Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
A person in Upland, California posted this on the local NextDoor. While anecdotal and not statistical, in this case the geolocation capabilities of a device (in this case AirPods) identified someone in possession of a stolen vehicle.
https://nextdoor.com/p/ks5wW5n_csJB?utm_source=share&extras=NDk4MjIxOTI%3D
Government Technology posted an article on a ransomware attack that affected Ardent Health Services facilities in multiple U.S. states, including Texas, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, New Jersey, and Kansas over Thanksgiving Day, requiring some ambulances to be diverted and some services suspended.
Government Technology observed:
The Thanksgiving timing of the attack is unlikely to be coincidental. Hackers are believed to see holiday weekends as an opportunity to strike while network defenders and IT are likely “at limited capacity for an extended time,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has noted.
From https://www.govtech.com/security/ransomware-impacts-health-care-systems-in-six-states
And it’s not like the hackers are necessarily having to pass up on their turkey dinner. Few if any holidays are universal, and over 7 billion people (including many hackers) did NOT celebrate Thanksgiving last Thursday.
Does this mean that companies need to INCREASE security staff during holiday periods?
I just discovered that the Jetpack app lets me add audio to posts.
Since I only have one audio file on the Bredemarket site, this is what you get.
For more information about this song, visit this page.
Although Bredemarket is a small business, I’m not doing anything for Small Business Saturday.
Why not? Because Bredemarket is a B2B business and not a B2C business, most if not all of my clients have been closed since Wednesday afternoon enjoying the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
So I’m celebrating a mostly non-business Saturday. Instead of filming Bredemarket content, I enjoyed a not-so-nutritious breakfast (skipping Starbucks AND Del Taco) and bought TWO birthday cards for my wife. (At 50¢ each, that’s an entire dollar!)
See everyone Monday.
Back in August 2023, the U.S. General Services Administration published a blog post that included the following statement:
Login.gov is on a path to providing an IAL2-compliant identity verification service to its customers in a responsible, equitable way. Building on the strong evidence-based identity verification that Login.gov already offers, Login.gov is on a path to providing IAL2-compliant identity verification that ensures both strong security and broad and equitable access.
From https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2023/08/18/reducing-fraud-and-increasing-access-drives-record-adoption-and-usage-of-logingov
It’s nice to know…NOW…that Login.gov is working to achieve IAL2.
This post explains what the August 2023 GSA post said, and what it didn’t say.
But first, I’ll define what Login.gov and “IAL2” are.
Here is what Login.gov says about itself:
Login.gov is a secure sign in service used by the public to sign in to participating government agencies. Participating agencies will ask you to create a Login.gov account to securely access your information on their website or application.
You can use the same username and password to access any agency that partners with Login.gov. This streamlines your process and eliminates the need to remember multiple usernames and passwords.
From https://www.login.gov/what-is-login/
Obviously there are a number of private companies (over 80 last I counted) that provide secure access to information, but Login.gov is provided by the government itself—specifically by the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services. Agencies at the federal, state, and local level can work with the GSA TTS’ “18F” organization to implement solutions such as Login.gov.
Why would agencies implement Login.gov? Because the agencies want to protect their constituents’ information. If fraudsters capture personally identifiable information (PII) of someone applying for government services, the breached government agency will face severe repurcussions. Login.gov is supposed to protect its partner agencies from these nightmares.
How does Login.gov do this?
At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll briefly go over what “Identity Assurance Level 2” (IAL2) is.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, in its publication NIST SP 800-63a, has defined “identity assurance levels” (IALs) that can be used when dealing with digital identities. It’s helpful to review how NIST has defined the IALs. (I’ll define the other acronyms as we go along.)
Assurance in a subscriber’s identity is described using one of three IALs:
IAL1: There is no requirement to link the applicant to a specific real-life identity. Any attributes provided in conjunction with the subject’s activities are self-asserted or should be treated as self-asserted (including attributes a [Credential Service Provider] CSP asserts to an [Relying Party] RP). Self-asserted attributes are neither validated nor verified.
IAL2: Evidence supports the real-world existence of the claimed identity and verifies that the applicant is appropriately associated with this real-world identity. IAL2 introduces the need for either remote or physically-present identity proofing. Attributes could be asserted by CSPs to RPs in support of pseudonymous identity with verified attributes. A CSP that supports IAL2 can support IAL1 transactions if the user consents.
IAL3: Physical presence is required for identity proofing. Identifying attributes must be verified by an authorized and trained CSP representative. As with IAL2, attributes could be asserted by CSPs to RPs in support of pseudonymous identity with verified attributes. A CSP that supports IAL3 can support IAL1 and IAL2 identity attributes if the user consents.
From https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63a.html#sec2
So in its simplest terms, IAL2 requires evidence of a verified credential so that an online person can be linked to a real-life identity. If someone says they’re “John Bredehoft” and fills in an online application to receive government services, IAL2 compliance helps to ensure that the person filling out the online application truly IS John Bredehoft, and not Bernie Madoff.
As more and more of us conduct business—including government business—online, IAL2 compliance is essential to reduce fraud.
One more thing about IAL2 compliance. The mere possession of a valid government issued photo ID is NOT sufficient for IAL2 compliance. After all, Bernie Madoff may be using John Bredehoft’s driver’s license. To make sure that it’s John Bredehoft using John Bredehoft’s driver’s license, an additional check is needed.
This has been explained by ID.me, a private company that happens to compete with Login.gov to provide identity proofing services to government agencies.
Biometric comparison (e.g., selfie with liveness detection or fingerprint) of the strongest piece of evidence to the applicant
From https://network.id.me/article/what-is-nist-ial2-identity-verification/
So you basically take the information on a driver’s license and perform a facial recognition 1:1 comparison with the person possessing the driver’s license, ideally using liveness detection, to make sure that the presented person is not a fake.
So the GSA was apparently claiming how secure Login.gov was. Guess who challenged the claim?
The GSA.
Now sometimes it’s ludicrous to think that the government can police itself, but in some cases government actually identifies government faults.
Of course, this works best when you can identify problems with some other government entity.
Which is why the General Services Administration has an Inspector General. And in March 2023, the GSA Inspector General released a report with the following title: “GSA Misled Customers on Login.gov’s Compliance with Digital Identity Standards.”
The title is pretty clear, but Fedscoop summarized the findings for those who missed the obvious:
As part of an investigation that has run since last April (2022), GSA’s Office of the Inspector General found that the agency was billing agencies for IAL2-compliant services, even though Login.gov did not meet Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) standards.
GSA knowingly billed over $10 million for services provided through contracts with other federal agencies, even though Login.gov is not IAL2 compliant, according to the watchdog.
From https://fedscoop.com/gsa-login-gov-watchdog-report/
So now GSA is explicitly saying that Login.gov ISN’T IAL2-compliant.
Which helps its private sector competitors.
We’ve come a long way since the days of Marcus Welby, M.D. (who was a fictional character).
A “hallucination” occurs when generative AI is convinced that its answer is correct, even when it is wrong. These hallucinations could be a problem—in healthcare, literally a matter of life or death.
The Brookings Institution details several scenarios in which reliance on artificial intelligence can get messy from a legal (and ethical) standpoint. Here is one of them.
For example, a counselor may tell a patient with a substance use disorder to use an app in order to track cravings, states of mind, and other information helpful in treating addiction. The app may recommend certain therapeutic actions in case the counselor cannot be reached. Setting aside preemption issues raised by Food and Drug Administration regulation of these apps, important questions in tort law arise. If these therapeutic actions are contraindicated and result in harm to the patient or others, is the app to blame? Or does the doctor who prescribed the app bear the blame?
From https://www.brookings.edu/articles/when-medical-robots-fail-malpractice-principles-for-an-era-of-automation/
Who is going to ensure that these bots can be trusted?
That’s right. WHO is going to ensure that these bots can be trusted.
A World Health Organization publication…
…underscores the critical need to ensure the safety and efficacy of AI systems, accelerating their availability to those in need and encouraging collaboration among various stakeholders, including developers, regulators, manufacturers, healthcare professionals, and patients.
From https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/who-outlines-responsible-regulations-needed-for-artificial-intelligence-in-healthcare/170622/
According to WHO, its document proposes six areas of artificial intelligence regulation for health.
From https://www.who.int/news/item/19-10-2023-who-outlines-considerations-for-regulation-of-artificial-intelligence-for-health
- To foster trust, the publication stresses the importance of transparency and documentation, such as through documenting the entire product lifecycle and tracking development processes.
- For risk management, issues like ‘intended use’, ‘continuous learning’, human interventions, training models and cybersecurity threats must all be comprehensively addressed, with models made as simple as possible.
- Externally validating data and being clear about the intended use of AI helps assure safety and facilitate regulation.
- A commitment to data quality, such as through rigorously evaluating systems pre-release, is vital to ensuring systems do not amplify biases and errors.
- The challenges posed by important, complex regulations – such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States of America – are addressed with an emphasis on understanding the scope of jurisdiction and consent requirements, in service of privacy and data protection.
- Fostering collaboration between regulatory bodies, patients, healthcare professionals, industry representatives, and government partners, can help ensure products and services stay compliant with regulation throughout their lifecycles.
The 61 page document, “Regulatory considerations on artificial intelligence for health,” is available via https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/373421.
I recently published a post that asked three questions:
I answered those three questions as follows:
Apparently we weren’t paying attention to what these three songs actually SAID.
But what happens when we DO pay attention to the message, but there’s a “metamessage” that is also conveyed that says something COMPLETELY different?
Gracious city livers of Upland (and others in other cities), read on. This post talks about:
There is a popular practice in which people ARE well aware of the original message, but only some of them discern the hidden message, or metamessage, behind those words.
And you don’t have to look to business communication to find examples of this. Take the romantic world, in which the statement “If you go out with me I’ll treat you like the princess you are!” conveys the metamessage of predatory desperation. In the business world, “Let me take that under consideration” means that the speaker is not considering the proposal for a nanosecond.
Sometimes many of us can’t discern the metamessage until long after the message is stated.
Respect: We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance don’t belong here.
Integrity: We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.
Communication: We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk with one another…and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people.
Excellence: We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.
From Enron’s Statement of Human Rights Principles.
Now to be fair to Houston, the cocaine detected in her toxicology report may not have been CRACK cocaine, and cocaine was not the only substance detected. But now we know that while crack may have been “wack,” cocaine was OK, and marijuana, Xanax, and other things were OK too.
I have no desire to be fair to Enron, but I guess we can say that “the very best in everything we do” can be defined as “maximizing personal value,” that there isn’t an “obligation to communicate” EVERYTHING, and that falsifying records does not necessarily mean ruthlessness or arrogance.
How often do you roll your eyes in amusement when a business says something?
Conversely, how often do you nod your head in agreement when a business says something?
Now I’ll grant that there’s not universal agreement on whether Company X is truthful in its messaging. For every person who thinks that Apple is the last guardian of privacy on ths planet, there is someone else who is convinced that Apple is an evil corporation who has (and I quote an anonymous source) “become what they accused Microsoft of.”
But it doesn’t matter what the world thinks.
What matters is what your prospect thinks.
One powerful way to convince a doubting prospect is via a case study.
It always helps when someone else is singing your company’s praises. Especially when the subject of the case study backs up what you’ve been claiming all along.
If your Inland Empire firm needs a case study, Bredemarket can create it for you. After I ask you some questions, I can craft a case study (with your approval and the approval of the case study subject) that emphasizes WHY your company serves your customers, and HOW the case study demonstrates this.
Let’s talk. Click on the image below.
Let me warn you beforehand that this post includes a word that could not be aired on U.S. radio back in the day. With that warning, I will move forward.
Isn’t it wonderful when a man loves a woman? And isn’t it great to be born in the U.S.A.? And didn’t the devil get what he deserved when he went down to Georgia?
No, no, and no. Apparently we weren’t paying attention to what these three songs actually SAID.
Almost everyone agrees that “When a Man Loves a Woman” is the perfect song for the first dance at a wedding reception. But when you actually read all of the lyrics, you discover that any marriage that starts with this song is doomed to failure. Here’s just a small sample:
She can bring him such misery
From Genius.
If she is playin’ him for a fool
He’s the last one to know
This is NOT a love song. (Sung by John, not by the Johnny that we will meet later.) The woman in Percy Sledge’s song obviously has other plans.
There are also misunderstandings about our Third National Anthem (after Francis Scott Key’s and Lee Greenwood’s compositions). I speak, of course, of “BORN IN THE U.S.A.!!!” Cue the fireworks.
But take a detailed look at the main character in Springsteen’s song.
Rather than celebrating the “proud to be an American” opportunities his country provides him, he ends up in despair after getting “in a little hometown jam,” being sent away to Vietnam to “kill the yellow man,” and returning home to a less than warm welcome.
Come back home to the refinery
From Genius.
Hiring man says, “Son, if it was up to me”
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said, “Son, don’t you understand”
Why the HELL was his country doing this to him?
Which brings us to the Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” (Language warning.)
Those who know that Johnny won the fiddle contest may think that I’m just overreacting to the then controversial b-word at the end of the song. Well, I do have a problem with the b-word…but not THAT b-word.
You know the story. The devil goes down to Georgia, finds fiddle-playing Johnny, and challenges him to a contest. If Johnny wins, he gets a “fiddle of gold.” If Johnny loses, the devil gets his soul. Even though “it might be a sin,” Johnny proceeds with the bet. The devil and Johnny trade fiddle solos. Frankly, the devil’s solo is pretty impressive…until we hear Johnny’s good ol’ Southern solo.
And what happens next?
The Devil bowed his head because he knew that he’d been beat
From Genius.
And he laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny’s feet
Johnny said, “Devil, just come on back if you ever wanna try again
I done told you once–you son of a bitch–I’m the best there’s ever been.”
Yes, Johnny DID say “bitch”…except on over-the-air radio, which bleeped out the word. The real issue is what Johnny said next, echoing what he said before: I’m the best there’s ever been. And this is the moment when the devil achieved his ultimate victory and snatched Johnny’s soul, because Johnny “did not give God the glory.” (See Acts 12:21-23 for the consequences, if you’re so inclined.)
In all three examples, the lyrics of the song state one thing, but we refuse to listen to it. Why? Because we’re so enamored of what we THINK the message says.
But what happens when we DO pay attention to the message, but there’s a “metamessage” that is also conveyed that says something COMPLETELY different?
To be continued in the next post; click here. (You’ll see some comments about how Inland Empire businesses can support their metamessages via case studies.)
But first I’ll present one other song about messages. French language warning.
Cults of personality are REALLY REALLY popular.
But cults of personality are REALLY REALLY bad for business. I’ll give you three reasons why…and then I’ll give you a few more.
Let’s look at some cults of personality to see the damage they can do.
If I mention Sam Winston to you, most of you won’t know who I’m talking about. But he used to be very big in the world of tires, primarily because he was featured in every Winston Tire commercial that aired in California.
Until he wasn’t.
Now there were some valid reasons for featuring Sam Winston in the Winston Tire commercials. He not only provided a personal touch, but he inspired a sense of trust by claiming that Winston Tire customers would benefit from the quality of his products.
Sadly, Sam Winston died in 1995 (ironically as the result of an automobile crash), and unlike a certain chicken purveyor, Winston Tires chose not to create an animated (or live action) version of its pitchman.
Without its well-known pitchman, and with other troubles, Winston Tire was sold in 1997 and passed through multiple owners before being liquidated entirely by Goodyear.
And now you DON’T get Sam.
There are many who worship Steve Jobs. Members of this cult preach the gospel that Jobs was unfairly kicked out of his own company until returning in triumph a decade later.
I’m not buying it.
Even before the board showdown between Jobs and John Sculley, Steve was not infallible. Insisting on building Apple’s own disk drive for the Macintosh, only the disobedience of his lieutenants (who secretly met with Sony) ensured that 1984 wasn’t delayed to 1985.
But 1985 was the year that Jobs either fired or resigned, launching the era of Sculley, Spindler, and Amelio. Was that decade truly a failure? Ask another man with his own cult, Woz:
“The Macintosh failed, really hard,” he said to The Verge in 2013, “and who built the Macintosh into a success later on? It wasn’t Steve, he was gone. It was other people like John Sculley who worked and worked to build a Macintosh market when the Apple II went away.”
“You know, I loved the Newton. That thing changed my life,” added Wozniak. “John Sculley got demeaned by Steve a lot, but he did the Knowledge Navigator, the Newton, HyperCard — unbelievable things.”
From https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/15/looking-back-at-john-sculleys-rise-as-apples-ceo-and-fall-an-october-15-1993
Admittedly there were issues during the tenures of all three post-Jobs leaders, but the company that Jobs ran in the 1990s was in a much better position than the one he left in the 1980s. In particular, the company’s revenue was five times greater in 1995 ($11.06 billion) than it was in 1985 ($1.918 billion).
And what about what Jobs did himself during that decade? NeXT took three years to even show its product, and in 1989 Businessland sold a whopping 360 units. NeXT sold 50,000 units, but then got out of the hardware business entirely and concentrating on its operating system, which it eventually sold to Apple along with itself and its head.
Of course, we all know what happened after Jobs returned. From that $11 billion, the company’s revenue…nosedived? Heading below $6 billion by 1998, revenue wouldn’t exceed $11 billion until 2005. By the time Jobs died, Apple’s revenue exceeded $100 billion. After his death, it has zoomed to over $300 billion.
Clearly Jobs had visions and successes, but Apple has also excelled without him.
I’ve already talked about how Sam Winston’s death was the last straw for Winston Tire as an independent company.
But today, literally today (Monday, November 20, 2023), we are all talking about another Sam. Sam Altman.
As I write this the story is still evolving, but this much has happened within the last few days.
So, where does this leave OpenAI, now that its public face has been replaced by an ex-Twitch person?
Will ChatGPT remain synonymous with generative AI in the minds of many?
Or will OpenAI fade into the background?
But those aren’t the largest reasons why cults of personality are deadly.
The big problem is that whenever you talk about Sam, or Steve, or Sam, you’re NOT talking about things that matter to your prospects or customers.
So maybe THAT is what you should be telling your prospects…not about your cool founder.
I was inspired to write this post after two things that happened to me on Saturday night. These don’t rise to the level of Sam, Steve, or Sam, but they got me thinking.
Bredemarket has an Instagram account, and before Saturday the account was frequently mentioning the (then) upcoming “art walk” festivities throughout downtown Ontario, California. You can see the highlights here.
While I was wandering around downtown Ontario, two people approached me and said that they recognized me, and Bredemarket. Why? Because of their awareness of the things that I have been posting on Instagram.
But awareness doesn’t benefit anybody in the long term.
How can local businesses (or other businesses) benefit from what Bredemarket does?
The “400” refers to the 400 to 600 words that we will create together via the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service. Let’s get started.
So why don’t you get YOUR message out? Not about your founder, but about your prospects’ needs.
Some of you are arriving here after reading about the AI CEO Mika.
Some of you aren’t.
But all of you (well, unless you’re Mika, who might not get out all that much) are familiar with how an outdoor marketplace works.
A marketplace contains two types of people—sellers, and those who aren’t sellers.
There are many different ways to tell the sellers from the non-sellers, but one key way (at least as far as I’m concerned) is that sellers are saying things.
If you’re not saying things, then you’re not a seller.
And you’re not selling.
If you want to sell, maybe you should say stuff.
Whether you are an identity/biometric firm, a technology firm, or a firm located in California’s Inland Empire, Bredemarket can help you create the blog posts, case studies, white papers, and other content your firm needs.
Click on one of the images below to start to create content that converts prospects for your product/service and drives content results.
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