Competitive Technology, Neural Networks

Deep Neural Networks For More Effective Security Systems

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Airports’ security is as important as national security. People, not only within the country but across the globe are going in and out of the country. The US Department of Homeland Security with the help of Google launched a contest in creating computer algorithms that will enable airports to identify hidden items in the images produced by checkpoint body scanner.

Gathering Data Scientists and Their ideas

The government aims to enhance security through advanced screening technology at airports. Kaggle which is already owned by Google and a site that holds over a million data scientists operates the said contests. The government is giving $1.5 million dollars for the contests that will run for 6 months.

Anthony Goldbloom, founder, and chief executive of Kaggle revealed that the said contest is an initiative to develop a technology named ‘deep neural networks’. These are complex mathematical systems with the ability to learn a particular task through huge data analysis. For instance, a neural network can identify what a cat is after analyzing millions of cats’ images.

Utilizing Neural Network Technology

Neural network technology is already used by Google and Facebook in several tasks. These include translation of languages, recognition of verbal commands from smartphones and identifying human faces in online images. While building algorithms were used to identify symptoms of lung cancer in CT scans in the past, neural networks are now developed to work with automated systems and read more precise body scans. This technology will not only enhance security but will also make airports services faster.

When it comes to conducting a contest, several managers and administrators find it a good idea. John W. Halinski, a security consultant considers the said contest as ‘crowdsourcing’ idea that will gather skills from different data scientists. Meanwhile, John Fortune, a program manager working in the Department of Homeland Security believes that the contest will find many people with high problem-solving skills. Moreover, Homeland Security and other agencies are in the process of discovering how neural networks can be used at security checkpoints like in the airport.

Efficiency of Neural Networks

Proponents of neural networks believe that it can upgrade airport security due to its capacity to learn data in a short time. Recently, Homeland Security supplied over a thousand three-dimensional body scans. But the scans are not shared and are not used for the contest. Volunteers from Transportation Security Administration assisted the working team in creating data by walking through a set of test scanners done in New Jersey laboratory.

Data gathered were used for analysis. The result shows that neural networks are efficient in doing security-related tasks like identifying hidden items. On the other hand, experts say that the technology is not perfect. According to some research, law offenders can change items or displaced the system to fool the system run by neural networks. In this case, the image-recognition system powered by neural networks might fail to see some concealed items.

Nevertheless, the government has seen the potential of using this technology to help human screeners in maintain top airport security. In the near future, the government and other organizations hope that neural networks will create breakthroughs in the security system and related tasks.

Artificial Intelligence

How Can Artificial Intelligence Counter Attack Cyber Security Threats?

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Artificial Intelligence technology is essential to business and governmental organizations when it comes to increasing creativity and performing automated office tasks. On the other hand, business and IT leaders who are concerned about threats to cybersecurity are worried about artificial intelligence. They think the possibilities that hackers might use AI tools to identify ‘weak spots’ where they can exploit and attack an organization’s security system.

What Security Threats can be Determined by AI Technology?

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency supported the Cyber Grand Challenge hacking competition in Las Vegas, where each team must play a hacking game using seven high-tech machines to search and utilize the viruses against each other’s systems. The game is called Capture the Flag, wherein TechCrunch dispersed servers to particularly execute tasks while having a new code filled with bugs, security holes, and inefficiencies.

Carnegie Mellon succeeded from the competition because of how it develops to repair its own servers by slowing down the system and be available as Wired reported offline. A startup named ForAllSecure conducted research at Carnegie Mellon formed a bot called “Mayhem” where it acts as a system that catches bugs faster than humans.

Potential of AI Technology as a Cyber Weapon

In an interview by the New York Times with Marc Goodman a law enforcement agency adviser and author of Future Crimes said: “The thing people don’t get is that cybercrime is becoming automated and it is scaling exponentially.”

He believed that AI’s technology can be developed as cyberweapons like the popular malicious program tool known as Blackshades. Blackshades was created in 2015 by Swedish Alex Yucel who was allegedly accused and imprisoned because of selling the particular malware on the black market.

By sharing this with other neural networks, it can damage any system’s security where users can expose any confidential video or audio. IDG mentioned that tools like Blackshades might eventually use an AI to “design entire attack strategies, launch them, and calculate the associated fee.”

What Makes AI Technology an Effective Security Tool?

According to Tome Weingarten, CEO of security firm SentineIOne, there’s a possibility that an AI-driven technology in the web will become vulnerable somehow. However, AI researchers and cybersecurity organizations are doing a counter-attack to prevent any suspicious malware.

An AI Cylance device technology develops a system which identifies neural networks and can foresee the result and control the system. Jon Miller, chief research officer at Cylance also stated that the machine’s function can identify more than 99 percent of malware at a time.

AI will resolve suspicious malware that alters with different attacks according to John Clark, a computer engineer who wrote The Independent, and the new chair of computer and information systems at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Recently, an AI system called AI2 was developed by researchers from the Massachusetts of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

It is said that 85 percent of attacks are can be detected by AI2 and decreases the number of wrong positives by a factor of five which is estimated to be three times better than its former benchmarks. AI2 detects any suspicious activities by searching through data and group them into significant patterns. The technology utilized approximately 3.6 billion pieces of log lines or data during its testing phase from millions of users over a period of three months.

Conclusion

AI technology and human cybersecurity instinct can be crucial to maintaining balance as per Wired. Humans have their limitations when it comes to doing a load of work to maximize security and neither could totally depend on machines for detecting cyber intrusions. Humans can hope that AI2 can be the multifaceted way out of the dilemma.

Competitive Technology

Breaking Windows Will Cost Consumers and IT Industry Nearly $30 Billion

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30 industry executives and noted economist say “remedies” will be disruptive and expensive

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Consumers will pay the price of a $30 billion increase in software costs if some critics have their way and split Microsoft into multiple companies or force the company to license its code, according to a study released today. Both proposals, suggested as remedies in the Microsoft antitrust trial, would create multiple versions of the Windows operating system, fracturing a popular product many consumers have chosen to run their personal computers.

Stan Liebowitz, Professor of Managerial Economics and Associate Dean of the University of Texas at Dallas, authored the study, which examines just one of the consumer costs of breaking up Windows.

“In the first three years alone, increased software costs will mount to nearly $30 billion,” Dr. Liebowitz announced today. “This cost is particularly expensive and disruptive when you consider the lack of consumer benefit to these types of remedies.”

“The enormous costs we’ve shown, which are only one part of the story, are in no way balanced by potential benefit,” Dr. Liebowitz said. “While this study focuses on software development, we know that additional costs would be incurred by OEMs, resellers, trainers and corporate IT companies. In addition to higher prices, consumers will also pay with having fewer choices and greater confusion.”

In reaching the conclusions, the author examined independent reports on PC software company costs, industry forecasts of software sales on the Windows desktop platforms, and personal interviews with software companies.

The study was released in Washington, DC today in connection with a day of Congressional meetings planned for member companies of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) and The ASCII Group, Inc. ACT is the fastest-growing industry trade association; ASCII is the world’s largest group of computer resellers. Company executives met with more than thirty Congressional offices to discuss regulation in the IT sector and the impact these remedies would have on their businesses. Mostly small- and medium-sized, the companies included computer resellers, software developers, trainers, Internet companies and IT consultants.

“The companies represented here begin to tell the story of how decisions in Washington affect IT businesses across the country,” said ACT President Jonathan Zuck. “We’re going to see significant costs of breaking-up Windows, but we’ve yet to see how it will benefit consumers.”

ACT is an industry trade association representing businesses and professionals in computer software and hardware development, and consulting and Internet services businesses. Protecting the freedom to achieve, compete and innovate, ACT is dedicated to preserving the role of technology companies in shaping the future of the industry.

About Us, Competitive Technology

About Us

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How It Began:

One day in 1998, several information technology executives woke up to find that Washington, D.C. was debating issues directly affecting their businesses — Y2K, antitrust, encryption, and broadband.  And the debate was considering how government intervention could “reform” the IT industry.

These executives, awake to the threat but busy running their businesses, formed the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).   Today, ACT members include industry leaders and emerging stars in computer software, hardware, consulting, and the Internet.  Although their businesses vary, ACT members share a preference for market-driven solutions over regulated ones.

While market forces have been driving the success of the IT industry, uninformed government intervention threatens to stifle innovation and competition.  Through education, advocacy and collaboration, ACT gives the IT industry a powerful voice in shaping its future.

Competitive Technology

Competitive Technology Urges Department of Justice Not to Pursue a Microsoft Breakup

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a letter to Assistant Attorney General Joel I. Klein today, Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) President Jonathan Zuck urged him to reconsider any extreme interventions into the IT industry.

ACT’s letter came as a response to news reports today that revealed that the Department of Justice may be about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an analysis that details how to break up Microsoft, despite overwhelming opposition from the IT industry and the public. While the reports show that the Department approached at least two technology investment banks, they also note that neither firm agreed to do the study because of the business community’s opinion that sees the DOJ’s action as interventionist.

“These firms’ reluctance to participate in this intervention is telling,” Mr. Zuck said in the letter. “It is likely that the only companies who would support such an endeavor are those that stand to gain handsome financial rewards from a Microsoft breakup.”

ACT has followed closely the Department of Justice’s case against Microsoft and found that radical measures, such as dismantling the company, are not only unprecedented but would bring extreme harm to consumers, the IT industry and the U.S. economy.  ACT’s legal analysis, economic study, and industry survey noted several key findings:

Extreme measures are legally unjustified. An analysis by noted antitrust authorities revealed no legal precedent for a breakup and that it would lead to ongoing regulation of the U.S. tech industry. 

Divestiture is bad for the industry and bad for consumers. An economic analysis showed that consumers will pay the price of a $30 billion increase in software costs if Microsoft is split into multiple companies or is forced to license its code.

IT executives do not support extreme measures. An independent industry survey shows that IT executives overwhelmingly oppose (63 percent) a Microsoft breakup. 

“With this evidence already available, it is baffling to me why the Department of Justice would be eager to spend hundreds of thousands more dollars on this case on what boils down to a fool’s errand,” Mr. Zuck said.  “Even without this kind of in-depth analysis, it is clear that the costs of such an extreme intervention into today’s dynamic technology industry would outweigh any potential benefit.  I urge the DOJ to allow the IT industry to continue on its path of service and value to the American consumer,” he added.

Competitive Technology is an industry trade association representing businesses and professionals in computer software and hardware development, and consulting and Internet services businesses. Protecting the freedom to achieve, compete and innovate, ACT is dedicated to preserving the role of technology companies in shaping the future of the industry.

Competitive Technology

Competitive Technology Files Friend of the Court Brief in the Microsoft Antitrust Case

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ACT Files Friend of the Court Brief in the Microsoft Antitrust Case

The legal brief’s bottom line: tech competition is working and the DOJ’s case is bad for consumers and the high-tech economy (see press release.)

Following Judge Jackson’s invitation for the parties in the suit to each designate an amicus to file a “friend of the Court” brief, ACT petitioned Microsoft to be their amicus on behalf of the IT industry.  Microsoft designated ACT, and the IT trade association then worked with the renowned law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering to compose the brief.

ACT filed its brief on behalf of about 9,000 IT businesses involved in all aspects of the tech sector from software and hardware development, to technology trainers, resellers and consultants, to Internet companies.

While Microsoft is a proud member of ACT, given they are a party to the case, funds were raised specifically for the assembly of this brief from among ACT members. Among the major sponsors are: Corporate Software and Technology, Norwood, MA; Clarity Consulting, Chicago, IL; Sax Software, Eugene, OR; and ComponentSource, Atlanta, GA.