The PRC and Facial Recognition

Posted on 13 June 2019 by eehines

The People’s Republic of China is moving “beyond” the use of smart phones for making on-the-spot retail payments, starting to supplant that with facial recognition—with personal images tied to personal financial accounts.

Ant Financial Services Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd, rivals that operate, respectively, Alipay and WeChat Pay, China’s two largest mobile-payments networks, are competing for dominance in the next stage of China’s cashless society. Each is racing to install its own branded facial-recognition screens at retail points-of-sale all over the country, marketing the screens as a way to speed up sales and improve efficiency.

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Abortion “Rights”

Posted on 31 May 2019 by eehines

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D, CA) wants to further erode Federalism in our nation’s structure and have the central government pass on certain kinds of State laws before those laws can be…permitted…to take effect. Harris’ position and proposal is well summarized in the sub-headline of the article at the link:

The Democratic presidential hopeful wants the Justice Department to review state laws restricting abortion before they would take effect

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Blowing Up Settlements

Posted on 29 May 2019 by eehines

The one being sabotaged here is between Facebook and the FTC over the FTC’s proposed settlement of Facebook’s “mishandling” of consumer privacy data, including surrendering millions of consumers’ personal information to Cambridge Analytica.

FTC Chairman Joseph Simons has the (Republican) votes he need to impose the settlement, from the FTC’s perspective, on a 3-2 partisan vote. He’s quite rightly trying to get at least one of the Progressive-Democrats on the board to vote with him, but they’re bleating that a $5 billion fine and other controls don’t go far enough.

This is naked obstruction, though, based on a cynically manufactured beef.

This is a preview of Blowing Up Settlements. Read the full post (426 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

A Misunderstanding

Posted on 14 May 2019 by eehines

Senator Cory “Spartacus” Booker (D, NJ) has one in spades. The article at the link was centered on Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Robert Francis O’Rourke’s mild disagreement with Booker’s position on gun control, but one of the false premises that inform Booker’s misunderstanding was exposed.

Booker argued that just as a driver’s license demonstrates a person’s eligibility and proficiency to drive a car, “a gun license demonstrates that a person is eligible and can meet certain safety and training standards necessary to own a gun.”

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“A Battle for the Soul of this Nation”

Posted on 26 April 2019 by eehines

That’s what Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Hamlet’s poor relation Joe Biden, said we’re in as he opened his campaign.

We are in the battle for the soul of this nation[.] If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter….

Indeed, we are in a battle for our nation’s soul. It’s a battle between one party that actively tries to improve the situations of our nation’s citizens—whether we agree with those policies or not—and a party that has no aim for our people’s benefit, but is focused solely on anti-Trumpism.

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Banning Violence and Extremism from Social Media

Posted on 26 April 2019 by eehines

That’s what France and New Zealand want to do and want others to join them in doing, all in response to the terrorist murders in New Zealand. The two intend to host a conference involving G-7 members’ IT chiefs and a separate “technology summit” aimed at getting commitments

to end the use of social media to organize and promote terrorism and extremist violence.

But whose definition of violence? Whose definition of extremism? We’re already seeing, in our nation, the Progressive-Democratic Party and their violence-oriented arms, Antifa and BLM, and their university management team associates, defining conservative speech as triggering, dangerous to mental health, violent.

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Privacy in a Technological World

Posted on 21 January 2019 by eehines

In a ruling rejecting an application for a search warrant, Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore, operating in the Northern District of California, had this remark in particular.

Citizens do not contemplate waiving their civil rights when using new technology, and the Supreme Court has concluded that, to find otherwise, would leave individuals “at the mercy of advancing technology.”

Encouragingly, this remark also cited (via the quote in the remark above) a Supreme Court ruling, Carpenter v United States [citations omitted]:

This is a preview of Privacy in a Technological World. Read the full post (278 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

A Magistrate Judge Gets One Right

Posted on 18 January 2019 by eehines

Of course, the Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore’s ruling can be overturned on appeal by a District judge in the Northern District of California in which she operates, or on appeal on the ruling’s way up the appellate chain. Nevertheless, her ruling stands, for now.

In its essence Westmore ruled that, even with an otherwise valid search warrant, a person cannot be compelled to unlock a digital device like a cell phone with that person’s biometrics—a fingerprint, a face, or an iris, for example.

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Italy and the EU

Posted on 24 October 2018 by eehines

Recall Italy’s proposed budget, which defied Brussels by having a larger deficit relative to its GDP than EU budget rules allow. I decried that budget then, and I stand by that disdain.

Now, however,

Italian Economy Minister Giovanni Tria has told the European Commission that Italy will raise its deficit to 2.4% of gross domestic product (GDP), defying eurozone budget rules. In a letter sent to Brussels in response to a formal warning from the EU.

Brussels continues to not like the budget.

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An Investigation

Posted on 2 October 2018 by eehines

No, not that one.

Senator Lyndsey Graham (R, SC) said on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo that he’s going to investigate [the whole program is interesting, but skip ahead to 15:28 for the Graham interview, which lasts for a bit in its own right] who “destroyed Dr Ford’s trust” by outing her after she had requested anonymity when communicating her charge to her Congresswoman, Anna Eshoo (D, CA), and her Senator, Dianne Feinstein (D, CA). Graham pointed out, too, that there were only three groups of people who knew about Dr Ford’s letter: Feinstein and her staff, Eshoo and her staff, and Dr Ford’s lawyers. Someone or some ones from those groups are the only ones who could have leaked Dr Ford’s letter and outed her. Yes, I’m omitting the obvious fourth—that Dr Ford outed herself.

This is a preview of An Investigation. Read the full post (198 words, estimated 48 secs reading time)

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Category Archives: Privacy