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Big Data and Bayes Theorem: How ‘Big Data” is an inescapable force that is shaping the future

Link to the article: http://www.thenational.ae/uae/technology/how-big-data-is-an-inescapable-force-that-is-shaping-the-future

The article starts of by talking about the process of securing a loan. Nowadays, applications and approvals are all done online. Computers now have been trained to accept or reject application based on certain input criteria say, for example, loans. In this case, the computer tracked how long it took for you to read the terms and conditions. You may have very well payed off all your previous loans and reported an honest income level along with having a good credit score. However, they have started to reject loans based on whether you have taken the time to smell the roses, in this case, read the terms and conditions to prevent default and financial risk.

In fact, the GCC Big Data Summit, which opened on March 8th, 2015, in Dubai, addressed these kinds of issues. In fact, there are big ‘Big Data’ initiatives being approved by the Sheiks in the UAE at the moment. Big names at this summit involved national banks of that region such as Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, as well as IBM and Microsoft. There is also an initiative to apply Big Data to oil, as that is a huge industry in the Middle east, in order to boost revenue and customer satisfaction.

Naturally one of the biggest arguments against Big Data technology is the lack of privacy. What is the government willing to compromise on in return for your data?? Obviously there will be routine announcements that your data is not compromised and is secure, however, that is getting hard to believe with big data tracking information from different sites and storing it all together in one. Essentially is is making a completed puzzle from pieces located all over social media sites and other internet locations.

In fact, January’s issue of Science just gave evidence of this based on credit card information of over a million shoppers! What they found was that 90% of shoppers could be identified solely based on just a few indicators such as the location and date of a few random purchases. This can also be done with taxi receipts. It is kind of scary to imagine if criminals and even kidnapers had this kind of data because theft at all levels can occur.

Then the question become: is big data worth the cons? Are the threats of this kind of technology outweighing the benefits?

However, this article mentions that although Big Data is one of the most powerful weapons emerging from the 21st century, so is Bayes’ theorem. Bayes’ theorem was created about 250 years ago by a priest dabbling in statistics. It was popularized by Alan Turing when he famously broke the Nazi German code during WWII and was styled as the man that won the war. Just imagine using Bayes Theorem and Big data together to stop hackers, fraudsters, and other criminals o the internet! However, the main issue that Bayes is trying to accomplish is trying to turn data into insight. How can we improve and update our existing beliefs with new and insightful data?

Essentially, Alan Turing used Bayes Theorem to transform Big Data that was collected in the form of signals that were intercepted from the German, into ways that the cipher machines were set up.

The article then states that “Now growing numbers of cyber security companies are combining this strategy with Bayes’ theorem to give them a decisive edge in the war against hackers.” It is great to know that we are also leveraging networks and big data to protect ourselves because now everything is online!

 

 

 

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