France and French: The Language of Diplomacy Says “Non, Non” to Gamer Lingo
May 31, 2022
I like France. Years ago I shipped my son to Paris to learn French. He learned other things. So, as a good daddy, I shipped him off to a language immersion school in Poitier. He learned other things. Logically, I responded as a good shepherd of my only son, I shipped him to Jarnac, to work for a cognac outfit. He learned other things. Finally, I shipped him to Montpellier. How was his French? Coming along I think.
He knew many slang terms.
Most of these were unknown to my wife (a French teacher) and me (a dolt from central Illinois). We bought a book of French slang, and it was useless. The French language zips right along: Words and phrases from French speaking Swiss people (mon dieu). Words and phrases from North Africans (what’s the term for head butt?). Words and phrases from the Middle East popular among certain fringe groups.
Over the decades, French has become Franglish. But the rock of Gibraltar (which should be a French rock, according to some French historians) is the Académie française e and its mission (a tiny snippet follows but there is a lot more at this link.
La mission confiée à l’Académie est claire : « La principale fonction de l’Académie sera de travailler, avec tout le soin et toute la diligence possibles, à donner des règles certaines à notre langue et à la rendre pure, éloquente et capable de traiter les arts et les sciences.»
Who cares? The French culture ministry (do we have one in the US other than Disneyland?)
“France Bans English Gaming Tech Jargon in Push to Preserve Language Purity” explains:
Among several terms to be given official French alternatives were “cloud gaming”, which becomes “jeu video en nuage”, and “eSports”, which will now be translated as “jeu video de competition”. The ministry said experts had searched video game websites and magazines to see if French terms already existed. The overall idea, said the ministry, was to allow the population to communicate more easily.
Will those French “joueur-animateur en direct” abandon the word “streamer”?
Sure, and France will once again dominate Europe, parts of Africa, and the beaver-rich lands in North America. And Gibraltar? Sure, why not?
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2022
Autonomy Business Details: Are These Relevant to Search- and Content Processing Type Outfits Today?
May 31, 2022
I read “Judge Details Lynch’s $700k Signoff via iPhone Text in Full Autonomy Judgement.” The main idea is that Autonomy — an early entrant in the smart software for search and content processing — engaged in some business practices which a British judge finds suggestive. How suggestive? I am not sure, but the idea of using resellers and transactions to amp up revenues is interesting.
Another search and content processing outfit called Fast Search & Transfer (which Microsoft acquired more than a decade ago) found itself subject to some scrutiny for financial fancy dancing. One of the firm’s founders was found guilty and may have spent some time in the custody of a government. Maybe the fellow was cross country skiing and shooting a rifle at snow bunnies.
The relevance of the cited story and the reference to skis and weapons reminds me that the financial reports of high-flying search and content processing companies have to be scrutinized. I mention this because some of the more interesting search and content processing centric companies are publicly traded. Palantir Technologies comes to mind because I have seen a couple of semi-optimistic write ups about the company.
If I were a more youthful 77 year old, I would muster the energy to:
- Investigate the US government and UK government contracts for term, sunset dates, and contracting officers (what’s the background of these individuals)
- Research the question, “What’s bundled into the basic commercial and the basic government deal?”
- Explore the question, “How is cost of sales reacting to the economic climate since Palantir went public?”
- Try to determine answers to these questions: “What’s the ratio of sales people to programmers? The ratio of full time equivalents to contractors? How has the ratio changed since the firm went public?”
- Interview some people at LE and intel conferences to get a sense of the chatter related to this question: “Is Palantir bundling Amazon cloud services or doe the licensee have a choice?” and “Has there been talk of Palantir providing a “system in a box” to licensees with this requirement?
Why think about these types of questions? Oh, I am just curious about search and content processing outfits.
Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2022
Netgear: A Pioneer in What Might Be Called Baked In Insecurity
May 31, 2022
Computer security is an essential component for anyone using the Internet, because hackers target companies and individuals with scams and ransomware as well as steal personal information and intellectual property. As remote work becomes more common, the need for enhanced digital security increases. Companies that build hardware and software for Internet access are challenged to build robust and secure products. They also stand behind their products’ quality, but in a recent case networking equipment manufacturer Netgear admitted a flaw. Forbes reports the details in, “Netgear Says It Can’t Fix Multiple Vulnerabilities On Two Of Its Routers For Homeworkers.”
Netgear described the BR200 and BR500 models as secure routers for at-home workers connecting to their corporate networks. Unfortunately, these routers have exploitable security vulnerabilities and they cannot be fixed. Netgear will replace the defective models with a free or discounted router. The problem is minuscule, but all it takes is one crack to bring down a dam:
“The vulnerability of these two routers means there could be a security breach if a user is visiting a suspicious website and clicking on a malicious link while they have the router’s built-in web interface for adjusting the router’s settings. Frankly, that’s pretty unlikely to happen but with computer security, no matter how minuscule the threat might be, it must be taken seriously. The hacker only has to get lucky once.”
It is wonderful that Netgear admitted the mistake and is working with its customers to resolve the issue. Netgear also released a list of precautions BR200 and BR500 owners could use to prevent the hack if they wish to keep the router.
We wish more companies would own up to mistakes like Netgear. Politicians could certainly learn a thing or two from Netgear. Could Microsoft garner a fresh insight? Maybe?
Whitney Grace, May 31, 2022
New York Takes Amazon to Task for Treatment of Pregnant, Disabled Employees
May 31, 2022
New York state is proving to be a challenging environment for Amazon’s middle management overlords. Yahoo Finance shares, “Amazon Discriminates Against Pregnant and Disabled Workers, New York Alleges.” Ah Amazon, always striving to be a kind and gentle company that puts its employees first. Reuters reporter Jonathan Stempel writes:
“A New York state agency has accused Amazon.com Inc in a complaint of discriminating against pregnant and disabled workers at its worksites, Governor Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday. Amazon was also accused of having policies requiring workers to take unpaid leaves of absence, even if they are capable of working, instead of providing reasonable accommodations. The New York State Division of Human Rights faulted Amazon for giving worksite managers the power to ignore the company’s in-house ‘accommodation consultants’ who recommended that workers receive modified schedules or job responsibilities. State law requires employers provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant and disabled workers who ask. It also treats pregnancy-related medical conditions as disabilities. ‘My administration will hold any employer accountable, regardless of how big or small, if they do not treat their workers with the dignity and respect they deserve,’ Hochul said in a statement.”
An Amazon spokesperson projected virtuous bewilderment at the accusations, insisting the company had been working closely with New York regulators. She also claimed workers’ comfort and safety were paramount to Amazon, but with over 1.6 million employees how can it be expected to get it right every time? Perhaps it could seek suggestions from the six US senators who asked the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate Amazon’s treatment of pregnant warehouse workers.
These developments arise just as the company has batted aside New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit charging it failed to protect workers from exposure to Covid and retaliated against those who protested early pandemic conditions. Details of the Division of Human Rights’ complaint are confidential, but the article states it seeks certain fines and penalties as well as improved training and reasonable accommodation policies. We also learn penalties can run up to $100,000. That sounds like a lot to most of us, but for Amazon it would make nary a dent in its profits, which were $33.4 billion in 2021 alone.
Cynthia Murrell, May 31, 2022
Cheerleading: The PicRights’ Method
May 30, 2022
I read what appears to be a news release designed to promote an outfit with an interesting business model. Navigate to “PicRights Sponsors Upcoming CEPIC Congress in Spain.” the write up explains:
For the fifth consecutive year, PicRights will also sponsor the annual Digital Media Licensing Organization (DMLA) Conference, to be held later this year. Last year’s conference offered sessions with Adobe, Google, Microsoft and Getty, and discussed NFTs, AI, synthetic content, remote production, and other issues shaping today’s creator economy. PicRights was a sponsor of the conference from 2018 through 2021, and was previously a speaker at the 2020 conference.
The news release points out:
Last month, PicRights was a supporter of the 32nd annual MINDS Conference held in Helsinki. The theme of the conference was “Stronger Together – Collaboration and Sharing for Success” and discussed successful partnerships within MINDS and beyond, collaboration with major platforms, newsroom evolution, and the power of diversity and inclusion.
Several questions arose as I thought about this somewhat rah rah-type news story:
- What is the false positive rate for the software used by this organization to identify copyright missteps? When was it developed? By whom?
- What financial deals are in place for largely reactive and technologically sluggish publishing companies’ whose intellectual property is the subject of legal interactions?
- Why are image protected by assorted copyright regulations appearing in a free Web search system like Google-type image search?
I don’t have answers to these questions. It seems to me that some odd synchronized vibration is buzzing among the image indexing outfits, the PicRights-type operations, and the copyright holders.
Is the solution to use “smart software” to delete inclusion of any image which requires a fee for use or the insertion of a message that clearly identifies an image as one which requires a fee to be paid should someone like a veteran’s group, a college newspaper, or a one-person Medium blogger?
I find this harmonic vibration among the rights enforcement folks, the Google-type search systems, and the entity “owning” the rights to a particular image fascinating.
The business model is clever but it appears that additional publicity is needed to make the excellence of the approach more visible. Rah rah rah.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2022
The Business Intelligence Blind Spot: Everyone Needs These Systems
May 30, 2022
I recall that a booth called “Business Blind Spots” identified a number of behaviors which contribute to business missteps. Staff, preconceived notions, market receptivity, etc. were among the points I recall.
I want to toss one more blind spot into the raging fire of burned cash, torched reputations, and incinerated opportunities. I call this bling spot, “Everybody needs these systems.” Plug in your own “systems”; for example, software that manages several cloud accounts which are guaranteed to blow through budget assumptions with no easy way to control the rising expenses.
I read “Palantir Stock: Getting Desperate.” I think the write up has been riding the well-worn fire trail to a burning coal mine.
Palantir Technologies is when the charities, the razzle dazzle, and the jargon are stripped away, is a search and retrieval company. The idea is that a person looking for information about a bad actor, for instance, can plug in the name and see results.
Now this seems like a function which is readily available from many vendors. The twist for Palantir is that it positioned its search as one that would meet the needs of intelligence officers. The US government entity embracing Palantir’s software influenced the add-ons; for example, the ability to ingest certain types of content that only government agencies could acquire.
In order to make sales, the marketing engine of Palantir came up with the same type of “latest and greatest” verbiage that characterizes intelware (that’s software built around the specific needs of intelligence analysts). One example is importing proprietary file types. Another is keeping track of where a dataset came from, who fiddled with it, and what an authorized user did with the data when in search mode.
Over time, companies which serve government agencies have to choose one of three paths:
- Path 1 is to just do commercial work. Forget the intelligence market. A company which has moved in this direction is one you may not know anything about. It is LifeRaft. Look them up. Now the company does market and ad intelligence for commercial companies, ad agencies, and probably some non profit outfits.
- Path 2 is to just focus on government sales. An example of this type of outfit is BAE Systems which has software able to do Palantir type functions. I am not sure BAE Systems returns phone calls from a bank or real estate agency wanting some Detica goodness.
- Path 3 is to do both. The best example of this is Voyager Labs which does the LifeRaft type work and the intelligence and law enforcement work of outfits like Palantir.
Which is the right path?
From my point of view, a company selling intelware should stick to government clients, maintain a low profile, and keep systems and methods secret. LifeRaft told me, “Don’t even mention our firm at the 2022 National Cyber Crime Conference.” Why? Doing work for certain government agencies gives some commercial firms and their go-go decision makers the heebie jeebies. The fear comes from folks who are interacting with investigators, intelligence operatives, and analysts could say something that will create big time thunderstorms for the commercial company. Some businesses are not exactly paragons of behavior. This means that the purchase cycle is drawn out, excuses are made, concerns about confidentiality raised, and weirdness about the amount of training, customizing, and optimizing the intelware system requires. The result? Some pretty crazy attempts to sell the product and the resulting disconnect from promises of reality from the commercial sector and the inevitable gap. This type of “gap” created some interesting situations in the decade or so.
What about government sales? Unless a company is selling hardware, software, spare parts, training, and services governments a fickle. Sure, an intelware outfit like Palantir will get initial contracts. But the government agencies have roving eyes and will keep licensing, looking for the perfect solution to intel needs. What happens is that the software only vendor runs out of customers. Once a number of big agencies sign up, the US General Services Administration or the Defense Services Administration will start angling for a deal. Cut the fees or lose the contracts. This is bad news because expensive software takes time to sell to government customers who want a demo or a year of free or discounted use in order to figure out if the system actually works. The problem is that There are not that many government agencies in the free world to support the intelware companies hungry for allocated budget dollars. Stated another way, the intelware company has to get some contracts, make the software work, and forget about the hockey stick financial projections. The intelware vendors chase US allies, but there are vendors in those countries, and it may make more sense to license Trendalyze or Verint, not the Silicon Valley type outfit. Bad financial news? Yep.
Path three is to sell to anyone who wants the system. This is very, very difficult because the intelware system has to be fiddled with in order to meet the specific requirements of an organization. Chasing bad actors is one thing; figuring out what type of beverage a college student wants is another thing. Hanging over the commercial sales call is the concern about the government work, the government customers, and the government processes, which — once started — are tough to turn off.
This means that companies crafted for intelware users find that government sales slow down, commercial sales cycles take a long time and often end up at a dead end, and non government organizations don’t want or can’t pay big bucks for what is search software.
The market itself is changing. If you want to analyze tweets, hire a marketing agency and get rid of them once they have completed a project. Clean, tidy, easy. If a client has some Google grade programmers, download Maltego, license the $100 Hunchly, and spend some time looking at tools on GitHub. (Thank you, Microsoft, but do you know what’s on that service? I thought so.)
The cited article makes this point:
…the company must expand internationally. What better way to get new sales than to start fires and be the person to sell the smoke detectors? That is what Palantir’s software does, assess and analyze data for threats. It is a loose analogy but fitting. But why is Palantir in such desperate need of expansion to new governments and industries? It is because the only thing keeping the stock going is the revenue growth rate which has been so strong. The company has incurred losses every year of operation. It expects operating expenses to increase.
And what about international sales? Three points:
- There are vendors offering comparable or better systems so buying non-US may make economic and political sense
- The cost of closing deals internationally is — the last time I checked — two to three times the cost of selling from Chicago to US based customers
- The number of purchasers is not as large as one thinks? The US is the living embodiment of Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle. Other countries are not much better and they have less disposable cash.
Net net: The word desperate may be appropriate for Palantir Technologies. I don’t have a good set of options for the company: Too much hype, too much development cost, too much customizing and tuning and training, and too much nuke talk. Not helpful.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2022
ACM Opens Computing Literature Archive
May 30, 2022
The history of computers is fascinating. It starts thousands of years ago with some of history’s brilliant intellects, staggers, and then quickly advances in the twentieth century. We now have humanity’s collected knowledge in the palm of our hands…if the data or Wi-Fi connections work. The Association for Computing Machinery documented the invention of modern computing since 1947 and the organization opened an archive: ACM Digital Library. Associations Now explain why ACM opened its archives in, “‘The Way Things Were’: How The Association For Computing Machinery Is Opening The Doors To Its Archives.”
ACM wants people to realize how far the computing industry has gone and for its seventy-fifth anniversary is opening up its archives to the public. In the past, these records were locked behind a paywall and now they are free to the public. More than 117,500 articles from 1951-2000 are readable to the public. The archive is part of a greater ACM initiative:
“Vicki L. Hanson, the group’s CEO, noted that the ACM Digital Library initiative is part of a broader effort to make its archives available via open access by 2025. ‘Our goal is to have it open in a few years, but there’s very real costs associated with [the open-access work],’ Hanson said. ‘We have models so that we can pay for it. While the organization is still working through its open-access effort, it saw an opportunity to make its “backfile” of materials available, timed to the organization’s 75th anniversary.”
Hanson continued that opening the archive was not a big challenge, because ACM already had a system designed for public consumption. ACM wanted a creative way to announce the archive, so they used its seventy-fifth anniversary.
Organizations need to make money to support their research, but too much scientific information is kept behind paywalls. ACM’s move to share its research is a step more organizations should make.
Whitney Grace, May 30, 2022
Google AI: Works Like a Champ
May 30, 2022
Google claims its Play Store allows users to download apps that are not exclusive to its software and systems, unlike the Apple App Store. Play Store detractors say Google makes it hard to locate apps outside the Play Store and that a “warning” alerts users when they are downloading software not housed in the store. The warning makes it seem the software is dangerous. Google kills competition and the Android Police shares the story of another victim: “Google’s Automated Play Store Enforcement Just Killed A Popular Open Source App.”
Because the Play Store needs to monitor the good apps from the bad, Google automated the process. Google’s monitoring algorithm deletes most of the bad apps from its platform, but sometimes innocent apps are removed too. Developers are rarely granted appeals and Google never explains how developers can prevent banning. FairMail, the popular open source Gmail alternative, was recently banned from the Play Store. FairMail’s developer decided to stop uploading his apps, because he is sick and tired of dealing with Google.
Google’s Play Store monitoring algorithm thought FairMail was spyware:
“…Google recently flagged FairEmail as spyware because it is presumably uploading contact lists from phones, with Google supposedly giving out no details as to what exactly the problem is. Developer M66B, as he calls himself on the XDA Forums and Github, believes that the Play Store could take issue with FairEmail’s automated favicon service, which only uses the domain info from email addresses to create fitting icons for senders and addressees. However, based on previous comments in the XDA thread, it’s clear that the developer tried to add optional Gravatar and Libravatar integration in earlier versions of the app that Google did not accept. Both services are uploading email addresses to their servers in order to match them with existing profile pictures attached to these email addresses, so the use of these would have to be indicated in the app’s privacy policy. From what we can gather, this never happened.”
Google is not clearly explaining why FreeMail was removed. It states that FreeMail did not have a privacy policy, however, it did. The privacy policy did not specifically mention Gravatar and Libravatar. Google only issues blanket statements to developers over app removal, but the company needs to have better communication with developers. Most of FreeMail’s downloads came from the Play Store that used to host the paid pro version. FreeMail’s developer does not want to work with Google anymore, cited personal problems, and lack of appreciation for his work as another reason why they are quitting. FreeMail is still available on Github and F-Droid, but the Play Store version should continue to work.
Whitney Grace, May 30, 2022
Ethical Behavior and Effective Regulation? Are You Kidding Me?
May 27, 2022
I read “Tech Industry Groups Are Watering Down Attempts at Privacy Regulation, One State at a Time.” I found the write up amusing for two reasons: [1] Those wonderful technology companies have a masterful approach to disinformation. Their expertise has technical and interpersonal dimensions. What one does not know or can find easily cannot become much of a problem. [2] The suppressive actions of some entities have one goal: Increasing the span of operating freedom in economic, political, and technical spheres.
The write up states:
Big Tech funded nonprofits like TechNet, the State Privacy and Security Coalition, and the Internet Association have traveled from state to state encouraging legislators to “mirror” those industry-authored bills. TechNet representatives, for example, have testified or supplied written comments on privacy bills in at least 10 states since 2021, more than any other organization, according to our analysis of state legislative records. And lobbyists have come in droves: We counted 445 lobbyists and lobbying firms that actively represented Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, TechNet, and the State Privacy and Security Coalition in the 31 states we examined, during the time those states’ legislatures were considering privacy legislation. Many of them registered as lobbyists for the first time in the weeks immediately before or after a privacy bill was introduced
What’s the fix? I have heard that technology companies are not bigger than a government. I am not sure I agree. As long as money is available, it can buy legislative love or at least ignoring the obvious.
Perhaps the Markup will spark some change? Not as long as certain firms have their own playbook, their own rules, and their own sycophants in my opinion. Its been great having one click this, free maps, and executives telling Congressional committees “Senator, thank you for your question. I provide that information to you.”
Working great!
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2022
Microsoft and Security: This Must Be an April Fool Joke in May, Right?
May 27, 2022
I read “Pwn2Own Hackers Just Broke Into Windows 11 and Teams in a Single Day.” Was this an Onion article? A write up from a former Punch writer? An output from Google’s almost human super capable smart software?
Nope. The source is a reliable online publication called Make Use Of or MUO to its friends.
I learned:
Day one of Pwn2Own is over, and taking a look at the bounty board shows that Microsoft’s software didn’t stand up well to the onslaught. The event saw three successful attacks on Microsoft Teams, and two against Windows 11. Each successful hack was rewarded accordingly, with the lowest bounty coming in at an impressive $40,000, and the biggest at an eye-watering $150,000.
Ah, Windows 11 and the feature-spawning Teams!
My view of Windows 11 is that it was pushed out to distract some Silicon Valley type news reporters from the massively bad SolarWinds’ misstep. Few agree with me.
Be that as it may, Windows 11 does not seem to be the paragon of security that I thought Microsoft explained. You know, the TPM thing and the idea that certain computers were not able to deal with the the Millie Vanillie approach to security. Catchy lyrics, but not exactly what paying customers expected.
The article cited concludes with this statement:
With hackers putting up big wins against Microsoft’s apps at Pwn2Win, it shows that the company’s software is perhaps not as secure as it should be. Hopefully, Microsoft can publish fixes for these exploits before they fall into the wrong hands.
Will Microsoft, like Netgear, find that it cannot “fix” certain issues with its software and systems.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2022
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