Author Archives: @ndreah

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As we can see on [2] “The Indexed Web contains at least 2.02 billion pages (Saturday, 05 July, 2014)”.

As a consequence we need to use a service of a web search engine if we want to find something of interest on the Web or answers to some questions .

 

For this reason search engines are generally used as “Internet users' entry point to the digital world” [1] to make their searches (according to ComScore [3] searches are defined as “user engagement with a search service with the intent to retrieve search results.”).

In the following figure we can see an outlook of web search scenario in relation to the huge quantity of web pages.

Web Search Engine Outlook

 

We have many types of web search engines working on indexed pages:

 

  • GENERAL SEARCH ENGINE like Google, Bing and Yahoo;
  • COMPUTATIONAL KNOWLEDGE ENGINE like www.wolframalpha.com;
  • ANSWER SEARCH ENGINE like www.chacha.com;
  • IMAGE SEARCH ENGINE like www.picsearch.com;
  • VIDEO SEARCH ENGINE like on.aol.com;
  • TORRENT SEARCH ENGINE like www.ktorrents.com;
  • PERSON SEARCH ENGINE like www.spokeo.com;
  • EMAIL SEARCH ENGINE like www.emailsherlock.com;
  • BUSINESS SEARCH ENGINE like www.business.com;
  • BLOG AND FORUM SEARCH ENGINE like omgili.com;
  • META-SEARCH ENGINE like www.dogpile.com.

 

As we have many search services, the web search is still dominated by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. The following figure gives a clear idea even if it's referred to 2012. The graph in the figure is based on 200 billion searches done in the United States in 2012 [1].

 

Internet Searches 2012

 

The next step for the web search engines will be the semantic search because people are going to commuicate with them in a way that's much more natural to their thinking. So the web search engines should try to understand the meaning and, in relation to it, should give the more appropriate and pertinent answer.

REFERENCES

  1. The Global Edition of the New York Times. Friday, April 5, 2013 page 15. “Web Searches that try to read your mind”;
  2. http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/;
  3. http://www.comscore.com/: Analytics for a Digital World™.

 

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Web Applications: technologies and models

An analysis of Web Application frameworks

Edizioni Accademiche Italiane ( 12.06.2014 )

Web Application: technologies and models

The book is a survey and an analysis of the technologies used in the development of a web application, paying attention to the architectures and the models. The survey is not exhaustive but it gives an outlook of all players involved in a web application development.

At first we have analyzed:

a) web browser architecture and functionalities: it represents the client part of a web application;

b) web server architecture and functionalities: it is the more complex and active part of a web application.

Then the technologies AJAX and REST have been examined, which have produced a paradigm shift in the web application design.

At last, in the light of the analyzed technologies, the various web application development approaches have been investigated by an appropriate level of abstraction. The state management mechanisms and the event-loop both on the client-side and on the server-side have been the main issue in the investigation because of stateless nature of HTTP protocol.

Web Applications: technologies and models

The picture above is a courtesy of Vincenzo Guardino.

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“We are living in a global world.”

 

In the cyberspace many things are going to happen. Cyberspace is not a parallel world but it is wired to the real world and it is made up of Internet and whatever is connected to it (Internet of Things or IoT for short).

Cyberspace is become the new battle space where many actors fight their cyber war. The design of Internet and flaws in software and hardware make it possible.

Many countries are developing cyberweaponary to use to cyber strikes, espionage or in retaliation against major cyber attacks.

Cybercriminal groups operate in the cyberspace to easily gain money and illegal profits and so on.

As a consequence we have two types of figure:

  1. Cyber warriors: generally hackers that work for a "military" regular structure of a country;
  2. Cybercriminals: hackers that do something like going where are "not authorized" breaking the laws.

Both of them can carry out searches of faraway attacks or release logic bomb in any "virtual place" in the world. The name of these logic bombs are viruses, worms and phishing scams and so on that we can identify with an only word "malware".

About the cyber warfare we can measure the cyber war strength of a nation using a group of indicators which we can see in the following table.

Cyber War Strength

 Cyber War Strength
  Indicator Description
  Cyber Offence It is the action by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computer s or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption.
  Cyber Espionage It is the act or practice of obtaining secrets without the permission of the holder of the information for a strategic advantage.
   Cyber Sabotage It is the act or practice of modifying secrets without the permission of the holder of the information for a strategic advantage.
  Cyber Defence The ability to take actions that under attack will block or mitigate the attack.
 Cyber Dependence It is the grade a nation is wired, reliant upon networks and systems that could be vulnerable in the event of cyber war attack.

 

 

References

  1. Richrad A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake, Cyber War, HarperCollins 2010;