Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 34

Part 34 Significant trouble Becomes unavoidable A rush of nervousness washed over Jody as she woke up. â€Å"Tommy,† she called. She jumped up and went into the living zone, not halting to turn on the light. â€Å"Tommy?† The space hushed up. She checked the replying mail: no messages. I'm not going to do this once more, she thought. I can't deal with one more night of stressing. She'd tidied up the chaos from the police search the prior night, put lemon oil on the wood, scoured out the sinks and the tubs, and watched digital TV until day break. All the time she contemplated the thing Tommy had said about sharing, about being with somebody who could comprehend what you saw and how you felt. She needed that. She needed somebody who could run the night with her, somebody who could hear the structures inhale and watch the walkways gleam with heat soon after twilight. In any case, she needed Tommy. She needed love. She needed the blood-high and she needed sex that contacted her heart. She needed fervor and she needed security. She needed to be a piece of the group, yet she needed to be a person. She needed to be human, however she needed the quality, the faculties, and the psychological sharpness of the vampire. She needed everything. Imagine a scenario in which I had a decision, she thought, if that clinical understudy could fix me, would I return to being human. It would imply that Tommy and I could remain together, however he could never know the sentiment of being a divine being, and neither would I. Never again. So I leave; what at that point? Only i'm. More alone than I've at any point been. I despise being distant from everyone else. She quit pacing and went to the window. The cop from the prior night was out there, sitting in an earthy colored Dodge, viewing. The other cop had followed Tommy. â€Å"Tommy, you jolt. Call me.† The cop would know where Tommy was. Yet, how to get him to tell? Entice him? Utilize the Vulcan nerve squeeze? Sleeper hold? Perhaps I should simply go up there and thump on the entryway, Rivera thought. â€Å"Inspector Alphonse Rivera, San Francisco PD. On the off chance that you have a couple of moments, I'd prefer to converse with you about being dead. How right? Who did it? Did it piss you off?† He balanced himself in the vehicle seat and took a taste from his espresso. He was attempting to pace his smoking. Close to four cigarettes 60 minutes. He was in his forties now and he was unable to deal with the four-pack-a-night stakeouts †returning home with his throat crude, his lungs singed, and a horrendous hurt in his sinuses. He checked his watch to check whether enough time had gone since he'd last lit up. Nearly. He moved down the vehicle window and something got him by the throat, removing his breath. He dropped his espresso, feeling the singe in his lap as he came to in his coat for his weapon. Something got his hand and held it like a bear trap. The hand on his throat loosened up a piece and he sucked in a short breath. He attempted to turn his head and the brace on his throat remove his breath once more. A pretty face got through the window. â€Å"Hi,† Jody said. She relaxed her grasp on his throat a degree. â€Å"Hi,† Rivera croaked. â€Å"Feel the hold on your wrist?† Rivera felt the bear trap on his wrist fix, his hand went numb, and his entire arm lit up with torment. â€Å"Yes!† â€Å"Okay,† Jody said. â€Å"I'm almost certain I can smash your windpipe before you could move, yet I needed you to be certain as well. You sure?† Rivera attempted to gesture. â€Å"Good. Your accomplice followed Tommy the previous evening. Do you know where they are now?† Again Rivera endeavored to gesture. On the seat close to him, the mobile phone tweeted. She discharged his arm, grabbed the weapon out of his shoulder holster, flipped off the security, and pointed it at his head, all before he could draw a solitary breath. â€Å"Take me there,† she said. Elijah Ben Sapir viewed the red spots moving around on the video screen over his face. He had stirred inclination merry about slaughtering the youngster's toy kid, at that point he saw that his home had been attacked. He was hit with a feeling so uncommon it took him some time to remember it. Dread. It had been quite a while since he'd been apprehensive. It felt better. The specks on the screen were moving around on the harsh of the pontoon, scrambling all through the principle lodge above. At regular intervals a speck would vanish off the screen, at that point return. They were getting in and out of a pontoon at the harsh. The vampire came to up and flipped a progression of flip switches. The enormous diesels on either side of his vault thundered to life. Another switch and an electric winch started granulating in the stay. â€Å"Move, move, move!† Tommy yelled into the lodge. â€Å"The motors started.† Barry got through the bring forth conveying a bronze sculpture of a ballet dancer. Tommy held up at the harsh of the yacht with Drew. Troy Lee, Lash, Jeff, Glint, and the Emperor and his soldiers were at that point in the pontoon, attempting to discover space to move around the artistic creations and sculptures. â€Å"Over,† Tommy stated, taking the sculpture from Barry as the squat jumper went over the side into the arms of the holding up Animals, nearly overturning the pontoon. Tommy tossed the sculpture down to the Emperor, who got it and went to the floor of the pontoon with its weight. Tommy tossed a leg over the railing, and thought back. â€Å"Light it, Drew. Now!† Drew bowed and held his lighter to the furthest limit of a wax-covered piece of fabric that stumbled into the harsh deck and through the incubate to the principle lodge. He watched the fire follow the path for a couple of feet, at that point stood and joined Tommy at the rail. â€Å"It's going.† They went over the rail in reverse and the Animals obliged them by moving to one side and letting them both hit the floor of the pontoon unrestricted. The pontoon reeled and corrected itself. Tommy battled for breath to provide an order. â€Å"Paddle, men!† the Emperor yelled. The Animals started to beat the water with their oars. There was an uproarious thumping clamor from the yacht as the transmission drew in and the pontoon was shaken as the twin screws connected with and started driving the yacht away from them. â€Å"Rivera,† Rivera said into the mobile phone. â€Å"The yacht is moving,† Cavuto said. â€Å"I think I simply helped these folks in plundering it.† He unfastened a calfskin case on the vehicle seat, uncovering a colossal chromed programmed gun, a Desert Eagle.50-gauge. It discharged shots generally the heaviness of a little pooch and kicked like a jackhammer. One shot could decrease an ash square to rock. â€Å"I'm on my way,† Rivera said. â€Å"What about the girl?† Cavuto pummeled a clasp into the Desert Eagle, dropped another into his coat pocket. â€Å"She's †she'll be fine. I'm at Van Ness and Lombard. I'll be there in around three minutes. Try not to bring in backup.† â€Å"I'm not †goodness Jesus Christ!† â€Å"What?† â€Å"The screwing thing just blew up.† A wellspring of fire shot from the harsh of the Sanguine II, a second passed, and the remainder of the yacht vanished in a haze of fire that rose into the sky over her. She had cleared the jetty and was maybe 300 yards out into the inlet when the breaker arrived at Drew's combustible mixed drink. The pontoon had recently made the dock when the blast went off. Tommy jumped onto the dock and watched the mushroom cloud disseminate. The stun wave came in and Tommy came to back to the pontoon and got the Emperor before he went into the water. Trash poured down around them. A pool of fire and unexploded diesel fuel spread out over the water, lighting up the entire zone with a moving splendid orange. â€Å"Is this a gathering vessel, or what?† Drew yelled. The Animals mixed out of the pontoon onto the dock and started giving up the objets d'art. Tommy stood aside and watched the consume. Bummer fell down in the Emperor's arms. â€Å"Do you think we got him?† Jeff gave the Degas ballet performer to Troy and investigated his shoulder. â€Å"Fucking A, we got him. Pleasant blend, Drew.† Drew soaked up the adulation and nearly went over the edge of the dock. The Emperor said. â€Å"I can't resist the urge to feel that the blast may have pulled in the consideration of the specialists, respectable men. I would suggest an expedient retreat.† Drew took a gander at the consuming smooth. â€Å"I wish I had some corrosive. This would be extraordinary on acid.† Jeff hopped down into the pontoon and gave up the last artistic creation, the Miro. He looked past Troy Lee, who was wrestling up the substantial edge, and stated, â€Å"Whoops.† â€Å"What?† Troy said. Jeff gestured past him and the Animals pivoted. Cavuto had an enormous, extremely sparkling gun pointed at them. â€Å"No one move!† They didn't. The spearguns were stacked on the dock. Flash held the shotgun freely next to him as he supplicated. He dropped it. â€Å"Drop it,† Cavuto said. â€Å"I did,† said Clint. â€Å"That's actual, he did,† Tommy said. â€Å"And before you inquired. He ought to get additional kudos for that.† Cavuto motioned with the gun. â€Å"Everybody down. On your countenances. Now!† The Animals dropped. Lazarus yapped. The Emperor ventured forward. â€Å"Officer, these youngsters have †â€Å" â€Å"Now!† Cavuto shouted. The Emperor dropped to the dock with the Animals. The screens went dim a moment before he was pummeled against the side of the vault. He tumbled inside, feeling his tissue consume on the steel with each turn. The vault shined red with the warmth and had loaded up with smoke from the burned wires and the vampire's garments. Following a couple of moments the tumbling halted. The vampire was stuck into one finish of the vault, his face against his knees. His skin was stinging and he attempted to will it to recuperate, yet it had been days since he had taken care of, so the mending came gradually. He found the cover by finding the crushed CRT and radar screens. Salt water splashed in a fine fog from behind the screens. He pushed on the top however it didn't move. He felt for the hooks and releas

What if history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Imagine a scenario where history - Essay Example. Abraham Lincoln possesses the most raised spot in the pantheon of American presidents and reliable surveys show him involving the primary spot in the positions of most well known Presidents in the USA. Based on his administration characteristics, achievements, managing emergencies, political aptitudes, rhetoric, upstanding character, he towers over all others, by any measure that is applied. Lincoln had guaranteed the southerners a generous harmony, set apart by noble cause to the whole gang. Be that as it may, this Reconstruction plan was crashed by his death. In the event that Lincoln had not been executed, soon after being reappointed, he would have driven the country forward with his praiseworthy energy. He was a man who remained on standards and was not guided by popular sentiment. After his demise, the pioneers of the North got pernicious towards the fallen south. They forced laws which disabled the Southern States, economy, country just as society. The Black Codes Bill of 1866-1867 was additionally passed, which precluded slaves from possessing area or leaving their current business. His replacement Johnson vetoed the Freedmens Bureau just as the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which gave blacks the option to cast a ballot. Most students of history concur that such discipline as was allotted toward the Southerners would not have come around under the stewardship of Linco ln Jan first 1863, that liberated slaves in the Confederate states. However, to the setback of the slaves, the man who might lead them to finish opportunity was gunned down. It is a most convincing movement, that had Lincoln been alive, after the acquiescence of General Lee, the mix of African-American, or the slaves, into the standard would have been speedier and total. The Affirmative Action strategy of the twentieth century would not have been required, in light of the fact that Lincoln was determined that every single person ought to be treated as equivalents. Lincoln has been hailed as the

Iago’s Soliloquies and Intentions Essay -- William Shakespeare, Othell

Iago’s Soliloquies and Intentions In each play, there is in any event one character that bounces off the page and asks for your consideration. In The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare, this character is Iago. Iago is an insidious man, a liar, a controller, and an insane person. It appears Shakespeare built up an extremely deranged character yet not one that is incredible. I feel as if we have a lot of Iago’s in today’s society. Numerous lawmakers appear to fit into this classification, controlling individuals for control purpose. Be that as it may, to me the most fascinating maniac of all, is in the play Othello. In this play, Iago is Othello’s confided in ensign. Be that as it may, Iago isn't what he depicts himself to be, to the characters in the play. In his speeches, he solely uncovers to the crowd his mal expectation. He double-crosses Othello in the most beguiling manners, manhandling Othello’s trust. Plotting against him, Iago looks for retribution on an unconscious Othello. One would presume that Iago would have intention behind his savage and expand plans. Be that as it may, it appears that Iago carried out these flippant wrongdoings, for power, for psychopathic reasons, and for sport. He has shown his control over Othello by demonstrating to himself, that he could in reality misuse people around him, mutilating what they accept to be valid. We will investigate Iago’s monologues, analyze them, and find his arrangements. Iago, the conspicuous scoundrel in this romantic tale gone exhibit. Gives us his real nature from the earliest starting point of the play. In act one scene one, Iago is talking with Roderigo, he trusts in Roderigo letting him know â€Å"I know my value; I merit no more terrible a place†. Here Iago is holding himself in high respect in an exceedingly vain way. He ... ...ful recently marry couple and devastated them. In some regard, you need to respect how really shrewd Iago is. He takes the blameless Desdemona and making her look so liable when she did total nothing incorrectly. He effectively persuaded Othello that Desdemona was unfaithful to him, to such an extent that Othello murders his blameless spouse. Iago gets his title of lieutenant if just for a second, and his retribution against Othello. Iago all through the play utilizes his control of words to wreck everyone around him. At long last, his arrangement was divulged, anyway it was past the point of no return the deeds were finished. Iago has the last snicker, his endowment of language he minds his own business Request me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forward I never will express word. He giggles realizing that he will never give the others the fulfillment of knowing why he did this. Abhorrent is triumphant toward the finish of Othello.

World War 2 Essays (2374 words) - Aftermath Of World War II, Japan

World War 2 1.1 HARRY S. TRUMAN and THE BOMB A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY 1.2 Robert H. Ferrell editorial manager with discourse 1.3 High Plains Publishing Company, Inc. 1.4 1996 1.5 Chapters: 21, Pages: 125 2.1 The title fits the story line on the grounds that the story is about Truman's choice on dropping the nuclear bomb. This is a true to life book that incorporates journal sections, letters, White House public statements, and transcribed notes by Truman. These archives are from 1945-1958 and are completely related in the choice to drop the nuclear bomb. 2.2 The creator's focuses are that Truman utilized every single accessible source to assist him with settling on the choice of dropping the bomb (military guides, researchers, what he found in Germany) and he accepted that dropping the nuclear bomb spared lives. 2.3 Yes, I acknowledge the creator's postulation. I trust Truman utilized every one of his assets. For instance he checked with the military for what number of individuals would bite the dust if America would attack Japan. At the point when Truman went to Berlin he saw complete decimation and in his journal called it Hitler's habit. By utilizing the setback rates at Iwo Jima and Okinawa military specialists evaluated 500,000 American losses if an intrusion on the home island occurred. This is a lot more noteworthy than the quantity of individuals murdered by the nuclear bomb. 3.1 The writer is keeping in touch with Americans. 3.2 The creator explores if America was supported for dropping the nuclear bomb on Japan. The creator takes a gander at the archives of the timespan (journals, letters, and notices), inspects how the Japanese treated detainees and vanquished individuals, and takes a gander at fight loss rates. 3.3 The creator is genius American. At the point when he composed the introduction he incorporates articulations against the Japanese, for example, The barbarities of the war had their beginnings in Japan's war against China?Between 100,000 to 200,000 individuals were slaughtered by involving troops for reasons unknown at all with the exception of what may just be portrayed as blood lust.(Pg1) Throughout the introduction the creator utilizes words, for example, innumerable repulsions, sneak assault, abuse, and viciousness to depict the Japanese and their conduct. 4.1 Robert H. Ferrell is Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus Indiana University. Different books the writer composed incorporate The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman, Truman and the Modern American Presidency, and Harry S. Truman His Life on the Family Farms. 4.2 The book was written in 1996, utilizing records from the 1940s and 1950s. The creator had a lot of access to the essential data. He composed it 50 years after the occasion happened making him more goal than somebody from the timeframe. 4.3 None, I all prepared concur that Truman ought to have dropped the bomb since I accept that it spared more lives. 4.4 I would not suggest this book for delight perusing in light of the fact that HARRY S. TRUMAN and THE BOMB is comprised of realities (letters, notices, reports, and journals). I would prescribe it to any individual who needs to think regarding why America dropped the nuclear bomb. 5.1 The book covers from 1945 to 1958. 5.2 The activity happens everywhere throughout the world for the most part in the White House in Washington, D.C, the Potsdam Conference close to Berlin, Germany, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, and Japan. The setting is during World War II and not long after the war. 5.3 The creator is a pragmatist. In the book he discusses how if America didn't drop the nuclear bomb on Japan and utilized intrusion that more men would bite the dust. Truman and driving authorities of his organization viewed atomic fighting as a positive decent as opposed to horrendous brutality, there was the genuine issue in the mid year of 1945 of the expense of a U.S. attack of the Japanese home islands. Whatever the verifiable - one may depict as enthusiastic - purposes behind ?getting back' at Japan, there was the terrifying expense of an intrusion by the U. S. Armed force and Navy (pg. 3). 5.4 I think the structure of this book is sequential on account of how the writer set up his sections from 1945-1958. 6.1 The most eminent thing that I loved was that after the war finished we helped Japan recover financially. Truman composed, And despite the shot in the back, this nation of our own, the United States of America, has been willing to

Econ 256 Final

2. For what reason do financial specialists by and large view middle pay as a superior proportion of a regular American's prosperity than mean salary? Dfiodifaje 3. For what reason do the United States, and numerous different districts, have antitrust laws on the books? What's so unsafe about oligopoly that warrants a whole assortment of law? The United States and numerous different nations have antitrust laws on the books to ensure their customers in their various markets. Having the capacities to both raise and lower costs are the reasons that oligopolies are so destructive. . Two shoppers go to the insurance agency to buy some life coverage. James is a smoker and a cop who races bikes in his extra time. Kathy is a nonsmoker and a custodian who likes to make quilts in her extra time. The insurance agency realizes that the two customers are 40 years of age, however the organization has no data about occupations or leisure activities. How does the private data in this circumstance ma ke an unfavorable determination issue? How could the insurance agency reduce this issue? Without knowing the foundation data on the potential customers, insurance agencies are without the capacity to see that while James is taking a chance with his life as a cop, he is additionally a smoker and racer. He’s risking his life and as yet expanding the danger of wounds. The protection ought to have a line on their application that requests candidates for their occupation, regardless of whether they are smokers or on the off chance that they drink, and in conclusion what they appreciate doing in their extra time. With having this data, the organization can perceive what every one of the people actually needs protection insightful. 6. Jane works low maintenance and procures $12,000 every year. Since she is underneath the destitution line, she likewise gains $4,000 in different government assistance benefits. Assume she is extended to another employment opportunity that would pay her $15,000 and would bring her profit sufficiently high so she not, at this point equipped for any government assistance benefits. This is what is known as a â€Å"notch†. Clarify what's going on with Jane and how might we alter the framework to take out the score.

Cyphort

Cyphort INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi. Today we are at one of the safest places in Santa Clara, the Cyphort. Fengmin, who are you and what do you do?Fengmin: Yes. I’m a co-founder and also the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer od Cyphort.Martin: What is Cyphort?Fengmin: So at Cyphort, what we are really doing is we are offering the next generation advanced threat defense product. Think of it as a tool, but it’s a tool that is helping the enterprise IT people to really implement this new thinking about the best way to defend against advanced threat. And with that new thinking, new approach, our tool is actually designed to best help people implementing that new approach.Martin: When did you start this company, and what did you do before?Fengmin: The company was started in around March of 2011. And before that, I kind of did a few startups. And I’ll go back a little bit just to give you an idea. After I finished my PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in the U.S., I spent a bout eight years on DARPA funded research projects, and that is mostly working on high speed networking and basically security. So for DARPA project, you typically actually build a prototype, not like National Science Foundation kind of project where you write papers.So that eight years, I always think of it as a training for me. Once around Year 2000, that’s where we saw a few security startups, the early days of intrusion prevention or detection products, we realized that we have been doing much more advanced technology and building prototype under the DARPA project. We believed a much better technology and solution compared to some of the startups. So that’s where I started having the initial idea of maybe I should create a startup. Actually, it’s around that time that I got the first opportunity, first call to do a startup in Silicon Valley. So that’s when I moved and started my first company called IntruVert Networks. That is really an intrusion prevention product compa ny.Followed by that company, we were basically acquired by McAfee. So we went to McAfee and I worked there for a few years to help integrate that product into McAfee portfolio. But then I went to start up my second one, that is, Bartel Networks, a next generation firewall, followed by also two years as a Chief Security Content Officer at FireEye.What I want to probably really point out, the main thing, I think, in this kind of past is always I tried to keep up with what the security threats are going, where it’s going, and how the IT infrastructure actually is evolving because a combination of those two really create or define new needs for tools for people to defend. So pretty much that’s kind of my career, how it has evolved, and even come into founding Cyphort is actually continuing on the same path and always trying to build the next best tool that IT people can use.Martin: Who are your customers?Fengmin: For us, the customer really includes all enterprise class companies. T he product is helping them to really protect the threats that are either coming from the external coming to their network or some threat landed on their network, actually moving laterally inside the network. It’s not going to be industrial sector-specific because, as you know today, that kind of threat problem is applicable to every sector. It’s only mainly determined by how sophisticated and at what stage their enterprise actually understands the problem. So it’s across the industry sectors.Martin: Fengmin, do you only help identify the threat, or are you also helping mitigate the threat?Fengmin: Yes. That’s a very good question. We built a product to actually best support this new, I would call it, paradigm shift in terms of how do you deal with advanced threat. What we realized was really for enterprise, the bottleneck, if you will, in advanced threat defense is really with the ability to detect the threat reliably, cover all the vectors of potential threat propagation, a nd also provide a very actionable, relevant results for them to take action. So once we realized that is the main problem, the Cyphort product was built with the focus on accurate detection and covering all the bases, make sure that you detect them, and also with very reliable and very relevant data to the enterprise under protection.But today what we don’t do is we do not provide a firewall function for you to do an enforcement. The reason we didn’t position the product this way is we realized that most of the enterprise already have one form or another next generation firewall or some of the security web gateway and they already made an investment. They have that product deployed, and those products are not doing the best defense for the enterprise because they do not know what data to use to actually make a blocking, for example. So if someone tells them this is the kind of data you use to do that blocking, they can block it well. So we come in to fill that gap and we want to provide that detection data.Martin: So this means that your main focus is identification of the threat and then you push this kind of information or the result of it, who’s the threat and who is not to the firewall, who will then decide if this a threat according to Cyphort, you won’t allowed it in?Fengmin: Correct. Actually, that brings us to this second notion. We talked about this new paradigm shift, right? The notion people say is you have to continuously monitor all the possible vectors and then you try to determine what exactly happened, what’s relevant to your environment, at what stage the attack is going, and then with this very specific data, you want to turn it into actionable data. So what we end up doing is associated with this notion is a notion of an ecosystem-based defense approach. So that’s when Cyphort detects something from Day 1, the product support is out of APIs. So it basically allows any other product to consume the results in a fashion that is read ily implementable for blocking something.Martin: How do you define a threat? Is spam also included in the definition?Fengmin: We would not consider the typical email spam you think in the past where someone is mainly sending an email, a lot of message just to spread maybe some rumors, right? What we are focusing on is think of malware pieces, maybe a piece of code, compared to the old days of the virus. Now the advanced one that comes in not only have a lot of attack payload but also have a lot of capability to try to hide itself and also have a lot of network-based communication to go back to the server. So that’s where the malware is really the most lethal weapon, if you will, for the modern threat, right? So the malware is really the focus, and then anything associated with that. So you mentioned the email. Although the spamming is not the focus, but email as a vector for the malware to get into the enterprise to infect someone’s machine. So we also cover the email. We make s ure we are able to extract the files and then inspect them to actually detect them as well.Martin: You have two sides of the equation. You have, on one side, the attackers, and you have on the other side something like Cyphort who is defending the company. And there’s always this kind of competition. One time the attackers are in the frontline, and sometimes the defenders. How do you keep up with the speed that the attackers are developing? Because they are using different strategies. How do you keep up to date?Fengmin: Yes. It’s very interesting, and this is indeed a challenge for us. One of the fundamental components in our detection technology is, in addition to use… people are all aware of this notion of sandboxing. Sandboxing is really useful to be able to detonate or run a piece of code and, based on behavior, try to determine if it’s malicious or not. Now, just using the sandbox to detonate it may not allow you to adapt and to cope with the new ones, but that’s how the old generation of the product typically implements a set of specific rules or look for a pattern, if-then-else kind of pattern or heuristics try to then determine if a piece of code is malicious or not.But for Cyphort, one of the things from Day 1, we realize what we need to do is to marry this detonation behavior-based with machine learning. So the machine learning allows us to do two things. Number one is indeed even for a piece of malware, we’ve already seen it’s something that maybe just happened, but by looking at the behavior of that and relying on the machine learning model to train and then build a more sophisticated mathematical model to predict and to generalize into the class of malware that have a similar behavior but it’s not the same thing. So we are able to detect that. That gives us the ability to detect unknown or you can also refer to as a zero day from a malware perspective.Then the second thing that machine learning allows us to do is once we have this systematic architecture, then if we are able to continuously monitor, use additional means to collect new samples and to do the training periodically and then release the new model into the product, now we have a continuous learning and adaptation. So of course to complement and support the second part, what we have been able to do is, in addition to collaborating with a lot of other entities, the threat intelligence, companies and also community-based feed out there, we also have built what we refer to as a crawler infrastructure in Cyphort labs. What the crawler infrastructure allows us to do is to constantly go out, use our own hardware-based sandbox to go out to the wide internet and to get our sandbox infected. When that happens, and then we have the collection of new exploit pack and new samples, and that feeds into our machine learning, so that’s really at least a main part of our approach how to keep up.Martin: This is also where my question relates to. I totally understan d if you have lots of users and you get lots of data that you can improve your machine learning algorithms for detecting those threats. But when you started out, you did not have that much of a customer behavior data. How did you convince the first customers to say, “Yes, I’ll go with Cyphort,” without you having that much data which machine learning algorithm you can apply to?Fengmin: Right. Of course, there are two parts to it. One part is indeed we need to leverage some existing collection of malware samples, and luckily with both some of the partners and also one of the well known ones that you’re probably aware of is Virus Total, and it probably has the largest collection of the malware samples. So by applying, using the existing samples, we are able to learn a model fairly recent. So that’s from the technical part. But then when it comes to engaging the customer, really I would say a few big steps that we have taken.Number one is indeed really be able to identify the key problem the customer is facing and also showing that we understand the customer’s problem, and also have a common understanding of the best approach to actually improve their defense.Once we have that conversation, then the next thing is we share how we build this product or the tool, how that tool would support this understanding of how to approach it.And once we have that, really the third step is basically almost all enterprise customers would require that we actually make the product available and for them to actually test drive it. So they would actually go through an evaluation on their network.Of course, in that process, we provide as much help to get them through the hurdle where they typically are always resource-limited, so we help them make it easy for them to install it on the live network and go through an evaluation period. So we are able to approach the customer that way, and we’re happy with what we have been able to do so far. Yes.Martin: Fengmin, how do yo u show the customer whether there is a malware? For example, if I’m looking at a company and the emails they are getting. And what I understood is that you are also scanning some kind of files, whether there’s malware included or not, for minimizing that the system is breached. How do you do this in minimal? Is it just that you have some kind of bar which says, “Okay, 95% chance there’s malware included,” or if there is a special threshold the email doesn’t go through? What’s the process?Fengmin: Yes. For us, actually in Cyphort product, we end up using multiple inspection message, we refer to. Because we realize for the modern attack, the malware, they can come in different ways and also they all have their sophisticated kind of evasive behavior in them. Some of them may evade a traditional virus scan, like a static analysis, right? You look at a code, how the code structure looks like, and then the behavior based on when some of them actually are able to detect if th ey are being watched in a sandbox, they may stop running. So what we end up doing is once we realize this, then whenever we get a piece of code that we feel this unknown, they could be a malware-carrying file, then we actually go through both static analysis, looking for known patterns, and also we have repetition data referenced to Virus Total, in addition to our own more kind of sophisticated static analysis and behavior. So in this case, what it means is when we decide if something is really bad, indeed there is typically a kind of a range of behavior, and you can almost think there is a threshold.Today what we have done is intentionally not expose that kind of slider to the customer but we are able to take into account of this multiple methods of inspection, then we look at those information together. So for the machine learning, indeed we actually come up with the behavioral-based score. They range basically, let’s say, from a 0 to 100, that kind of scale. And we choose a thr eshold based on our training and also we in the future can allow customers to set based on how aggressive they are.But the interesting thing, it’s helpful when we use both Virus Total and static multiple kind of method is if something is already known…because you expect, right? They don’t always use something totally new. There are a lot of them that use some existing things. So that’s the benefit of the product. If they use something that is not new, then additional methods, including the Virus Total, actually give us a context, and in that case, it’s fairly black and white. And we can even tell them what are the other products already, be this bad or the same thing, and then what the names they are referring them to. And then we can basically compare that with what our machine learning is telling us. So they both help us to improve the machine learning. At the same time, we can tell the customer if something is already known, potentially how long ago they have been out t here versus all the way to something really new. So that way, the customer, based on how aggressive they want to respond to it, they could choose different path towards it.BUSINESS MODEL OF CYPHORTMartin: Fengmin, let’s talk about the business model of Cyphort. How are you making money with it? Is it a SaaS model or is it something like an installment fee?Fengmin: Yes. That’s a very good question because we always have to make money. So in this particular case, the current model is we choose a software of virtual appliance-based delivery model but it’s subscription-based. So we have seen a lot of customers. The subscription-based one gives them some flexibility, at the same time gives them more like a steady kind of cadence for them to make the budget decisions. So the thing really, so far it worked the best for us, is really the software-based delivery along with support for virtualized environment. And in this case, we can be deployed both on premise and also when they choos e to, like we have customers where already most of their computing have gone to AWS, and so in that case, they can actually deploy our product in the AWS environment as well.The way the product is designed, because it’s API-based and software-based delivery, it allows it to be easily deployed and also provides a service in a SaaS model. So we are actually right now working on that based mainly on the customer demand because in the initial set of customers, we’ve definitely seen more customers want to have products deployed on premise because there is still some concern about their data going out of their network.Martin: Are you somehow differentiating the SaaS products maybe based on volume or based on number of employees of the customer or some other metric?Fengmin: Oh, the pricing model you are referring to? Yes. Right now, actually we have a pretty much unified pricing model that is based on the protected bandwidth.Martin: What’s that?Fengmin: So the notion is let’s say y ou may have multiple links, network action links you have to watch. So on that link, you know what the typical amount of traffic is going through it, so then you purchase our product based on that expected amount of data that we have to inspect and then detect and then protect. So actually that’s also one thing that we have got very positive customer feedback. What ends up happening is let’s say you purchase five gigabits worth of the traffic and then the Cyphort product does not limit the customer how many links that you are monitoring, maybe how many servers you deploy to monitor this link. So for them, that is very flexible because you may have multiple offices and distributed across the globe and then you don’t have different pricing models. It’s the total amount of protected link bandwidth.Martin: Fengmin, how did you acquire the first customers, and did any of the process for customer acquisition change over time?Fengmin: Yes, and that’s a very good question. The ini tial customer is really based on some of the connections, in this case, both the connection, let’s say, with the executive team and also the connection, for example, with our venture capital funding partner. That is very typical practice. It’s more about initially with the connection we have someone that is willing and open their ears to listen to us, and that is very important. But then quickly as the time goes, today we have a lot of customers, now they’re already coming through a very typical funnel. You think of that process from you have mind share and you have lead generation. So that means now it becomes at scale operation because those customers, because they know they have heard about Cyphort and they have a problem, then they see Cyphort as a potential contender for that, then that’s how value comes in. Today our customers, both from that kind of normal channel, at the same time they become much larger customers compared to the early set.Martin: Sure. Is it mainly driven currently by inbound marketing, or is it also that you have a direct sales force which goes out to meet potential clients and then tries to acquire them?Fengmin: Yes. We actually have. Cyphort has, I think, maybe a very interesting, very initial result. We were so happy we were doing so well. As you imagine, most of the enterprise company products, you always rely initially on a direct sales force to go after the account. But then for Cyphort, as actually even early this year, we already have several dozen partners.Martin: Distribution partners?Fengmin: Correct, and these are the ones… So it’s very rare in even my past several companies. At this early stage, we have so many partners and signed with us, and actually today we definitely have over 50% of our deals directly coming through the partner source versus our direct sales.Martin: And can you describe this kind of partners? Are they more some kind of antivirus or firewall programs, or are they consulting companies, or what type of companies?Fengmin: Yes. Actually, one example I would mention is this company called Optiv. They used to be there were two companies. One is called FishNet. The other one is called Accuvant. These are the companies that they have their own labs. They also have their own, of course, sales engineer and the whole workforce from the marketing all the way to product. So they typically help the customer define a set of solutions for their security protection needs. So these are really major players, and they help both for getting the customer and also, of course, some of the training and support, installation also are coming from them. So those two companies actually, a few months ago, they merged and they became Optiv. And we are one of the very select few small set of partners that they have.Martin: Over the last four years, what have been the major obstacles while building and growing Cyphort? How did you manage those obstacles?Fengmin: I think for us, the main things are all related to scaling up the sales, and this is where, of course, one of the things that we learned is, for instance, the kind of product. We are indeed an advanced threat defense product, so if you compare it to the old generation of some of the security products, they are more complex, and that means going to the enterprise, there are more dependencies with other product and also there is the education of the customer aspect. So we have basically at the same time not only helped to educate the customer for their adoption of the newer approach, the better approach for defense, at the same time to basically improve the product because you always scale from smaller customer in the key features then to more mature at scale features and for what we refer to as enterprise readiness. It’s really talking about more deployment scenarios and more other products to integrate with and also to account for different kinds of IT configuration. So most of our work has been along these lines, along with scaling up the sales force. That’s the main challenge in the last few months.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM FENGMIN GONG In Santa Clara (CA), we meet co-founder and CSO of Cyphort, Fengmin Gong. Fengmin talks about his story how he came up with the idea and founded Cyphort, how the current business model works, as well as he provides some advice for young entrepreneurs.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi. Today we are at one of the safest places in Santa Clara, the Cyphort. Fengmin, who are you and what do you do?Fengmin: Yes. I’m a co-founder and also the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer od Cyphort.Martin: What is Cyphort?Fengmin: So at Cyphort, what we are really doing is we are offering the next generation advanced threat defense product. Think of it as a tool, but it’s a tool that is helping the enterprise IT people to really implement this new thinking about the best way to defend against advanced threat. And with that new thinking, new approach, our tool is actually designed to best help people implementing that new approach.Martin: When did you start this company, and what did you do before?Fengmin: The company was started in around March of 2011. And before that, I kind of did a few startups. And I’ll go back a little bit just to give you an idea. After I finished my PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in the U.S., I spent about eight years on DARPA funded research projects, and that is mostly working on high speed networking and basically security. So for DARPA project, you typically actually build a prototype, not like National Science Foundation kind of project where you write papers.So that eight years, I always think of it as a training for me. Once around Year 2000, that’s where we saw a few security startups, the early days of intrusion prevention or detection products, we realized that we have been doing much more advanced technology and building prototype under the DARPA project. We believed a much better technology and solution compared to some of the startups. So that’s where I started having the initial idea of maybe I should create a start up. Actually, it’s around that time that I got the first opportunity, first call to do a startup in Silicon Valley. So that’s when I moved and started my first company called IntruVert Networks. That is really an intrusion prevention product company.Followed by that company, we were basically acquired by McAfee. So we went to McAfee and I worked there for a few years to help integrate that product into McAfee portfolio. But then I went to start up my second one, that is, Bartel Networks, a next generation firewall, followed by also two years as a Chief Security Content Officer at FireEye.What I want to probably really point out, the main thing, I think, in this kind of past is always I tried to keep up with what the security threats are going, where it’s going, and how the IT infrastructure actually is evolving because a combination of those two really create or define new needs for tools for people to defend. So pretty much that’s kind of my career, how it has evolved, and even come into founding Cyphort is actually continuing on the same path and always trying to build the next best tool that IT people can use.Martin: Who are your customers?Fengmin: For us, the customer really includes all enterprise class companies. The product is helping them to really protect the threats that are either coming from the external coming to their network or some threat landed on their network, actually moving laterally inside the network. It’s not going to be industrial sector-specific because, as you know today, that kind of threat problem is applicable to every sector. It’s only mainly determined by how sophisticated and at what stage their enterprise actually understands the problem. So it’s across the industry sectors.Martin: Fengmin, do you only help identify the threat, or are you also helping mitigate the threat?Fengmin: Yes. That’s a very good question. We built a product to actually best support this new, I would call it, paradigm shift in terms of h ow do you deal with advanced threat. What we realized was really for enterprise, the bottleneck, if you will, in advanced threat defense is really with the ability to detect the threat reliably, cover all the vectors of potential threat propagation, and also provide a very actionable, relevant results for them to take action. So once we realized that is the main problem, the Cyphort product was built with the focus on accurate detection and covering all the bases, make sure that you detect them, and also with very reliable and very relevant data to the enterprise under protection.But today what we don’t do is we do not provide a firewall function for you to do an enforcement. The reason we didn’t position the product this way is we realized that most of the enterprise already have one form or another next generation firewall or some of the security web gateway and they already made an investment. They have that product deployed, and those products are not doing the best defense for the enterprise because they do not know what data to use to actually make a blocking, for example. So if someone tells them this is the kind of data you use to do that blocking, they can block it well. So we come in to fill that gap and we want to provide that detection data.Martin: So this means that your main focus is identification of the threat and then you push this kind of information or the result of it, who’s the threat and who is not to the firewall, who will then decide if this a threat according to Cyphort, you won’t allowed it in?Fengmin: Correct. Actually, that brings us to this second notion. We talked about this new paradigm shift, right? The notion people say is you have to continuously monitor all the possible vectors and then you try to determine what exactly happened, what’s relevant to your environment, at what stage the attack is going, and then with this very specific data, you want to turn it into actionable data. So what we end up doing is associate d with this notion is a notion of an ecosystem-based defense approach. So that’s when Cyphort detects something from Day 1, the product support is out of APIs. So it basically allows any other product to consume the results in a fashion that is readily implementable for blocking something.Martin: How do you define a threat? Is spam also included in the definition?Fengmin: We would not consider the typical email spam you think in the past where someone is mainly sending an email, a lot of message just to spread maybe some rumors, right? What we are focusing on is think of malware pieces, maybe a piece of code, compared to the old days of the virus. Now the advanced one that comes in not only have a lot of attack payload but also have a lot of capability to try to hide itself and also have a lot of network-based communication to go back to the server. So that’s where the malware is really the most lethal weapon, if you will, for the modern threat, right? So the malware is really t he focus, and then anything associated with that. So you mentioned the email. Although the spamming is not the focus, but email as a vector for the malware to get into the enterprise to infect someone’s machine. So we also cover the email. We make sure we are able to extract the files and then inspect them to actually detect them as well.Martin: You have two sides of the equation. You have, on one side, the attackers, and you have on the other side something like Cyphort who is defending the company. And there’s always this kind of competition. One time the attackers are in the frontline, and sometimes the defenders. How do you keep up with the speed that the attackers are developing? Because they are using different strategies. How do you keep up to date?Fengmin: Yes. It’s very interesting, and this is indeed a challenge for us. One of the fundamental components in our detection technology is, in addition to use… people are all aware of this notion of sandboxing. Sandboxing is really useful to be able to detonate or run a piece of code and, based on behavior, try to determine if it’s malicious or not. Now, just using the sandbox to detonate it may not allow you to adapt and to cope with the new ones, but that’s how the old generation of the product typically implements a set of specific rules or look for a pattern, if-then-else kind of pattern or heuristics try to then determine if a piece of code is malicious or not.But for Cyphort, one of the things from Day 1, we realize what we need to do is to marry this detonation behavior-based with machine learning. So the machine learning allows us to do two things. Number one is indeed even for a piece of malware, we’ve already seen it’s something that maybe just happened, but by looking at the behavior of that and relying on the machine learning model to train and then build a more sophisticated mathematical model to predict and to generalize into the class of malware that have a similar behavior bu t it’s not the same thing. So we are able to detect that. That gives us the ability to detect unknown or you can also refer to as a zero day from a malware perspective.Then the second thing that machine learning allows us to do is once we have this systematic architecture, then if we are able to continuously monitor, use additional means to collect new samples and to do the training periodically and then release the new model into the product, now we have a continuous learning and adaptation. So of course to complement and support the second part, what we have been able to do is, in addition to collaborating with a lot of other entities, the threat intelligence, companies and also community-based feed out there, we also have built what we refer to as a crawler infrastructure in Cyphort labs. What the crawler infrastructure allows us to do is to constantly go out, use our own hardware-based sandbox to go out to the wide internet and to get our sandbox infected. When that happens, a nd then we have the collection of new exploit pack and new samples, and that feeds into our machine learning, so that’s really at least a main part of our approach how to keep up.Martin: This is also where my question relates to. I totally understand if you have lots of users and you get lots of data that you can improve your machine learning algorithms for detecting those threats. But when you started out, you did not have that much of a customer behavior data. How did you convince the first customers to say, “Yes, I’ll go with Cyphort,” without you having that much data which machine learning algorithm you can apply to?Fengmin: Right. Of course, there are two parts to it. One part is indeed we need to leverage some existing collection of malware samples, and luckily with both some of the partners and also one of the well known ones that you’re probably aware of is Virus Total, and it probably has the largest collection of the malware samples. So by applying, using the ex isting samples, we are able to learn a model fairly recent. So that’s from the technical part. But then when it comes to engaging the customer, really I would say a few big steps that we have taken.Number one is indeed really be able to identify the key problem the customer is facing and also showing that we understand the customer’s problem, and also have a common understanding of the best approach to actually improve their defense.Once we have that conversation, then the next thing is we share how we build this product or the tool, how that tool would support this understanding of how to approach it.And once we have that, really the third step is basically almost all enterprise customers would require that we actually make the product available and for them to actually test drive it. So they would actually go through an evaluation on their network.Of course, in that process, we provide as much help to get them through the hurdle where they typically are always resource-limited , so we help them make it easy for them to install it on the live network and go through an evaluation period. So we are able to approach the customer that way, and we’re happy with what we have been able to do so far. Yes.Martin: Fengmin, how do you show the customer whether there is a malware? For example, if I’m looking at a company and the emails they are getting. And what I understood is that you are also scanning some kind of files, whether there’s malware included or not, for minimizing that the system is breached. How do you do this in minimal? Is it just that you have some kind of bar which says, “Okay, 95% chance there’s malware included,” or if there is a special threshold the email doesn’t go through? What’s the process?Fengmin: Yes. For us, actually in Cyphort product, we end up using multiple inspection message, we refer to. Because we realize for the modern attack, the malware, they can come in different ways and also they all have their sophisticated kind of evasive behavior in them. Some of them may evade a traditional virus scan, like a static analysis, right? You look at a code, how the code structure looks like, and then the behavior based on when some of them actually are able to detect if they are being watched in a sandbox, they may stop running. So what we end up doing is once we realize this, then whenever we get a piece of code that we feel this unknown, they could be a malware-carrying file, then we actually go through both static analysis, looking for known patterns, and also we have repetition data referenced to Virus Total, in addition to our own more kind of sophisticated static analysis and behavior. So in this case, what it means is when we decide if something is really bad, indeed there is typically a kind of a range of behavior, and you can almost think there is a threshold.Today what we have done is intentionally not expose that kind of slider to the customer but we are able to take into account of this multi ple methods of inspection, then we look at those information together. So for the machine learning, indeed we actually come up with the behavioral-based score. They range basically, let’s say, from a 0 to 100, that kind of scale. And we choose a threshold based on our training and also we in the future can allow customers to set based on how aggressive they are.But the interesting thing, it’s helpful when we use both Virus Total and static multiple kind of method is if something is already known…because you expect, right? They don’t always use something totally new. There are a lot of them that use some existing things. So that’s the benefit of the product. If they use something that is not new, then additional methods, including the Virus Total, actually give us a context, and in that case, it’s fairly black and white. And we can even tell them what are the other products already, be this bad or the same thing, and then what the names they are referring them to. And the n we can basically compare that with what our machine learning is telling us. So they both help us to improve the machine learning. At the same time, we can tell the customer if something is already known, potentially how long ago they have been out there versus all the way to something really new. So that way, the customer, based on how aggressive they want to respond to it, they could choose different path towards it.BUSINESS MODEL OF CYPHORTMartin: Fengmin, let’s talk about the business model of Cyphort. How are you making money with it? Is it a SaaS model or is it something like an installment fee?Fengmin: Yes. That’s a very good question because we always have to make money. So in this particular case, the current model is we choose a software of virtual appliance-based delivery model but it’s subscription-based. So we have seen a lot of customers. The subscription-based one gives them some flexibility, at the same time gives them more like a steady kind of cadence for th em to make the budget decisions. So the thing really, so far it worked the best for us, is really the software-based delivery along with support for virtualized environment. And in this case, we can be deployed both on premise and also when they choose to, like we have customers where already most of their computing have gone to AWS, and so in that case, they can actually deploy our product in the AWS environment as well.The way the product is designed, because it’s API-based and software-based delivery, it allows it to be easily deployed and also provides a service in a SaaS model. So we are actually right now working on that based mainly on the customer demand because in the initial set of customers, we’ve definitely seen more customers want to have products deployed on premise because there is still some concern about their data going out of their network.Martin: Are you somehow differentiating the SaaS products maybe based on volume or based on number of employees of the cus tomer or some other metric?Fengmin: Oh, the pricing model you are referring to? Yes. Right now, actually we have a pretty much unified pricing model that is based on the protected bandwidth.Martin: What’s that?Fengmin: So the notion is let’s say you may have multiple links, network action links you have to watch. So on that link, you know what the typical amount of traffic is going through it, so then you purchase our product based on that expected amount of data that we have to inspect and then detect and then protect. So actually that’s also one thing that we have got very positive customer feedback. What ends up happening is let’s say you purchase five gigabits worth of the traffic and then the Cyphort product does not limit the customer how many links that you are monitoring, maybe how many servers you deploy to monitor this link. So for them, that is very flexible because you may have multiple offices and distributed across the globe and then you don’t have different pricing models. It’s the total amount of protected link bandwidth.Martin: Fengmin, how did you acquire the first customers, and did any of the process for customer acquisition change over time?Fengmin: Yes, and that’s a very good question. The initial customer is really based on some of the connections, in this case, both the connection, let’s say, with the executive team and also the connection, for example, with our venture capital funding partner. That is very typical practice. It’s more about initially with the connection we have someone that is willing and open their ears to listen to us, and that is very important. But then quickly as the time goes, today we have a lot of customers, now they’re already coming through a very typical funnel. You think of that process from you have mind share and you have lead generation. So that means now it becomes at scale operation because those customers, because they know they have heard about Cyphort and they have a problem, then they see Cyphort as a potential contender for that, then that’s how value comes in. Today our customers, both from that kind of normal channel, at the same time they become much larger customers compared to the early set.Martin: Sure. Is it mainly driven currently by inbound marketing, or is it also that you have a direct sales force which goes out to meet potential clients and then tries to acquire them?Fengmin: Yes. We actually have. Cyphort has, I think, maybe a very interesting, very initial result. We were so happy we were doing so well. As you imagine, most of the enterprise company products, you always rely initially on a direct sales force to go after the account. But then for Cyphort, as actually even early this year, we already have several dozen partners.Martin: Distribution partners?Fengmin: Correct, and these are the ones… So it’s very rare in even my past several companies. At this early stage, we have so many partners and signed with us, and actually today we d efinitely have over 50% of our deals directly coming through the partner source versus our direct sales.Martin: And can you describe this kind of partners? Are they more some kind of antivirus or firewall programs, or are they consulting companies, or what type of companies?Fengmin: Yes. Actually, one example I would mention is this company called Optiv. They used to be there were two companies. One is called FishNet. The other one is called Accuvant. These are the companies that they have their own labs. They also have their own, of course, sales engineer and the whole workforce from the marketing all the way to product. So they typically help the customer define a set of solutions for their security protection needs. So these are really major players, and they help both for getting the customer and also, of course, some of the training and support, installation also are coming from them. So those two companies actually, a few months ago, they merged and they became Optiv. And we a re one of the very select few small set of partners that they have.Martin: Over the last four years, what have been the major obstacles while building and growing Cyphort? How did you manage those obstacles?Fengmin: I think for us, the main things are all related to scaling up the sales, and this is where, of course, one of the things that we learned is, for instance, the kind of product. We are indeed an advanced threat defense product, so if you compare it to the old generation of some of the security products, they are more complex, and that means going to the enterprise, there are more dependencies with other product and also there is the education of the customer aspect. So we have basically at the same time not only helped to educate the customer for their adoption of the newer approach, the better approach for defense, at the same time to basically improve the product because you always scale from smaller customer in the key features then to more mature at scale features and for what we refer to as enterprise readiness. It’s really talking about more deployment scenarios and more other products to integrate with and also to account for different kinds of IT configuration. So most of our work has been along these lines, along with scaling up the sales force. That’s the main challenge in the last few months.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM FENGMIN GONGMartin: We always tried to help first time entrepreneurs make less errors. What type of lessons have you learned over the last 10 years maybe, and some kind of lessons that you can share with the audience?Fengmin: Yes. A few things definitely, I think, that come off the top of my head and I’ve seen more entrepreneurs still having this issue.Number one, I would say, and also coming from a technical background myself is really for them to avoid falling in love with their technology, and they always think of their technology as the best, can solve everything. So that is where they tend to forget about the cus tomer side because oftentimes you have to have a direct connection to the customer pain and the problem. So that is one thing that happens a lot with entrepreneurs.And of course, the next one is more related to the product ease of use, ease of deployment. And for people with an engineering or technology background, they always think, “This is so easy for me,” but then you have to basically to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. In that case, maybe it’s not that easy. You have to make it easier for the customer.And then the third one, I would say, it happens a lot with first time entrepreneurs is they always are eager to present a big solution. So I refer to it as maybe the tendency to boil the ocean, where if indeed you have a good idea, you should solve the most urgent problem with that one or two features and you should show customer traction, and then you can move on. So that is a mistake they make, oftentimes also would give, for example, the venture capitalist the imp ression that they really don’t understand. They lack the focus. So those are some of the main things.Of course, when it comes to the team and then culture, there are some things, I feel, it’s also very important because being a startup company in general, to maintain a very innovative culture is probably the utmost for the team efficiency and everything else. So that’s sometimes the founders, and they have to balance it out. When you look for people with big company experience, hopefully they leave most of the big company operation culture behind, right? That will be one interesting thing to watch out for.Martin: And how do you check whether somebody is fitting into a startup based on the innovative culture?Fengmin: I think this is where… For instance, one example is certain developers or technical people, they are very strong but then maybe their thinking always says, “You give me as specific a task as possible for me to perform, then I just deliver to that,” versus som eone says, “I just want to understand what we are trying to build. What is this supposed to do?” And that’s what we call the objective, and then they actually can think about the best way to do it, versus you have everything specked out, exactly you implement this way and that way. So that will be very fundamental. Some people are very comfortable in working in one mode versus the other. And for startup, typically you would want to look for people who have a little experience and also willing, open to share and not to hesitate to say, “This is a better way to do it.” That will be a good way to look at people.Martin: Fengmin, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your knowledge.Fengmin: Thank you. It’s my pleasure.Martin: And next time if you are having a really big website and you are thinking about threats that are maybe coming at your company, just look at Cyphort. Maybe this is a good solution for protecting your website.Fengmin: Thank you.Martin: Welcome.Fe ngmin: My pleasure to share the thoughts.Martin: Thanks.

Crime Analysis Technology - Free Essay Example

HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED IN CRIME ANALYSIS CJ 216 Highfill, Lucrissa 9/7/2010 Leave this page blank The first step in the crime analysis process is the collection of data; this step is closely connected to data storage. As noted above, this step occurs outside the direct control of the crime analysis function. In most police agencies, officers and/or civilian employees enter crime reports and other data into a computer system. Officers may write reports in longhand that are then entered into the computer system by data entry clerks, officers may input incident reports directly into a computer system, or police dispatchers may write reports directly into the computer system. The policies dictating data entry procedures, as well as the care taken by the individuals who execute the procedures, are crucial to crime analysis because they affect both the quantity and the quality of the data and subsequent analysis. Some of the data collected in police departments are not relevant for crim e analysis, so subsets of information are compiled for analysis purposes. For example, police officers draw diagrams of car accidents for purposes of insurance claims and other legal concerns. Crime analysts are generally not concerned with the exact circumstances of each car accident; rather, they are concerned with compiling data on the dates, times, locations, and nature of all accidents, as this information can help them to understand this type of activity more generally. In addition, the manner in which data are stored and the amount of data stored are important in crime analysis. Data must be in an electronic format, collected regularly (e. . , on a daily or weekly basis), and collected for a significant amount of time to be useful for crime analysis. Paper copies of reports and other information are not useful to crime analysts because data in this form are too time-consuming and cumbersome to analyze. Information has to be coded into an electronic database to be useful fo r crime analysis. The time that elapses between the observation, or data collection, and the availability of data needs to be reasonably short if the data are to be useful for crime analysis. For example, electronic crime report data that are not available until 6 months after reports are written are not useful. The amount of data stored also needs to be adequate (e. g. , multiple years) for crime analysts to have enough information to conduct satisfactory analyses. For example, 2 months’ worth of data cannot provide a comprehensive picture of a burglary problem. Finally, it is also important for crime analysts to have access to raw data. Many police computer systems only allow retrieval of individual records and/or the creation of statistical reports on paper. Crime analysts must be able to download electronic data into myriad software programs to conduct analyses using the various techniques discussed in this book. To summarize, the crime analysis data collection proc ess requires the following: 1. The data must be collected accurately and consistently. 2. Only data appropriate for crime analysis should be compiled (i. e. , some characteristics important to crime analysis may not be collected because they are not relevant for official or legal purposes). 3. The data must be collected in a timely manner (e. g. , not 6 months after the observations). 4. The data must be stored for an adequate amount of time to allow for satisfactory analysis. 5. The data must be accessible in raw form to be queried and downloaded. Crime analysis is the systematic study of crime and disorder problems as well as other police-related issues—including sociodemographic, spatial, and temporal factors—to assist the police in criminal apprehension, crime and disorder reduction, crime prevention, and evaluation. Crime analysis is not haphazard or anecdotal; rather, it involves the application of data collection procedures, analytic methods, and statistica l techniques. ? Crime analysis entails more than the study of criminal incidents; it includes the examination of other information that is of concern to police, including disorder activity and police operational information. Temporal, spatial (crime mapping), and sociodemographic factors are key areas of focus in crime analysts’ examinations of crime, disorder, and other police-related issues. The goals of crime analysis are to assist police in criminal apprehension, crime and disorder reduction, crime prevention, and evaluation. The crime analysis process—that is, the general way in which crime analysis is practiced—includes the steps of data collection, data collation, analysis, dissemination of results, and the receipt of feedback from users of the information. The data modification sub cycle is a sub process within the crime analysis process in which the analyst makes changes in data collection and collation procedures based on insights gained during the analysis. The term crime analysis refers to a general concept and to a discipline practiced in the policing community. The five major types of crime analysis— intelligence analysis, criminal investigative analysis, tactical crime analysis, strategic crime analysis, and administrative crime analysis—differ from one another in purpose, scope, data, and analysis techniques. Tactical crime analysis is the study of recent criminal incidents and potential criminal activity through the examination of characteristics such as how, when, and where the activity has occurred to assist in pattern development, investigative lead and suspect identification, and case clearance. ? Strategic crime analysis is the study of crime problems and other police related issues to determine long-term patterns of activity as well as to evaluate police responses and organizational procedures. Administrative crime analysis is the presentation of interesting findings of crime research and a nalysis based on legal, political, and practical concerns to inform audiences within police administration, city government/council, and citizens.