Latest news with #Bouffard
AU Financial Review
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
‘Fake My Run' is exactly what it sounds like
By his own admission, Arthur Bouffard has always enjoyed dabbling in a healthy bit of mischief that blurs the lines between technology and reality. He found his sweet spot when he unveiled his latest project this month. Bouffard, 26, built a website called Fake My Run, which he described as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation'. And it is exactly as advertised: a site that houses a program that produces, in exacting detail, complete with mapped routes, fraudulent runs that users can upload to online exercise-tracking services like Strava.
The Star
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Fake My Run is exactly what it sounds like
By his own admission, Arthur Bouffard has always enjoyed dabbling in a healthy bit of mischief that blurs the lines between technology and reality. He found his sweet spot when he unveiled his latest project this month. Bouffard, 26, built a website called Fake My Run, which he described as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation'. And it is exactly as advertised: a site that houses a program that produces, in exacting detail, complete with mapped routes, fraudulent runs that users can upload to online exercise-tracking services like Strava. When Pedro Duarte, the head of marketing for a software company, reposted a 42-second video by Bouffard on the social platform X that demonstrated the program's ease of use – and its apparent deviousness – Duarte spoke for the masses when he wrote: 'believe nothing. not even people's runs.' He added, 'insane, i hate it and i love it.' Which was exactly the point. Bouffard, who lives in The Hague, the Netherlands, where he works as an augmented-reality developer, wanted people to feel conflicted. 'It's all very tongue-in-cheek,' he said. As an avid jogger, Bouffard had become familiar with certain trends in the running community – some more pernicious than others. He had noticed, for example, how often people would run marathons and immediately grab their phones so that they could upload their results to platforms like Strava. Because if a run does not exist on Strava or on social media, it might as well not exist at all. Even worse, Bouffard felt, was the trend in which people hire so-called Strava mules to do their runs for them as a way of gaining online clout without putting in any actual effort. (Yes, this is a real thing.) 'It made me think of how this whole hobby has become more and more performative,' Bouffard said. What, he wondered, had happened to jogging for the pleasure of it, without the need for outside validation? And in its own deeply subversive way, his website hints at some of the larger challenges that have taken root amid the rapid spread of technology like artificial intelligence: If people are willing to fake something as benign as a weekend run, what can any of us believe to be true anymore? Not much, apparently. 'I don't want people to think I'm just trying to cause trouble,' Bouffard said. 'I feel like I'm poking at a very real problem. But I can also see why people are interpreting it poorly.' Strava is not a fan of Bouffard's work. Brian Bell, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement that Strava had 'already taken steps to delete activities and ban accounts that have used Fake My Run'. Though Bell declined to specify how Strava is able to detect those accounts, Bouffard has a theory. 'I think they're using AI to analyse suspicious activities,' he said. Bouffard, who grew up in Paris, has a day job building 'digital immersive experiences' for clients, he said – filters for games, marketing stunts, virtual treasure hunts. But he also has pet projects. After identifying a vulnerability in a bike-sharing service based in France, he built a website that allowed users to monitor the locations of bikes throughout the service's network. 'They left it open without realising that people could use this to track other people's movements, which could be problematic,' he said. 'I think they might've done some patches since then.' Fake My Run was created in the same vein, as a social good – sort of, kind of – in irreverent packaging. Think of it, perhaps, as Banksy-style performance art. Earlier this year, when Bouffard imported his running activity from Runkeeper, another GPS fitness-tracking tool, to Strava, he realised that he could edit the individual files – files that included pieces of information like GPS data, heart rate and average pace. It also occurred to him that people were paying for Strava mules when those activities could more easily be fabricated. 'Maybe I can produce something that makes fun of that whole industry,' he recalled thinking. Bouffard soon had a working website, where users could design a route, generate a GPX file with detailed data, and download it 'in just one click'. When Bouffard tested out the program's efficacy for himself, he heard from friends almost immediately. 'They were like, 'Why are you running in Antarctica?'' he recalled. Bouffard said that more than 200,000 people had visited his website since its inception and that about 500 had bought 'tokens' to generate fake runs. 'Way more than I expected,' he said, laughing. He charges a small fee, starting at US$0.42 (RM 1.70) per file download. Still, he said, he does not consider it a 'business venture'. Platforms like Strava are a popular way for many people to track their exercise routines. Some also say that the platforms help keep them accountable. But problems can arise when people become too competitive as a result – when they flirt with injury by exercising too hard in ill-advised attempts to outperform friends or rise to the top of platform-based leader boards. Predictably, some have resorted to taking shortcuts, like hiring mules or riding electric bikes to complete their journeys in record time. Extreme? Sure. But it happens. Cliff Simpkins, 50, of Redmond, Washington, said that Bouffard's website resonated with him because of his family's experiences with Duolingo, the language-learning program. His three children, he said, resorted to taking English lessons on Duolingo to boost their rankings before it dawned on them that it was silly and counterproductive. 'It was a solid teachable moment with the kids when they realised the extent that they were going to 'compete' for the wake of gamification, completely leaving the learning experience behind,' Simpkins, who works in developer marketing, said. 'I love the original spirit of connection and helping support others, but it seems that it can turn ugly quick.' Duncan McCabe, an accountant based in Ontario, Canada, and a self-described 'Strava art' enthusiast, said it saddened him that people would post fake workouts on Strava. Last year, McCabe, 32, turned about 120 jogs over 10 months into a 27-second animation of a stick man running through the streets of Toronto. 'The impractical effort that goes into generating the art is what makes it interesting,' he said. 'Without the physical effort, it's just a digital Etch-A-Sketch.' For his own part, Bouffard has kept his own Strava account free of fraudulent activity, he said. (He has a burner account for creative purposes.) He offered a disclaimer that his website was solely for 'entertainment purposes' and that he did not want people to upload deceptive activities. 'You never know if they'll bring out an algorithm tomorrow and catch everyone,' he said. 'I can't be responsible for that.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Fake My Run Is Exactly What It Sounds Like
By his own admission, Arthur Bouffard has always enjoyed dabbling in a healthy bit of mischief that blurs the lines between technology and reality. He found his sweet spot when he unveiled his latest project this month. Mr. Bouffard, 26, built a website called Fake My Run, which he described as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation.' And it is exactly as advertised: a site that houses a program that produces, in exacting detail, complete with mapped routes, fraudulent runs that users can upload to online exercise-tracking services like Strava. When Pedro Duarte, the head of marketing for a software company, reposted a 42-second video by Mr. Bouffard on X that demonstrated the program's ease of use — and its apparent deviousness — Mr. Duarte spoke for the masses when he wrote: 'believe nothing. not even people's runs.' He added, 'insane, i hate it and i love it.' Which was exactly the point. Mr. Bouffard, who lives in The Hague, where he works as an augmented-reality developer, wanted people to feel conflicted. 'It's all very tongue-in-cheek,' he said. As an avid jogger, Mr. Bouffard had become familiar with certain trends in the running community — some more pernicious than others. He had noticed, for example, how often people would run marathons and immediately grab their phones so that they could upload their results to platforms like Strava. Because if a run does not exist on Strava or on social media, it might as well not exist at all. Even worse, Mr. Bouffard felt, was the trend in which people hire so-called Strava mules to do their runs for them as a way of gaining online clout without putting in any actual effort. (Yes, this is a real thing.) 'It made me think of how this whole hobby has become more and more performative,' Mr. Bouffard said. What, he wondered, had happened to jogging for the pleasure of it, without the need for outside validation? And in its own deeply subversive way, his website hints at some of the larger challenges that have taken root amid the rapid spread of technology like artificial intelligence: If people are willing to fake something as benign as a weekend run, what can any of us believe to be true anymore? Not much, apparently. 'I don't want people to think I'm just trying to cause trouble,' Mr. Bouffard said. 'I feel like I'm poking at a very real problem. But I can also see why people are interpreting it poorly.' Strava is not a fan of Mr. Bouffard's work. Brian Bell, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement that Strava had 'already taken steps to delete activities and ban accounts that have used Fake My Run.' Though Mr. Bell declined to specify how Strava is able to detect those accounts, Mr. Bouffard has a theory. 'I think they're using A.I. to analyze suspicious activities,' he said. Mr. Bouffard, who grew up in Paris, has a day job building 'digital immersive experiences' for clients, he said — filters for games, marketing stunts, virtual treasure hunts. But he also has pet projects. After identifying a vulnerability in a bike-sharing service based in France, he built a website that allowed users to monitor the locations of bikes throughout the service's network. 'They left it open without realizing that people could use this to track other people's movements, which could be problematic,' he said. 'I think they might've done some patches since then.' Fake My Run was created in the same vein, as a social good — sort of, kind of — in irreverent packaging. Think of it, perhaps, as Banksy-style performance art. Earlier this year, when Mr. Bouffard imported his running activity from Runkeeper, another GPS fitness-tracking tool, to Strava, he realized that he could edit the individual files — files that included pieces of information like GPS data, heart rate and average pace. It also occurred to him that people were paying for Strava mules when those activities could more easily be fabricated. 'Maybe I can produce something that makes fun of that whole industry,' he recalled thinking. Mr. Bouffard soon had a working website, where users could design a route, generate a GPX file with detailed data, and download it 'in just one click.' When Mr. Bouffard tested out the program's efficacy for himself, he heard from friends almost immediately. 'They were like, 'Why are you running in Antarctica?' ' he recalled. Mr. Bouffard said that more than 200,000 people had visited his website since its inception and that about 500 had bought 'tokens' to generate fake runs. 'Way more than I expected,' he said, laughing. He charges a small fee, starting at 42 cents per file download. Still, he said, he does not consider it a 'business venture.' Platforms like Strava are a popular way for many people to track their exercise routines. Some also say that the platforms help keep them accountable. But problems can arise when people become too competitive as a result — when they flirt with injury by exercising too hard in ill-advised attempts to outperform friends or rise to the top of platform-based leader boards. Predictably, some have resorted to taking shortcuts, like hiring mules or riding electric bikes to complete their journeys in record time. Extreme? Sure. But it happens. Cliff Simpkins, 50, of Redmond, Wash., said that Mr. Bouffard's website resonated with him because of his family's experiences with Duolingo, the language-learning program. His three children, he said, resorted to taking English lessons on Duolingo to boost their rankings before it dawned on them that it was silly and counterproductive. 'It was a solid teachable moment with the kids when they realized the extent that they were going to 'compete' for the wake of gamification, completely leaving the learning experience behind,' Mr. Simpkins, who works in developer marketing, said. 'I love the original spirit of connection and helping support others, but it seems that it can turn ugly quick.' Duncan McCabe, an Ontario-based accountant and self-described 'Strava art' enthusiast, said it saddened him that people would post fake workouts on Strava. Last year, Mr. McCabe, 32, turned about 120 jogs over 10 months into a 27-second animation of a stick man running through the streets of Toronto. 'The impractical effort that goes into generating the art is what makes it interesting,' he said. 'Without the physical effort, it's just a digital Etch-A-Sketch.' For his own part, Mr. Bouffard has kept his own Strava account free of fraudulent activity, he said. (He has a burner account for creative purposes.) He offered a disclaimer that his website was solely for 'entertainment purposes' and that he did not want people to upload deceptive activities. 'You never know if they'll bring out an algorithm tomorrow and catch everyone,' he said. 'I can't be responsible for that.'
Express Tribune
06-04-2025
- Express Tribune
Gaza heritage goes on display in Paris institute
A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel's ongoing onslaught, reported AFP. Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe. The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza's past as a cultural melting pot, but the show's creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction since October 2023. "The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage," said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History. "But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand," she told AFP. One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction. Using satellite images, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha's Palace. Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land "depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground". The story behind Gaza's Treasures is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East. At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalising an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings in Beirut made the project impossible. "It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn't allow ourselves to be discouraged," said Bouffard. The idea of an exhibition on Gaza's heritage emerged. "We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before," she explained. Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialised Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank. In 1995, Gaza's Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF). "Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history," Bouffard noted. The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.
Arab News
03-04-2025
- General
- Arab News
Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris
PARIS: A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel's ongoing onslaught. Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe. The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza's past as a cultural melting pot, but the show's creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023. 'The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage,' said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled 'Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History.' 'But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand,' she told AFP. One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction. Using satellite image, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha's Palace. Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land 'depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground.' 'For now, it's impossible to assess.' The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory. The story behind 'Gaza's Treasures' is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East. At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalizing an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible. 'It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn't allow ourselves to be discouraged,' said Bouffard. The idea of an exhibition on Gaza's heritage emerged. 'We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before,' she explained. Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank. The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza's treasures. In 1995, Gaza's Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF). Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis — traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century. 'Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history,' Bouffard noted. In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation. Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade. Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world's most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work. And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect. The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.
