As chief scientist of the IBM Entity Analytics group and an IBM Distinguished Engineer, Jeff has been instrumental in driving the development of some ground-breaking technologies, during and prior to IBM's acquisition of his company, Systems Research & Development (SRD), which Jonas founded in 1984.
Jeff Jonas sat down last evening with Scott and I in the Information On Demand 2012 Solutions EXPO to chat about privacy in the big-data age, and also gave a sneak look into the new "Context Accumulation" technology he's been working on.
SRD's technology included technology used by the surveillance intelligence arm of the gaming industry, and leveraged facial recognition to protect casinos from aggressive card counting teams (never mind the great irony that IBM's Yuchun Lee was once upon a time one of those card counters -- I think we need to have an onstage interview between those two someday, and I volunteer to conduct it!).
Today, possibly half the casinos in the world use technology created by Jonas and his SRD team, work frequently featured on the Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, and the Travel Channel.
Following an investment in 2001 by In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, SRD also played a role in America's national security and counterterrorism mission. One such contribution includes a unique analysis of the connections between the 9/11 terrorists.
This "link analysis" is so unique that it is taught in universities and has been the widely cited by think tanks and the media, including an extensive one-on-one interview with Peter Jennings for ABC PrimeTime.
Following IBM's acquisition of SRD, these Jonas-inspired innovations continue to create big impacts on society, including the arrest of over 150 child pornographers and the prevention of a national security risk posed against a significant American sporting event.
This technology also assisted in the reunification of over 100 loved ones separated by Hurricane Katrina and at the same time was used to prevent known sexual offenders from being co-located with children in emergency relocation facilities.
Jonas is also somewhat unique as a technologist in that he frequently engages with those in the privacy and civil liberties community. The essential question: How can government protect its citizens while preventing the erosion of long-held freedoms like the Fourth Amendment? With privacy in mind, Jonas invented software that enables organizations to discover records of common interest (e.g., identities) without the transfer of any privacy-invading content.
That's about where we start this interview with Jeff Jonas, so I'll let Scott and myself take it from there...
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The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
So here we are, the last day of the 2013 US Open Golf Championship at Merion, and Phil Mickelson -- who has been a US Open runner-up five times now but never taken the trophy -- is right up there at the top of the leaderboard.
The last time I saw Monaco, I was heading from Milan to Nice in a car-full of IBM colleagues with whom I was on a two-week long business trip throughout Europe.
ITRC found that more than 600 security breaches took place in 2012. Flaws were found in some of the nation's most respected companies: Apple, Citibank, and Wells Fargo. So, it seems the bad guys are doing better than the men in the white hats.
Sean Smith, a US Foreign Service IT manager, gave his life in service of his country and the world. His life and death are a humbling example for all of us who work in IT.
The plan for unmanned police drones to patrol traffic and other city conditions in Seattle has sparked a new set of legal concerns about privacy. Law traditionally lags technology, but we can expect now to see a new round of activity in the courts as legal definitions begin to emerge on what "next-gen privacy" will look like.
US counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke, who came to prominence with his prescient warnings before the 9/11 attacks, tells Smithsonian Magazine the US was responsible for the Stuxnet supersmart worm that attacked parts of nuclear reactors in Iran – and in the process, has given away one of the world's most sophisticated cyberweapons.
Companies are still getting their feet wet with social networking and what employees should and shouldn't broadcast. But they don't always involve HR and PR. Here's why they should, and what they risk when they don't.
As companies begin to embed real-time business analytics and business intelligence in their operations, they'll need more than 24/7 availability. Companies will also need to include BA and BI in their disaster recovery plans.
Ontario's information privacy commissioner explains the unintended consequences of facial recognition technology and how biometric encryption can make it safer.
With more and more executives relying on mobile devices to complete their work, mobile device management has become as popular as traditional IT management solutions.
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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