Links

OK, the latest new idea for the blog… One of the reasons for setting up this site and blog was to create a library of links to content that I have found useful and would recommend to others if the topic cropped up in conversation. When I read something useful on the web, my standard method is to save a local copy so that I can refer to it again offline. Trouble is, I can only use the copy for personal use under most copyright laws. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve spent 20 minutes trawling the web looking for the original link to send to someone. The most popular article has been The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc., an article describing how drug barons invested in business intelligence technology to discover and, er, delete (execute would be a more accurate description in the physical world, ironic that the term has a different meaning in computer land), informers.

Sooo, I’m going to try a Link post on a weekly basis. Rather than use Del.icio.us and provide a list of titles, I’ll provide the link and a short summary describing where the link goes.

Here’s the first set (yes, all 2 of them):

Search objective gets a refined approach (MSR paper, June 2006)

Microsoft Research paper describing a new ranking algorithm – object-level vertical search. Vertical = a specific domain (e.g. academic, product), object = a specific item embedded in a web page (e.g. person, paper, event). The theory being that people are usually more interested in objects rather than the whole web page.

It’s the economy, stupid (Wired, June 2006)

Article by Bruce Schneier (author of Secrets & Lies) describing the relationship between information security and economics, including links to various papers on the subject by both sides (economists and technologists)