Out-of-band control is a method used by network protocols for sending control information (commands, logins, or session signals) separately from the main data, improving reliability and preventing interference. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) employs an out-of-band approach, using one connection for control commands, like logging in or requesting files, and a separate connection for transferring the files themselves.
Parkerian Hexad
The Parkerian Hexad is a set of six elements of information security proposed by Donn B. Parker in 1998. The Parkerian Hexad adds three additional attributes to the three classic security attributes of the CIA triad (confidentiality, integrity, availability). The Parkerian Hexad attributes are the following: Confidentiality Possession or Control Integrity Authenticity Availability Utility These attributes of information are atomic in that they are not broken down into further constituents; they are non-overlapping in that they refer to unique aspects of information. Any information security breach can be described as affecting one or more of these fundamental attributes of information. == Attributes from the CIA triad == === Confidentiality === Confidentiality refers to the "quality or state of being private or secret; known only to a limited few", or "the property that information is not made available or disclosed to unauthorized individuals, entities, or processes". For example: If an enterprise's strategic plans are leaked to competitors then this is a breach of confidentiality; If unauthorized persons gain access to an individual's financial records then that individual's confidentiality is breached. === Integrity === Integrity refers to being correct or consistent with the intended state of information. Any unauthorized modification of data, whether deliberate or accidental, is a breach of data integrity. For example: Data stored on disk are expected to be stable. If the data is changed at random by problems with a disk controller then this is a breach of integrity; Data generated by a medical device is transmitted and stored in the healthcare center but neither altered nor tampered with; Application programs are supposed to record information correctly. If the application introduces deviations from the intended values then this is a breach of integrity. "From Donn Parker: My definition of information integrity comes from the dictionaries. Integrity means that the information is whole, sound, and unimpaired (not necessarily correct). It means nothing is missing from the information it is complete and in intended good order". === Availability === Availability means having timely access to information. For example: A disk crash or denial-of-service attacks both cause a breach of availability. Any delay in response of a system that exceeds the expected service levels for that system can be described as a breach of availability. GPS jamming can lead to loss of Availability of the GPS system. == Parker's added attributes == === Authenticity === Authenticity is the "quality of being authentic or of established authority for truth and correctness". Parker defines it thus: "is the information genuine and accurate? Does it conform to reality and have validity?" and "authoritative, valid, true, real, genuine, or worthy of acceptance or belief by reason of conformity to fact and reality". === Possession or control === Possession or control refers to the loss of data by the authorized user (even if the ʺthiefʺ cannot access the data). From a control systems perspective, it is any loss of control (the ability to change settings and functions) or loss of view (the ability to monitor the system’s operation and its response to controls). Suppose a thief were to steal a sealed envelope containing a bank debit card and its personal identification number. Even if the thief did not open that envelope, it's reasonable for the victim to be concerned that the thief could do so at any time. That situation illustrates a loss of control or possession of information but does not involve the breach of confidentiality. === Utility === Utility refers to the data's usefulness. For example: Suppose someone encrypted data on disk to prevent unauthorized access or undetected modifications–and then lost the decryption key: that would be a breach of utility. The data would be confidential, controlled, integral, authentic, and available–they just wouldn't be useful in that form. The conversion of salary data from one currency into an inappropriate currency would be a breach of utility, as would the storage of data in a format inappropriate for a specific computer architecture; e.g., EBCDIC instead of ASCII or 9-track magnetic tape instead of DVD-ROM. A tabular representation of data substituted for a graph could be described as a breach of utility if the substitution made it more difficult to interpret the data. Utility is often confused with availability because breaches such as those described in these examples may also require time to work around the change in data format or presentation. However, the concept of usefulness is distinct from that of availability.
Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response
Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response (AIDR) is a free and open source platform to filter and classify social media messages related to emergencies, disasters, and humanitarian crises. It has been developed by the Qatar Computing Research Institute and awarded the Grand Prize for the 2015 Open Source Software World Challenge. Muhammad Imran stated that he and his team "have developed novel computational techniques and technologies, which can help gain insightful and actionable information from online sources to enable rapid decision-making" - according to him the system "combines human intelligence with machine learning techniques, to solve many real-world challenges during mass emergencies and health issues". == How to use == It can be used by logging in with ones Twitter credentials and by collecting tweets by specifying keywords or hashtags, like #ChileEarthquake, and possibly a geographical region as well. == Use == It has been deployed in conjunction with UNICEF in Zambia to classify short messages related to AIDS/HIV received through the U-Report platform. AIDR was used for the first time during the 2010 Pakistan floods. The first real test of AIDR took place during the 2014 Iquique earthquake in Chile. == Related talks and events == Muhammad Imran delivered a keynote talk on the science behind the AIDR system at the International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (ISCRAM). Abdelkader Lattab and Ji Lucas also presented the system at the 2016 QCRI-IBM Data Science Connect event.
Awwwards
Awwwards (Awwwards Online SL) is an organization that hosts web design competitions and conferences across Europe and the United States. Website owners and developers can participate by submitting their websites for review. Submissions are assessed by a jury, and top entries are presented and awarded prizes on a rotational basis. == Nomination process == Web designers submit their websites through Awwwards' platform for consideration for the Site of the Day. A jury, composed of industry professionals, and the Awwwards community evaluate the entries. The best daily sites are published annually in "The 365 Best Websites Around the World" book. == Jury == The jury consists of international designers, developers, and agencies who assess the creativity, technical skills, and insight of the submitted web projects. The panel's expertise ensures a comprehensive review process. === Developer Award === Awwwards, in partnership with Microsoft, created the Developer Award to recognize web developers who demonstrate excellence in creating websites that meet modern standards. The award highlights websites that work seamlessly across various platforms and devices, using best practices in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. == Annual winners == Some prominent Site of the Year winners include Mercedes-Benz, Bloomberg L.P., Bose Corporation, Warner Brothers, Volkswagen, Uber, and Google. == Awwwards conference == Awwwards also organizes two-day conferences featuring speakers from major tech companies and industry leaders such as Microsoft, Google, Spotify, Adobe, Opera, and Smashing Magazine. These events focus on the latest trends in web design and development. Speakers at Awwwards conferences have included notable figures in the design and technology industry such as Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, and design leaders from companies including Wix. == Corporate affairs == === Platform === Awwwards operates an online platform where web designers and developers submit websites for evaluation and awards. Submitted projects are reviewed by a jury based on design, usability, creativity, and content. The platform also serves as a community hub for discovering digital trends, showcasing work, and accessing educational resources including talks and interviews. Design professionals from international companies have participated in Awwwards events and platform content. For example, Wix, a cloud-based web development company known for its website builder tools, has featured prominently in Awwwards conferences, with its design leadership contributing to discussions on design trends and creative thinking.
Information element
An information element, sometimes informally referred to as a field, is an item in Q.931 and Q.2931 messages, IEEE 802.11 management frames, and cellular network messages sent between a base transceiver station and a mobile phone or similar piece of user equipment. An information element is often a type–length–value item, containing 1) a type (which corresponds to the label of a field), a length indicator, and a value, although any combination of one or more of those parts is possible. A single message may contain multiple information elements. The abbreviation IE is found in many technical specification documents from 3GPP. It is not uncommon for a single specification document to contain thousands of references to IEs.
SmarterChild
SmarterChild was a chatbot available on AOL Instant Messenger and Windows Live Messenger (previously MSN Messenger) networks. == History == SmarterChild was an apparently intelligent agent or "bot" developed by ActiveBuddy, Inc., with offices in New York and Sunnyvale. It was widely distributed across global instant messaging networks. SmarterChild became very popular, attracting over 30 million Instant Messenger "buddies" on AIM (AOL), MSN and Yahoo Messenger over the course of its lifetime. Founded in 2000, ActiveBuddy was the brainchild of Robert Hoffer and Timothy Kay, who later brought seasoned advertising executive Peter Levitan on board as CEO. The concept for conversational instant messaging bots came from the founder's vision to add natural language comprehension functionality to the increasingly popular AIM instant messaging application. The original implementation took shape as a demo that Kay programmed in Perl in his Los Altos garage to connect a single buddy name, "ActiveBuddy", to look up stock symbols, and later allow AIM users to play Colossal Cave Adventure, a word-based adventure game, and MIT's Boris Katz Start Question Answering System but quickly grew to include a wide range of database applications the company called 'knowledge domains' including instant access to news, weather, stock information, movie times, yellow pages listings, and detailed sports data, as well as a variety of tools (personal assistant, calculators, translator, etc.). None of the individual domains which the company had named “stocksBuddy”, “sportsBuddy”, etc. ever launched publicly. When Stephen Klein came on board as COO — and eventually CEO — he insisted that all of the disparate test “buddies” be launched together with the company’s highly-developed colloquial chat domain. He suggested using “SmarterChild”, a username coined by Tim Kay which Tim was using to test various things. The bundled domains were launched publicly as SmarterChild (on AIM initially) in June 2001. SmarterChild provided information wrapped in fun and quirky conversation. The company generated no revenue from SmarterChild, but used it as a demonstration of the power of what Klein called “conversational computing”. The company subsequently marketed Automated Service Agents—delivering immediate answers to customer service inquiries—-to large corporations, like Comcast, Cingular, TimeWarner Cable, etc. SmarterChild's popularity spawned targeted marketing-oriented bots for Radiohead, Austin Powers, Intel, Keebler, The Sporting News and others. ActiveBuddy co-founders, Kay and Hoffer, as co-inventors, were issued two controversial U.S. patents in 2002. ActiveBuddy changed its name to Colloquis (briefly Conversagent) and targeted development of consumer-facing enterprise customer service agents, which the company marketed as Automated Service Agents. Microsoft acquired Colloquis in October 2006 and proceeded to de-commission SmarterChild and kill off the Automated Service Agent business as well. Robert Hoffer, ActiveBuddy co-founder, licensed the technology from Microsoft after Microsoft abandoned the Colloquis technology.
Acquisition of DirecTV by AT&T
AT&T Inc. announced an agreement with the DirecTV Group on May 18, 2014, to acquire the company for $48.5 billion in a joint cash-stock transaction and assumed debts of $18.6 billion for a total offer of $67.1 billion. Due to stalling growth in the wireless sector, AT&T began diversifying into mass media to expand its consumer offerings. After regulatory agencies approved the purchase on July 24, 2015, AT&T briefly became the largest Pay-TV provider. DirecTV was brought under AT&T's communication segment and DirecTV Now was launched on November 30, 2016, as an alternative to cord-cutting. In the years following the purchase, DirecTV lost millions of subscribers across its satellite and streaming services and by 2019, calls grew for AT&T to divest itself off the business. Initially, AT&T rejected these calls and defended the acquisition, but by February 2021, it reached a deal with TPG Inc. to transfer ownership of DirecTV. Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T would retain a 70% majority stake in DirecTV but would no longer oversee its daily operations. The deal was finalized by August 2, 2021, with AT&T receiving $7.1 billion. By July 3, 2025, AT&T sold its majority stake to TPG, ending any ties of involvement. == Background and Development == === AT&T's history === The company to bear the name "AT&T" was founded on March 3, 1885, as American Telephone and Telegraph Company (or AT&T Corporation) by Theodore Newton Vail as a long-distance subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company. By December 1899, the Bell Telephone's assets were transferred to AT&T, with the latter gaining control of the Bell System, a regional network of local telecom companies. Theodore Vail became AT&T's President in 1907 and under his leadership, AT&T gained a monopoly over the telephone sector in the United States. This near century dominance earned AT&T the nickname of "Ma Bell." In 1974, the U.S. Department of Justice sued AT&T on accounts of antitrust violations. AT&T challenged the lawsuit, but in 1982, it reached a settlement with the DOJ to break apart its Bell System monopoly into seven regional companies. On January 1, 1984, the Bell System came to an end and led to a reshaped telecom industry. One of these regional companies, Southwestern Bell, emerged as the smallest, but after the passage of the 1996 Telecom Act, deregulated telecom rules allowed SBC to become a major telecom company. AT&T briefly became the largest cable and broadband company by the end of the 20th Century, but later deconsolidated to exit those industries. In 2005, SBC acquired its former parent, AT&T, and took on its branding as AT&T Inc, while retaining its previous business history. The newly reincorporated AT&T acquired BellSouth in 2006 and reconstituted much of its former Bell System. === DirecTV's history === == Acquisition Timeline == == Managing DirecTV == == Divestment and Spinoff ==