The Elements of the Chatbot Revolution

by on December 31, 2015

There is artificial intelligence coming to you in the form of a messaging board that google has been working on for about a year. It’s a service that’s like google, but now with a virtual assistant that could send messages to you and answer your messages. There isn’t any clear element saying that this will be like Google Hangouts or even their messenger, and if it’ll be on other platforms, or if it’s just a new messaging service. One source said that it’s an extensible platform, which means that they could build these chatbots based off the data from google.   There isn’t a launch date for the service, but it’s being worked on extensively.

Artificial intelligence

Now, an AI chatbot does make sense for google, especially with consumers becoming more mobile and searching for them. There is another chatbot system right now, such as Siri for apple, Cortana for windows, and Alexa for Amazon, but they are imperfect due to voice recognition, and in many cases they can be unsatisfying.

Facebook MFor many, this might be the feedback system that people need, because there hasn’t been a great one made yet. Virtual assistants do require the conscious decision to stop doing something and actively seek out the virtual system, and many users haven’t developed it yet. At the same time, there are millions of online users who search on search engines and use social media. The habit to reach out to people and message them, along with responding to messages through notifications, is growing stronger by the day. Google doesn’t have a social network or messaging app, but it does have the search engine. It could potentially be the best virtual assistant system, and it does make sense for google in a way.

Now, there are some problems with this. Even though chatbots will be great for personal and conversational things, they will also replace social networking. The messaging apps are a great place for the chatbot, because many of us spend a lot of time on the apps, with only texts for the user interface, and some of the uncertainties that are eliminated because the virtual assistants rely on voice recognition.

However, there are other risks as well. Humans aren’t simple creatures, and because of this they have cognitive biases, irrational thoughts, and even emotion, and sometimes the line between messaging a person and the AI talking to another will start to deteriorate the need for conventional speaking, and it can change things. Chatbots might make a person feel like they are talking with a friend, but unlike humans, the chatbots will be almost like dogs and have selflessness, meaning they will always be there for you and have time for you. This can create an irresistible desire in the human mind. This in turn can create a need to be around an AI and have am relationship with them instead of humans for many people, so there is the risk that people will start to rely on the AI and the machine instead of humans as well.

Vulnerability of Linux Related To Its Password Protection

by on December 22, 2015

You might want to rethink about keeping your important files in a Linux based computer because Linux has been found being exposed badly to even pettiest hacking attempts. According to a report, about a research by security experts, in PC world, hitting the backspace key 28 times can bypass password protected lock screen in Linux.

It is worth repeating that any layman can now access highly complex Linux servers without even entering the password. This vulnerability of Linux was discovered by a researchers’ team from Cybersecurity Group. According to them, pressing backspace 28 times makes use of Grub2 bootloader, instantly authorizing user to log in.

Vulnerability of Linux

This process is basically caused by initiation of Grub rescue shell. This initiation prompts the user to bypass log on screen without typing the password in. GRUB’s main task is to allow the creation of multiple usernames on a computer.

With this news about simple hacks, companies with entire networks being set up on Linux based systems should have something big to worry about. All an employee will need to do is to hit backspace 28 times and he/she will get complete and unrestricted access to a hard drive which was supposed to be secured.

There are very alarming security concerns with this weakness of Linux because it can lead to the computer’s security badly exposed to a very small hack. Any cybercriminal with access to sensitive information can do serious damage to an organization’s integrity and even the financial assets. Moreover, this vulnerability has also increased the chances of manual malwares attacks.

This security leak, which is also known as CVE-2015-8370, is present in all Grub2 versions from 1.98 to 2.02. Since many of the top organizations around the globe have their servers based on Linux based platforms, this issue is being seen as a major blow to the overall cyber security. However, different Linux based operating systems namely Debian, Ubuntu, red hat and several others have released updates that fix this issue. Therefore, it is highly recommended for the Linux users to allow installation of updates that target Grub2 fix.

Things You Should Know About Google Penguin 4.0

by on December 17, 2015

According to the resources and intelligent intuitions by the analysts, Google is more likely to release its Penguin 4.0 update any time soon. While this news can bring happiness for the SEO people who like to stick with the legitimate SEO practices, it is also like a time bomb for the SEO people who like to get quick traffic through black-hat techniques.

We all know that every Penguin update comes with an aim to support high quality link-building and to combat the spam tactics. For instance, last Google Penguin update was released in 2014 and it immediately cased huge disturbance in the digital world. Sites that didn’t abide legitimate SEO rules lost their ranks in no time and were lost from SERPs. Some of the websites even received notifications for manual actions.

This trend of countering spam and removing websites, which followed bad SEO practices, was started a few years back. Due to that, the way search results are shown was changed to great extent. It brought a lot of positives in perspectives of quality and credibility. This was due to the fact that good SEO practices were appreciated and black-hat SEO was disparaged in the Penguin Algorithms.

Google Update

Penguin 4.0 update is a great enhancement of Google’s spam combating abilities. This update is being analytically assumed as real time update of Google’s algorithms. Real time update means that Penguin’s algorithm will consistently keep on updating, minimizing the remaining chances for spammers to go ahead with their link bombardments. This update is being welcomed by the online community because there is still a major spamming activity going on the web and 4.0 update is expected to show the necessary force to stop this activity. Here, it is worth mentioning that Google claims with every update that it is going to stop bad SEO practices but facts remain otherwise. Nevertheless, this update will make the chances of success for black-hat techniques pretty thin.

Hopefully the new update will help Google to track down spam link profiles and block them once and for all. This is not only bad for the bad practitioners but it will automatically rank up the websites that follow good quality SEO strategies.