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20:39 Nov 14, 2011
French to English translations [PRO] Tech/Engineering - IT (Information Technology)
French term or phrase:connaissance grise
From an IT project description talking about all the information available online:
"Ces données comprennent aussi bien des messages échangés entre des internautes, des informations privées sur chaque internaute ou de la connaissance grise déposée en masse sur des blogs ou des sites web."
I found a definition online in a cognitive linguistics paper- Connaissance grise: Connaissance licitement accessible, mais
caractérisée par des difficultés dans la connaissance de son existence ou
de son accès (Hermel, 2001, 47).
I could just translate it directly as 'gray knowledge,' but it sounds a bit strange to me. Was wondering if this was a common term in IT that someone may have heard of. Thanks!
Explanation: In competitive intelligence, information from formal sources is open or white information. Information that can be obtained from informal sources is gray, whereas information obtained illegally (through espionage, for instance) is black or closed. You could look up "competitive intelligence" for more details.
Definitely not unfiltered. You don't want such information to be filtered. You in fact ferret it out of sources that are not formal (such as blogs and forums). There is no doubt this information has considerable added value. The "gray" part is not about how useful or accurate this information is, but rather about how ethical it is to use it to further your business.
I think putting "gray knowledge" would be wrong - it won't mean anything to the reader. If you don't think it has negative connotations, how about "unfiltered knowledge"? "La connaissance grise déposée en masse" could be "the great mass of unfiltered knowledge".
Sorry for the delayed response - and that I can't really provide more context. In part because there really isn't much, but mostly because it's a confidential business plan.
This sentence part of background information to explain how much data is available on the Internet, and 'connaissance grise' is part of that data mass. There doesn't seem to be any kind of negative association with this knowledge, so notions "of dubious provenance/reliability" or reliability don't feel applicable. If anything this information seems to be valuable.
The definition I found online may not have anything to do with the IT version (was hoping it was a term I just hadn't heard of!). So unless anyone has any better ideas given the tiny bit of extra context, perhaps I'll just put 'gray knowledge' or 'gray information.'
Now that I think about it, perhaps the concept could be extended even further, meaning basically the knowledge accumulated on the internet that is not subject to any sort of quality control/review. Wikipedia for example, has extremely high standards, and I would definitely see it as "white knowledge" (though I'm sure many would disagree). There are lots of other "professional" sources of information. But there is also an abundance of home-written how-to guides. This could also constitute "grey knowledge", from a certain perspective.
Or maybe, more in line with the definition you found, it's just information that is really obscurely hidden, that you have to dig to find. All of this to conclude, I suppose, that "grey knowledge" is probably fine as a translation.
Perhaps there is some link to what people call "grey-hat hacking". I think it's plausible that it's an extension of this, as the concept is quite well established. It would therefore basically mean information that is legally (and morally?) dubious, but not really illegal - for example instructions on how to circumvent filtering/security mechanisms (lots of those on the internet), guides on how to download illegal material, collections of hacked passwords (especially prominent in the adult industry...).
Note that the "grey-hat" expression is quite strongly linked to hacking, so I don't think you could just say "grey-hat" information. Perhaps these explanations are enough to inspire you or somebody else though.
EDIT: To clarify one point, the activities mentioned are definitely illegal, but information relating to how to achieve them is in much more of a "grey area" (but I'm no lawyer, and these things are vastly complicated).
Could you give us some more context? Why are they telling us this? What does "ces données" refer to? is it information about existing or potential customers? What comes before and after this?
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
11 hrs confidence:
gray information
Explanation: In competitive intelligence, information from formal sources is open or white information. Information that can be obtained from informal sources is gray, whereas information obtained illegally (through espionage, for instance) is black or closed. You could look up "competitive intelligence" for more details.
The translation workplace 
