Newsletter No. 164
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FreePint
"Helping 69,000 people use the Web for their work"
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ISSN 1460-7239 29th July 2004 No.164
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IN THIS ISSUE
-------------
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Phil Bradley
FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
JOBS
Senior Information Manager
Media Sector Information Specialist
TIPS ARTICLE
"Artificial Intelligence"
By Jonathan Crowhurst
BOOKSHELF
"Cyberscience - Research in the Age of the Internet"
Reviewed by Jonathan Gordon-Till
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Money Laundering new regulations - implications for
information provision"
By Olivia Freeman
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EDITORIAL
The current big box office hit is 'I Robot' starring Will Smith. It's
the story of hoards of robots running amok in the year 2035 and is the
summer's most successful sci-fi flick so far. I haven't seen it yet,
but expect the 'pester power' of my son will soon make me crack.
Since childhood, many of us have read of hysterical predictions of
computers or robots taking over the world, and many of us can reel off
numerous books and films on the subject. In his review of resources on
artificial intelligence, Jonathan Crowhurst today gives us a
down-to-earth summary of this subject, which is no longer the preserve
of sci-fi books and films.
Sometimes, on one of those days when you've received numerous emails
and text messages, wrestled with your Internet connection, hung on the
line for customer service to sort out your frozen digital TV, and been
phoned -- at least twice -- by a computer voice from a call centre
trying to sell you something, it can feel like technology really has
taken over the world.
All information professionals know that you get the best results with
a mixture of human input and computers working in harmony. What you
get out of a search engine and database is only as good as what you
put in. The growth of records management, and in particular European
freedom of information legislation, has meant that companies have had
to not only get their electronic records management systems in place,
but have had to consider the significance of recruiting people to
manage those systems.
The increasing regulatory environment in business is impacting
information professionals in other ways too. In her article on money
laundering, Olivia Freeman explains how European legislation on money
laundering, that came into force in March of this year, means that
there must be systems in place to keep records and provide tools to
support client acceptance procedures. Not just by banks either, but by
auditors, accountants, legal professionals, real-estate agents and
others. She reviews customised client information products specially
developed to assist in the client-checking process. The
subscription-based 'World Compliance Due Diligence Database' sounds
particularly useful; it is a database of 600,000 senior political
figures, known or suspected terrorists, drug traffickers, arms
dealers, money launderers and fraudsters. I can see a use for this
not only for compliance checks by the financial sector but by
investigative journalists and news information researchers too.
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Editor, FreePint
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Phil Bradley
* Furl <http://www.furl.net> allows users to store the full text of
useful web pages in their own searchable database on the Furl site.
Great for creating a filing cabinet of useful material!
* Amphetadesk <http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/> is my news
aggregator. It's free, easy to use and allows me to check news sites
and weblogs in a matter of moments.
* Being a news junkie I find the BBC news page
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/> invaluable, and drop in several times a day
to see what is occurring in the world.
* Searchenginewatch <http://searchenginewatch.com/> is invaluable in
keeping up-to-date with what is happening in the world of search
engines, news, developments and informed comment.
* Jigzone <http://www.jigzone.com/> provides me with a new jigsaw
everyday that takes about 5 minutes to complete. It's marvellous for
getting the brain into gear before starting work.
Phil Bradley is an internet consultant who provides training courses
on aspects of the internet. He is a well known speaker and writer on
internet-related topics <http://www.philb.com>.
Submit your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm>.
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TIPS ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/290704.htm#tips>
"Artificial Intelligence"
By Jonathan Crowhurst
Alan Turing <http://www.alanturing.net/>, the celebrated
mathematician, was one of the forerunners behind AI research that has
become a driver of computer science. Turing believed machines as
intelligent as humans could be built and considered the question of
whether people somehow were not very different from machines.
Marvin Minsky <http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/>, another founding
father of AI, contended that the brain was nothing more than a machine
whose abilities would someday be duplicated by computers. His work,
and much AI research, both focuses on and influences the areas of
computer science, mathematics, robotics, neuroscience, psychology and
philosophy.
One strand of AI research sees the human brain as essentially a
computer that can be copied to produce an artificial mind. Others
argue that human behaviour defies the structures of a computer program
and we need to go to the basics of what defines life itself. Today AI
considers five main issues:
1 Are people somehow intrinsically different from machines?
2 Can human intelligence be emulated computationally?
3 How should this computation be organised?
4 How do you fit the necessary capabilities into a machine in order
for it to perform "humanly"?
5 And where would this work eventually lead?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a mainstay of science fiction
literature and film for many years - who can forget the Agents in the
Matrix, or Skynet in the Terminator movies, or HAL in 2001: A Space
Odyssey? AI is never far from the news - witness, for example, the
Deep Blue chess competition in the late 1990s - though some
information is no longer available on Deep Blue, IBM has an
interesting research site <http://www.research.ibm.com/>. 'Robot
visions' is an interesting BBC article released around the time of
the film AI, directed by Stephen Spielberg <http://digbig.com/4bkqw>.
AI has some relevance to information retrieval and information
science. It is also a serious scientific discipline embracing
computing, mathematics, robotics, expert systems and psychology. It
raises huge questions about the future of the human species. In this
article I will provide some resources which explain the current
thinking in AI, and where you can find out more. It is a
thought-provoking subject. 'AI depot' <http://ai-depot.com/> provides
a general introduction to the topic and this site is well worth
studying in depth. The pages of Professor Hubert Dreyfus of the
University of California at Berkeley, one of the main critics of
computational AI theory, has a number of papers on his homepages
<http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/>.
Information Science and AI
--------------------------
Natural Language Processing (NLP) offers promising technology.
<http://registry.dfki.de/> is a web site with summary details of
providers of NLP software to the community. There is search interface
and the products have been divided into sections including: evaluation
tools; language resources; multimedia; spoken language; and written
language. IR tools are well covered. The Association for Computational
Linguistics <http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~acl/> is an umbrella group
for scientific work on natural language.
A very interesting site on the role of AI in information retrieval
<http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/info.html> lists various resources
on this topic and looks well worth pursuing. "Bots"
<http://www.botspot.com/>, which are a by-product of AI research, have
been starting to have an impact on networked computing. This is how
search engines track changes to web pages, or spammers retrieve new
email addresses, for example. They are essentially strings of code
used for digging through data. This leads down the path of "expert
systems" - computer programs that emulate an expert of a given
profession by encoding their knowledge onto a computer. Expert systems
as a truly viable means of managing information and knowledge
<http://www.compinfo.co.uk/ai/expert_systems.htm> have been questioned
by Mark Jeffrey: "commercial software that manipulates and applies
information about the user as intelligent is the understandable result
of programmers and marketing agents".
Schools of AI
-------------
As mentioned above, there are a number of avenues AI researchers
consider, but it has been said that there are essentially two schools
of thought on AI. One, commonly referred to as Classic AI, considers
how the brain works and attempts to model behaviours and responses in
different ways by building structures of knowledge representation.
This leads us down the path of artificial life - software simulations,
robotics, proteins, electronics, essentially how a thing lives. Then
there are the so-called anti-foundationalists who believe AI works
better when considered in the context of the human brain and what we
know about it. Essentially their modelling tries to teach computers
how to learn in the same manner as humans. One argument against AI is
that projects have been of limited scope as they have concentrated on
only one or two aspects, which produces unsatisfactory results. ALL
aspects of intelligence must be reproduced on a computer before true
intelligence can arise. It has also been suggested that some AI theory
is fatally flawed as it ignores the emotional elements in the human
mind - AI researchers are essentially building machines, not minds.
Rodney Brooks <http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/brooks/index.shtml>, a
pioneer in behaviour-based robotics - basic machines analogous to
insects - and creator of the robot Genghis in the 1980s, contends that
only by understanding the basics of life can we begin to understand
the complexities of human cognition central to AI. You can see some of
his creations on his site along with some of his articles on the
subject. Igor Aleksander
<http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/research/neural/aleksander.html> in 1996 built
Magnus, the first AI system which might have some kind of
consciousness. His electronics apparently replicated the neural
networks in the human brain that give rise to self-awareness.
<http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/ai/> is a great collection of
articles about things such as neural networks, intelligent robots,
virtual worlds, and evolving machines. Artificial life could perhaps
be considered the "holy grail" of hard AI, though there is much debate
on the possibility of truly artificial human life.
<http://www.alife.org/> is the web site of the International Society
for Artificial Life with a good list of links, though their journal is
only available to paid-up members.
Publications
------------
There are many peer-reviewed AI journals, and they are perhaps the
best way of keeping abreast with AI research, but most I found were
subscription-only access. The Journal of Artificial Intelligence
Research <http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/jair/> is an online
full-text journal of AI papers and some of the latest thinking on the
subject. For a more cognitive and philosophy-of-mind outlook, see the
Journal of Consciousness Studies <http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs.html>,
but note that this is a subscription access journal. The Journal of
Intelligent Systems <http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~hssrjis/> is also
another subscription-only multidisciplinary AI journal that's well
worth looking at.
Societies and Organisations
---------------------------
AI research is a subject based both in universities and in
laboratories around the world. Two of the most famous labs in the
world, Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) <http://www.parc.com/> and the
JET Propulsion laboratory <http://www-aig.jpl.nasa.gov/>, are prime
examples.
AI International <http://www.aiinternational.org/> is a portal linking
to international AI research. There are links to societies,
universities, laboratories and conferences worldwide. The European Co-
ordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence web site
<http://www.eccai.org/> provides a portal for Europe-wide interest in
AI research and study. In the UK, the two main societies for AI are
'The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the
Simulation of Behaviour' (SSAISB) <http://www.aisb.org.uk/> and the
'British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence'
(SGAI) <http://www.bcs-sgai.org/>. The American Association for
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) <http://www.aaai.org/> is a non-profit
organisation with access to its conference proceedings, useful links
and AI Magazine (Table of Contents and abstracts only online).
<http://www.acm.org/sigart/> is the site of the AI special interest
group of the ACM, but their web site appears to be undergoing
reconstruction at the time of writing. CMU AI Repository is another
metasite well worth perusing at <http://digbig.com/4bkqx>.
Books
-----
Finally I will list a number of books that I looked at when
researching this article, available at <http://www.amazon.co.uk>. AI
is an ever-changing subject but these are largely non-technical (like
me!) and provide fascinating food for thought.
Alison, A (1998) Artificial knowing: gender and the thinking machine
London: Routledge Carter, Rita (2002)
Consciousness London: Weidenfield & Nicholson Fritz, S (ed) 2002
Understanding Artificial Intelligence New York: Warner books
Gelernter, D (1994)
The muse in the machine: computers and creative thought London: Fourth
Estate Jeffrey, M (1999)
The Human Computer London: Little Brown Leonard, A (1997)
Bots: the origin of new species San Francisco: Hardwired Levy, S
(1992)
Artificial life: the quest for a new creation London: Penguin Warwick,
K (1998)
In the mind of the machine: the breakthrough in artificial
intelligence London: Random House
Conclusion
----------
AI offers exciting opportunities for those in computer science,
robotics and mathematics to create pioneering applications, and may
have considerable impact in the not-too-distant future. It is no
longer the preserve of science fiction books and films. AI also offers
food for thought from the point of view of considering what makes us
human in terms of intelligence, cognition and emotion.
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Jonathan is reading an MA in Library and Information Studies at City
University. His research interests include information law, library
history and development, legal information, user studies and the
impact of the internet on libraries. Contact him at
<jonathan@crowhurst0277.freeserve.co.uk>.
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FREEPINT BOOKSHELF
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"Cyberscience - Research in the Age of the Internet"
Written by Michael Nentwich
Reviewed by Jonathan Gordon-Till
'Cyberscience' - as opposed to 'traditional' science - relates to the
use of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
for scientific purposes. This book asserts that ICTs lead
to qualitative changes in the content of research itself as well as
the way research is conducted. This forms the central question of the
author's investigation - namely, how, specifically, will technological
developments change the ways research is done?
At the heart of the study are some 50 in-depth interviews with eminent
scientists in a variety of disciplines exploring their use or exposure
to ICTs. A questionnaire (comprising over 70 mostly open-ended
questions) is included as an appendix. Another appendix lists over 900
URLs referenced in the main text of this volume, which at the same
time form the basis of the author's Cyberlinks database
<http://www.oeaw.ac.at/ita/cyberlinks.htm>, intended to form a
constantly updated directory of sources and resources used by the
author in his research.
This is a valuable adjunct to a book in which so many URL references
are likely to be outdated almost as soon as they are published.
Throughout his research the author investigates every conceivable use
of ICTs in academic research, citing exemplars of, for example,
conferencing, archiving, teaching, publishing, translating,
collaborating and many more. He gives qualitative analyses of each
situation based on the questionnaire survey and others' work.
Chapter 3 is an interesting comparison of the relative 'cyberness' of
each of a large number of subdisciplines across the sciences,
humanities and social sciences curriculum. How and why, for example,
are ICTs less prevalent in literature studies than in applied
linguistics, and where are the 'hotspots' of ICT use in each of these
disciplines? Like any interdisciplinary study, this book will be of
interest to a variety of readers. In addition to being possibly the
most wide-ranging review of the current status of ICTs in research,
information scientists will find many of the author's discoveries
pertinent to research in social informatics.
The research methodology, which is so clearly explicated in this book,
is worthy of investigation itself from an information science
perspective. What I found most admirable are the author's broad
conclusions, bringing together a wide range of earlier conclusions and
attempting to provide a meta-level of remarks. There appears to be no
single conclusion to make at this stage of research. ICTs do certainly
aid collaboration and have created communities where none existed
before. However, there are significant situations in which ICT use has
been resisted, or at the very least where its use has supplemented
other research environments rather than replacing them.
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Jonathan Gordon-Till leaves actuaries Aon Consulting next week after
17 years as information manager. He is a Fellow of CILIP and an active
member of many groups in the information profession. His professional
interests include competitive intelligence, information society
studies, information ethics, and private investigation. He is
particularly interested in the strategic value of information and
information risk. Jonathan is writing a book on competitive
intelligence and another on sources and resources in UK pensions. In
addition to English he speaks Hungarian and Russian.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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published by Austrian Academy of Sciences
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FEATURE ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/290704.htm#feature>
"Money Laundering new regulations - implications for
information provision"
By Olivia Freeman
A recent government estimate suggested that, annually, around GBP25
billion of criminal money might be available for money laundering in
the UK.
To help combat international terrorism and drug trafficking, the
legislation relating to money laundering has recently been
strengthened and extended to new business sectors. In the banking
industry, where I worked for over 20 years, the possibility of funds
being laundered, i.e. made to look clean, was always a problem:
particularly at the international bank where I worked, which had many
private accounts for wealthy overseas businessmen, often from the
Middle East.
What is money laundering?
=========================
The official definition given by the National Criminal Intelligence
Service (NCIS) is:
"The various ways criminals conceal, move and legitimise the money
they make from crime are described generically as money laundering,
and tackling money laundering is fundamental to combating serious and
organised crime".
The offence of money laundering is governed by the Proceeds of Crime
Act 2002, Chapter 29, part 7, and the Terrorism Act 2000, section 18.
Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, a money laundering offence is
committed by any person who conceals, disguises, converts, transfers
or removes from the UK criminal property. However, it is not an
offence if an authorised disclosure of their actions is made. A third
party commits an offence if they enter into or are connected with a
business arrangement which they know or suspect facilitates the use
of criminal property by or on behalf of another person. However, the
third party does not commit an offence if they disclose the suspected
use of criminal property or can prove that they intended to disclose
it. The penalties are a fine or imprisonment.
New money laundering regulations came into force on 1 March 2004. The
regulations were published in a statutory instrument, The Money
Laundering Regulations 2003. The legislation, based on a European
Directive, widens the scope, so that the responsibility of reporting
money-laundering activity amongst their clients is extended beyond the
banking sector to include auditors, accountants, tax advisors,
insolvency practitioners, legal professionals, real estate agents,
dealers in high value goods and casinos. Dealers in high value goods
could be any business, which supplies goods and accepts large payments
for them in cash. Businesses most likely to be affected are car
dealers or art and antique dealers. A high value payment is equivalent
to a payment of 15,000 euros or more being made in cash (notes, coins
or travellers cheques in any currency).
What are the obligations?
=========================
Money service operators and high value dealers are required to
register with HM Customs and Excise. High value dealers have only been
required to register since 1 April 2004. A report must be made to the
NCIS if you believe that something you come across, in the course of
your profession, involves criminal conduct and represents funds or
property that derives from a criminal offence (or something that
occurred overseas and would be a criminal offence had it taken place
in the UK). It is important to remember that breaching the
requirements of the legislation could lead to significant criminal
penalties
All organisations that carry out the relevant business must have
systems and training to prevent money laundering and set up
identification, record keeping and internal reporting procedures. It
is recommended that a money laundering reporting officer be appointed
to receive reports of suspicions and channel these to NCIS. The new
Regulation will affect the way firms covered by the legislation do
business. In some businesses the regulations will also create a new
requirement for information.
Information requirements
========================
As a further preventative measure, the identity of new clients should
always be verified. In the case of a business relationship with an
individual, the standard identification procedure is to ask to see a
passport or driving licence and a recent utilities bill. Addresses can
be double-checked against the electoral register. Information on
individuals can be obtained from credit databases such as Experian or
Equifax: the information available might relate to hire purchase loans
or county court judgements. Further information can be found on
individuals, who are company directors, such as details of multiple
directorships or an association with failed companies. A press or
Internet search may produce valuable information.
Many organisations have had to develop more rigorous client acceptance
procedures and this has created a demand for more in-depth
information. It is unlikely that information professionals would be in
a position to suspect money laundering but there is an obligation to
provide tools to support client acceptance procedures.
A large firm of accountants has developed an automated client
acceptance process. The following information must be included:
company incorporation documents; latest accounts; press for at least 2
years and 5 years if any derogatory information is identified. It is
recommended that search terms such as corrupt*, bankrupt*, insolve*,
disqualified, insider dealing*, disrepute*, and defamatory are used.
Additionally, risk reports from a credit database and as much detail
as possible on directors, including details of all the other companies
of which they are a director, shareholdings and their individual
consumer credit reports. It is also suggested that a link to the
company website should be included.
Where the client company or its parent company is registered overseas,
the same checking procedures should be followed. However, it will not
be possible to carry out such a thorough check. For organisations that
have overseas offices, it might be appropriate to get these checks
carried out locally or pay for banker's references on individuals.
'Know your client' Information products
=======================================
Some information providers have launched new products to assist in the
client checking process. It is likely that most of the required
information will already be available from your existing information
providers but not as a customised product. The following is a
selection of the products available:-
Jordan's knowyourclient reports
-------------------------------
This report can be used to verify the company's existence and the
individuals connected with the company. Reports can be ordered online
and cost GBP5.00 plus VAT. The report includes the following
information:-
* Company details
* Adverse information on liquidation, receivership, administration
or winding-up notices
* Directors' details including home address, date of birth,
nationality, other directorships
* Shareholders' details including address, and number and par
value of shares held
* Group structure (information on subsidiaries)
* Financial history
* Gearing, liquidity ratio
* Jordans' credit rating for the current and previous
financial period
* Outstanding County Court Judgements
For further information - <http://www.jordans.co.uk/>
RM Online
---------
RMOnline offers a KYC report at GBP6 plus VAT and this will include:-
* Company identification
* Share capital & shareholders
* Directors & secretary details
* Mortgages & charges
* Liquadator/Receiver/ Adverse information
* County court judgements
In addition, RM offers an on-request offline research service. Two
levels of in-depth report, suited to corporate Know Your Customer
requirements, are available. The Full Due Diligence Search, which
consists of a Comprehensive Company Credit Report (CCR) and Data from
Companies House. The CCR is very detailed and uses data obtained from
a range of independent sources, such as Companies House, the High
Court; London Gazette; Press, County Court Judgments. The Standard Due
Diligence Search is based on Companies House data. For further
information <http://www.rmonline.com/>.
OneSource
---------
OneSource's Anti-Money Laundering Synergy Solution can be integrated
into an organisation's existing workflow, enabling users to search and
classify companies according to a risk profile and perform the
following functions:-
* Review the corporate family structure of prospects, clients and
partners
* Create an audit trail of money laundering investigations
* Check the backgrounds of a company's directors and shareholders,
including banned directors and sanctions.
* Review financial filings and exchange listing details
* Choose pass/fail criteria for ant-money laundering checking
Prices are based on level of customisation and are separately priced
from access to Business Browser. For further information
<http://www.onesource.com/>. For a full report see VIP Eye No.8,
29 April 2004 <http://www.vivavip.com/>.
World Compliance Due Diligence Database
---------------------------------------
This database contains over 600,000 profiles about politically exposed
persons (PEPS). These people are suspected or known terrorists, drug-
traffickers, arms dealers, money launderers or financial fraudsters
Profiles are built using a wide variety of data sources, which include
warnings, orders and actions initiated by securities regulators,
central banks, financial services regulators and details of court
actions. There is particular emphasis on activity in offshore tax
havens. It contains proprietary investigative research on government
sanctions, regulatory warnings and criminal indictments. The database
is made available globally by TFP, a division of the Thomson
Corporation, as part of their suite of compliance products
<http://www.Worldcompliance.com/> or <http://www.TFP.com/>.
Further information
===================
HM Treasury <http://www.treasury.gov.uk/>
The Financial Services Authority <http://www.fsa.gov.uk/>
HM Customs & Excise <http://www.hmce.gov.uk/>
Home Office <http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/>
Assets Recovery Agency <http://www.assetsrecovery.gov.uk/>
National Criminal Intelligence Service <http://www.ncis.co.uk/>
AccountingWEB <http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/>
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales
<http://www.icaew.co.uk/>
Experian <http://www.experian.com/>
Equifax <http://www.equifax.com/>
How to obtain copies of the legislation:
Money Laundering Regulations 2003
<http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2003/20033075.htm>
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 - Part 7
<http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2002/20029--k.htm/>
Terrorism Act 2000
<http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000011.htm>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Olivia Freeman works on a freelance basis, as a trainer, researcher
and information management specialist. She was previously Head of
Business Information at HSBC Bank, where she started the global
service. She was responsible for the procurement and exploitation of
electronic resources.
Olivia specialises in training on legal issues, strategic planning and
e-resource selection. She also runs tailored workshops for individuals
and companies. She undertakes primary and desk research projects
including analysis and report production, specialising in competitor
analysis and product development.
Olivia has published many articles and is currently writing a book for
Facet Publishing on the management of information resources.
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<http://www.freepint.com/issues/290704.htm#feature>
* Access the entire archive of FreePint content
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
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