Large data: Reconstructing social life

3D printing, mobile interconnection, robotics, quantum communication, large data, stem cells, nanotechnology ... The ever-changing contemporary technology is impacting our brain, on the other hand, affecting and changing our lives. What is the progress of these frontier technologies at home and abroad? What role do Chinese scientists play in it? What kind of conveniences and benefits have the public learned from the technological changes that are brewing? How will the future be developed? This newspaper began today with the introduction of the year-end "new Technology Change Life" series of reports, the system comb, show the status of these technical research and the impact of their social life, change and reconstruction.

You often surf the internet is not unfamiliar to this scenario: when you habitually browsing the web, but surprised to find in the advertisement ads unexpectedly appeared in the last few days in the shopping site search products. "Who did it?" How does he know what I want to buy? "The first time I met a situation like this, it must be a bad feeling to be seen." However, this is precisely the big data age to bring us a "surprise."

Over the years, hit's "Big Data" in the field of information technology is unwittingly intensifying into our lives. It has never before enriched our lives and created great convenience, but also poses a threat to the public's personal privacy.

The use of any new technology seems to be hard to avoid: finding a balance between opportunity and risk. The same is true in the area of information technology. In the future, large data applications will create more bright spots in solving real problems, and they will face more severe challenges in information security.

Full penetration of life

As early as 1980, the American Futurist Toffler in the third wave of the book, the Big Data hailed as "the third wave of the CLS movement." Until 2009, however, "big data" began to become a buzzword in the Internet Information technology industry.

Today, "Big Data" has spawned a variety of data applications in all walks of life. Guojie, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said: "The impetus for large data research comes mainly from the economic benefits of enterprises". Multinational giants such as IBM, Google, Amazon and Facebook are the main players in developing big data technologies.

The "Google Flu Trend", launched in 2008, still seems to be a typical example of large data applications. Google designers believe that the search keywords that people enter represent their immediate needs. They are programmed with flu-related keywords such as "thermometer", "muscle pain", "Fever", "sneeze", and when users enter these keywords, the system begins tracking analysis, creating flu charts and maps.

To verify the correctness of the "Google Flu trend" warning system, Google has repeatedly compared the results with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, confirming a significant correlation.

Zhang, an associate researcher at the Institute of Software Studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the China Science News Reporter: "This is one of the big data applications, that is, statistical laws." She believes that large data applications also include the analysis of individual laws and the integration of knowledge formation.

In China, shopping websites are very active in the application of large data. Several researchers at the Software Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have helped Taobao improve the sorting of advertisements. They grabbed Taobao nearly 9 million ads click Data, through the analysis of advertising category, display location, commodity prices, picture content and other factors on user behavior, the impact of the establishment of user preferences model.

"Based on these user preference analysis, we helped Taobao set up a new ad sorting algorithm, which increased the advertising revenue by 5.5% in online testing," he said. Yang Da, a deputy researcher, told the China Science Journal.

The preference of electric business platform is only the tip of large data application. In medical, business, education, finance, military, scientific research and other fields, large data technology is also in full swing application.

Connect Virtual with reality

This July, East China Normal University, a girl received a message from the School service center: "Hello classmate, found that you last month, food consumption is less, do not know whether there is financial difficulties?" If you have difficulty, can telephone, text message or mail me. ”

In fact, the girl's weight loss reduced the cost of rice card, triggering the school's food card consumption data monitoring system. This monitoring system through the rice card consumption data analysis, to understand the economic situation of students, speculate if spending significantly less than normal, whether the school should take the necessary intervention measures.

The girl took a screenshot of the message to Weibo, immediately attracted a praise voice: "Responsible for the school, so that the cold data has the beauty of humanity." ”

This case has also become the industry has been talking about a point of view: Large data technology applications can not only work the data, but also need to integrate more with the real life.

Perhaps this is precisely where big data is expected-the process of creating value itself is a "business and scientific revolution". Thus, the breakthrough of basic technology such as data processing and analysis is not the biggest obstacle, the key is how to fully understand the data from the commercial and social point of view.

"Behind the data is the network, the network behind the people, the study of network data is actually a social network of people." "In the No. 424 meeting of the Fragrant Hill Science meeting in May 2012, Guojie proposed the establishment of a large data research" network data Science ", focusing on the social network behind the data.

Just two months before he suggested building this new interdisciplinary, the federal government announced a "Big Data research and Development initiative" plan to use $200 million to improve access to, organize, and collect information from a large number of digital data tools and technology.

Zhou, the Chinese translator of the Big Data age, argues that large data analysis and utilization are closely related to the enhancement of national competitiveness and national happiness, and that data reserves and data analysis capabilities will become the most important core strategic capabilities of the new country in the future.

Zhou said: "Includes sophisticated weapons manufacturing and performance simulation experiments related to national security, social stability, group events, and early warning and intervention of rumours; plasma-high-energy particle experiments related to national scientific and technological capabilities, nanomaterials and bio-engineering, and the perception and instability of economic and financial situation related to the prosperity of national economy, Precision Marketing and intelligent logistics warehousing. ”

Facing the 2020, China will also make it development as one of the main battlefield in the strategic height, and accelerate the integration and development of human, machine and material ternary world in the process of the new technological revolution.

Challenge Information Security

It is urgent to protect personal privacy through legislation and various effective means

Back to the beginning of the article, the embarrassment of buying a shopping preference by large data applications probably stems from an unease about personal privacy leaks. Indeed, one of the challenges of today's big data applications is the fear of personal privacy information.

Zhang recalled a sci-fi story he had seen in the past years, description is the author's imagination of the modern life: the protagonist woke up in the morning to open a similar mobile phone machine, the machine automatically popped the protagonist will go to the location of the route and related information, not only that, the protagonist's favorite restaurants and movies are automatically pushed out.

"Can you believe that there is a machine that knows you better than yourself?" Zhang sighed. In her view, however, such a bright future is also quite dangerous for personal privacy.

The prism plan is an event that has to be mentioned when talking about big data. According to the information provided by former CIA staff Edward Snowden, in a "prism" hacking program that began in 2007, U.S. intelligence agencies dug up data from 9 U.S. Internet companies, analyzing personal contact and action from audio, video, pictures, emails, documents, and connection information. Once exposed, the plan was condemned by the international community.

However, Schoen Berg, author of the Big Data age, commenting on the Snowden incident, said he was surprised not by the Prism plan itself, but by the fact that everyone was so surprised by the plan that most people still look at it in terms of the experience and the view of small data.

From the point of view of large data application innovation, the prism plan is undoubtedly a very good case, which also exposes the threat of large data application to individual privacy.

How to protect personal privacy in the big data age is a matter of common concern. Zhongsheng, a professor of computer science at Nanjing University, said in a recent meeting of the Chinese Computer Society's Youth Computer Technology forum that one of the ways the traditional Internet protects personal information is "to identify", that is, to remove key information such as names. So, the big data age, "to identify" can also protect privacy?

For example, a hospital that provided medical services found that two men aged 45 were suffering from a disease in Zhang, one of whom was unmarried. In this message, although the patient's personal information has been removed, it is still possible to know who is sick, as long as he knows who has met the 45-year-old and unmarried two conditions.

Zhongsheng points out that it is data integration that exposes personal privacy. "Even if every organization publishes data that is safe, it will be known by combining them together." "he said.

Technically, scientists have not yet had the most effective way to "insure" personal privacy. The information security in the large data age may require new social rules to regulate the use of data.

At the beginning of 2013, the World Economic Forum published a report on the value of removing personal information: From collection to use, and even suggested that all data collection should use a password to achieve the purpose of "limiting the use of data".

The application of large data has undoubtedly added a new dimension to the security of public information. In an interview with the media, Guojie said: "How to protect the privacy of individuals through legislation and various means is a new security issue that the state needs to attach great importance to." ”

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)