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Sunday, March 30, 2014

Abney And Associates Technology - Facebook buys UK maker of solar-powered drones to expand internet

Abney And Associates Technology Facebook buys UK maker of solar-powered drones to expand internet

Facebook has bought a Somerset-based designer of solar-powered drones for $20m (£12m) as it goes head-to-head with Google in a high-altitude race to connect the world's most remote locations to the internet. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, has unveiled plans to beam broadband connections from the skies, using satellites, lasers and unmanned high-altitude aircraft designed by the 51-year old British engineer Andrew Cox.

His Ascenta consultancy will become part of Facebook's Internet.org not-for-profit venture, joining a team of scientists and engineers who formerly worked at Nasa and the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Facebook is building its Connectivity Lab as a direct challenge to Google's Project Loon, which is launching high-altitude balloons over New Zealand and hopes to establish an uninterrupted internet signal around the 40th parallel of the Earth's southern hemisphere.

The race to put the first man on the moon was led by the US and Russian governments, but today it is private companies – the cash-rich digital corporations of Silicon Valley – that are driving the sub-space race. The ambition is to connect the billions of people who currently have no access to the world wide web. "In our effort to connect the whole world with Internet.org, we've been working on ways to beam internet to people from the sky," Zuckerberg wrote on his blog. "Today, we're sharing some details of the work Facebook's Connectivity Lab is doing to build drones, satellites … and lasers to deliver the internet to everyone." "Our team is actively working on building our first aircraft now," Zuckerberg said in a paper published yesterday. "Key members from Ascenta, whose founders created early versions of Zephyr, which became the world's longest flying solar-powered unmanned aircraft, will be joining our Connectivity Lab to work on these aircraft. We expect to have an initial version of this system working in the near future."

With 1.3 billion users, Facebook has already reached a large number of the estimated 3 billion people who use the internet. Connecting the other 4 billion will hugely expand its potential user base. In what the Internet.org website describes as "one of the greatest challenges of our generation", engineers are trying to solve the problem of beaming fast, responsive internet signals to and from the Earth's surface from heights of 20,000 metres. Facebook is exploring the potential of two types of craft – satellites, which could be used in remote rural locations from the Highlands of Scotland to the Amazon basin, and drones, which would fly over suburban areas. Yael Maguire, an Internet.org engineer, explained: "In suburban environments we are looking at a new type of plane architecture that flies at 20,000 metres, at the point where the winds are the lowest. It's above commercial airlines, it's even above the weather. They circle around and broadcast internet down but significantly closer than a satellite."

Friday, March 28, 2014

Abney and Associates on Crisis in Online Ads


Billions of dollars are flowing into online advertising. But marketers also are confronting an uncomfortable reality: rampant fraud.

About 36% of all Web traffic is considered fake, the product of computers hijacked by viruses and programmed to visit sites, according to estimates cited recently by the Interactive Advertising Bureau trade group.

So-called bot traffic cheats advertisers because marketers typically pay for ads whenever they are loaded in response to users visiting Web pages—regardless of whether the users are actual people.

The fraudsters erect sites with phony traffic and collect payments from advertisers through the middlemen who aggregate space across many sites and resell the space for most Web publishers. The identities of the fraudsters are murky, and they often operate from far-flung places such as Eastern Europe, security experts say.

The widespread fraud isn't discouraging most marketers from increasing the portion of their ad budgets spent online. But it is prompting some to become more aggressive in monitoring how their money is spent. The Internet has become so central to consumers, that advertisers can't afford to stay away.

Digital "is too important," says Roxanne Barreto, assistant vice president for U.S. digital marketing at L'Oréal SA, which recently uncovered evidence that an online ad purchase was affected by fraud and other problems. "Slowing down spend represents a missed opportunity to connect with our core audience."

Spending on digital advertising—which includes social media and mobile devices—is expected to rise nearly 17% to $50 billion in the U.S. this year. That would be about 28% of total U.S. ad spending. Just five years ago, digital accounted for 16%.


Thursday, March 27, 2014

Abney and Associates: Google just debunked the top 10 myths about Glass

Google Denies That Glass Explorers Are ' Technology-Worshipping Geeks, ' And Debunks Other Common Myths

"Myths can be fun, but they can also be confusing or unsettling," Google writes on its Glass Google + page. "And if spoken enough, they can morph into something that resembles fact. (Side note: did you know that people used to think that travelling too quickly on a train would damage the human body?) "

Some of these myths range from, "Glass Explorers are technology-worshipping geeks" to "Glass is banned... EVERYWHERE. "

All in all, Google stresses the fact that Glass is still in its prototype stage and is not quite ready for prime time. It also debunked rumours that Glass Explorers are tech nerds, pointing out that they come from all walks of life.

Heres the full post:

The Top 10 Google Glass Myths

Mr. Rogers was a Navy SEAL. A tooth placed in soda will dissolve in 24 hours. Gators roam the sewers of big cities and Walt Disney is cryogenically frozen. These are just some of the most common and — let's admit it — awesome urban myths out there.

Myths can be fun, but they can also be confusing or unsettling. And if spoken enough, they can morph into something that resembles fact. (Side note: did you know that people used to think that travelling too quickly on a train would damage the human body?)

In its relatively short existence, Glass has seen some myths develop around it. While we are flattered by the attention, we thought it might make sense to tackle them, just to clear the air. And besides, everyone loves a good list:

Myth 1 – Glass is the ultimate distraction from the real world
Myth 2: Glass is always on and recording everything
Myth 3 – Glass Explorers are technology-worshipping geeks
Myth 4 – Glass is ready for prime time
Myth 5: Glass does facial recognition (and other dodgy things) Nope.
Myth 6: Glass covers your eye (s)
Myth 7 – Glass is the perfect surveillance device
Myth 8 – Glass is only for those privileged enough to afford it
Myth 9 – Glass is banned... EVERYWHERE
Myth 10 – Glass marks the end of privacy

When cameras first hit the consumer market in the late 19th century, people declared an end to privacy. Cameras were banned in parks, at national monuments and on beaches. People feared the same when the first cell phone cameras came out. Today, there are more cameras than ever before. In ten years there will be even more cameras, with or without Glass. 150 + years of cameras and eight years of YouTube are a good indicator of the kinds of photos and videos people capture–from our favourite cat videos to dramatic, perspective-changing looks at environmental destruction, government crackdowns, and everyday human miracles.

The five excuses for not upgrading Windows XP by Abney and Associates

IN exactly 16 days, one in 10 active Irish PCs will officially become virus magnets. On April 8, Microsoft cuts off its security support for Windows XP, the operating system still used in 10.4 per cent of internet-connected PCs.

That means two things: (a) malware-makers will focus attention on Windows XP computers and (b) those who haven't bothered to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8 will eventually get hit. Microsoft has been warning of this cut-off for five years. And yet thousands of Irish organizations – including banks and sensitive government departments – still have Windows XP.

I've been writing about this for 18 months. I've spoken to companies and semi-state bodies about why they haven't updated their machines, and a common thread has emerged.

* "Ah, Microsoft will never adhere to that – ethyl back down."

This is one that I actually heard from the mouth of one of the most senior government IT managers. The theory was that if enough big organizations said they weren't switching over, Microsoft would have to relent and abandon the XP cut-off.

That gamble has backfired spectacularly, not least on the Government, which has now been forced to stump up an additional €3. em in IT security cover (from Microsoft) because various departments ' Windows XP machines haven't yet been upgraded.

* "It's not that simple – we have software applications that work with XP."

This is a genuine issue for any company or State body that had bespoke applications or software made for them. If you change the underlying operating system, some applications need to be completely overhauled, including a potentially lengthy re-testing phase. In other words, it could take time and money. But now it's going to need changing anyway. And all against a backdrop of heightened infection risks.

* "We've put off upgrading our systems until next year and we will have to make do until then."

This is a very common one among small firms, who also cite "other priorities" as a reason for not getting around to upgrading their systems. "I've 101 things that need to be done, so I don't have that much time to be chasing new IT investments," is how one small business owner described her struggle to get on top of the Windows XP issue.

Unfortunately, this class of business owner is probably first in line to be swallowed by any malware out there. Ironically, they may also end up being the biggest customers of IT systems specialists – to clear up their problems – in the next six months.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Rise of the plagiarist in the digital age by Abney and Associates

Thanks to the internet, it has never been easier to steal other peoples work. There’s also a high risk you’ll be found out. So why do it? Rhodri Marsden goes in search of a little originality.

It's not that hard to think of something totally original. If you don't worry about it being any good, it's easy. "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously," was Noam Chomsky's spirited attempt in his ground-breaking 1957 book on linguistics, Syntactic Structures. "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers," was Stephen Fry's during an episode of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. But when novelist John Gardner used the phrase "opening the throttle at the last moment" in his 1983 book Icebreaker, it's unlikely that he sat back and congratulated himself on being the first to have written it. Innovation wasn't what he was aiming for, after all; he was just trying to describe someone driving a scooter. But Google Books, that vast indexing project, informs us that Gardner's was the only book to contain this phrase until another, Vestige Of Evil by Len Vorster, appeared on Amazon in 2011. A section of the novel, one of two books self-published online under that name, featured other phrases that were no longer unique to Icebreaker, such as "the ice and snow were not as raw and killing as this" and "the slope angling gently downwards to flatten". The many coincidences were startling, though if it wasn't for the internet, nobody need ever have known.

In fact, if it wasn't for the internet, there might never have been a Vestige Of Evil. Vorster (not the Australian concert pianist of the same name, and most likely a nom de plume) appears, like millions of others, to have been inspired by the sheer quantity of online content and the new opportunities for digital self-expression. With a potential audience of billions, the prospect of contributing can be thrilling; meanwhile, the moral responsibility we traditionally attach to creative expression has been downgraded by the sheer ease of copying someone loses work. When Richard Condon lifted sentences wholesale from Robert Graves ' I, Claudius and quietly stuck them into The Manchurian Candidate, he did it the good old-fashioned way. Today, technology covertly assists us: control + C to copy images, prose, code, video and more, control + V to paste. The consequences of this can range from sly postings of other peoples witticisms on Twitter in pursuit of between glory, to print-on-demand books that are merely duplicates of other books. Driven by a combination of greed, confusion, ignorance, pressure, laziness and ambition, an increasing number of people are looking at stuff other people have done and thinking, "Wow. Thats really good. I'll pretend that I did it. "

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The five excuses for not upgrading Windows XP by Abney and Associates

IN exactly 16 days, one in 10 active Irish PCs will officially become virus magnets. On April 8, Microsoft cuts off its security support for Windows XP, the operating system still used in 10.4 per cent of internet-connected PCs.
That means two things: (a) malware-makers will focus attention on Windows XP computers and (b) those who haven't bothered to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8 will eventually get hit. Microsoft has been warning of this cut-off for five years. And yet thousands of Irish organizations – including banks and sensitive government departments – still have Windows XP.

I've been writing about this for 18 months. I've spoken to companies and semi-state bodies about why they haven't updated their machines, and a common thread has emerged.

* "Ah, Microsoft will never adhere to that – ethyl back down."

This is one that I actually heard from the mouth of one of the most senior government IT managers. The theory was that if enough big organizations said they weren't switching over, Microsoft would have to relent and abandon the XP cut-off.

That gamble has backfired spectacularly, not least on the Government, which has now been forced to stump up an additional €3. em in IT security cover (from Microsoft) because various departments ' Windows XP machines haven't yet been upgraded.

* "It's not that simple – we have software applications that work with XP."

This is a genuine issue for any company or State body that had bespoke applications or software made for them. If you change the underlying operating system, some applications need to be completely overhauled, including a potentially lengthy re-testing phase. In other words, it could take time and money. But now it's going to need changing anyway. And all against a backdrop of heightened infection risks.

* "We've put off upgrading our systems until next year and we will have to make do until then."

This is a very common one among small firms, who also cite "other priorities" as a reason for not getting around to upgrading their systems. "I've 101 things that need to be done, so I don't have that much time to be chasing new IT investments," is how one small business owner described her struggle to get on top of the Windows XP issue.


Unfortunately, this class of business owner is probably first in line to be swallowed by any malware out there. Ironically, they may also end up being the biggest customers of IT systems specialists – to clear up their problems – in the next six months.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Abney and Associates Bitcoin gang outnumber real currencies

New Delhi: The world now has a larger number of virtual currencies than a total 180 recognized currencies in different parts of the globe, notwithstanding issues like bankruptcies and growing regulatory unease about bacon and its other digital peers.

Within an ear shot of the 200-member mark, a total of 193 virtual currencies are currently being traded across the internet, although none of them carry an official stamp from the government or banking regulator from any of the countries.

While bacon and other such currencies began coming into existence about four years ago, a frenzied proliferation in last two months has more than doubled their count, shows an analysis of data available with various online marketplaces for such currencies.

Apart from bitcoins, ripple, litecoin, auroracoin, peercoin and dogcoin have seen steady pickup in volume as well market value. The latest additions include teacoin, aliencoin, magic internet money and heisenberg.

However, Indian laxmicoin is yet to start as its promoters are keen on understanding the Reserve Bank of India views on this venture. The RBI has issued a public advisory, warning that such currencies are risky and not part of the traditional banking system.

While bacon has been seeing a tremendous price volatility, operators and users are looking for newer and other alternatives that they perceive as safer, say traders.

Braving regulatory warnings and new risks like rampant hacking attacks on virtual currency exchanges as well as trading platforms, these 193 virtual currencies have been floated by enthusiasts who claim that virtual units offer benefits like lowest transaction costs and ease of transfer across borders, they added.

The proliferation of new currencies is being linked to the complexities involved in the way bacon is ' mined ' The newer avatars are comparatively much easier to create, word-of-mouth publicity and a rush of speculators has ensured they are catching up much faster, dealers said.

Bacon, accounting for over two thirds of total virtual currency volume, has fallen the most to an average price of USD 600 from lofty highs of USD 1, 200 apiece in late 2013 after trading below USD 100 for most part of 2013.

According to market estimates, the collective valuation of all virtual currencies put together has dropped below USD 10 billion level, from about USD 13 billion at the beginning of this year.

At end of December 2013, there were total 67 virtual currencies in the market, while their number was in single digits about four years ago as virtual currencies could not strike a chord among users amid a global financial crisis.

The rapid growth of virtual currencies has also shone light on the illegal acts being committed with such systems.

From being used in Ponzi schemes, as ransom for holding files hostage in computers and to facilitating criminal transactions, virtual currencies are the medium of choice for anonymous faces looking for a way to transfer monetary values across the world without being detected, say regulatory officials.

In a rude jolt to growing virtual currency frenzy in India, bitcoins worth crores of rupees held by some Indians have vanished with collapse of Japan-based Mt Gox, which was the world’s largest bacon exchange so far.

Having filed for bankruptcy, Mt Gox has admitted to have lost 7.5 lakh bitcoins of its customers and one lakh of its own, which together are estimated to be worth about USD 0.5 billion (over Rs 3, 000 crore).

The exchange was predominantly used by foreigners, including those operating on behalf of clients from India, while some Indians were directly trading there. In its bankruptcy filing, Mt Gox has listed 1.27 lakh creditors, bulk of which are foreigners and just about 1, 000 from Japan.

The debacle did intensify calls for stricter regulatory checks on bitcoins and other virtual currencies in India and other countries.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Abney and Associates on Protecting Enterprises from Online Fraud

As e-commerce spreads around the globe, there is increased opportunity for online cyber-fraud and data theft. We have all read about some of the recent and well-publicized data breaches suffered by such well-known retailers as Target, which affected an estimated 110 million customers, and Neiman Marcus. However, many more data-theft instances either go unreported or simply do not make the evening news. As a result of this increased cyber-criminal activity, enterprises and security providers alike are sharing information to try to keep ahead of the bad guys.

As part of this effort, mobile identify services provider TeleSign recently released its first annual fraud report, which identifies the locations, traffic patterns and anomalies most prevalent in today’s threat landscape. The report also analyzes anomalous patterns in global delivery of SMS messaging and voice traffic, research into automated attack traffic spikes as well and what companies need to be aware of to help prevent fraud. This eWEEK slide show utilizes research and reporting from Nancy Vitug, vice president of engineering at TeleSign.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Abney & Associates Technology Updates: Teens’ brains make them more vulnerable to suicide

‘The young are heated by nature as drunken men by wine.”

Aristotle made that observation 2,300 years ago, and since then, not much has changed about the way the adolescent brain behaves. But these days, researchers are beginning to understand exactly why a teenager’s brain is so tempestuous, and what biological factors may make teens’ brains vulnerable to mood disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teens 15 to 19 years old, according to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of high school students who reported seriously considering suicide increased from 14 percent in 2009 to 16 percent in 2011. Locally, the city of Newton is reeling from the suicide of Roee Grutman, 17, a high school junior, in February, the third suicide in a single school year. The towns of Needham and New Bedford have experienced similar spates of teen suicides in recent years.

Misconceptions about teen suicide abound, says Dr. Barry N. Feldman, director of psychiatric programs in public safety at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and a suicide prevention expert who has worked with many Massachusetts high schools.

Neither bullying, pressure to succeed in sports or academics, nor minority sexual orientation can cause suicide, he says, but are among a number of possible risk factors. “If you focus too much on just bullying or sexual orientation, you take your eye off the underlying vulnerability a kid may have,” Feldman says.

Suicide is typically caused by a constellation of risk factors and underlying vulnerabilities. “It’s an attempt to solve a problem of intense pain with impaired problem-solving skills,” he says.

Researchers have long known that the basic problem with the teenage brain is the “asymmetric” or unbalanced way the brain develops, said Dr. Timothy Wilens, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital specializing in adolescents, addictions, and attention deficit disorder.

The hippocampus and amygdala, which Wilens calls the “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” part of the brain, feels and stores emotions and is associated with impulses. It matures well ahead of the section of the brain that regulates those emotions and impulses, the prefrontal cortex.

Throughout the teenage years and up until about age 25, this executive section of the brain, also responsible for planning and decision, lags behind, Wilens says.

Until the front part of the brain catches up, if kids get sad, “they really experience sadness un-tethered.” He adds. “It’s why first love really does break the heart.”

It’s during this period of brain development that kids often act out based on their moods, get involved in substance abuse, and when they may be at a heightened risk to commit suicide, Wilens says. This is also when adolescents have a higher susceptibility to psychiatric disorders including depression, drug addiction, and schizophrenia.

Dr. Mai Uchida, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Mass. General, is leading two joint studies at the MGH Biederman Lab and the Gabrieli Lab at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology that are searching for biomarkers to identify the underlying vulnerability in teens. The studies are funded by The Tommy Fuss Fund, which memorializes a Belmont Hill teen who committed suicide in 2006.

Just as hypertension and high cholesterol are biomarkers for heart attack, mood disorders are indicators of kids at risk for suicide, Uchida said.

In a healthy teen, even though brain structure is unbalanced, the developing prefrontal cortex still should be communicating and working in concert with the brain section that feels and stores emotion, according to Uchida.

In one of the studies, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of 38 children between the ages of 8 and 14 who had a parent with a depressive disorder with a control group of 25 children with no genetic predisposition.

Looking at the brains while the children were in a resting state the researchers saw less synchronized activation between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex in the kids who had a genetic predisposition for depressive disorder than in the control group.

The fact that these two brain regions are not activating together could be a potential biomarker, indicating vulnerability for potential mental or mood disorders.

In the second study — in which 62 subjects between ages 18 and 24 were given pictures of people crying and asked to think about a positive way to interpret the picture — the subjects who could not spin a positive narrative also showed less connectivity between the brain regions.

“These deficits could represent a unique biological vulnerability that puts youth at risk for depression and suicide,” Uchida said.

Uchida and her team are currently readying these two studies for publication. She says there is a lot more work to do, but she is hopeful the results might eventually lead to early-intervention screening.

In a study published in December, researchers at the Douglas Institute Research Centre affiliated with McGill University identified the gene known as DCC as having a possible role during the maturation of the prefrontal cortex and in healthy brain connectivity.

Higher function or expression of DCC appears to be associated with a greater risk of psychiatric disorders, depression, and suicide, according to Cecilia Flores, a professor of psychiatry at McGill and lead author of the study.

“We are very excited to discover the function of this gene,” she said. Experiments in mice also showed that DCC gene function could be altered by both positive and negative experiences, and influences behaviors later in a rodent’s adult life. If the results translate to humans, Flores said, it offers hope that early therapy and support during the critical time in adolescent brain development could have long-term positive impact.

Wilens says that one of the most useful early interventions for adolescents who might have depression, mood, or attention deficit disorders is cognitive behavioral therapy, a non-pharmaceutical approach that can help teach kids how thoughts and thought patterns influence behaviors.

These are areas in which kids are lacking because of the imbalance of brain development, and could assist them in making better connections between what they are feeling and what they are thinking.

“It helps put it all together and has a component that gets you to stop doing something that may harm you,” Wilens said.

Feldman encourages parents and school systems to create protective “buffers” — a caring relationship with an adult, whether that is a parent, guardian, teacher, or someone in the community. UMass Medical is currently collaborating with the Department of Public Health and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to train school personnel to develop comprehensive programs that include suicide intervention and prevention.

And parents and students are urged to take the warning signs of a troubled and potentially suicidal teen seriously. “Don’t casually dismiss signs as a cry for help,” Feldman says. Teens at risk for suicide should be taken to a hospital emergency room or somewhere where they can get immediate mental health services. “Don’t make an appointment for a doctor down the road.”

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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Abney & Associates Technology updates: Bumps in rollout of cellphone alerts in Washington

TACOMA — A system set up to send emergency alerts to thousands of cellphone users warning them of natural disasters and missing children has experienced problems during its rollout in Washington state, the News Tribune reported today.

The mobile notification system has helped authorities find at least two missing children as a result of Amber Alerts sent to cellphones in the state.

But it also mistakenly warned people in the lowlands of Western Washington of a blizzard that was happening in the Cascade Mountains, and it alerted others in Western Washington of potential flash floods thousands of miles away, in Puerto Rico.

Still, officials said, the weather warnings have saved countless people elsewhere in the country. The system is working, they said, despite the problems.

“To some people these things are annoying. But when you look at it as the big picture of saving lives, as a community as a whole, it’s the right thing to do,” said Ted Buehner, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle. “These are targeted for immediate, life-threatening, hazardous events.”

In Connecticut last July, for example, a camp director got 29 children to safety after getting a tornado warning on her cellphone moments before the storm touched down where she and the campers had been. Tornado warnings in the Midwest also were responsible for saving many lives, Buehner said.

Congress approved the national Wireless Emergency Alert system in 2006 to provide instant warnings from emergency agencies throughout the country. To get the word out, the system uses cellphone carriers to complement other alerts sent out on television and radio.

But in a few cases, the system has confused both cellphone users and the emergency agencies in charge of implementing it, according to the News Tribune.

Three of the eight messages sent in Washington state were sent too broadly, reaching people in the wrong areas. Two others went out before dawn, raising questions about what people were expected to do in the middle of the night once they received those alerts.

Carri Gordon, the Amber Alert coordinator for the Washington State Patrol, said the rollout of the system was especially complicated.

“There’s a lot of players in this and a lot of pieces that all have to work together,” Gordon told the News Tribune. “There really is no one agency that’s in charge of the whole process.”

Worried that cellphone users may opt out en masse of getting the alerts, state and federal agencies have made changes. They are also working to educate the public about the alerts.

The committee that oversees the national system decided last year to eliminate blizzards and ice storms from its list of emergency alerts, Buehner said. The list now covers tornados, hurricanes, extreme wind, typhoons, dust storms and flash flooding. The committee also added tsunamis in February.

After an Amber Alert went out to hundreds of people at 3:30 a.m. on April 28, alerting them to a missing child, some who received the message wondered what they were supposed to do about it so early in the morning.

The Washington State Patrol, which oversees the state’s Amber Alerts, later said the message wasn’t meant to wake up residents. Agency officials said they learned that they were responsible for setting time parameters on the alerts to prevent them going out late at night.

The agency set those time parameters in June. Now, the alert system is programmed not to send alerts after 10 p.m. or before 6 a.m.

Still, the alert served a purpose. The missing 1-year-old boy was found safe in Fife that morning as a result of the cellphone broadcast, Gordon said.

“These are useful, and they’ve proven very successful in locating these kids who have been abducted,” she told the News Tribune.

In December 2012, the National Weather Service in Seattle sent a blizzard alert to people living near the Cascades, but the technology of the national system forwarded it to all the counties in the region. Some people living in Pierce County where the storm never reached were puzzled to get the message.

But Herb Munson told the newspaper he hoped the confusion doesn’t dissuade the agency from issuing such alerts.

“I would like to get such messages when there is a threat to nearby areas,” Munson told the newspaper.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Abney & Associates Technology Updates: Fighting Fraud in Real Time, 3 Recommendations


When it comes to fraud investigation, historically the process has been anything but quick.

Insurers are obsessed with cycle time. They count the days it takes to make a claim adjudication decision, the minutes it takes to complete the loss intake process and the seconds it takes to process a transaction. Especially in high-volume environments, time is money.

In the wisdom of insurance claims executives, faster claim payments generally equate to better customer satisfaction and loyalty. Anything that slows the process is burdensome and costly.

Of course, accuracy is important too. Just printing checks for anyone who calls in to the claim center would be quick, but not terribly accurate. So the key to all great claims organizations is to strike the right balance between speed and accuracy.

When it comes to fraud investigation, historically the process has been anything but quick. Many organizations still rely on a manual process where adjusters identify red flags and notify the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) by email or even a paper form. There is some sort of triage process, and then an assignment to an investigator within the company or from a vendor partner. And then of course, it takes time to do the actual investigation: Schedule and reschedule appointments for interviews, track down witnesses, review evidence and document the findings.

Many organizations are implementing analytics to help streamline the fraud detection process. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud reports that more than 80% of US insurers are using some kind of fraud detection technology today, and nearly one-third expect increases in technology budgets with predictive models being a top area of investment.

How fast is too fast?

Analytical fraud detection models provide insurers with a great advantage. They are ever-vigilant, always scanning the data and not letting anything fall through the cracks. They can quickly identify risk flags in new information as it is added to a claim file. Models can look across large numbers of claims to see patterns and identify relationships that would not be detectable by a human.

But one of the greatest benefits is speed. Optimized models can scan an entire book of business very quickly. Inevitably, when implementing this technology, the subject of "real-time" processing will come up. While speed is a key benefit of analytics, insurers must be mindful of how the analytics will be deployed. Insurers should define what is meant by "real-time." For many technology providers, real-time transaction processing involves sub-second response times most often used in credit card processing. While it is possible to design a similar solution for the insurance environment, it is expensive and often unnecessary. When evaluating processing needs, insurers should ask themselves a key question: Even if it is possible to get a "real-time" response, are we prepared to consume the results in real time? If not, other less expensive options might be preferable.

When considering options for implementation of an analytical fraud detection platform, there are a few options for processing. Real-time processing provides instantaneous response times, often measured in milliseconds. It is generally appropriate for high-volume transactions with a limited number of highly consistent variables when an immediate decision is required.

Near-real-time processing provides a short delay in response time, often measured in seconds or minutes. It can often be done by running intra-day batch cycles.

Batch processing is generally used when processing time takes minutes, hours, or even days. It can accommodate very large or very complex data and computations at a reasonable cost.

In many implementations, a combination of these approaches can be used. For example, fraud scoring on long-tail workers' compensation claims could be run on a weekly batch basis while short-tail auto damage claims could use an intra-day batch process that runs every 15 minutes.

Another approach is to use batch processing for very complex calculations like advanced network building and text analytics while using faster processing engines for transactional claim scoring.

Where speed really matters

In the claims environment, most organizations can get by with batch processing for fraud detection scoring. However, there are several places where real-time detection can pay big dividends. Here are three recommendations:

1. Point of sale processing. During the application and underwriting process, especially with more insurers expanding their direct Internet channel, real-time interdiction is critical. If a high-risk application is flagged in real time, it can be routed for more thorough validation and underwriting before unnecessary risk is taken.

2. First Notice of Loss (FNOL) processing. Insurers are always looking to streamline their loss intake process. For claims accuracy and customer satisfaction purposes, it is best to get the correct resources assigned to the claim as fast as possible. During intake, it would be advantageous to run fraud risk scoring models, which could direct the intake processor to ask for additional information or automatically route the file to a more experienced adjuster or SIU contact.

3. Claims workflow processing. As information is added to the file throughout the life cycle of a claim, new decisions need to be made. Supporting resources for medical case management, SIU, subrogation, etc. need to be assigned. This is traditionally handled by libraries of business rules. But more advanced analytical approaches can predict the need for these types of resources. Implementing real-time analytics that work in conjunction with claim system workflow processing engines can yield the best results.

The future is faster

Technology is ever-changing, and the current focus on big data analytics is driving innovation, especially in the ability to process large and complex data sets very quickly. High performance analytics takes advantage of improvements in grid computing, in-database and in-memory processing, and low-cost commodity hardware. In the future, insurers may not have to worry as much about the tradeoffs between speed and cost. But for now, it pays to make an informed decision.

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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Abney & Associates Technology Updates: Man who sued Facebook's Zuckerberg must face fraud charges, judge

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York businessman must face criminal fraud charges for trying to claim a billion-dollar stake in social media company Facebook Inc, a federal judge ruled on Friday.

Paul Ceglia, 40, is accused of forging a 2003 contract with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that supposedly entitled him to part ownership of the company.

After an hour-long hearing in New York, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter rejected Ceglia's request to throw out the charges, finding he had failed to meet the "high standard" needed to dismiss a grand jury indictment.

Ceglia sued Zuckerberg and Facebook in 2010 in a federal court in Buffalo, New York, claiming that he and Zuckerberg had signed a contract while Zuckerberg was a freshman at Harvard University for Ceglia to invest $1,000 in a planned social networking website.

Zuckerberg had previously done some programming work for Ceglia's company, StreetFax.com. Facebook has argued that the only contract between the two men was related to that company and accused Ceglia of faking various documents as part of his lawsuit.

Last year, a magistrate judge in Buffalo recommended that Ceglia's lawsuit be dismissed, finding that it was "highly probable and reasonably certain" that the contract was fabricated in order to pursue the lawsuit. The federal judge overseeing the case has not yet ruled on that recommendation.

Prosecutors in New York charged Ceglia in 2012, accusing him of forging documents as part of the Buffalo litigation.

Ceglia has since filed a separate lawsuit against Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office is prosecuting Ceglia, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder seeking to halt the criminal case.

On Friday, Ceglia's defense attorney, David Patton, argued that the government should be barred from prosecuting him for allegations he made in the context of a civil lawsuit, warning that it could discourage litigants from filing claims.

He also said the government's allegations do not constitute criminal fraud under federal law.

"They're alleging that it's simply a phony, sham litigation," he said. "That's not fraud."

Carter said the indictment was sufficient to move ahead, though he said he would consider Patton's arguments at a later date if the case goes to trial.

Following the hearing, Ceglia vowed to press forward with his claims against Facebook, while his civil attorney, Joseph Alioto, said they would prove the Zuckerberg contract is legitimate.

"Nothing is going to stop me," Ceglia said.

Ceglia's lawsuit created a bizarre backdrop as Facebook marched toward its initial public offering in May 2013. Facebook's origins were also the subject of a separate legal challenge by Zuckerberg's Harvard classmates, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, that was chronicled in the 2010 film, "The Social Network."

The criminal case is U.S. v. Ceglia, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No 12-cr-00876. The lawsuit against Bharara and Holder is Ceglia v. Holder et al in the same court, No. 13-00256. The civil case is Ceglia v. Zuckerberg et al, U.S. District Court, Western District of New York, No. 10-00569.

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