Recorded Future arms security teams with threat intelligence powered by patented machine learning to lower risk

Recorded Future

Gathering Threat Intelligence to Strengthen Security

Recopilación de inteligencia sobre amenazas para fortalecer la seguridad

Collecte de renseignements sur les menaces pour renforcer la sécurité

सुरक्षा को मजबूत करने के लिए ख़तरे की ख़ुफ़िया जानकारी इकट्ठा करना

セキュリティを強化するための脅威インテリジェンスの収集

Reunindo inteligência sobre ameaças para fortalecer a segurança

Thu thập thông tin tình báo về mối đe dọa để tăng cường bảo mật

收集威胁情报以加强安全

On the evening of the 25th January 2021, Google’s Threat Analysis Group published details of attributed by them to “a government-backed entity based in North Korea”. a campaign targeting security researchers Google described the attack as using a “novel social engineering method”. Social engineering usually describes attacks that target the human factors of computer security, such as by using phishing emails or phone call impersonation. Whilst highly-competent security experts may consider themselves at reduced risk to such attacks, the successful use of these techniques against eminent security researchers shows how competent and manipulative the attackers responsible are. Alejandro Caceres, who was targeted by this attack, the attacker was vetted by a friend and was able to use a novel software vulnerability (known as a ) to engage his interest. Upon finding out the attack was attributed to North Korean hackers, he wrote : “I'm mad I fell for it now.” tweeted that zero-day in a subsequent tweet Kim Crawley, an information security writer, commented in the wake of Google’s blog post that , stating: “We must have humility.” security researchers shouldn’t assume immunity to such attacks Google also documented a technically sophisticated attack whereby a researcher was compromised simply by following a link from Twitter to a malicious blog, despite the fact that the "victim systems were running fully patched and up-to-date Windows 10 and Chrome browser versions". Google stated they were “unable to confirm the mechanism of compromise” but welcomed further information and noted that vulnerabilities of their browser are “eligible for reward payout” under Chrome's Vulnerability Reward Program. Ironically, in recent years, North Korea has made some academic contributions in computer science. One example can be found in a paper in November 2020. In a from 2017, the academic authors used North Korean email addresses whilst an author associated with PGItech Corp in Pyongyang used an email address served by Alibaba, a Chinese internet company. In the published version, the academic authors instead used Gmail and Outlook email addresses whilst the author affiliated with PGItech Corp continued to use the same Alibaba email address. published by the American Institute of Mathematical Sciences preprint version of the paper star-co.net.kp North Korea’s small internet footprint can deceive some cybersecurity researchers into underestimating it as a threat. Recorded Future reported that networks increased 300% from 2017 to 2019, but overall usage remains small. This may seem at odds to the reports that the DPRK as part of groups like Bureau 121, but great effort is taken to obfuscate hacking activity by North Korea. internet activity from North Korean has an army of over 6000 hackers Group-IB reported in 2017 that the infamous Lazarus hacker group to North Korea internet space through three layers of complex obfuscation. The group is considered an and is attributed with attempting to steal $1bn from the Central Bank of Bangladesh in 2016 and the attack on Sony Pictures in 2014. could be traced back Advanced Persistent Threat Other than technical obfuscation, research from HP in 2015 claims can be traced to a North Korean operated hotel in Shenyang, China. This corroborates , a computer science professor who defected from North Korea. Kim further stated that: "Bureau 121 began its large-scale operation in China in 2005. It was established in the late 90s." a large Bureau 121 outpost claims by Kim Heung-kwang North Korea has long obfuscated its malicious online activity through both technical measures and outposts. As the regime has increasingly had to turn cybercrime to obtain foreign currency, its online activity has become increasingly homogeneous with the broader internet. North Korean computer scientists are able to use Western webmail services like Outlook and Gmail whilst their hackers are able to manipulate and exploit eminent security researchers on social networks like Twitter. Needless to say, cyber security organisations and researchers will need to keep abreast of this increasing homogeneity to continue to monitor cyber security threats from North Korea.

North Korean Hackers Hide in Plain Sight

For a while now I’ve been writing about my Analogue Productivity system. I started with the . 10 Constraints you need and the 1 Action you Should Be Taking Today we’re going to dig into the basics of the Bullet Journal system so that you’re familiar with it. Next week we’ll look at exactly how I modify that system for my web business. development The first thing to do is stick with the basics. Just like any system, there is a lot of Bullet Journal porn out there. Just do a search an Pinterest or Google Images for Bullet Journal and you’ll see lots of them that are beautiful, and that I’m never going to create. Seriously, I don’t even know how some of them are even useful outside of being art practice. productivity As you’ll see when we tour my system, I’m no artist and don’t do any drawing in my journal unless the task I’m working on requires some sketch of something. Most of the time that means I’m deciding how to relate ideas so it’s more a brainstorming map instead of something to look amazing. All you need to Bullet Journal is a book. It’s nice to have either a grid layout on the pages or a dot grid. It’s nice to have your pages numbered. It can be nice to have , but none of that is required. the official Bullet Journal What are The Bullet Journal Modules Your Bullet Journal starts off with an . Just like any book, the index is how you know where everything is in your book. I generally stick to large groupings. I put each month in the index, not each week. Index This is the index for your Bullet Journal After your Index is the . This is a listing of the months in the future so you can put tasks down that need to be done at some point that’s not now. I leave one page per month and cover the next 6 months. The final page of my future log is for “Future” which means it’s a collection of any tasks that need to be done after the 6 months I have currently recorded. Future Log You can cover more than 6 months or less. I go with 6-months because that’s about how long a journal lasts for me. Around the 4 month mark it’s mostly full and I migrate to a new book. I keep 6 months ahead going as I work on my Bullet Journal Future Log Your , is a log of everything happening in a month. Usually this goes after you’ve already done some tasks and such. So it might be on page 24 or 100. In the original system it’s simply a list of all the dates of a month and then the days of the week that correspond with them. Monthly Log That leaves you with one line per date which isn’t quite enough for me so I make some modifications to it, which we’ll talk about in my next post when you see how I’ve modified the Bullet Journal to suit a web development business. The final component of the official Bullet Journal system is the . This involves a date and then the tasks/items that go with a specific day. There are a few signifiers, but it all starts with a bullet. We’ll dig into exactly what signifiers are later in this post. Daily Log Daily Log in The Bullet Journal System Once you start looking around at Bullet Journals you’ll notice that many people do a weekly log and I don’t mention it. I do a weekly log every Friday as part of my planning ahead. The weekly log is not part of the original Bullet Journal System so we’ll discuss it later as I talk about my specific modules and how I use them. What is Rapid Logging In a Bullet Journal? The next key component of Bullet Journaling is called Rapid Logging. This is really just writing things down fast with a fancy name but holds a great key that’s not surfaced well on the Bullet Journal site. The key thought is that you’re not writing a journal entry. This is not a blog post. This is a quick place to jot down a task, make it quick and simple. Rapid Logging consists of four parts: Topics Page Numbers Bullets Short Sentences You start with a Topic which is a heading telling you what a page is about. The simplest Topic is the current date. I like to use dd/mm/yy format because that’s what we use in Canada. The format you choose, only matters to you so use what works for you. Second up is . You’re going to be creating an index with the first few pages of your Bullet Journal, so you need page numbers to help you find the items out of your index. This is where a numbered notebook like can save you a bunch of time, because you don’t have to number it by hand. Page Numbers the official Bullet Journal This is out of my latest book . You can bring more value to work with paper and a pen. Analogue Productivity It’s time to decide which work you’ll never do again. It’s time to stop shuffling deck chairs, and start getting your awesome work done. It’s time to start building that perfect Analogue System so you can stop being distracted all the time. We respect your privacy. You can shortcut the numbering process by numbering every other page or every 10th page. No one says you have to hand number every page. If that seems like a barrier, don’t let it be one. You could decide to colour a corner of the pages by month so that from the side you can quickly find the month you want. The only requirement is that with your index you can quickly identify a page that you want to get to in your Personal Productivity System. Third is the which are the core signifier of the Bullet Journal System. We’ll talk more about Signifiers later in this post. Every entry gets a bullet to start it at the beginning of the line. Bullets Finally are the used to denote a task or event, or note. The point here is to keep them short and actionable. You don’t write “Ted” you write “call Ted about coffee”. If you only write down the name of the contact, then you have to spend mental energy figuring out exactly what action is paired with the name. Cut that out by making sure that each item is actionable. Short Sentences Bullet Journal Rapid Logging What Are Bullet Journal Signifiers? are the ways to mark an item in your Bullet Journal. It all starts with a bullet and there are six core signifiers in the standard Bullet Journal System. Signifiers Bullet Journal Signifiers As I’ve said, and you could probably guess, the whole system is started with a bullet. This can go before every item in your list. After the bullet, when you complete a task you turn the bullet into an . X Use the to show that a task has been migrated to a , yes we’ll talk about what exactly a is in a bit. > Collection Collection Use the to show that a task has been scheduled in some form. < You can turn a task into a — to make it a note. A note isn’t actionable, but maybe you thought it was going to be. An example of a note would be the colour you liked at the paint store that you want in your kitchen. Finally some variation with the which represents an event. Events are date related activities, and I add the time beside them to show appointments on the day in question. O After that, there are a few other in the standard system. You use a to show that a task is a priority for the day. Signifiers * Use to show that the item is an inspiration item. This is usually paired with a note and might be a favourite quote you found in the day. ! Finally, they have an eye signifier that shows you that the item is something you need to look in to. Maybe you need new jeans and the store doesn’t sell a style that fits you so you have to research where you can find a greater selection of styles for your body type. As you get more comfortable with the system you can feel free to come up with any signifier that suit your needs. To start, . Stick with the system and only embellish if you need to. Remember a . If your new signifier doesn’t solve a problem, don’t use it and don’t worry about it. don’t do this key concept in your system should be solving a problem Don’t start using a flower just because it’s pretty. If the pretty gets you to do something more, then fine, but keep it simple. What Are Bullet Journal Collections? In Bullet Journal parlance, , are any grouping of pages. So a list of the ideas for site content is a collection. The month of January with your and any are also collections. Collections Monthly Log Daily Logs Any set of notes or tasks that are related by a common theme are a Collection. You don’t need to get fancy with how you deal with Collections. Flip to the next available page and then start the Collection you want to start. Add the topic at the top of the page and then, if you need to, make sure the page is numbered. This is out of my latest book . You can bring more value to work with paper and a pen. Analogue Productivity It’s time to decide which work you’ll never do again. It’s time to stop shuffling deck chairs, and start getting your awesome work done. It’s time to start building that perfect Analogue System so you can stop being distracted all the time. We respect your privacy. You’re not supposed to worry about “saving” pages for an expansion of the Collection. If you need another page, flip back to the Index and add the secondary pages that are needed to find the whole Collection. That means your Collection can be split over many pages. Yes I find this maddening, but I have a “hack” to deal with Collections and the Index which we’ll talk about when we look at how I’ve modified the Bullet Journal System for my . WordPress Membership Business How Do You Migrate to a New Bullet Journal? One of the key benefits of a Bullet Journal is that takes time. This is a constraint on the system, because if it feels way to hard to move a task forward, then clearly it’s not valuable enough to keep track of. Don’t migrate it, cut the task from your list. Migration Say you’ve got a list of tasks for the day with a few notes thrown in. Maybe just like this: Bullet Journal Task List If you don’t get them all done in the day, you need to start your Migration. That’s where your and come into play. Mark each task as either or and then forget about the day. Your tasks are captured in the system. < > Scheduled Migrated Going with Analogue Productivity in a Digital First World And…that’s it. With the information above you’re ready to start the standard Bullet Journal system. If you’re anything like me though, you’re ready to dig deeper into what it’s going to take to use a Bullet Journal day to day. Next week I’ll walk you through exactly how I use a Bullet Journal to run my Web Development business, all my writing and the rest of my life.

Getting Started with Bullet Journalling For Web Developers

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has a market cap of $712 billion. Within Google’s range of products, there are seven with at least one billion users. In its , the company outlines its broad and far-reaching data collection. The data collection extends to Google’s entire suite of products, meaning the amount of data the company stores is enormous. holds an estimated , or the capacity of ~30 million personal computers. privacy policy Google 15 exabytes of data Data Leaks Google has done well historically, with its data security practices. However, it hasn’t been perfect. Back in 2009, there was a bug in Google docs that potentially leaked .05% of all documents stored in the service. While .05% seems incredibly small, .05% of 1 billion users is still 500,000 people. Because Google is so large, their data protection has no room for error. Cookies Every time a user searches with Google, they receive a cookie in their computer. This cookie gives Google information about the websites the person visits, and their search history. That information is also linked to any Gmail accounts that have logged in on your device. There is no information in the company’s as to whether or not records about your search or web history are deleted from its records. Users can delete these cookies from their computers, but the cookies are updated every time a Google service is used. privacy policy Tracking Google uses its Analytics product, along with others, to determine a user’s browsing path around the . By linking that information to an IP address and an associated Google account, a complete profile of a person can be assembled. It’s this information that gives Google its advertising superpower. In 2017, Google’s ad revenue was . The data is extremely beneficial for marketers looking for customer insights, and targeting people with ads. internet $95.38 billion Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/ Gmail Content of users’ Gmail messages is tracked to improve relevance and targeting of ads, and to block spam emails. Google says that mail sent to or from Gmail isn’t read by any human being other than the account holder. However, even if computers are the only ones to see the data, it is still being tracked and stored — and read by a human with access. could be CIA & NSA Ties While the NSA refuses to confirm or deny the existence of any relationship between the NSA and Google, privacy and civil rights advocates are concerned. In 2011 the Electronic Privacy Information Center submitted a Freedom of Information Act request regarding NSA records about the 2010 cyber-attack on Google users in China. The request was denied and the NSA said that disclosing the information would put the US Government’s information systems at risk. Google and the CIA are connected through In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm. ’s main purpose is to keep the CIA up-to-date with the latest technology. Companies that Google has acquired or invested in, like and , have also received funding from In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel Keyhole Recorded Future Government Requests Google has been criticized for disclosing too much information to governments too quickly. On the other hand, governments have with the company for not disclosing information that governments need to enforce their laws. expressed their frustration Google Chrome Google’s Chrome browser is a privacy nightmare in itself, because all your activity within the browser can then be linked to your Google account. If Google controls your browser, your search engine, and has tracking scripts on the sites you visit, they hold the power to track you from multiple angles. Incognito Mode Chrome’s is often taken to mean that it protects user privacy. However, it doesn’t keep users safe from tracking on the websites they visit. While Chrome won’t store your browsing history, site data, or information entered in forms in Incognito Mode, the sites you visit can still gather and keep that information. Incognito Mode _Incognito Mode in Google Chrome, despite its name, isn’t really “incognito” at all. The Independent published this…_choosetoencrypt.com Chrome’s Incognito Mode Isn’t Private, So What’s the Point? — Choose To Encrypt Google is likely the leader in consumer data collection, simply because of the scale of their products. Google “is no longer merely collecting some data about how we search and surf the web,” . “Its new browser and software are actually sending information from inside our computers to its servers.” said Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court Regardless of data practices, Google has remained more trusted than other tech companies, specifically , Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft. This is interesting because of how outspoken Apple is about protecting its users’ privacy. Perhaps Google appears to offer more transparency than Apple, which is notoriously opaque. Facebook Google and Amazon especially, are making waves in the and smart home markets as well. Consumers are opening up their homes to data collection, . Google Home and Amazon Alexa devices’ popularity are a clear indication that users are indifferent to the data the devices collect or trust the companies behind the devices and their operating systems. IoT whether they know it or not Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/13373/facebook-trailing-in-trust/ Alternatives to Google Products Web Browsers — Alternatives to Google Chrome tested a range of browsers and reported that its top three browsers for privacy are: . ExpressVPN Tor Browser, Mozilla Firefox and Brave _ExpressVPN tested nine web browsers and ranked them based on the privacy and security each one offers. It looked at…_choosetoencrypt.com Express VPN’s Best Web Browsers for Privacy — Choose To Encrypt Search Engines — Alternatives to Google Search engines without privacy protection can reveal more about your browsing behavior than you may think. Google explicitly says that it tracks things you type into its search engine, even if you don’t actually perform the search. _Private search engines have seen huge growth over the past few years. Until recently, it was unthinkable that anyone…_hackernoon.com The Best Private Search Engines — Alternatives to Google Search Encrypt StartPage DuckDuckGo Private search engines are just one portion of a complete privacy suite. Switching to an , though, is a good first step towards taking your privacy seriously. alternative search engine All it takes is one small breach into Google’s systems, and millions of users could have their data compromised. Even if Google has the best data security in the world, as the 2009 Google Docs leak showed, no system is perfect. Taking a proactive approach to privacy is the best way to combat any potential threats. Read More… _So Google has a version of its search engine in the works for China. However, this version is/will be openly censored…_hackernoon.com What The Heck, Google? (Part 1) _So last week I was concerned about Google creating a censorship-friendly version of its search engine for the Chinese…_hackernoon.com What The Heck, Google? (Part 2) _I’ve written a couple of these stories before, unfortunately. But here it goes again._hackernoon.com What The Heck, Google? (Part 3)

Data Privacy Concerns with Google

Ever since my partner Brad about how he invests, I’ve wanted to create a similar manifesto. I’ve seen the value that founders get from reading Brad’s post before connecting with him, as it provides a valuable window into his culture, mind-set, priorities and passions. I will endeavor to achieve a similar objective. wrote a great piece Passion for the mission I personally see somewhere between 1–2k potential investments per year. If someone sends a note and an investment deck that is personally addressed to me, I will respond every time. My belief is that it is both hard and admirable to start a company, and that if someone thinks enough of me to share their business or idea, then the least I can do is read the materials and reply. However, I have a pretty rigid rule: if I’m not specifically passionate about the problem being addressed, then I won’t engage. The last thing I want to do is waste a founder’s time if there is no chance I’ll dig into, much less invest in, their business. And it isn’t fair to me, my existing portfolio founders or our investors if I’m spending time on stuff that doesn’t fit with my personal mission. Finally, founders deserve investors who are closely aligned with them, and are as excited about the business as they are. And if I’m not that investor, then I always counsel founders to find a better fit. So what am I passionate about? Well, I’m a sucker for all things in the realm of alternative finance. My investments in , , and more recently , are examples of this. I also like information businesses which exhibit data network effects. and fit this mold. And complex, real-time analytics at scale are also interesting to me, as , and demonstrate. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it is indicative of where my head is at today. Simple Transferwise Octane Lending The Trade Desk Cognitive Logic MemSQL Recorded Future Sight Machine Pursuit of big ideas I have a rule: if I don’t think a company has the potential to grow into a billion-dollar+ value business, then I don’t engage. This might seem like a strict hurdle for a firm that initiates almost all of its investments pre-Series A, but given that we need two 40x-type outcomes per fund to achieve our 3–5x net return objective, we pretty much need to swing for the fences every time. Clearly it is hard to know this given the sparse data available at the time we make our initial investment, but it is possible to hypothesize about a product roadmap, a scale of market opportunity and a founder’s ability to execute. If each of Brad, Jesse and I make 2–3 investments per year for ~4 years per fund, and maintain this level of investment discipline, our first 7 years in business seems to indicate that this approach can achieve our desired outcomes. So no point solutions. No neat features. No “we’re likely to be bought by Salesforce for $100M.” This is not why we’re in the venture investing business. Big ideas. Very early. Product/market fit risk. Large potential rewards. DNA that embraces experimentation Our fundamental view at IA is that our pre-product/market fit, pre-Series A investments look a lot like experiments, and we bond well with founders who embrace this mind-set. When I find a team working on an idea I’m passionate about that I believe can achieve large scale, the first thing I do is to align on what we’re collectively trying to prove over the next 18–24 months. This involves asking the question: “What does the state of this company look like in order to raise a great Series A round from the just-right investor?” We then work to unpack this into a set of hypotheses that must be tested over this time period, and to agree on the measures and metrics that would serve to validate (or invalidate) these hypotheses. Another key output is the size of an institutional seed round sufficient to fund the company to these essential milestones. It takes a certain kind of team to get charged up and inspired by this exercise, because let me tell you, it’s no joke. It’s really hard to get very specific this early in the game, but we’ve found it to be an invaluable exercise for the founders, and a good barometer of the chemistry between the founders and IA. future A bias towards action I’ve had the good fortune of working with many brilliant people in my career. However, I’ve noticed that a common failure mode of brilliant people is being paralyzed by not having “the answer” to a problem. Much of early success in start-ups is based upon fuzzy logic, developing hypotheses, rapidly testing them, iterating on the fly and working towards product/market fit through a series of jiggles before locking in on a particular path and “burning the boats.” This approach goes against the grain of many a Mensa member, because there is only clarity around process, not around outcomes. This can lead to moving slowly, as certain founder personas are deathly afraid of making mistakes that can: (a) make them look stupid; or (b) seemingly waste time and resources. But, of course, time and resources are really being wasted through inaction, because the less founders are colliding with the market and , the fewer opportunities there are to iterate, refine the product and achieve product/market fit. So I have a strong bias towards founders who aren’t afraid of imperfect information, and focus their efforts on constructing smart experiments which generate useful data for analysis, iteration and further action. Fear is adaptive, but only if it doesn’t paralyze. learning A founder-friendly seed round with deep alignment While we do some incubation and have entered some investments at the Series A, IA’s normal mode is a $1.5-$2.5M investment as part of a $2-$3M institutional seed round where IA owns 15–18% of the company. We always issue our term sheets on a post-money basis, so founders understand exactly how much dilution they’re taking by selling equity to investors and setting aside shares for future option grants. No pre/post money funny business. I am confident in saying that IA’s seed term sheet, which is barely a page long and represents a small set of adjustments to the NVCA seed template, is perhaps the most founder-friendly institutional document in the venture world. Part of the reason for this is our view of the seed round as an experiment, where the energy should be focused on proving the hypotheses and achieving product/market fit, not on unnecessary governance and control provisions. No board seat. IA pays the legal costs (because there isn’t much, if anything, to negotiate because of its founder-friendly tilt). We can go from signed term sheet to close in less than two weeks. If the experiment is successful and the company is able to raise a great Series A round, a traditional board structure with standard governance provisions can be implemented at this point, when the dollars are larger and the business is more complicated. We’ve actively sought to strip away all unnecessary complexity to increase the chances of getting to a great outcome. A transparent approach to reserve management When IA makes a seed investment, we allocate ~$3M per company at inception. For instance, if IA invests $2M in the seed round, we have allocated an additional $1M to invest in either a round extension (if additional runway is needed to raise a great Series A round) or in the Series A. However, if a company has proven its hypotheses and gotten traction to the point where we believe it can be one of the best companies in the fund, we can allocate up to $6M to invest in the company across principally the Series A and Series B rounds. And if the company shows evidence of being a true breakout, one that has the opportunity to be one of the top 1–2 investments in a fund and one of the best across the firm, we can allocate $10-$12M across multiple rounds. In general, we aim to own between 12–15% of a company at exit, with the ballast of our ownership being created in the seed round and the remainder coming largely through the Series A round. And if I do my job and become a trusted advisor to the founders, they’ll almost always support IA’s ownership objectives by advocating for us at each stage of the fund-raising process. Providing critical founder support during the challenging early days IA has experimented with several portfolio company support models over time. We ultimately arrived at the conclusion that at the stage at which we’re investing (read: very early), only a few things really matter: (1) raising the right amount of money to provide the runway necessary for achieving product/market fit; (2) getting the basic operational setup right from the get-go; (3) supporting key recruiting efforts; and (4) offering a safe place for founders to share concerns, fears and insecurities. While IA has several listservs for portfolio companies to interact with each other, we’ve focused our efforts on the four points above. Getting the hypotheses and metrics right leads to the right answer for (1). IA provides an experienced, vetted, outsourced CFO to help getting operations set up correctly to help address (2). IA has preferred relationships with a curated set of recruitment firms to augment our partner networks to assist with (3). And IA pays for a year of management coaching for our founders to help with (4). Taken together, we’ve seen that getting these four things right increases the chances of founder (and company) success. In conclusion My life as a venture investor is a work-in-progress, and will be until the end of my days. It is the most interesting, exciting, frustrating and humbling work I’ve ever done. But at the end of the day, it is my interactions with my partners, Brad, Jesse and my founder partners, which makes this life so satisfying. Thanks in advance! is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

My approach to venture investing

And Why GE is Moving to Boston General Electric, one of America’s most storied companies*, is leaving its headquarters in suburban Connecticut One main reason GE is relocating is to better “attract the talented workers who prefer to live and work in cities.” GE is also moving in order to position itself for a “new industrial era that will revolve around software innovation as much as bended metal.” Without a doubt, GE is looking to benefit from the rapidly growing innovation economy in Boston. to set up shop in Boston. Cities are hubs of culture and innovation and Boston is a prime example. The Boston metropolitan area is home to over 40 museums and attracting more than 360,000 students from all over the world. With schools like Harvard and MIT graduating some of the best and the brightest, Boston has an ample supply of talent should students decide to stick around. 85 private colleges and universities Additionally, Boston receives the of venture capital funding of all US Cities. It is also critical to note that and the prominent tech ecosystems tend to pull in the top talent (a la Silicon Valley). As the tech industry continues to expand, Boston is making a strong play to become a leading startup hub. Below are some of the companies leading the charge. 4th highest amount “the clustering of similar firms is more important than ever” 21 of the top Boston-based startups: - the world’s first social robot for the home Jibo - developed the world’s first robot with common sense to increase productivity and efficiency in manufacturing environments Rethink Robotics - brings application marketing & analytics together across the user lifecycle Localytics - developing an advanced molten salt reactor that generates clean, safe, proliferation-resistant, low-cost nuclear power Transatomic Power - send and receive money for free Circle - personalized meal plans & grocery lists to help you eat healthy and feel great Platejoy - provides your end-user devices with immunity against modern, zero-day, and lesser-known attacks Barkly - enterprise analytics and data management software company Cambridge Semantics - real-time threat intelligence company Recorded Future - High-resolution 3D printing. Designed for your desktop Formlabs - designs, builds and operates bike sharing programs for the world’s leading universities, businesses, hotels, and residential communities Zagster - track emails and work more effectively, right from your Gmail or Outlook inbox Yesware - global storage network that simplifies the entire data lifecycle and delivers enterprise storage as a fully managed service ClearSky Data - cloud Backend as a Service for any app Kinvey - a full-service pharmacy that delivers a better, simpler experience PillPack - improves education for millions of students and educators through educational resources powered by cloud technology Boundless - app uses sensor data collected through the phone and self-reported information to identify people who may need help Ginger.io - Crowdsourced market intelligence during path to purchase Mobee - platform that automates a data-enhanced sales approach for television advertising Clypd - customer support software that is used and trusted by 5,000+ businesses in over 60 countries Help Scout - helps real estate professionals increase sales and profits through beautiful, search engine-optimized websites and online marketing tools Placester Join a breakout tech company is a free mobile app that enables you to discover, evaluate and get hired by high growth companies (Download: | ). Insights about firms like Sprout Social and over 1000 more include the number of new hires and investment rounds in the past year, headcount growth, talent quality, H-1B hiring, salaries offered, number of employee hires and departures, and gender diversity ratios. 500 Miles iOS Android Download the app: | iOS Android continuously General Electric has been a component of Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1907

21 Top Boston-based Startups

Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living: Chapter VI - THE FUTURE OF COOKING

In this digital age where virtual conferences are a dime a dozen, we see a large number of them recorded for future records. There are many uses for these records, including sharing with people who were unable to attend live, distributing for use as training, and keeping backups for future reference. One aspect of these recordings that is taken for granted, however, is accessibility. In this blog, we will demonstrate how to take recordings from your Communications conferences, and use to transcribe them to text. Dolby.io Deepgram Having text copies of your conference recordings is a good way to offer alternative ways to digest the information. Some people read faster than they listen to spoken words. Some people might not speak the same first language as the one in the conference, and are more comfortable reading it. Others might be hearing impaired, and prefer to read for the most amount of comfort. Whatever reason one might have, we want to make it simple to automate the transcription generation process. Here, we will be using the in tandem with Deepgram’s in Python as an example of how to generate this process, where ideally this could be recreated with the tools of your choosing. Dolby.io Communications REST APIs Pre-recorded Audio API Installing Libraries Before we begin coding, we need to ensure we have all the proper libraries for calling these APIs. We can do this with a simple pip command (use the appropriate pip command for your operating system): pip3 install asyncio deepgram-sdk dolbyio-rest-apis This will install both the and Deepgram SDKs, as well as Python’s native asynchronous function library to aid us in calling the async requests the two SDKs use. Dolby.io It is also a good idea to sign up for a free and Deepgram account if you haven’t already, to get your API credentials. Dolby.io Obtaining an API Token In order to use the Dolby.io Communications REST APIs, we need to first generate a temporary access token. This is to help prevent your permanent account credentials from being accidentally leaked, as the token will expire automatically. To learn more about this, read the . documentation In this case, we want to fill in the consumer key and secret with our from our (not Media). We then call the endpoint within a function so we can generate a fresh token every time we make another call. This is not the most secure way to handle this, but will ensure we don’t run into any expired credentials down the road. To learn more, see . credentials Communications APIs get_api_access_token the Dolby.io security best practices guide from dolbyio_rest_apis.communications import authentication
import asyncio
 
# Input your Dolby.io Communications Credentials here
CONSUMER_KEY = "<DOLBYIO_CONSUMER_KEY>"
CONSUMER_SECRET = "<DOLBYIO_CONSUMER_SECRET>"
 
# Create a function that will generate a new api access token when needed
async def gen_token():
    response = await authentication.get_api_access_token(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)
    return response['access_token']
 
print(f"Access Token: {await gen_token()}") Getting the Conference ID Now that we can call the APIs, we first want to get the internal conference ID of the recording we want to transcribe. We can do this by simply calling the endpoint with our token. Dolby.io get_conferences from dolbyio_rest_apis.communications.monitor import conferences
 
response = await conferences.get_conferences(await gen_token())
# Save the most recent conference. Change '-1' to whichever conference you want.
confId = response['conferences'][-1]['confId']
print(confId) Note that in this code sample, we are using the parameter: . This will pull only the most recent conference in the list as noted by the "-1" array value. If you are automating this to work with every newly generated conference, this likely will not be an issue. However if you are looking to do this with a specific conference, we suggest using to obtain the desired conference ID. ['conferences'][-1]['confId'] the optional parameters in the get_conferences endpoint Obtaining the Recording With the conference ID in hand, we can now call an endpoint to generate a URL that contains the audio file of our conference. For this code sample, we are using a conference, so we will use the endpoint to . If you know you are not using Dolby Voice, you can use instead. Note that we are only obtaining the audio track of the conference instead of both the audio and the video. This is for maximum file compatibility with the transcription software. Note that the URL produced is also temporary, and will expire after some time. Dolby Voice Get the Dolby Voice audio recording this endpoint from dolbyio_rest_apis.communications.monitor import recordings
 
# Save only the mp3 file and return as a URL.
# If your conference does not use Dolby Voice, use 'download_mp3_recording' instead.
# https://github.com/dolbyio-samples/dolbyio-rest-apis-client-python/blob/main/client/src/dolbyio_rest_apis/communications/monitor/recordings.py
response = await recordings.get_dolby_voice_recordings(await gen_token(), confId)
recording_url = response['url']
print(recording_url) To help illustrate, here is an example conference recording made for transcription generated from the above code: Link Transcoding it with Deepgram While Deepgram does work with local files, the presigned recording url saves us many steps avoiding the hassle of needing to download and upload a file to a secure server. With the URL, we can skip those steps and directly insert the URL into the code below adapted from their . The code provided only uses the , but could easily expanded with an assortment of Deepgram provides. Python Getting Started Guide Punctuation feature the many features from deepgram import Deepgram
 
# Your Deepgram API Key
DEEPGRAM_API_KEY = '<DEEPGRAM_API_KEY>'
 
# Location of the file you want to transcribe. Should include filename and extension.
FILE = recording_url
 
async def main():
 
  # Initialize the Deepgram SDK
  deepgram = Deepgram(DEEPGRAM_API_KEY)
   
  # file is remote
  # Set the source
  source = {
    'url': FILE
  }
 
  # Send the audio to Deepgram and get the response
  response = await asyncio.create_task(
    deepgram.transcription.prerecorded(
      source,
      {
        'punctuate': True
      }
    )
  )
 
  # Write only the transcript to the console
  print(response['results']['channels'][0]['alternatives'][0]['transcript'])
 
try:
  await main()
  # If not running in a Jupyter notebook, run main with this line instead:
  # asyncio.run(main())
except Exception as e:
  exception_type, exception_object, exception_traceback = sys.exc_info()
  line_number = exception_traceback.tb_lineno
  print(f'line {line_number}: {exception_type} - {e}') The Deepgram response provides many datapoints related to our speech, but to pull only the transcription of the file, we are calling . Feel free to modify the response to generate whatever is most relevant to your needs. For the above sample provided, the result of the transcription is as follows: ['results']['channels'][0]['alternatives'][0]['transcript'] Following text is a transcription of the s en of the parchment declaration of independence. The document on display in the rot the national archives Museum. The spelling and punctuation reflects the originals. Next Steps This is a very basic foray in how to get started with transcribing your conference recordings. We heavily suggest you invest some time into expanding this to fit your specific use case to maximize the benefit you get from using these tools. As mentioned before, we suggest taking a look at what Deepgram has to offer in terms of additional features you could add on to the transcription process. For example: can help differentiate who is saying what when there are multiple people in a conference. Diarization and/or to help increase accuracy by providing prior information of things like names and proper nouns. Named Entity Recognition Keywords The transcription of the example recording was not perfect. There are many reasons for this, including imperfect recording environments, confusing speech patterns, and compression as examples. To help give the transcription algorithms a better chance, one option could be to use the Dolby.io to attempt to clean up the audio before sending it to transcription. Media Enhance API If you want to automatically generate a transcription after every recording is over, we can take advantage of to remove the manual intervention for you. In fact, the event provides the recording URL within the event body itself, reducing the number of steps needed to obtain it. webhooks Recording.Audio.Available One final idea is if you do only have the video file ready for whatever reason, you can use the Dolby.io to convert the video file into a format accepted by the transcription service. Media Transcode API You can find the source code file stored in a notebook at . Good luck coding! Jupyter this GitHub repository Also published . here

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