penny to drop and it also allows you to gather your senses for the next slide.


• Remember to vary the tempo - Be aware of the time you are taking and the pace you are setting. This will keep your audience both awake and engaged.


• Maintain a dialogue with your audience - You are not in a play. You have the leading role in an interactive presentation that allows for questions, comments and active participation betwen you and your audience.


• Actions speak louder than words - Use your arms, legs and facial gestures to illustrate the dialogue. You are not a mime but you want to be the focus of attention.


• Establish the interactive nature of your talk - Let your audience know the rules of interaction from the start and make it comfortable for people to speak and ask questions.


• Don't speak to quietly or too quickly - Yes, you are nervous and you have so much to say and so little time to fit it all in. So, the temptation is to talk fast and set off at a cracking pace. Your audience will very quickly tire of keeping up with you and fall asleep.


• Don't preach or try to teach a grown-up audience - The primary goal is to be persuasive when introducing your audience to new information, not to accuse, nag and criticise.


• Always have a well prepared story to tell - To be truly convincing in a presentation you need to appear confident and well practised in your delivery. If you are trying to make it up as you go along, the mob will devour you.

I hope these few words, tips and hints are of some benefit to you when next you start to prepare for a public speaking event or an in-house presentation.

If you have enjoyed what we talked about and think you need more information or want really strong presentation strategies, contact the experts Lisa.Lipkin@storystrategies.net

Lisa is a very experienced, professional speaker and communications counseller from New York but we also enjoy her company and good advice, in the European capitals, where she speaks to global scientific, pharmaceutical and IT organisations.

Gartner Report: Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

Market Overview
The market in 2009 was defined by the David and Goliathian struggle that occurred between resilient BI pure-play vendors and ostensibly omnipotent megavendors.

The frenzy caused by major BI platform market consolidation in 2007 and 2008 gave way to a postacquisition hangover in 2009 in which megavendors' customers reported greater overall dissatisfaction due, in large part, to the often messy postacquisition "digestion" process.

Yet, despite megavendor acquisition "growing pains," stack-centric buying led by applications and information infrastructure dominated BI platform investment decisions in 2009 with the top five vendors controlling 75% of the market.

At the same time, however, based on the research conducted for this report and interactions with Gartner customers over the year, there is significant, if not euphoric, satisfaction with, and accelerated interest in, pure-play BI platforms. This is particularly true for smaller, innovative vendors filling needs left unmet by the larger vendors.

Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

Reckoning with Chinese Values in Gen Y - BusinessWeek

Reckoning with Chinese Gen Y - BusinessWeek

"So what are traditional Chinese values? Ancient Chinese philosophers, writers over centuries, and modern cultural experts agree on the core themes."

"This has been confirmed ........ over the last 15 years with groups of Chinese managers, asking them to define "Chinese-ness." According to all these sources, traditional Chinese values focus on family, relationships, achievement, endurance, and sacrifice of one's self for the group. "

"They also include the ideal of the golden mean or harmony, and hierarchy as the basis for social structure and interaction."