Miner v1.3 serial key or number

LoudMiner is an unusual case of a persistent cryptocurrency miner, distributed for macOS and Windows since August It uses virtualization software – QEMU on macOS and VirtualBox on Windows – to mine cryptocurrency on a Tiny Core Linux virtual machine, making it cross platform. It comes bundled with pirated copies of VST software. The miner itself is based on XMRig (Monero) and uses a mining pool, thus it is impossible to retrace potential transactions.

At the time of writing, there are VST-related applications (42 for Windows and 95 for macOS) available on a single WordPress-based website with a domain registered on 24 August, The first application – Kontakt Native Instruments for Windows – was uploaded on the same day. The size of the apps makes it impractical to analyze them all, but it seems safe to assume they are all Trojanized.

The applications themselves are not hosted on the WordPress-based site, but on 29 external servers, which can be found in the IoCs section. The admins of the site also frequently update the applications with newer versions, making it difficult to track the very first version of the miner.

Regarding the nature of the applications targeted, it is interesting to observe that their purpose is related to audio production; thus, the machines that they are installed on should have good processing power and high CPU consumption will not surprise the users. Also, these applications are usually complex, so it is not unexpected for them to be huge files. The attackers use this to their advantage to camouflage their VM images. Moreover, the decision to use virtual machines instead of a leaner solution is quite remarkable and this is not something we routinely see.

Here are some examples of applications, as well as some comments you can find on the website:

• Propellerhead Reason
• Ableton Live
• Sylenth1
• Nexus
• Reaktor 6
• AutoTune

Figure 1. Comment #1 from the &#;admin

Figure 2. Comment #2 from the &#;admin&#;

We found several forum threads of users complaining about a qemu-system-x86_64 process taking % of their CPU on their Mac:

Figure 3. User report #1 (standardservices.com.pk)

Figure 4. User report #2 (standardservices.com.pk)

A user named “Macloni” (standardservices.com.pk) said the following:

“Unfortunately, had to reinstall OSX, the problem was that Ableton Live 10, which I have downloaded it from a torrent site and not from the official site, installs a miner too, running at the background causing this.” The same user attached screenshots of the Activity Monitor indicating 2 processes – qemu-system-x86_64 and tools-service – taking 25% of CPU resources and running as root.”

The general idea of both macOS and Windows analyses stays the same:

1. An application is bundled with virtualization software, a Linux image and additional files used to achieve persistence.
2. User downloads the application and follows attached instructions on how to install it.
3. LoudMiner is installed first, the actual VST software after.
4. LoudMiner hides itself and becomes persistent on reboot.
5. The Linux virtual machine is launched and the mining starts.
6. Scripts inside the virtual machine can contact the C&C server to update the miner (configuration and binaries).

While analyzing the different applications, we’ve identified four versions of the miner, mostly based on how it’s bundled with the actual software, the C&C server domain, and something we believe is a version string created by the author.

macOS

We’ve identified three macOS versions of this malware so far. All of them include dependencies needed to run QEMU in standardservices.com.pk from which all files are copied over to /usr/local/bin and have appropriate permissions set along the way. Each version of the miner can run two images at once, each taking MB of RAM and one CPU core. Persistence is achieved by adding plist files in /Library/LaunchDaemons with RunAtLoad set to true. They also have KeepAlive set to true, ensuring the process will be restarted if stopped. Each version has these components:

1. QEMU Linux images.
2. Shell scripts used to launch the QEMU images.
3. Daemons used to start the shell scripts at boot and keep them running.
4. A CPU monitor shell script with an accompanying daemon that can start/stop the mining based on CPU usage and whether the Activity Monitor process is running.

The CPU monitor script can start and stop the mining by loading and unloading the daemon. If the Activity Monitor process is running, the mining stops. Otherwise, it checks for how long the system has been idle in seconds:

If it’s been longer than 2 minutes, it starts the mining. If it’s been less than 2 minutes, it checks the total CPU usage:

divides that by the number of CPU cores:

and if it’s greater than 85%, it stops the mining. The script itself is a bit different across versions, but the general idea stays the same.

After the installation is done, all miner-related installation files are deleted.

Figure 5. Installation of standardservices.com.pk

Figure 6. standardservices.com.pk setup instructions

Version 1

The miner files in the downloaded application package are not obfuscated in any way or placed in another package; they are installed alongside the software in the following places:

• /Library/Application Support/.Qemusys
  • qemu-system-x86_64 – clean QEMU binary
  • sys00_1-diskqcow2 – Linux image (first)
  • qemuservice – shell script that launches the first image via the qemu-system-x86_64 binary (see Script 1 listing)
• /Library/Application Support/.System-Monitor
  • standardservices.com.pk – launches first image via system-monitor binary
• /usr/local/bin
  • .Tools-Service
    • sys00_1-diskqcow2 – Linux image (second)
    • standardservices.com.pk – launches second image via tools-service binary
  • cpumonitor – starts/stops mining based on idle time and CPU usage
  • system-monitor – copy of qemu-system-x86_64 binary
  • tools-service – copy of qemu-system-x86_64 binary
• /Library/LaunchDaemons
  • standardservices.com.pk – launches standardservices.com.pk
  • standardservices.com.pk – launches standardservices.com.pk
  • standardservices.com.pk – launches qemuservice
  • standardservices.com.pk – launches cpumonitor

Script 1. qemuservice shell script

After the dependencies are copied over, all miner-related daemons are launched and then the actual software is installed:

• qemuservice won’t launch the image if the Activity Monitor process is running. In fact, if it is running, it will unload the plist that it was launched by.
• standardservices.com.pk will launch the image only when qemu-system-x86_64 process is not running and after sleeping for 45 minutes.
• standardservices.com.pk will launch the image only if Intel i5, i7 or i9 CPU is detected.

These scripts use the same command to launch the QEMU image, only differing in names and the image path.

We’ve found the following screenshot related to version 1 of the miner:

Figure 7. CPU consumption of QEMU with Little Snitch (source: standardservices.com.pk)

It is from Little Snitch indicating that some connections from the process qemu-system-x86_64 were blocked. Specifically, hopto[.]org (a free hostname service) is a C&C used by version 1 of the miner.

Version 2

Miner files are in data_standardservices.com.pk inside the downloaded application package. data_standardservices.com.pk is installed first, then the VST software. Before installation, version 1 of the miner is removed along with executing the command:

As seen in the listing in Script 2, it only does so when it detects a running qemu-system-x86_64 process.

Script 2. data_standardservices.com.pk preinstall script that removes version 1

The following temporary files are created:

• /Users/Shared
  • z1 &#; QEMU binary
  • standardservices.com.pk &#; launches the QEMU image with the QEMU binary
  • standardservices.com.pk2 &#; QEMU image
  • standardservices.com.pk &#; launches standardservices.com.pk
  • z3 – CPU monitor script, little change from version 1 cpumonitor
  • standardservices.com.pk &#; used to launch z3
  • randwd &#; generates random names

After dependencies are copied over, the miner is installed. This time the names of QEMU binaries, plists and directories are randomized with the randwd script. The miner installation creates two copies of z1, standardservices.com.pk, standardservices.com.pk2 and standardservices.com.pk For each copy, the following happens:

• A directory with a random name is created in /Library/Application Support
• The QEMU binary z1 carries the same name as the directory and is copied into /usr/local/bin
• standardservices.com.pk (see listing in Script 3) and standardservices.com.pk2 are copied into this directory under their random names
• standardservices.com.pk is copied with the name com.<random_name>.plist into /Library/LaunchDaemons

standardservices.com.pk, standardservices.com.pk, z3 and standardservices.com.pk files serve as templates. References to other scripts, binaries, plists, etc. in these files are replaced by their corresponding generated random name.

A random name is also chosen for the CPU monitor (z3) shell script and its accompanying plist file. z3 is copied into /usr/local/bin and the plist into /Library/LaunchDaemons under the name com.<random_name>.plist.

Script 3. standardservices.com.pk shell script

Version 2 is a bit cleaner and/or simpler than version 1. There is only one QEMU image, with two copies made; same for the image launcher scripts, daemons and the cpumonitor. Even though version 2 randomizes its filenames and directories, it can only be installed once because the installation checks for running processes with accel=hvf in their command line.

From the version 2 applications we’ve checked so far, the SHA1 hash of the data_standardservices.com.pk is always 39a7ef0e68a86ccefd9d8ca86ed93.

Version 3

The miner files are in an encrypted DMG file, called standardservices.com.pk, inside the application package. The DMG is mounted with the following command:

The miner DMG contains a single package: standardservices.com.pk This and the software package are then installed.

The package contents of standardservices.com.pk and data_standardservices.com.pk from version 2 are more or less the same, but standardservices.com.pk adds two obfuscated scripts – standardservices.com.pk and standardservices.com.pk &#; and obfuscates an existing script – randwd:

• standardservices.com.pk removes version 1 of the miner like version 2 does.
• standardservices.com.pk installs the miner the same way version 2 does, except the comments have been stripped from the script.

The SHA1 of the standardservices.com.pk remains the same as well: bfdf3ece1ac4f96a2ff3abc7df31c7bfb9.

Launching the Linux image

All versions use multiple shell scripts to launch the images. The shell scripts are executed by plists on boot and are kept alive.

• Version 1 executes the following binaries (copies of qemu-system-x86_64) to launch the QEMU images: qemu-system-x86_64, system-monitor, tools-service.
• Versions 2 and 3 use the same command, but the filename of the binary, directory in Application Support and the QEMU filename is randomized.

All versions use the following switches:

• -M accel=hvf to use the Hypervisor framework as an accelerator. HVF was introduced with OS X and support for HVF was added in QEMU , which was released in April
• -display none so the virtual machine runs without a graphical interface.

Since the image is launched without specifying the amount of RAM and # of CPU cores, the default values are used: 1 CPU core and MB of RAM. All versions can launch 2 images.

Windows (version 4)

From the strings we extracted from the application, we define the only Windows version seen so far as version 4. As we mentioned earlier, the logic is quite similar to the macOS version. Each Windows application is packaged as an MSI installer that installs both the “cracked” application, and Figure 8 shows the trust popup for installing the VirtualBox driver when running a “cracked” VST installer from vstcrack[.]com.

Figure 8. Trust popup for a VirtualBox driver when running the installation of an application from vstcrack[.]com

VirtualBox is installed in its usual folder name (C:\Program Files\Oracle); however, the attributes of the directory are set to “hidden”. Then the installer copies the Linux image and VBoxVmService (a Windows service used to run a VirtualBox virtual machine as a service) into C:\vms, which is also a hidden directory. Once the installation is complete, the installer runs a batch script compiled with BAT2EXE (see the unpacked listing in Script 4) to import the Linux image and run standardservices.com.pk to start the virtual machine as a service.

Script 4. Batch script used to run the Linux virtual machine as a service

This method is used to ensure the persistence of the miner after reboot. Indeed, VboxVmService comes with a configuration file (see Script 5) in which it is possible to enable the AutoStart option so the virtual machine is automatically launched at startup.

Script 5. Configuration file for VBoxVmService with AutoStart enabled

The OVF file included in the Linux image describes the hardware configuration of the virtual machine (see Script 6): it uses 1GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores (with a maximum usage of 90%).

Script 6. Hardware configuration of the Linux image

Linux image

The Linux image is Tiny Core Linux configured to run XMRig, as well as some files and scripts to keep the miner updated continuously. The most interesting files are:

• /root/.ssh/{id_rsa, id_standardservices.com.pk} – the SSH pair key used to update the miner from the C&C server using SCP.
• /opt/{standardservices.com.pk, standardservices.com.pk} – the system startup commands that try to update the miner from the C&C server and run it (see Scripts 7 and 8):

Script 7. standardservices.com.pk

Script 8. standardservices.com.pk

• /mnt/sda1/tools/bin – main files and scripts used to update and run the miner.
• /mnt/sda1/tools/xmrig – contains the source code of XMRig (from the GitHub repository).

The configuration of the miner is stored in /mnt/sda1/tools/bin/standardservices.com.pk and contains mostly the domain name and the port used for the mining pool, which can differ depending on the version (see examples in the IoCs section).

The update mechanism is performed via SCP (Secure File Copy) by three different scripts:

• xmrig_update &#; updates the configuration of the miner (standardservices.com.pk);
• ccommand &#; updates ccommand_update, xmrig_update (see Script 9), standardservices.com.pk, xmrig;
• ccommand_update &#; updates ccommand;

From what we have seen, the miner configuration is updated once every day.

IBM Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ Version 2 Release 3 Enables You to Extract Key Information Efficiently from Large Quantities of Text

Software Announcement
December 8,
Announcement Letter Number:

Table of Contents:

IBM Intelligent Miner for Text offers system integrators, solution providers, and application developers a wide range of sophisticated text analysis tools, an extended full-text search engine, enhanced with text mining functions, and a Web Crawler to enrich business intelligence, content management, and knowledge management solutions.

Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ V offers the following key features:

• Text Analysis Tools
  • Language identification to discover the language of a document
  • Clustering to group related documents by contents
  • Categorization to assign documents to a set of pre-defined categories
  • Summarization of documents
  • Feature extraction to identify key elements of free-text
• Extended Text Search Engine to search textual information and to uncover related concepts with Java-based samples for GUI application development
• Web Crawler package consisting of a toolkit and a ready-to-run Web Crawler
• Flexible and ready-to-use NetQuestion Web-search Solution
• Full-product, limited-time trial version for workstations at no charge

Overview

IBM Intelligent Miner (TM) for Text is a knowledge discovery software development toolkit. It contains tools for application programmers who want to build applications to extract key information from very large quantities of documents, e-mails, or Web pages stored online, often in the Internet or intranets, without having to read them all. With IBM Intelligent Miner for Text, you can:

• Organize the documents by subject, find the predominant themes in a collection of documents, and summarize them.
• Search for relevant documents using powerful and flexible queries -- and more.

• IBM Text Analysis Tools: Include a Language Identification tool, comprehensive Clustering tools, a Topic Categorization tool, a Summarization tool, and Feature Extraction tools. These tools identify document language, group conceptually related documents, classify documents by content, generate document summaries, and extract key elements of text.
• IBM Text Search Engine: Extends the capabilities of the Text Search Engine provided with the OS/ operating system, transforming it into a comprehensive search engine which is customizable for either sophisticated full-text search (including text mining functions) or Web-tuned search functions. It is enhanced with Java (TM) and Java Beans samples to help build applications for text search and administrative functions accessible from a Java-enabled browser.
• IBM Web Crawler Package: Consists of a ready-to-run Web Crawler and a Web Crawler toolkit to build customized Web crawlers.

Key Prerequisites

OS/ V, or higher, with the provided UNIX (R) System Services, TCP/IP, and a Web server. The Web Crawler requires DB2 (R) V For details, refer to the Hardware Requirements and Software Requirements sections.

Planned Availability Date

January 29,

This announcement is provided for your information only. For additional information, contact your IBM representative, call IBM-4YOU, or visit the IBM home page at: standardservices.com.pk

DESCRIPTION

IBM Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ Version 2 Release 3 is a knowledge discovery software development toolkit providing three major components to build advanced-technology information retrieval and mining applications and a Web-search solution. It consists of:

1. IBM Text Analysis tools
2. Extended IBM Text Search Engine*
3. IBM Web Crawler package

A description of the complete set of functions available after installation of Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ follows. Base functions provided with the OS/ operating system are listed in the Base Text Search Functions Provided with OS/ section under Supplemental Information.

Text Analysis Tools: The Text Analysis tools introduce a state-of-the-art toolset for text analysis, text mining, and knowledge management. They can be used to identify the language of documents, intelligently classify documents by content, discover clusters of conceptually related documents, summarize documents to automatically create short descriptions or summaries, and extract key elements of free text. The documents need to be provided in plain text format. For other formats, conversion tools can be obtained from third parties.

• Language Identification

  This tool analyzes a document or string, and identifies its language. Testing to date indicates a high rate of accuracy, even on short input. The tool supports the 14 languages -- Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. The language identifier is extensible. A training tool is included that can be used to add a language not yet recognized.

• Clustering

  By analyzing key concepts, the Clustering tools automatically find groups of related documents in document collections, such as news feeds, patents, or technical reports. The clusters are created dynamically without requiring a predefined taxonomy. Titles for clusters are generated as short lists of the key concepts that are characteristic for the documents contained in the cluster.

  Intelligent Miner for Text includes two different approaches to clustering: binary relational clustering and hierarchical clustering. Binary relational clustering is a top-down approach that splits the collection into clusters at points of maximal difference, while hierarchical clustering is a bottom-up approach that incrementally puts similar documents together in groups. Both approaches usually provide different results when applied to the same data. A practical way of using the tools is to try both approaches with different parameter settings, review the results, and select the one which is most suitable for the task at hand.

• Categorization

  The Topic Categorization tool assigns documents to one or more categories from a user-defined taxonomy. Possible applications include automatically sorting documents into a Yahoo-like schema. A training tool is included that allows you to define your own taxonomy and build reliable categorizers for many applications.

• Summarization

  The Summarization tool extracts sentences from a document to create a document summary. It works best with well-edited structured documents.

• Feature Extraction

  The Feature Extraction tools recognize different kinds of significant items in text, such as proper names, technical terms, relations, or abbreviations.

  The training tool creates a scheme of significant features from a document collection. The document extraction tool identifies features in documents either by using a set of extraction functions (exploration mode) or by looking them up in a scheme created by the training tool (lookup mode). Both the training tool and the document extraction tool use the same set of extraction functions based on heuristics and dictionary information.

  The exploration mode of the document extraction tool should be used for finding significant features in an isolated document while the lookup mode should be used when rating the content of a given document with respect to the contents of a document collection. In lookup mode, the document extraction tool extracts only those features from a document that also occur in the scheme and provides statistical information about the occurrences of these features in the corresponding collection.

  The names extraction function recognizes names even when they occur in different forms, such as "Robert Jordan" versus "Mr. Jordan" and distinguishes between names of persons, organizations, or locations, such as "Houston, Texas" and "Whitney Houston."

  When recognizing terminology, the terminology extraction function automatically finds many multiword terms that have a meaning of their own, for example, "laser printer", and recognizes different forms of the same term, such as "expense account" and "expense accounts."

  The relation extraction function finds information of the type "R. Jordan is_CIO_of XY Corp.," "XY Corp. produces handheld computers," or "R. Jordan has_age "

  The abbreviation extraction function finds and links abbreviations introduced in a text together with their full forms, such as "American Bar Association" versus "ABA."

  Other kinds of significant entities are also recognized by other extraction functions, such as dates, numbers, and money amounts (for example "$50," "50 Dollars," " EUR," or " Euros").

The Text Analysis Tools are designed in such a way that the output from one tool can be used as input to another. This allows you to create powerful toolsets to satisfy your requirements.

Text Search Engine

The Text Search Engine is an advanced search engine that is able to perform in-depth document analysis during indexing. It allows for sophisticated query enhancement and result preparation in order to supply high-quality information retrieval. The most important components are client/server handling, linguistic support for different languages, and document analysis algorithms. In addition, the Text Search Engine features an online update mechanism that allows you to search while the index is being updated. As soon as the update is complete, the newly indexed documents are available for search.

The Text Search Engine provides two user exits that enable you to:

• Access document repositories or library systems to get documents for indexing or preprocessing before indexing. This allows you to integrate the Text Search Engine with any document management system. The product supports various document source formats including plain text and text with HTML markup.
• Convert your specific input formats not explicitly supported, by means of conversion tools or filtering tools that can be obtained from third parties.

The functions for application programming depend, however, strongly on the natural language they support. Therefore, the functions described below are categorized into the three language groups: single-byte character set (SBCS), bi-directional character set (BIDI), and double-byte character set (DBCS) languages.

Functions Supported for SBCS Languages: For the following 19 single-byte character set languages -- Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian French, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss German, U.K. English, and U.S. English -- the Text Search Engine features:

• Multilingual morphological analysis and lemmatization.
• Advanced relevance ranking.
• Boolean queries allowing for phrase and proximity searches as well as for front-, middle-, and end-masking using wildcards, and nested sub-queries.
• Free-text queries based on probabilistic logic.
• IBM's advanced hybrid query, that enables mixing Boolean terms with free-text queries.
• Sophisticated lexical affinities-based ranking for free-text and hybrid queries.
• Fuzzy searches using an n-gram index.
• Thesaurus support providing query expansion through a given thesaurus as well as construction of a user-defined thesaurus.
• Section support for query restriction to certain sections of a document, such as a title or author field.
• Match information sufficient to develop viewers with highlighting capabilities
• Java sample graphical user interface, an attractive and user-friendly sample graphical user interface (GUI) in English that is written in Java. It runs as an applet on any client machine that hosts a Java-capable browser as described in the Software Requirements section. It allows you easy access to the search engine from any point of the Internet or your intranet. Included in the Java sample GUI is the visualization of clustered result lists. This is shipped as compiled Java. All other components of the sample GUI, available in the form of source files and their makefiles, offer most of the Text Search Engine capabilities based on its C-language application programming interface (API) and can easily be modified for your special needs.
• Java Beans samples based on the state-of-the-art Java Beans component model architecture, are offered as two adaptable sample GUIs in English for:
  1. Search functions
  2. Administrative functions
  The samples, provided as source files, show how to develop reusable components for search and administrative tasks in a flexible way and how to combine them into attractive and useful GUIs.

  The sample administration GUI can be used as a standalone Java application on a TCP/IP-connected workstation. You can use the administration GUI to perform some of the Text Search Engine administration functions, such as creating an index, and monitoring and changing the status of an index.

• Clustering of the result list, which eases the user's comprehension of search results.
• Query refinement methods based on user-assigned relevance.
• Feature index. Recognized features like proper names, locations, or terms may be used to obtain higher precision of queries. This index allows a search for documents about, for example, President George Washington. The result will not include documents that contain information about the city of Washington, DC.

• Multilingual morphological analysis and lemmatization
• Advanced relevance ranking
• Boolean queries
• Free-text queries based on probabilistic logic
• Hybrid queries

Functions Supported for DBCS Languages: For the following four double-byte character set languages -- Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese -- the Text Search Engine supports through an n-gram index:

• Boolean queries
• Precise term search
• Fuzzy search
• Thesaurus support providing query expansion through a given thesaurus as well as construction of a user-defined thesaurus
• Match information

The Text Search Engine offers the choice of the different base index types: precise, linguistic, and n-gram. Each type differs with respect to:

• Indexing speed
• Size of index produced
• Complexity of the queries the end user can perform
• Target languages the documents are written in

The Text Analysis Tools and the Text Search Engine can interoperate in various aspects by means of application development to satisfy end-user requirements in the knowledge management area.

Web Crawler Package: A Web crawler is a robot that starts at one or more Web sites and follows selected HTML links you must define in a customization step prior to execution. In addition to defining the domain you want to crawl, including types and number of levels of HTML links, you must specify additional parameters, such as selection criteria for objects to be found on the Web and the directory in a file system where you want the crawler store the retrieved objects. The Web crawler can retrieve objects of any content type and language, such as HTML, text, images, audio, or video, and will store them to the defined directory for further processing. For example, an indexer can use HTML and other text documents to build an index of the documents. After processing, it is the user's responsibility to delete the retrieved objects.

The Web Crawler toolkit provided with Intelligent Miner for Text allows you to develop Web crawlers according to your needs.

A ready-to-run implementation, simply called IBM Web Crawler, is included with the product. The Web Crawler:

• Can run on a single machine and can spawn off a user-specified number of crawler copies that run in parallel.
• Allows individual crawl results, consisting of data objects and their metadata, to be shared for subsequent processing. The data objects are stored as flat files; whereas the metadata, for example, consisting of URL, size, and last modification date of each data object, and crawler-specific control data is stored in DB2.
• Allows for controlled restart due to the persistent and save storage of the metadata in DB2.
• Provides socks support and, as such, is able to crawl the Web from inside a firewall.
• Provides a UNIX command line interface.
• Monitors Web-page activities and changes.

After installation, a simple configuration step must be completed, and the solution is ready to run. You specify the Web space -- the portion of the Internet or intranet you wish to search. The IBM Web Crawler gathers the pages that will be searched, and the IBM Text Search Engine is able to search the pages after indexing them.

Part of the NetQuestion Solution is a search form and an associated CGI script which allow you to easily define your queries through a Web browser. The search form and the CGI script are also provided in sample C and HTML source code to allow you to modify the input definition of your queries and the presentation of the results. You can exploit the full functionality of the Text Search Engine by implementing all functions of the published API. In addition, you can perform most of the search engine's administration functions also through forms and CGI scripts and a Web browser.

In some circumstances, the NetQuestion Solution even allows you to detect misspellings in documents and expand your search request accordingly. For example, if one of the occurrences of "Toyota" is misspelled as "Toyotta" in a document and someone later tries to search for "Toyota," the solution automatically adds "Toyotta" to the query.

The NetQuestion Solution and associated components provide key technologies to build intelligent Internet or intranet Web sites. They allow you to leverage the use of the Internet and intranets to gain access to relevant information and support your e-business initiative. For those users wishing to tailor this solution, a full range of settings can be configured.

Year

This product is Year ready. When used in accordance with its associated documentation, it is capable of correctly processing, providing, and/or receiving date data within and between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, provided that all products (for example, hardware, software, and firmware) used with the product properly exchange accurate date data with it.

The service end date for this Year ready product is January 31,

PRODUCT POSITIONING

With Intelligent Miner for Text, IBM extends your technology assets based on the full range of business intelligence solutions available to you, including DB2, Intelligent Miner for Data, and KnowledgeX.

Similar to data mining, text mining discovers patterns in document collections and other unstructured information. The Text Search Engine is not a typical search tool. Together with the Text Analysis Tools it performs categorization and clustering that are necessary when processing large volumes of information.

Complemented with the Web Crawler, you can develop comprehensive solutions to support your e-business initiative.

For more information about the product, refer to the Web page at:

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE SUPPORT SERVICES

SmoothStart (TM)/Installation Services

IBM SmoothStart Services, an on-site implementation and training startup service designed to accelerate your productive use of your IBM solution, is provided by IBM Global Business Intelligence Solutions (GBIS) and selected IBM Business Partners at an additional cost. For additional information on IBM SmoothStart Services, refer to Services Announcement dated March 25, , or contact your IBM representative and ask for SmoothStart Services for Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/

IBM Installation Services are provided for Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ by GBIS and selected IBM Business Partners at an additional cost. For additional information, contact your IBM representative and ask for Installation Services for Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/

Questions regarding IBM SmoothStart or Installation Services can also be sent to the following e-mail address:

REFERENCE INFORMATION

• Software Announcement dated December 8, (IBM Intelligent Miner for Text Version 2 Release 3 Supports Sun Solaris)
• Software Announcement dated September 22, (IBM KnowledgeX for Workgroup Edition Version )
• Software Announcement dated September 22, (IBM Intelligent Miner for Data for OS/ Version )

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

BASE TEXT SEARCH FUNCTIONS PROVIDED WITH OS/ (R)

The Description section identifies the full range of functions as found in the OS/ operating system and in Intelligent Miner (TM) for Text for OS/ Below is the set of text search functions provided with the OS/ operating system.

• IBM Text Search Engine
  • Full-text search functions using a:
    • Precise index
    • Linguistic index
    • N-gram index
  • Search support for 19 SBCS, two BIDI, and four DBCS languages
  • Boolean queries
  • Free-text queries
  • Fuzzy searches
  • Thesaurus support (not for n-gram indexes)
  • Relevance ranking
• IBM NetQuestion Solution for a single Web server
  • Full-text search service using the IBM Text Search Engine
  • Ready-to-run for documents stored on the OS/ domain using the Web server provided by the OS/ operating system
  • Accessible through TCP/IP-connected workstations providing an HTML browser

EDUCATION SUPPORT

An Intelligent Miner for Text Application Programming Workshop, class number DW56, provided by IBM Education and Training, will be available after planned general availability.

Visit the following Web site for additional information:

Call IBM Education and Training at IBM-TEACH () for catalogs, schedules, and enrollments.

DEMONSTRATIONS

You can find live solution demonstrations on the Web at:

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Specified Operating Environment

Hardware Requirements: Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ V runs on System/ (R) processors supported by OS/ Version , or higher.

The Text Search Engine and its Java (TM) sample GUI have been designed to operate as clients on TCP/IP-connected workstations. The following defines the required hardware:

• Clients on AIX (R) workstations

  Any processor of the RS/ (TM) System's family. A minimum of 64 MB random access memory (RAM) is required.

• Clients on Sun Solaris workstations

  Any processor of in the Sun SPARC System's family. A minimum of 64 MB RAM is required.

• Clients on Windows NT (R) workstations

  Any Pentium (TM)-based processor with a minimum of 64 MB RAM.

The following minimum disk space is required and valid for all supported workstation platforms:

Additional disk space needed depends on the amount of data processed per run and developed Intelligent Miner for Text applications.

Software Requirements: The following software is required to run Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ V on your system:

• IBM OS/ V, or higher, product number A01

  All releases require the base Text Search Engine (TSE) and the NetQuestion Solution for a single Web server (NQS) installed before installing Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ You can find download information for TSE and NQS at:

• OS/ UNIX (R) System Services included with the OS/ base.
• TCP/IP UNIX Services included with the OS/ base.

  The communication between parts of Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ including the communication between OS/ and connected workstations is based on TCP/IP.

• C/C++ compiler included with the OS/ base in order to compile samples provided with the TSE Java sample GUI.
• Language Environment included with the OS/ base.
• Java for OS/ (A46; JDK V) with PTF UW, or higher for the TSE Java sample GUI.
• For the TSE Java sample GUI and the NetQuestion Solution the Web server (HTTP server) provided by the respective release of the OS/ base. For example, the WebSphere Application Server for OS/ V
• DB2 (R) V, or higher for the Web Crawler package.
• The online documentation is provided in PDF and HTML format for workstations where Adobe Acrobat Reader V or higher, or any Web browser supporting HTML V or higher, is needed. Refer to the Displayable Softcopy Publications section for more detail.

  At the present time, you can download the Adobe Acrobat Reader, presently at no charge, from the Web at:

(1) Optional, only required for application development (2) Optional, only required to run standalone Java applications (3) Or higher (4) At the present time, you can download HotJava, presently at no charge, from the Web at:

• Netscape Navigator V4 for AIX
• Netscape Navigator V4 for Sun Solaris/SPARC
• Microsoft Internet Explorer V4 for Windows NT V
• Netscape Navigator V4 for Windows NT

Planning Information

Installability: The installation of Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ complements the existing functions Text Search Engine and NetQuestion Solution provided with the OS/ operating system.

Packaging: The Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ V program package contains:

• Memo to customers
• License Programming Specifications
• Program Directory
• Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ on either 9/ magnetic tape, IBM cartridge, or 4-mm DAT cartridge
• Getting Started hardcopy documentation
• Intelligent Miner for Text V Trial Version on CD-ROM Media Pack containing the online product documentation. Refer to the Displayable Softcopy Publications section for more detail.

Security, Auditability, and Control

The announced program uses the security and auditability features of the OS/ operating system, the network systems used, and DB2. The customer is responsible for evaluation, selection, and implementation of security features, administrative procedures, and appropriate controls in application systems and communication facilities.

ORDERING INFORMATION

New Licensees

Orders for new licenses will be accepted now.

Shipment will begin on the planned availability date.

New users of Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ V should specify:

MTX

Basic License: To order a basic license, specify the program number and feature number for asset registration. For an Entry Support License charge or Parallel Sysplex (R) License charge specify one of the following feature numbers as applicable and corresponding to the capacity of the designated machine. Specify the feature number of the desired distribution medium shown below.

Entry Support License (ESL): To order an ESL license, specify the program number, feature number for asset registration, and the applicable ESL One-Time Charge (OTC) feature number. Also specify the feature number of the desired distribution medium.

MTX Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ V

Note: ESL machines can be determined by referring to the IBM Entry End User/ Attachment (Z).

Parallel Sysplex License Charge (PSLC) Basic License: To order a basic license, specify the program number and feature number for asset registration. Specify the PSLC Base feature. If applicable, specify the PSLC Level A, PSLC Level B, and PSLC Level C features and quantity.

If there is more than one program copy in a Parallel Sysplex, the charge for all copies is associated to one license by specifying the applicable PSLC feature numbers and quantity represented by the sum of the Service Units in Millions (MSUs) in your Parallel Sysplex. For all other program copies, specify the PSLC No-Charge (NC) Identifier feature on the licenses.

Also, specify the feature number of the desired distribution medium.

1 PSLC Base, 1 MSU 2 PSLC Base, 2 MSUs 3 PSLC Base, 3 MSUs

4 -- 45 PSLC Level A, 1 MSU PSLC Level A, 42 MSUs

46 or more PSLC Level B, 1 MSU PSLC Level B, 10 MSUs PSLC Level B, 50 MSUs

or more PSLC Level C, 1 MSU PSLC Level C, 10 MSUs PSLC Level C, 50 MSUs

NA PSLC N/C ID

Example 1: For a single machine with 11 MSUs, the PSLC features would be -- quantity 1 and -- quantity 8.

Example 2: For two machines in a Parallel Sysplex which have an aggregation of 60 MSUs, the PSLC features would be:

• PSLC chargeable license #1: -- quantity 1, -- quantity 1, -- quantity 5, and -- quantity 1
• PSLC no-charge license #2: -- quantity 1

Version-to-Version Upgrade Credit: To upgrade from a prior program acquired for a one-time charge to a replacement program using a version-to-version upgrade credit, the customer must notify and identify to IBM the applicable prior program and replacement program participating in the upgrade credit.

Basic Machine-Readable Material: To order, select the feature number of the desired distribution medium:

OS/ SMP/E 9/ magnetic tape cartridge 4-mm DAT cartridge

Customization Options: Select the appropriate feature numbers to customize your order to specify the delivery options desired. These features can be specified on the initial or MES orders.

Example: If publications are not desired for the initial order, specify feature number to ship media only. For future updates, specify feature number to ship media updates only. If, in the future, publication updates are required, order an MES to remove feature number ; then, the publications will ship with the next release of the program.

Initial Shipments

Serial Number Only (suppresses shipment of media and documentation)

Ship Media Only (suppresses initial shipment of documentation)

Ship Documentation Only (suppresses initial shipment of media)

Update Shipments

Ship Media Updates Only (suppresses update shipment of documentation)

Ship Documentation Only (suppresses update shipment of media)

Suppress Updates (suppresses update shipment of media and documentation)

Expedite Shipments

Local IBM Office Expedite (for IBM use only)

Customer Expedite Process Charge ($30 charge for each product)

Expedite shipments will be processed to receive hour delivery from the time IBM Software Delivery Solutions (SDS) receives the order. SDS will then ship the order via overnight air transportation.

Unlicensed Documentation: A memo, program directory, and one copy of the following publications are supplied automatically with the basic machine-readable material.

Intelligent Miner for Text Licensed Programming GH Specifications Getting Started* SH

Additional copies of unlicensed publications will be available for a fee after availability. These copies may be ordered from your IBM representative, through the System Library Subscription Service (SLSS), or by direct order.

The following optional publications will be available after product availability:

Intelligent Miner for Text* Fact Sheet GC Getting Started SH Text Analysis Tools SH Text Search Engine: Customization and Administration SH Text Search Engine: Programming Interfaces SH NetQuestion Solution SH Web Crawler SH

Displayable Softcopy Publications: The Intelligent Miner for Text publications are offered in displayable softcopy form. All unlicensed manuals are included except the Licensed Programming Specifications. The displayable manuals are part of the Intelligent Miner for Text Trial Version provided on CD-ROM and shipped with the Intelligent Miner for Text for OS/ package.

Intelligent Miner for Text* Getting Started (US English and additional languages) HTML, PDF Text Analysis Tools HTML, PDF Text Search Engine: Customization and Administration HTML, PDF Text Search Engine: Programming Interfaces HTML, PDF NetQuestion Solution HTML, PDF Web Crawler HTML, PDF

The Intelligent Miner for Text Fact Sheet can be displayed and printed through the Web with an HTML browser from the following URL:

Full-text online documentation search is provided for all publications provided in HTML.

Subsequent updates (technical newsletters or revisions between releases) to the publications shipped with the product will be distributed to the user of record for as long as a license for this software remains in effect. A separate publication order or subscription is not needed.

The following unlicensed publications will be available for a fee after availability. These copies may be ordered from your IBM representative, through the System Library Subscription Service (SLSS), or by direct order.

Intelligent Miner for Text* Getting Started S Brazilian-Portuguese SB Arabic SH French SH German SH Italian SH Japanese SA Korean SH Simplified Chinese SH Spanish SC Traditional Chinese

Intelligent Miner for Text V Trial Version: Intelligent Miner for Text can be ordered after planned availability as a full-product, limited-time trial version as one Media Pack containing CD-ROMs for the workstation platforms AIX, Sun Solaris, and Windows NT at no charge. All displayable manuals are included in HTML and PDF format covering all platforms including OS/ To order, contact your IBM representative.

Intelligent Miner for GK2T Text Version 60 Day Trial License

The Intelligent Miner for Text servers will cease their operation sixty days after installation. In order to maintain an ongoing operation, a full license program package must be purchased and the supplied license key must be installed by executing one of the provided license key programs, either on AIX, Sun Solaris, or on Windows NT.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Licensing: IBM Customer Agreement

Variable Charges Apply: No

Indexed Monthly License Charge (IMLC) Applies: No

Location License Applies: No

Use Limitation Applies: No

Educational Allowance Available: Yes, to qualified education customers

Volume Orders: Not applicable

Version-To-Version Upgrade Credits Apply: Yes

MTX Intelligent To a follow-on, if any NA Miner for Text for OS/ V (This is the first version release to synchronize with Intelligent Miner for Text V, IMT)

NA = Not Applicable

Warranty Applies: Yes

Licensed Program Materials Availability

• Restricted Materials of IBM: None
• Non-Restricted Source Materials: Some
• Object Code Only (OCO): Some

Availability Date: January 29,

Testing Period: Two months (Basic License only)

Program Services: None

Support Line: S/ (R)

CALL NOW TO ORDER

To order, contact the IBM North America Sales Centers, your local IBM representative, or your IBM Business Partner.

IBM North America Sales Centers, our national direct marketing organization, can add your name to the mailing list for catalogs of IBM products.

To identify your local IBM Business Partner or IBM representative, call IBM-4YOU.

Note: Shipments will begin after the planned availability date.

Trademarks