Asia dismantles 20,000 malicious domains in infostealer crackdown
Interpol coordinates operation, nabs 32 across Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Nauru
Cyber-crime
11 Jun 2025 | 4
Everything that is wrong with big data
Rather bland, too. To bring insights to this, you need a clue these slick salespeople don't want you to have. To wit: Nevermind that DNA analysis isn't quite what it's made out to be (there's irony for you), this simply says "gotta collect all the data!" meaning selling you more storage. No wonder you hear "go talk to your local storage dealer". But really, you don't need all that.
For verily, suppose you did all you got told to do, and you hired lots of spendy analysts and they crunched and crunched... would you know what to do with the outcomes?
Of course not. The problem with this sort of approach is that you haven't a clue what you're looking for. And to do that, you need to sit back and look at your own processes, and very carefully list all the things you could know but don't know yet that could help you improve. Then you can try and find the data that could support you, and then you turn it into information. Maybe you find other things that could help you instead, or in addition. But that's not the point. Just data alone doesn't do it; to become information it needs context, a use, an interpretation.
Also note how these industry people are treating regulations entirely as nuisances. That's being completely amoral with big data. Now I'll be the first to admit that current privacy regulations are much like the cookie laws: Well-meaning but wrong-headed, not scalable, useless, and in the long term untenable.
But that doesn't excuse treating the problems they're trying to address like shit. This is a new field that's unlocking such vast power that we can no longer afford to go the "because we can" route; that way lies ruin.
Thus we have another clear reason, indeed a clear need, telling us to conciously decide what we want out of that vast power and also what we don't want. We cannot afford to do like them: Treating that too as something sticky under our bootsoles. These people are not helping, but just talking sales, sales, sales. We can no longer afford to listen to such cheap talk. We must learn to choose.
Big data "sec" gives nothing, but costs a lot. Turning data into information requires we have some sort of goal, and merely costs searching for possible ways to reach that goal. Making use of the information requires that you know what to do with it.
Thus we can conclude that most of the people in the article are talking smack, because they would have you go about big data the wrong way around. Worse, the picture they're painting is one that will ultimately cause problems that will cost us all more than all their sales combined. We need some vision here.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
