Identity Resolution Daily

[Post from Infoglide] California Lottery Fraud

“[N]ow state and provincial authorities are shifting resources to address another rapidly growing problem: lottery fraud committed by retailers. The most highly-publicized case of retailer lottery fraud in recent years occurred in Ontario but cases reported by the California Lottery Commission, perhaps the largest lottery in the U.S., indicate that they have a rapidly growing problem as well.”

Information & Data Quality Conference 2008 Blog: IAIDQ Announces Plans for Certified Information Quality Professional certification

“The IDQ 2008 conference is over (but I’ve a tonne of posts to upload tomorrow sketched out on my laptop). However, one piece of news was announced at this week’s conference which too important to hold until the airport departure lounge….”

Telegraph.co.uk: Standard Life in call for HBOS insider trading probe

“Details of the takeover talks between Lloyds and HBOS were announced by BBC business editor Robert Peston on Wednesday morning at 9am, sending shares soaring from their low of 88p to 215p in an hour. The deal was not formally announced until four hours later. However, in two trades at 8:57am and 8:58pm, two buyers alone acquired more than 20m HBOS shares at 96p. In total, around 160m shares changed hands in the moments before the takeover was announced, making a paper profit of nearly £190m for the traders and leading to suspicion of a leak.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: David Loshin: IDQ 2008 - Initial Observations

“As I am slowly emerging from the cocoon imposed by the needs of getting my new book on Master Data Management out the door, I am able to get back to everyday life, including two of my favorite activities (together!!) - conference attendance and blogging. Anyway, I am currently in San Antonio attending the 2008 Information and Data Quality conference.”

Data Governance and Data Quality Insider: Are There Business Advantages to Poor Data Management?

“However, this got me thinking. Could the inability for the stores to maintain more that 18 months of records actually be a business advantage? How many customers lose the paperwork, or even forget about their road hazard policies and just pay the replacement price? How much additional revenue was this shortcoming actually generating each year?”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

[Post from Infoglide] Sexual Predators: Can Technology Be Turned Against Them?

“At the recent International Conference on Cybercrime Forensics Education and Training in Canterbury UK, international experts discussed the challenges involved in keeping up with increasingly sophisticated criminals who target children on the internet. They covered a wide array of subjects that illustrated the complex ways that computer systems are exposed, including topics like mobile phone forensic investigation, the social effects of Spam, digital intrusion forensics, implications and methodology of facial ID training, and virtual reality police training.”

San Diego 6: Retailer Sentenced For Redeeming Lottery Tickets for Less Than Real Value

“Saeed Zori, 62, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to attempted grand theft. He was one of four retailers caught up in a law enforcement sting targeting lottery fraud.”

Evolution of Security: Bar-Coded Boarding Passes – Secure, Mobile, and On The Way

“These mobile boarding passes have digital signatures embedded in the barcodes. Officers who do the document checking are equipped with handheld barcode scanners (generously on loan from our partners) and can confirm the authenticity of the boarding pass instantly. This isn’t rocket science – the (2010 NL East Champion) Nationals use the same process at their new ballpark – and it’s working really well for both TSA and passengers.”

Andy on Enterprise Software: Burning Platform

“Companies struggle to get good management information (for example about levels of counterparty risk for trading organisations such as investment banks) due to inconsistent master data across multiple systems. When times are booming this may be glossed over, but with prestigious companies going to the wall on a daily basis, being certain of the information that you rely on gets a higher priority.”

Homeland Security Watch: Roadmap for Homeland Security Enterprise Released

“A new analysis and set of recommendations entitled Homeland Security 3.0 rolled out yesterday at the National Press Club.”

International Security Info Watch: Congressional hearing to address organized retail crime

“On Sept. 22, 2008, at 4 p.m., at 2141 Rayburn House, Congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) will be holding a hearing on the topic of organized retail crime. Scott is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. . . . Organized retail crime (ORC), sometimes also called organized retail theft, typically involves crime rings that steal on demand. Those crime rings work as groups for store theft, and a typical ORC ring will steal mass quantities of merchandise with plans to resell that merchandise to unwitting individuals and often independent retailers.”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

ITBusinessEdge: Master Data Management: Whaddya Mean It’s Not About the Data?

“Tony Fisher had some surprising things to say about master data management during my recent interview with him. Fisher is the president and CEO of DataFlux, which sells an MDM solution. He was a bit flummoxed about a CIO.com article that said CIOs see MDM as a chance to fix past data management sins, and he wanted to talk about that.”

The Forrester Blog for Information & Knowledge Management Professionals: Federation Supplements The Data Warehouse - Not Either/Or, Never Was

“But data federation is refusing to die as an alternative to EDW–and is taking on new importance in organizations’ data management strategies. Data federation is an umbrella term for a wide range of operational BI topologies that provide decentralized, on-demand alternatives to the centralized, batch-oriented architectures characteristic of traditional EDW environments.”

Andy on Enterprise Software: MDM Education - Big and Easy

“There is an encouraging increase in MDM education, reflecting the growing interest in the subject. As well as Aaron Zornes’ pioneering work at the MDM Institute, we had a dedicated TDWI MDM conference in Savannah earlier in 2008. Now TDWI is running a dedicated MDM track on its next week-long conference, in New Orleans in early November.”

Share This

[Post from Infoglide] Managing Unstructured Data

“In an earlier article, Governing Unstructured Data, I discussed some of the challenges in managing and securing unstructured data in a large enterprise. Given that unstructured data accounts for more than 80% of all business data, this is a big issue.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: James Taylor: What if someone with a lower pay grade were to do this?

“Patrick Joseph Gauthier wrote a great post this week called “Business Process Reengineering: The Right Skills And Roles For The Task Will Save You Money” and I loved the question he suggests (that gave me the title for this post):  ‘what if someone with a lower pay grade were to do this?’ . . . This is, indeed, one of the main drivers of decision management. . . . Instead of having hundreds of front-line staff refer decisions to many managers who follow guidelines taught to them by the one person who understands the company policy, empower the front-line staff to act by having that one person control the rules in a decision and having that decision happen automatically.”

kentnews.co.uk: Police facing tough battle to tackle cybercrime

“Tackling paedophiles who use the internet to groom children through chat rooms and create and share child pornography on the web was discussed at the conference and has been the subject of many high-profile cases. This time last year a paedophile ring involving a woman, who used to work at a pharmaceutical company in Kent, were jailed as part of a Kent Police investigation called Operation Starlight, which traced the criminals’ activity using the internet. Officers discovered extensive abuse of children under 13.”

The Bunker Blog: Couple Who Sold Stolen Merchandise On Craigslist And eBay Caught Using Doll And Stroller To Shoplift

“A couple in Pasco, WA was caught using a doll and stroller to conceal DVD’s and other merchandise. . . . At least they weren’t using a real baby! Still, they had over $800.00 in stolen merchandise in the stroller when police stopped them. Police have also stated that the couple have sold stolen merchandise on Craigslist and eBay in the past.”

Evolution of Security: Seven Years Later

“Thinking back to 9/11 and when I joined TSA, I remember how people often said hello and even shook our hands. For the traveling public, it’s been seven years without an attack in the U.S., and to many, the rules are now burdensome and our checkpoints are a necessary evil. For officers, it’s one day at a time, with some days when you find a gun, a knife, hollowed out shoes, or items in bags that look like plastic explosives or an IED. Things that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your heart stop, because it’s a threat until you can prove it’s not one. It happens far more than you think, so when an officer asks to get a better look at you or your bag, know that it’s because they want to make sure everything’s okay.”

PogoWasRight.org: Hacker pleads guilty in breach (TJX update)

“Federal prosecutors won a guilty plea yesterday from one of 11 men who made up a ring that was charged last month with the largest data theft case in history, involving tens of millions of customers of retailers, including TJX Cos. of Framingham and BJ’s Wholesale Club of Natick. Separately the government also said it has evidence the group breached the security of many more businesses than previously disclosed.”

Share This

By Guest Blogger Dan Power, President, Hub Solution Designs

In an earlier article, Governing Unstructured Data, I discussed some of the challenges in managing and securing unstructured data in a large enterprise. Given that unstructured data accounts for more than 80% of all business data, this is a big issue.

In my own company, we use Microsoft Groove as a collaborative document repository and content management system. It was developed by Ray Ozzie at Groove Networks, which Microsoft acquired in 2005 (Ray is now Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect). Groove has its quirks, but it works for us, and its military-grade security features and robust document encryption help guard against “lost laptop” syndrome.

Windows, which in its various versions is the operating system running more than 90% of the world’s computers, is inherently insecure. Users can create documents without any controls, and can store them on their local drives, shared network drives, or even on USB flash drives. Many enterprise applications allow users to download information into Excel spreadsheets or text files. And more than 80% of U.S. firms lose laptops with sensitive data each year.

Undoubtedly, an enterprise content management (ECM) system can help with these issues. According to Gartner, as of 2007, the ECM market leaders were Open Text Corporation, EMC (Documentum), IBM, and Oracle Corporation.

But one of the main challenges in a successful content management system is indexing and categorization. In a Master Data Management (MDM) hub, since that information is largely structured, identity management or resolution (i.e. matching) is relatively straightforward.

But with unstructured data, you’re looking for indications on whether a document deals with a customer, a supplier, an employee, an internal business unit, etc. And once your matching algorithm gets a hint on that, it has to find the identity information (person or business name, street address, city/state/zip/country, etc.) somewhere in the unstructured document.

This is not a trivial challenge. In a typical MDM hub, the hub vendor’s match engine may be sufficient. But when trying to categorize, index, and secure thousands of unstructured documents from all over the enterprise, an advanced matching or identity resolution engine from a company like Infoglide may be needed.

I continue to be interested in the issues of data governance for unstructured data. Not that MDM and data governance for structured data like customers and products is in any way a “solved problem”. Many companies are just starting to think about MDM and data governance on an enterprise scale. And very few are including unstructured data in their first few phases.

But it will eventually have to be tackled. Government and consumer patience for sensitive data being lost, inadvertently being posted on web sites, or stolen outright by international hacker rings, will at some point wear thin. In my opinion, more stringent regulations on how companies must manage and secure sensitive information on companies and individuals are inevitable. As with structured data, the tools exist to manage unstructured data. It’s just a matter of making Master Data Management an enterprise-wide priority and including a method, such as identity resolution, for searching, analyzing, and managing unstructured data in conjunction with structured data.

Share This

NOTE: We apologize for our recent technical problems. They’ve been fixed, and we don’t anticipate any further disruptions.

Hub Solution Designs: August Column in DM Review

“MDM without a robust approach to data quality can be dangerous. We’ve all heard the IT cliché ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ But that is very true of building an MDM hub solution. You’re literally at the mercy of the worst data entry person in the company as you gather information from any number of source systems to feed into your new hub.”

MarketWatch: Bra thief busted

“A New York man from the regal borough of Queens was charged with selling $80,000 worth of stolen Victoria’s Secret brassieres on eBay. Over 2,000 bras ranging in value from $40 to $80 were allegedly sold by George Tutaya on the auction site. . . . The eBay aliases have since been removed but the New York Post reports that buyers were quite pleased with Tutaya’s service, which received a 100 percent approval rating.”

Confessions of a database geek: Data Quality Conference: Are you going?

“That said, if you have a strong interest in data quality, I encourage you to take a look at the conference program. Larry English and David Loshin are two of the featured speakers. (I still remember a presentation from Larry at a TDWI conference 10 years ago — he’s great.) Looking further, I see presentations ranging from metrics to politics to dictionaries.”

NOTE: We are planning on being at the conference. Let us know if you’d like to meet with us there.

The Bunker Blog: Organized Retail Theft - “Boosting For Billions” Airs On MSNBC

“On September 7th, MSNBC aired a 1-hour documentary entitled “Boosting For Billions” which took a serious look at the growing problem of Organized Retail Theft.  The program featured interviews with Jerry Biggs, ORC Division Coordinator at Walgreens, and Tony Heredia, Director, Assets Protection at Target Corporation.”

Andy on Enterprise Software: A speedy investment

“It is good to see venture firms dipping their toes back in the water of innovative enterprise software companies. A couple of years ago I came across what I thought was an interesting data quality company called Zoomix. I introduced them to a prestigious venture firm, who were entirely uninterested, at the time chasing after ever more trendy social networking websites (the company was in fact bought by Microsoft a few months ago, which would have netted a pretty decent return for the investors).”

Share This

By Neil Stickels, Infoglide Senior Solutions Architect

Product and inventory management (or Product Information Management) across an enterprise is an increasingly widespread problem. There are countless dollars being wasted on ordering, cataloging, and warehousing similar and, worse yet, duplicate parts. However, Product Information Management can be an arduous task because it involves combing through thousands, sometimes millions, of products and parts, and then grouping them appropriately. Typically this process has been a manual one, requiring thousands of hours of intensive labor by a large services organization. The cost of this type of solution is usually too large to provide an acceptable solution for small to medium-sized businesses.

A much more cost-effective solution is to create an automated way of aggregating all of the product data into a Master Product Index. To efficiently create a Master Product Index, a software solution can be used to take in the product list as well as a product taxonomy, if available. Next, the product list is classified using the taxonomy. Any products not classified result in an update to the taxonomy, and the process is repeated. This iterative process results in a Master Product List. The Master Product List is then coupled with business rules to create a Master Product Index. This Master Product Index then ties into all of the existing supply chain management services to return the most appropriate part.

Using similarity searching while performing the classification would improve the results even more. An auto-classification system using similarity searching technology applies sophisticated similarity algorithms to multiple sources of data in real time to provide not just exact matches, but similar or “fuzzy” matches as well. This approach alleviates different representations of identical data, as well as misspellings and typos that might occur during data transcription. For example, when comparing two chips, a 250 nm central processing unit produced by AMD is recognized as the same thing as a .25 µm CPU made by Advanced Micro Devices. By using similarity searching, the Master Product Index determines the closest match to a product requested, even if the exact match isn’t available.

Once the Master Product Index is created, it can be used by all facets of the supply chain management. For example, purchasing can use it in order to provide the most appropriate part number and vendor to use when ordering a given part. By coupling the Master Product List to business rules, the Master Product Index not only returns the best matching part, but also the most cost-effective part, saving costs associated with ordering duplicate parts and ensuring the best price for a part. Additionally, it can be used by an inventory system to combine inventories across multiple sites and consolidate similar groupings of products down into a single view.

Bottom line, an auto-classification system that utilizes a Master Product Index coupled with similiarity searching can efficiently solve the time- and resource-consuming problems faced within Product Information Management by providing a relatively hands-off, automated process.

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

The Vancouver Sun: B.C. Lotteries says ticket retailers do not win more than the public

“Lottery retailers are no more likely to win major prizes today than the public, according to a report released Friday by the B.C. Lottery Corp. However, BCLC was unable to explain what appears to be a dramatic drop in retailer wins since new security measures were put in place a year ago. . . . The figures raised fears retailers might be stealing customers’ winning tickets — by, for example, falsely telling a customer his or her ticket was a loser. . . . BCLC has repeatedly said that it is not aware of any cases in which a lottery prize was paid to someone other than the ticket’s rightful owner.”

Hub Solution Designs: Governing Unstructured Data

“Given that many of the people I talk to or work with are building Master Data Management solutions for their companies, or putting together a Data Governance program, I had to stop and ask myself ‘maybe we’re all missing the forest for the trees here’. Granted, the picture on the structured data side of things needs improvement too. Companies still struggle to pull together the ‘Single View of the Customer’. Islands of data still exist, and artificial silos still cost companies money and hurt productivity. But I think we ignore the unstructured data problem at our peril.”

RetailWire: Monitoring Those Thieving Employees [requires registration]

“With billions of dollars being stolen from grocery stores by employees, retailers are increasingly having their security cameras aimed directly at cash registers to ward against employees using a scheme called ’sweethearting,’ which involves giving away merchandise usually to family or friends by not scanning it.”

The Iowa Independent: Iowa’s intelligence fusion center ‘connects the dots’

“Fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages, and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart drug smuggling, gang fighting and other menaces to society. The Iowa fusion centers have access to national data bases such as Law Enforcement Online and Regional Information Sharing Systems Intranet. They also have access to Homeland Security Information Network, but only the ‘controlled but unclassified’ version. Porter anticipates that with the addition of a Department of Homeland Security employee to the fusion center staff, the center will gain access to the ’secret’ version of the network.”

PogoWasRight.org: How much information is too much?

“Last month, PeopleFinders, a 20-year-old company based in California, introduced CriminalSearches.com, a free service to satisfy those common impulses. The site, which is supported by advertising, lets people search by name through criminal archives of all 50 states and 3,500 counties in the United States.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Industry Research: The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q3 2008

“In Forrester’s 151-criteria evaluation of enterprise business intelligence (BI) platform vendors, we found that IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects maintain their leadership positions, while Oracle and SAS Institute move into leadership positions in enterprise BI thanks to the richness of their functionality, ability to scale, and the completeness of their corporate and product vision and strategy. Actuate, Information Builders, Microsoft, MicroStrategy, SAP, and a new entrant, TIBCO Spotfire, came out as Strong Performers following very closely on the heels of the Leaders, offering very respectable alternatives and a multitude of choices for information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals.”

Realtime community: Privacy Concerns Of Google Walking Directions

“In the interest of time, here are just a few quick thoughts off the top of my head… Yes, as with any type of surveillance-based service such as this, there will always be privacy concerns. Here are just three of them.”

DailyHerald: Laws proposed to fight e-fencing

“Both Sen. Dick Durbin and Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott are proposing laws to target e-fencing. . . . E-fencing has become a $30 billion business, said Peter Gill, a spokesman for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association in Chicago.”

Mercury: ‘Crash for cash’ gang jailed

“A GROUND-BREAKING investigation into a criminal syndicate that organised a ‘crash for cash’ car insurance scam in Hertfordshire has led to the gang receiving a total of 10 years’ imprisonment.”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

InformationWeek: Microsoft Bolsters Data Management With Zoomix Purchase

“The Zoomix technology will eventually add functionality to the master data management technology Microsoft acquired last year when it bought Stratature and its +EDM product, according to a blog post by Microsoft group program manager Kirk Haselden, who has been leading the company’s master data management efforts. Master data management software aims to maintain a single, accurate version of data and can do things like show accumulated data on one customer from an array of data sets.”

Reuters UK: U.S. terrorism watch list tops 1 million

“About 400,000 individuals are included on the list, about 95 percent of whom are not U.S. citizens or residents, Kolton said. The watch list also includes separate entries with aliases, fake passports and fake birth dates, bringing the total number of records to more than 1 million, he said. TSA spokesman Christopher White said the agency’s ‘no-fly’ watchlists to screen travellers were ’scrubbed’ last year to remove about half of the names, leaving them with somewhat fewer than 50,000. He said Kennedy and Lewis were never on the list, and that problems they reported were due to their misidentification with names properly on it.”

NetworkWorld: Microsoft buys Zoomix to add data quality to SQL Server

“‘One of the problems we face today is that there is so much data out there, trying to figure out what’s really important — to get information, and from that information to get knowledge about what’s happening — is difficult,’ said Richard Ptak, managing partner of IT analyst firm Ptak, Noel & Associates. Vendors that provide databases, business intelligence and data-management software increasingly are integrating automated data-quality capability into those products to improve the overall quality of an organization’s data, he said.”

MarketWatch: Leading Coalition Applauds Legislation to Protect Consumers From Organized Retail Crime

“‘This new legislation is a long overdue effort to bring U.S. criminal law into the 21st century,’ said Al Thompson, vice president for global supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. ‘Organized retail crime is a serious and growing national problem. Sophisticated rings of thieves, who steal billions of dollars a year, don’t care about jeopardizing the health and safety of consumers when they sell mishandled products like diabetic test strips or over-the-counter medicines.’”

Andy on Enterprise Software: The Bulldog gets a housemate

“Microsoft generally likes to acquire software companies when they are quite small, with a dozen or two employees. In this way they can assimilate the development staff into Redmond and into the Microsoft way of doing things. . . . They opted for Zoomix, a small Israeli company which I first encountered in 2006, though they were founded in 1999. Zoomix had some quite clever marketing, claiming ’self learning’ technology as a way of making data profiling in particular more productive. In this way it could be compared to Exeros, although the technology underpinnings are quite different.”

Share This

ITBusinessEdge: The Lowdown on Master Data Management

“Master data management technologies can be a bit confusing. . . . In short, if you’re confused, don’t be surprised. MDM is complicated. Fortunately, I’ve found a very helpful free resource that sorts it all out for us.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: David Loshin: Microsoft Buys Zoomix

“As was rumored a few weeks back (see my previous blog entry), Microsoft continues its acquisitions in the data quality/MDM arena with its announced purchase of Israeli data quality company Zoomix.”

NextGov: Federal identity programs boost biometrics market

“‘There is a little glass dome over the Washington, D.C., Beltway community,’ says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, ‘where these contractors and security folks … are absolutely convinced of a growing and mutating and metastasizing terrorist threat–and Congress, meanwhile, has granted them tremendous amounts of money to use any way they can.’ . . . For the foreseeable future, at least, the odd bedfellows will work together. Says Harper, ‘You’ll know your privacy and liberties are relatively secure when I get back to fighting with the ACLU.’”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: James Taylor: Should Enterprise Decision Management only cover automation?

“The same reader who asked yesterday’s question had a second: Do you see the terms ‘Enterprise Decision Management‘ and ‘Smart Enough Systems’ concerned mostly with the automation of decisions — which means really only covering strictly operational and appropriate tactical decisions. The term ‘Enterprise Decision Management’ to me suggests a broader definition, one that I would expect to include the management of *all* decisions in an enterprise — operational, tactical, and strategic. I guess I see SES as a subset of EDM, but I felt like they were used as synonyms in a few places and I wasn’t sure I agreed with that usage.”

Beep: Thieves grab the oddest things

“About two-thirds of retailers identified or recovered stolen merchandise (including gift cards) being sold at swap meets, on the Internet and elsewhere, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Organized Retail Crime report. A survey of senior loss prevention professionals estimated that 40 percent of the ‘new in box’ merchandise sold through auction sites was obtained fraudulently. . . . ‘It is a problem for all retailers,’ says LensCrafters’ Ingram. ‘Prices go up for consumers when there is considerable theft.’”

Share This