I read the article shared below by +Nikolaos Bogioglou and it really got me thinking.
The internet's new secret social codes
If Google is leaning towards semantic search, as they are, how can they ever hope to conquer that beast if people are going to start using code to bury meaning within the context or syntax of their word selection?
Granted these coded messages are out there and they are fewer and far between but just food for thought.
Semantic search is hard enough as it is and I won't bother to explain that to you today, read David's new book which is available from amazon Google: Semantic Search.
Semantic Search in a Nutshell
To summarize briefly it's how amazon knows what books you might like based on your previous purchases, or how Google can recommend certain products, destinations, or articles based on your previous searches. Everything is data, every search, every message, every post. EVERYTHING.
Google knows this and uses it. That's what this social layer is so important to them. Now they can know what we like, what we eat, what we drink, where we go, who we talk to...and the opposite is also true, what we don't like, who we don't talk to, where we won't go...All that corresponding data is information to them as well.
There are so many signs, signals and noise that float through these networks and layers that to decipher it seems almost impossible. In some cases, like the article discusses it very well may be.
How Not to Encrypt a Message Today
So back in the day a story goes that a man shaved the head of one of his slaves, tattooed his message on the slaves head, let the slaves hair grow back and then sent him on his way. That's a type of encoding. No one could read the message that lay buried beneath the slaves hair. Did it work? I am sure many a time it did, I am also sure that at some point people got wise which meant a new way had to be created to mask, hide, conceal or encode the real meaning in a message.
Today users can speak volumes right in the open while concealing their actual meaning within the words chosen. Only a select few would ever know the true meaning. If and only if the sender had included them in their inner circle, given them the encryption key and from there, the message could be shared, interpreted and understood. Right in the light of day, in front of the world in a totally concealed way.
Reading Between the Lines
This evokes many thoughts in my brain. I think to the Mob in this country knowing their phones are wire tapped and using code to get around the feds while talking on watched lines. It reminds me of how Pablo Escobar used different terms to mean different things that only his crew knew the real translation. A certain movie meant a time or a certain time really mean a date.
People have been coding messages for eons but now our messages are traded in real time every second. How can Google expect to read between the lines? Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Google has trouble deciphering many of our true worded sentiments. Again though, what happens if kids start creating codes to get around their parents infringing on their social networks? What can a search engine do to then figure out what is actually being said??? Not a whole lot, unless they have every key to every private conversation which they of course do not.
Why a message might mean more than what's Written
It's like 2 kids create a code that says any post I write that says: I'll see you at 7 and plan on being home by around 9 maybe a little after, could mean: I will see you at 10pm and plan on being home a little after midnight. Totally innocuous and innocent as far a parent is concerned. Their kid will be home by 9. They would have no idea that their kid is actually sneaking out of the house and blowing curfew.
No one is the wiser, and this is a very innocent example. There are formulas that could be shared, trade secrets, sensitive intelligence info, secret dates of events...I love espionage books and this is the fodder for many a book I have read...The possibilities to create coded languages are why we have such sophisticated encryption techniques...to encrypt the very message we want shared...However, in order to read an encrypted message one must have the code, the key, the legend to the map to decipher it's meaning.
I am sure we have all messed w/coded messages just like Ralphy and his Ovaltine prize ring from A Christmas Story. It's a secret code that only those people participating in the dialogue know about.
Syntax Changes Everything
Back to the top, if people can't gather the meaning from the written word, how can a machine? I know that 98% of the messages sent are to be used as is...That's why semantic search is so powerful and going to change the way we all use the web. That's not what I am debating. I am merely posing another view point that might give semantic search a little more to chew on before it spits out it's result.
I see signs all day long and G+ leads me through doors I never thought to walk through but this article just got me thinking about how I interpret all those signs and when signs get lumped together if they are mixed up then the wrong message gets delivered. Or maybe it's the right message and we just don't know it...
Semiotics: the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy,metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
Symantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or meaning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax
Michlin Metals Inc is A Woman Owned Small Business Aerospace Metal and Stainless Steel Distributor. Follow Michlin on Twitter @MichlinMetals, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or on the Web at www.michlinmetals.com. More on the author on Google+.
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