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India: Okay, No More CSAM or Else the Cash Register Will Ring

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

X (the Tweeter thing), YouTube, and Telegram get a tough assignment. India wants child sexual abuse material or CSAM for those who want to do acronym speak scrubbed from content or services delivered in the great nation of India. There are some interesting implications for these US technology giants. First, the outfits are accustomed to just agreeing and not doing much to comply with government suggestions. In fact, most of the US high-tech firms offer promises, and those can be slippery fish. Second, determining what is and what is not CSAM can be a puzzler as well. Bad actors are embracing smart software and generating some realistic images and videos without having to find, coerce, film, and pay off humans involved in the distasteful but lucrative business. Questions about the age of a synthetic child porno star are embarrassing to ask and debate. Remember the need for a diverse group to deliberate about such matters. Also, the advent of smart software invites orchestration so that text prompts can be stuffed into a system. The system happily outputs videos with more speed than a human adult industry star speeding to a shoot after a late call. Zeros and ones are likely to take over CSAM because … efficiency.

“India Tells X, YouTube, Telegram to Remove Any Child Sexual Abuse Material from Platforms” reports:

The companies could be stripped of their protection from legal liability if they don’t comply, the government said in a statement. The notices, sent by the federal Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), emphasized the importance of prompt and permanent removal of any child sexual abuse material on these platforms.

My dinobaby perspective is that [a] these outfits cannot comply because neither smart software nor legions of human content curators can keep up with the volume of videos and images pumped by these systems. [b] India probably knows that the task is a tough one and may be counting on some hefty fines to supplement other sources of cash for a delightful country. [c] Telegram poses a bit of a challenge because bad actors use Dark Web and Clear Web lures to attract CSAM addicts and then point to a private Telegram group to pay for and get delivery of the digital goods. That encryption thing may be a sticky wicket.

Net net: Some high-tech outfits may find doing business in India hotter than a Chettinad masala.

Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2023

Open Source Companies: Bet on Expandability and Extendibility

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Naturally, a key factor driving adoption of open source software is a need to save money. However, argues Lago co-founder Anh-Tho Chuong, “Open Source Does Not Win by Being Cheaper” than the competition. Not just that, anyway. She writes:

“What we’ve learned is that open-source tools can’t rely on being an open-source alternative to an already successful business. A developer can’t just imitate a product, tag on an MIT license, and call it a day. As awesome as open source is, in a vacuum, it’s not enough to succeed. … [Open-source companies] either need a concrete reason for why they are open source or have to surpass their competitors.”

One caveat: Chuong notes she is speaking of businesses like hers, not sponsored community projects like React, TypeORM, or VSCode. Outfits that need to turn a profit to succeed must offer more than savings to distinguish themselves, she insists. The post notes two specific problems open-source developers should aim to solve: transparency and extensibility. It is important to many companies to know just how their vendors are handling their data (and that of their clients). With closed software one just has to trust information is secure. The transparency of open-source code allows one verify that it is. The extensibility advantage comes from the passion of community developers for plugins, which are often merged into the open-source main branch. It can be difficult for closed-source engineering teams to compete with the resulting extendibility.

See the write-up for examples of both advantages from the likes of MongoDB, PostHog, and Minio. Chuong concludes:

“Both of the above issues contribute to commercial open-source being a better product in the long run. But by tapping the community for feedback and help, open-source projects can also accelerate past closed-source solutions. … Open-source projects—not just commercial open source—have served as a critical driver for the improvement of products for decades. However, some software is going to remain closed source. It’s just the nature of first-mover advantage. But when transparency and extensibility are an issue, an open-source successor becomes a real threat.”

Cynthia Murrell, October 12, 2023

Intelware: Some Advanced Technology Is Not So New

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

I read “European Spyware Consortium Supplied Despots and Dictators.” The article is a “report” about intelware vendors. The article in Spiegel International is a “can you believe this” write up. The article identifies a number of companies past and present. Plus individuals are identified.

The hook is technology that facilitates exfiltration of data from mobile devices. Mobile phones are a fashion item and a must have for many people. It does not take much insight to conclude that data on these ubiquitous gizmos can provide potentially high value information. Even better, putting a software module on a mobile device of a person of interest can save time and expense. Modern intelligence gathering techniques are little more than using technology to minimize the need for humans sitting in automobiles or technicians planting listening devices in interesting locations. The other benefits of technology include real time or near real time data acquisition, geo-location data, access to the digital information about callers and email pals, and data available to the mobile’s ever improving cameras and microphones.

The write up points out:

One message, one link, one click. That’s all it takes to lose control of your digital life, unwittingly and in a matter of seconds.

The write up is story focused, probably because a podcast or a streaming video documentary was in the back of the mind of the writers and possibly Spiegel International itself. If you like write ups that have a slant, you will find the cited article interesting.

I want to mentions several facets of the write up which get less attention from “real” journalists.

First, the story of the intelware dates back to the late 1970s. Obviously some of the technology has been around for decades, although refined over time. If this “shady” technology were a problem, why has it persisted, been refined, and pressed into service around the world by many countries? It is tempting to focus on a current activity because it makes a good story, but the context and longevity of some of the systems and methods are interesting to me. But 40 years?

Second, in the late 1970s and the block diagrams I have seen presenting the main features of the Amesys system (i2e Technologies) and its direct descendants have had remarkable robustness. In fact, were one to look at the block diagram for a system provided to a controversial government in North Africa and one of the NSO Group Pegasus block diagrams, the basics are retained. Why? A good engineering solution is useful even thought certain facets of the system are improved with modern technology. What’s this mean? From my point of view, the clever individual or group eager to replicate this type of stealth intelware can do it, just with modern tools and today’s robust cloud environment. The cloud was not a “thing” in 1980, but today it is a Teflon for intelware. This means quicker, faster, better, cheaper, and smarter with each iteration.

Source: IT News in Australia

Third, this particular type of intelware is available from specialized software companies worldwide. Want to buy a version from a developer in Spain? No problem. How about a Chinese variety? Cultivate your contacts in Hong Kong or Singapore and your wish will be granted. What about a version from an firm based in India? No problem, just hang out at telecommunications conference in Mumbai.

Net net: Newer and even more stealthy intelware technologies are available today. Will these be described and stories about the use of them be written? Yep. Will I identify some of these firms? Sure, just attend one of my lectures for law enforcement and intelligence professionals. But the big question is never answered, “Why are these technologies demonstrating such remarkable magnetic appeal?” And a related question, “Why do governments permit these firms to operate?”

Come on, Spiegel International. Write about a more timely approach, not one that is decades old and documented in detail on publicly accessible sources. Oh, is location tracking enabled on your phone to obviate some of the value of Signal, Telegram, and Threema encrypted messaging apps?

PS. Now no clicks are needed. The technology can be deployed when a mobile number is known and connected to a network. There is an exception too. The requisite code can be pre-installed on one’s mobile device. Is that a story? Nah, that cannot be true. I agree.

Stephen E Arnold, October 11, 2023 

Cognitive Blind Spot 4: Ads. What Is the Big Deal Already?

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Last week, I presented a summary of Dark Web Trends 2023, a research update my team and I prepare each year. I showed a visual of the ads on a Dark Web search engine. Here’s an example of one of my illustrations:

The TorLanD service, when it is accessible via Tor, displays a search box and advertising. What is interesting about this service and a number of other Dark Web search engines is the ads. The search results are so-so, vastly inferior to those information retrieval solutions offered by intelware vendors.

Some of the ads appear on other Dark Web search systems as well; for example, Bobby and DarkSide, among others. The advertisements off a range of interesting content. TorLanD screenshot pitches carding, porn, drugs, gadgets (skimmers and software), illegal substances. I pointed out that the ads on TorLanD looked a lot like the ads on Bobby; for instance:

I want to point out that the Silk Road 4.0 and the Gadgets, Docs, Fakes ads are identical. Notice also that TorLanD advertises on Bobby. The Helsinki Drug Marketplace on the Bobby search system offers heroin.

Most of these ads are trade outs. The idea is that one Dark Web site will display an ad for another Dark Web site. There are often links to Dark Web advertising agencies as well. (For this short post, I won’t be listing these vendors, but if you are interested in this research, contact benkent2020 at yahoo dot com. One of my team will follow up and explain our for-fee research policy.)

The point of these two examples is make clear that advertising has become normalized, even among bad actors. Furthermore, few are surprised that bad actors (or alleged bad actors) communicate, pat one another on the back, and support an ecosystem to buy and sell space on the increasingly small Dark Web. Please, note that advertising appears in public and private Telegram groups focused on he topics referenced in these Dark Web ads.

Can you believe the ads? Some people do. Users of the Clear Web and the Dark Web are conditioned to accept ads and to believe that these are true, valid, useful, and intended to make it easy to break the law and buy a controlled substance or CSAM. Some ads emphasize “trust.”

People trust ads. People believe ads. People expect ads. In fact, one can poke around and identify advertising and PR agencies touting the idea that people “trust” ads, particularly those with brand identity. How does one build brand? Give up? Advertising and weaponized information are two ways.

The cognitive bias that operates is that people embrace advertising. Look at a page of Google results. Which are ads and which are ads but not identified. What happens when ads are indistinguishable from plausible messages? Some online companies offer stealth ads. On the Dark Web pages illustrating this essay are law enforcement agencies masquerading as bad actors. Can you identify one such ad? What about messages on Twitter which are designed to be difficult to spot as paid messages or weaponized content. For one take on Twitter technology, read “New Ads on X Can’t Be Blocked or Reported, and Aren’t Labeled as Advertisements.”

Let me highlight some of the functions on online ads like those on the Dark Web sites. I will ignore the Clear Web ads for the purposes of this essay:

1. Click on the ad and receive malware
2. Visit the ad and explore the illegal offer so that the site operator can obtain information about you
3. Sell you a product and obtain the identifiers you provide, a deliver address (either physical or digital), or plant a beacon on your system to facilitate tracking
4. Gather emails for phishing or other online initiatives
5. Blackmail.

I want to highlight advertising as a vector of weaponization for three reasons: [a] People believe ads. I know it sound silly, but ads work. People suspend disbelief when an ad on a service offers something that sounds too good to be true; [b] many people do not question the legitimacy of an ad or its message. Ads are good. Ads are everywhere. and [c] Ads are essentially unregulated.

What happens when everything drifts toward advertising? The cognitive blind spot kicks in and one cannot separate the false from the real.

Public service note: Before you explore Dark Web ads or click links on social media services like Twitter, consider that these are vectors which can point to quite surprising outcomes. Intelligence agencies outside the US use Dark Web sites as a way to harvest useful information. Bad actors use ads to rip off unsuspecting people like the doctor who once lived two miles from my office when she ordered a Dark Web hitman to terminate an individual.

Ads are unregulated and full of surprises. But the cognitive blind spot for advertising guarantees that the technique will flourish and gain technical sophistication. Are those objective search results useful information or weaponized? Will the Dark Web vendor really sell you valid stolen credit cards? Will the US postal service deliver an unmarked envelope chock full of interesting chemicals?

Stephen E Arnold, October 11, 2023

New Website Brings Focus to State Courts and Constitutions

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Despite appearances, constitutional law is not all about the US Supreme Court. State courts and constitutions are integral to the maintenance (and elimination) of citizen rights. But the national media often underplays or overlooks key discussions and decisions on the state level. NYU Law’s Brennan Center‘s nonpartisan State Court Report is a new resource that seeks to address that imbalance. Its About page explains:

“What’s been missing is a forum where experts come together to analyze and discuss constitutional trends emerging from state high courts, as well as a place where noteworthy state cases and case materials are easy to find and access. State constitutions share many common provisions, and state courts across the country frequently grapple with similar questions about constitutional interpretation. Enter State Court Report, which is dedicated to covering legal news, trends, and cutting-edge scholarship, offering insights and commentary from a nationwide network of academics, journalists, judges, and practitioners with diverse perspectives and expertise. By providing original content and resources that are easily accessible, State Court Report fosters informed dialogue, research, and public understanding about an essential but chronically underappreciated source of law. Our newsletter offers a deep dive into legal developments across the states. Our case database highlights notable state constitutional decisions and cases to watch in state high courts. Our state pages provide information on high courts and constitutions in all 50 states. In addition, State Court Report supports and participates in symposia, conferences, educational training, and panels, and also partners with other organizations to disseminate and share information and research.”

The organization debuts with two high-profile guest essays, from former U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and former Michigan Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack. One can browse articles by issue or state or, of course, search for any particulars. Not surprisingly, a subscription to the newsletter is one prominent click away. We hope the Brennan Center succeeds with this effort to bring attention to important constitutional issues before they wind their way to SCOTUS.

Cynthia Murrell, October 11, 2023

Data Drift: Yes, It Is Real and Feeds on False Economy Methods

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

When I mention statistical drift, most of those in my lectures groan and look at their mobile phone. I am delighted to call attention to a write up called “The Model-Eat-Model World’ of Clinical AI: How Predictive Power Becomes a Pitfall.” The article focuses on medical information, but its message applies to a wide range of “smart” models. These include the Google shortcuts of Snorkel to the Bayesian based systems in vogue in many policeware and intelware products. The behavior appears to have influenced Dr. Timnit Gebru and contributed to her invitation to find her future elsewhere from none other than the now marginalized Google Brain group. (Googlers do not appreciate being informed of their shortcomings it seems.)

The young shark of Wall Street ponders his recent failure at work. He thinks, “I used those predictive models as I did last year. How could they have gone off the rails. I am ruined.” Thanks, MidJourney. Manet you are not.

The main idea is that as numerical recipes iterate, the outputs deteriorate or wander off the desired path. The number of cycles require to output baloney depends on the specific collections of procedures. But wander these puppies do. To provide a baseline, users of the Autonomy Bayesian system found that after three months of operation, precision and recall were deteriorated. The fix was to retrain the system. Flash forward today to systems that iterate many times faster than the Autonomy neurolinguistic programming method, and the lousy outputs can appear in a matter of hours. There are corrective steps one can take, but these are expensive when they involve humans. Thus, some predictive outputs have developed smart software to try and keep the models from jumping their railroad tracks. When the models drift, the results seem off kilter.

The write up says:

Last year, an investigation from STAT and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology captured how model performance can degrade over time by testing the performance of three predictive algorithms. Over the course of a decade, accuracy for predicting sepsis, length of hospitalization, and mortality varied significantly. The culprit? A combination of clinical changes — the use of new standards for medical coding at the hospital — and an influx of patients from new communities. When models fail like this, it’s due to a problem called data drift.

Yep, data drift.

I need to check my mobile phone. Fixing data drift is tricky and in today’s zoom zoom world, “good enough” is the benchmark of excellence. Marketers do not want to talk about data drift. What if bad things result? Let the interns fix it next summer?

Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2023

The Google: Dribs and Drabs of Information Suggest a Frisky Outfit

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

I have been catching up since I returned from a law enforcement conference. One of the items in my “read” file concerned Google’s alleged demonstrations of the firm’s cleverness. Clever is often valued more than intelligence in some organization  in my experience. I picked up on an item describing the system and method for tweaking a Google query to enhance the results with some special content.

“ How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet” appeared on October 2, 2023. By October 6, 2023, the article was disappeared. I want to point out for you open source intelligence professionals, the original article remains online.

Two serious and bright knowledge workers look confused when asked about alleged cleverness. One says, “I don’t understand. We are here to help you.” Thanks, Microsoft Bing. Highly original art and diverse too.

Nope. I won’t reveal where or provide a link to it. I read it and formulated three notions in my dinobaby brain:

1. The author is making darned certain that he/she/it will not be hired by the Google.
2. The system and method described in the write up is little more than a variation on themes which thread through a number of Google patent documents. I demonstrated in my monograph Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator that clever methods work for profiling users and building comprehensive data sets about products.
3. The idea of editorial curation is alive, just not particularly effective at the “begging for dollars” outfit doing business as Wired Magazine.

Those are my opinions, and I urge you to formulate your own.

I noted several interesting comments on Hacker News about this publish and disappear event. Let me highlight several. You can find the posts at this link, but keep in mind, these also can vaporize without warning. Isn’t being a sysadmin fun?

1. judge2020: “It’s obvious that they design for you to click ads, but it was fairly rocky suggesting that the backend reaches out to the ad system. This wouldn’t just destroy results, but also run afoul of FCC Ad disclosure requirements….”
2. techdragon: “I notice it seems like Google had gotten more and more willing to assume unrelated words/concepts are sufficiently interchangeable that it can happily return both in a search query for either … and I’ll be honest here… single behavior is the number one reason I’m on the edge of leaving google search forever…”
3. TourcanLoucan: “Increasingly the Internet is not for us, it is certainly not by us, it is simply where you go when you are bored, the only remaining third place that people reliably have access to, and in true free market fashion, it is wall-to-wall exploitation.”

I want to point out that online services operate like droplets of mercury. They merge and one has a giant blob of potentially lethal mercury. Is Google a blob of mercury? The disappearing content is interesting as are the comments about the incident. But some kids play with mercury; others use it in industrial processes; and some consume it (willingly or unwillingly) like sailors of yore with a certain disease. They did not know. You know or could know.

Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2023

Newly Emerged Snowden Revelations Appear in Dutch Doctoral Thesis

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

One Eddie Snowden (a fine gent indeed) rumor said that 99 percent of the NSA data Edward Snowden risked his neck to expose ten years ago remains unpublished. Some entities that once possessed that archive are on record as having destroyed it. This includes The Intercept, which was originally created specifically to publish its revelations. So where are the elusive Snowden files now? Could they be In the hands of a post-PhD researcher residing in Berlin? Computer Weekly examines three fresh Snowden details that made their way into a doctoral thesis in its article, “New Revelations from the Snowden Archive Surface.” The thesis was written by American citizen Jacob Applebaum, who has since received his PhD from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Reporter Stefania Maurizi summarizes:

“These revelations go back a decade, but remain of indisputable public interest:

1. The NSA listed Cavium, an American semiconductor company marketing Central Processing Units (CPUs) – the main processor in a computer which runs the operating system and applications – as a successful example of a ‘SIGINT-enabled’ CPU supplier. Cavium, now owned by Marvell, said it does not implement back doors for any government.
2. The NSA compromised lawful Russian interception infrastructure, SORM. The NSA archive contains slides showing two Russian officers wearing jackets with a slogan written in Cyrillic: ‘You talk, we listen.’ The NSA and/or GCHQ has also compromised Key European LI [lawful interception] systems.
3. Among example targets of its mass surveillance program, PRISM, the NSA listed the Tibetan government in exile.”

Of public interest, indeed. See the write-up for more details on each point or, if you enjoy wading through academic papers, the thesis itself [pdf]. So how and when did Applebaum get his hands on information from the Snowden docs? Those details are not revealed, but we do know this much:

“In 2013, Jacob Appelbaum published a remarkable scoop for Der Spiegel, revealing the NSA had spied on Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. This scoop won him the highest journalistic award in Germany, the Nannen Prize (later known as the Stern Award). Nevertheless, his work on the NSA revelations, and his advocacy for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, as well as other high-profile whistleblowers, has put him in a precarious condition. As a result of this, he has resettled in Berlin, where he has spent the past decade.”

Probably wise. Will most of the Snowden archive remain forever unpublished? Impossible to say, especially since we do not know how many copies remain and in whose hands.

Cynthia Murrell, October 10, 2023

Israeli Intelware: Is It Time to Question Its Value?

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

In 2013, I believe that was the year, I attended an ISS TeleStrategies Conference. A friend of mine wanted me to see his presentation, and I was able to pass the Scylla and Charybdis-inspired security process and listen to the talk. (Last week I referenced that talk and quoted a statement posted on a slide for everyone in attendance to view. Yep, a quote from 2013, maybe earlier.)

After the talk, I walked quickly through the ISS exhibit hall. I won’t name the firms exhibiting because some of these are history (failures), some are super stealthy, and others have been purchased by other outfits as the intelware roll ups continue. I do recall a large number of intelware companies with their headquarters in or near Tel Aviv, Israel. My impression, as I recall, was that Israel’s butt-kicking software could make sense of social media posts, Dark Web forum activity, Facebook craziness, and Twitter disinformation. These Israeli outfits were then the alpha vendors. Now? Well, maybe a bit less alpha drifting to beta or gamma.

One major to another: “Do you think our intel was wrong?” The other officer says, “I sat in a briefing teaching me that our smart software analyzed social media in real time. We cannot be surprised. We have the super duper intelware.” The major says, jarred by an explosion, “Looks like we were snookered by some Madison Avenue double talk. Let’s take cover.” Thanks, MidJourney. You do understand going down in flames. Is that because you are thinking about your future?

My impression was that the Israeli-developed software shared a number of functional and visual similarities. I asked people at the conference if they had noticed the dark themes, the similar if not identical timeline functions, and the fondness for maps on which data were plotted and projected. “Peas in a pod,” my friend, a former NATO officer told me. Are not peas alike?

The reason — and no one has really provided this information — is that the developers shared a foxhole. The government entities in Israel train people with the software and systems proven over the years to be useful. The young trainees carry their learnings forward in their career. Then when mustered out, a few bright sparks form companies or join intelware giants like Verint and continue to enhance existing tools or building new ones. The idea is that life in the foxhole imbues those who experience it with certain similar mental furniture. The ideas, myths, and software experiences form the muddy floor and dirt walls of the foxhole. I suppose one could call this “digital bias”, which later manifests itself in the dozens of Tel Aviv -based intelware, policeware, and spyware companies’ products and services.

Why am I mentioning this?

The reason is that I was shocked and troubled by the allegedly surprise attack. If you want to follow the activity, navigate to X.com and search that somewhat crippled system for #OSINT. Skip top and go to the “Latest” tab.

Several observations:

1. Are the Israeli intelware products (many of which are controversial and expensive) flawed? Obviously excellent software processing “signals” was blind to the surprise attack, right?
2. Are the Israeli professionals operating the software unable to use it to prevent surprise attacks? Obviously excellent software in the hands of well-trained professionals flags signals and allows action to be taken when warranted. Did that happen? Has Israeli intel training fallen short of its goal of protecting the nation? Hmmm. Maybe, yes.
3. Have those who hype intelware and the excellence of a particular system and method been fooled, falling into the dark pit of OSINT blind spots like groupthink and “reasoning from anecdote, not fact”? I am leaning toward a “yes”, gentle reader.

The time for a critical look at what works and what doesn’t is what the British call “from this day” work. The years of marketing craziness is one thing, but when either the system or the method allows people to be killed without warning or cause broadcasts one message: “Folks, something is very, very wrong.”

Perhaps certification of these widely used systems is needed? Perhaps a hearing in an appropriate venue is warranted?

Blind spots can cause harm. Marketers can cause harm. Poorly trained operators can cause harm. Even foxholes require tidying up. Technology for intelligence applications is easy to talk about, but it is now clear to everyone engaged in making sense of signals, one country’s glamped up systems missed the wicket.

Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2023

Canada vs. Google: Not a Fair Hockey Game

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

I get a bit of a thrill when sophisticated generalist executives find themselves rejected by high-tech wizards. An amusing example of “Who is in charge here?” appears in “Google Rejects Trudeau’s Olive Branch, Threatens News Link Block Over New Law.”

A seasoned high-tech executive explains that the laptop cannot retrieve Canadian hockey news any longer. Thanks, Microsoft Bing. Nice maple leaf hat.

The write up states:

Alphabet Inc.’s Google moved closer to blocking Canadians from viewing news links on its search engine, after it rejected government regulations meant to placate its concerns about an impending online content law.

Yep, Canada may not be allowed into the select elite of Google users with news. Why? Canada passed a law with which Google does not agree. Imagine. Canada wants Google to pay for accessing, scraping, and linking to Canadian news.

Canada does not understand who is in charge. The Google is the go-to outfit. If you don’t believe me, just ask some of those Canadian law enforcement and intelligence analysts what online system is used to obtain high-value information. Hint. It is not yandex.ru.

The write up adds:

Google already threatened to remove links to news, and tested blocking such content for a small percentage of users in Canada earlier this year. On Friday, it went further, implying a block could be imminent as the current regulations would force the company to participate in the mandatory bargaining process while it applies for exemption.

Will the Google thwart the Canadian government? Based on the importance of the Google system to certain government interests, a deal of some sort seems likely. But Google could just buy Canada and hire some gig workers to run the country.

Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2023

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  Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.

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