#Oracle FCCS Rules

[bispsolutions]

FCCs Seeded Rule

[dr-pineapple]

am i the only person who digs yj season 3? 

(yjs3 spoilers afoot)

i think yj3 demonstrates a lot of growth and maturity within the characters and writing style. you can see the change in literally everything. i think thats why everyone is so upset with stuff happening? not everyone likes change, but guess what? change is inevitable. not everyone is going to do exactly what you like or want them to do. it is not perfect by any means; i’m just seeing a lot of hate. 

while i agree that the lack of representation is a bit of a let down, i think their steps of including a powerful, lovable, hijab-wearing, non-binary character is incredible. according to wikipedia, Halo is one of less than 20 non-binary characters ever??? greg once pointed out that just because they now have the ability to write more mature content doesn’t mean they should. while this sucks: having LGBTQA+ content is still kind of viewed as mature (in terms of what is generally acceptable to american television ((fu fcc))). in terms of the violence (y’all are just complaining about everything huh?) it is honestly just a bit more “realistic” (as far as a sci-fi animation can be) for the type of show that it is. season 1 was very cautious and showed little injury in any detail, let alone any blood. it’s a little naive to assume that characters do not get seriously injured at all during the types fights they have. above anything i think season 3 shows a lot more honesty in certain (but not all) elements. 

a lot of people (myself included) are also frustrated by the reoccurring thing where they introduce a lot of characters (a lot of wonderful, beloved dc characters) but then do little to nothing with them other than mention they are there and give them a line or two and a moment of action. while this has been extremely frustrating. (personally, i want ((neigh, need)) more Babs, Oracle, Dickbabs screen time or i may wither and die), however upon thinking about it i realized: how this may be done only to give the team some fire power? like if you took a picture of the entire team and took away everyone who gets negative screen time and development, the team would look very scarce and would probably be ineffective in being at any kind of threat to the bad guys? right? i could be wrong. it sucks they may be using characters as fillers and we obviously may never get an episode to learn about Spoiler, Orphan, Arrowette, Thirteen, Jason, Talia, Wonder Girl, etc, but you can’t rule out at least some kind of possibility.  

another topic of discontent is the will/artemis situation. while this befuddled me at first, i am 100% optimistic. someone decided to bitch about it on Stephanie Lemelin’s instagram and she told them to keep watching. she literally took the time to respond to several people bitchin’ on her instagram post to say “just. keep. watching”.  My theory is, that Will and Artemis have just gotten really close because of their co-parenting situation, and mutually sad about Jade’s decisions. meanwhile, everyone around them is being all assumption-y and heteronormative and taking a platonic loving glance (fucking glances. paula was reading into glances) as something romantic. they don’t sleep in the same bed. they haven’t shown any ANY physical interactions or flirted. they just look at each other. which is common for humans that live with one another.. Artemis could also be kinda with Dick and associating Will with Wally. she’s clearly still grieving. it’s not going to happen. all of the hints about it, have been from other characters. 

i have great respect and love for the show and the community, but y’all, chill out. we are lucky to be seeing this season at all. there is no need to pick apart literally every detail and be pissed that a character isn’t rock launching themselves out of the closet. As a queer woman, I would LOVE to see some queer action on my favorite show. perhaps that can’t happen until season 4? if you hate everything that’s happening why are you still watching??? oh yeah! because you know this show was/is groundbreaking and doing amazing things. you’re only mad because you know it’s capable of more.

idk keep watching!!! in the words of her majesty Stephanie Lemelin: “Just. Keep. Watching.”  

[kikikid1412]

Hippie and Oracle legally cannot say fuck because it would break FCC rules.

[thenerdyhippie1967]

Dear Tumblr,

Radio can be hard sometimes, I know that. Sometimes, though, I feel like I face more.... unique challenges than most radio DJs. Like, I don’t know any other radio DJs who have been sent to an alternate dimension during their show by a child with superpowers, after all (If you do know any, please let me know. It’s lonely being the only DJ to deal with weird stuff like this)...  Radio can have its own challenges like making sure songs don’t have bad histories behind them, following FCC rules, making sure to stay relevant... But just a couple of months ago when I was doing my show a ladybug came into the studio. It wasn’t unusual, we get ladybugs all the time coming indoors to stay warm... But then another came in.. And another... And another....  It was a whole SWARM of ladybugs! And when I say “swarm” I mean everything was covered in ladybugs to the point I couldn’t even move! I didn’t know what to do but then as soon as Oracle came to do his horoscope they all flew out the room (probably because of the smelly sandwich he brought in with him, but it definitely took care of the problem). I don’t know where they came from, I don’t know where they went, and as far as I can tell that isn’t normal ladybug behavior... Also for some reason no one else in the building besides us saw even a single ladybug that day.

I wish I could say it was the weirdest thing that happened to me during a show, but it isn’t.  I guess that’s just the nature of the business, though. 

Peace and love, -DJ Hippie

[krmains]

Enterprise journal

Enterprise journal update#

Enterprise journal zip#

Enterprise journal download#

Preserve POV or User Variable Changes on Refresh.

S everal new Oracle Smart view functions were updated for Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting. This roadblock has been overcome by this latest update. When the clone environment feature initially came out, you could not clone to an environment on the same release costing you two weeks of the month when attempting a clone transfer from test to prob and vise versa. Starting with this update, the exportAppAudit command for Planning, Planing Modules, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting has been modified to export audit data for the last 365 days when you use the nDays=all parameter value.īusiness Benefit: The new commands facilitate the remote administration of EPM Cloud environments.

Enterprise journal update#

Use this command to update the posting status of Journals that are in Post in Progress status irrespective of their workflow status. This command, in Financial Consolidation and Close, sets the Enterprise Journal posting result from the ERP System. This file can then be used to import journal data into an ERP System.

Enterprise journal zip#

This command exports Enterprise Journals that are ready to be posted from Financial Consolidation and Close to a ZIP file. It also allows you to create ad hoc journals using the deployed template(s). Deploying Enterprise Journal templates creates recurring journals associated with the template for the selected period. This command deploys finalized Enterprise Journal templates to open periods in Financial Consolidation and Close. This command creates an on-demand snapshot, named EPRCS_, of a Narrative Reporting environment.

Enterprise journal download#

Make sure to download the new version of EPM Automate in order to access the new commands available to you!Īpplies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting The original journals FCC journals have been renamed to Consolidation journals the updated terminology is Enterprise Journals vs. Two command updated are specific to Enterprise Journals, and one command directed at overall journal status and journal entry workflow. Key Changes For Multiple Commands in EPM Automate Several commands are now available specifically to FCC around journals, with the ability to run these commands related to the enterprise journal templates mentioned above. You now have the flexibility to choose specific Reporting Currencies that will apply to your Translation Override Rules. This will let you select specific Reporting currencies to include or exclude from the rule. Translation Override Rule to Specific Currencyīy default, the creation of a Translation Override rule will be executed for all configured currencies. If the journal is created against a Parent Currency, it will be shown as Parent Currency (EUR), where EUR is the currency of the parent entity. Here’s an example: If a journal is created against the Entity Currency, it will be shown as Entity Currency (USD), where USD is the currency of a chosen entity. This is helpful for enterprises who would like to display the name of an entity’s currency. The system will then display the name of the currency for which the journal is made. This update will also give you the ability to show the Currency column on a Journal report you have created. Key features include Journal dashboards (overview and compliance), Journal templates for assigning roles, workflows, and due dates, Journal lists and Line Item data analysis, reports, and an audit trail.Įnterprise Journals allow businesses the flexibility they need in managing and posting journals directly to any ERP they choose. This new module will give users a central hub to prepare, approve, and manage journals.Įnterprise Journals can post directly to any ERP. This will be introduced in the July 2021 update. Financial Consolidation and Close Updates Enterprise Journals

July 16, 2021, Friday, at or after 22:00 UTC: Oracle will apply this monthly update during the first daily maintenance of their production environments.įinancial Consolidation and Close, a solution that’s configured to meet your enterprise requirements, will undergo an uplift to let users enjoy a world-class consolidation system with tailor-fit features.

July 2, 2021, Friday, at or after 22:00 UTC: Oracle will apply this monthly update during the first daily maintenance of their test environments.

This update will happen on the following dates: In this blog post, we’ll outline changes, updates, and considerations for July. Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close (FCCS) will undergo an update where users will be introduced to a new module and new abilities that will help them efficiently manage and improve their consolidation and close processes.

[pkjobs]

Financial Planning Analyst System Administrator - Daksada Latest Job In Dubai UAE

Financial Planning Analyst System Administrator – Daksada Latest Job In Dubai UAE

Maintaining and administering Oracle FCCS Cloud environment, function as the central point of contact for all issues related to FCCS Drive consolidation processes in FCCS and reporting, especially Oracle EBS upload, Translation rule, Intercompany processes Monthly data submissions of HFM to Agility, alignment of Group Reporting and validation Ensure compliance and alignment of intercompany…

[thegoddesscore]

On the topic of Net Neutrality:

2014.11.12: AT&T stopped buildout of their fibre-optic network until it has “solid Net Neutrality rules to follow.”

John Thorne, senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon, argued that they would have no incentive to make large investments to develop advanced fibre-optic networs if they are prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees to companies that wish to use them.

The Net Neutrality debate would see Facebook/Google/Netflix fighting Comcast/Verizon/AT&T.

One article grouped together Yahoo!, Vonage, eBay, Amazon, IAC/InteractiveCorp, Microsoft, Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, Daily Kos, and Greenpeace as amongst the proponents of Net Neutrality.

Another article grouped Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcomm, Juniper, D-Link, Wintel, Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Panasonic, Erikson, and Google.

Oracle is in a lengthy battle with Google over proprietary rights concerning similar aspects of code for Java and Android, respectively.

Every major news network is owned by or implicated with an ISP; the threat of throttling therefore gives ISPs leverage to control the news.

ISPs are now buying internet companies for vertical integration in order to be able to offer comprehensive service packages.

Steam/Valve recently removed support for both BitCoin and usage of Pepe the Frog from their services, the latter at the behest of the cartoon’s author.

2017.12.14: The American FCC repealed Net Neutrality provisions despite the behest of millions including founders of the Net and Web.

A non-neutral Internet would increase the capacity for centralization.

Numerous parties are battling to be at the centre of that centralization.

[bispsolutions]

Oracle FCCs Improve Performance | FCCs Decrease Consolidation Timing | Control to Date View Storage

[azspot]

More than 800 startups, investors and tech organizations are speaking out on behalf of net neutrality rules from the Obama administration.

The group signed a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai asking him not to reverse existing rules. The letter was made public Wednesday. Pai met with tech company executives from companies like Facebook, Oracle and Cisco in April.

[thisdaynews]

John Paul Stevens, long-serving Supreme Court justice, dies at 99

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/john-paul-stevens-long-serving-supreme-court-justice-dies-at-99-2/

John Paul Stevens, long-serving Supreme Court justice, dies at 99

Only William O. Douglas and Stephen Field served longer on the Supreme Court than John Paul Stevens, seen here testifying before Congress in 2014 — and wearing his trademark bow tie. | AP Photo

Supreme Court

He gained influence over time as he evolved into the court’s most-liberal voice.

John Paul Stevens, the third-longest serving justice in U.S. Supreme Court history and a court figure whose influence grew markedly over his tenure, has died.

He was 99. The Associated Press reported that he died Tuesday in Florida after suffering a stroke Monday.

Story Continued Below

The bow-tie-wearing Chicago Republican served from December 1975 to June 2010, a term on the court only eclipsed by those of William O. Douglas (1939-75) and Stephen Field (1863-97). At the age of 90, Stevens was the second-oldest justice ever at the time of his retirement, behind only Oliver Wendell Holmes.

“He was not a justice who sought to become a celebrity or to assume the role of legal oracle,” said George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley in a 2009 Northwestern University alumni magazine profile.

“He is the quintessential judge — someone who holds to that traditional view that the function of any judge or justice is to decide cases fairly and clearly. His opinions have a distinctly Midwestern character: strong, honest and direct.”

Stevens’ Supreme Court career came at at time of a distinct ideological shift. He was nominated in 1975 by President Gerald Ford as the court was moving away from its most-liberal period, one dominated by such figures as Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Douglas, the liberal firebrand whom Stevens replaced.

By the time of his retirement in 2010, liberals were hoping that President Barack Obama’s choice of Elena Kagan would help balance a conservative court that had been dominated in recent years by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his successor, John Roberts, as well as Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

During those years, Stevens evolved from a centrist and pragmatist to someone who was often the court’s most-liberal voice. His later years were marked by a number of scathing dissents, including inBush v.Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election, andCitizens United v.FEC, the landmark 2010 election finance case. He also shifted to more liberal positions over the years on affirmative action and the death penalty

“He has served his nation well,” Ford wrote to Fordham Law School in 2005, “at all times carrying out his duties with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns. Justice Stevens has made me and our fellow citizens proud of my three-decade-old decision to appoint him to the Supreme Court.”

Even after his tenure ended, he made his voice heard. In 2018, he wrote a much-circulated column for the New York Times urging the repeal of the Second Amendment. He also spoke out against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In 2019, the 99-year-old went on the interview circuit to promote his newest book, “The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years.”

Roberts said Tuesday night of Stevens: “A son of the Midwest heartland and a veteran of World War II, Justice Stevens devoted his long life to public service, including 35 years on the Supreme Court. He brought to our bench an inimitable blend of kindness, humility, wisdom, and independence.“

“Justice Stevens was a remarkable man,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “He was the leading liberal on the Court & he was brilliant & full of grace & class. Having argued 9 cases before SCOTUS, I can tell you first-hand there was no more dangerous or effective questioner than Justice Stevens.“

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump also offered condolences in a statement, noting “his passion for the law and our country.”

John Paul Stevens was born April 20, 1920, in Chicago. His father owned the Stevens Hotel, and the young Stevens often had contact there with the celebrities of the day, including aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.

A lifelong Cubs fan, he was a boyhood witness to one of the most famous moments in baseball history, when Yankees icon Babe Ruth is supposed to have responded to heckling by the Cubs by pointing to the outfield stands and then clouting a World Series home run near that spot.

“Stevens recalled,” the Chicago Tribune wrote in 2016, “hearing the heckling coming from the Cubs dugout — particularly the razzing from [pitcher Guy] Bush — and clearly seeing Ruth holding up two fingers in a gesture toward center field.”

Stevens graduated from the University of Chicago in 1941 and Northwestern University Law School six years later, having served as a naval officer in in the interim and earning a Bronze Star during World War II.

After law school, he served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge, then went into private practice in Chicago. His reputation grew and in 1970, President Richard Nixon tabbed him for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. “There was a consensus in the legal community,” wrote his biographers in “The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1995,” “that Stevens was an unusually able jurist.”

In 1975, a vacancy occurred on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Douglas didn’t want to retire — he detested Ford and didn’t want him to pick his successor — but after a severe stroke in December 1974, his health declined sharply. According to “The Brethren” by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, Ford had a list of 10 candidates. He narrowed it down to Stevens and Circuit Court Judge Arlin Adams before settling on Stevens.

“On the basis of a few moments of small talk,” Woodward and Armstrong wrote, “Ford had preferred Stevens. Stevens also seemed to have no partisan politics, no strict ideology. His anonymity would ensure a quick confirmation.”

The confirmation was indeed easy — Stevens was approved by a vote of 98-0. He was sworn in Dec. 19, 1975, little more than a month after Douglas retired. Stevens started quickly, writing the majority opinion in his first case,Hampton v. Mow SunWong, a jobs discrimination ruling.

In 1976, he joined the majority inGregg v.Georgia, a case that allowed the restoration of the death penalty in the United States. It overturned a 1972 verdict in which Douglas had voted the other way.

Two years later, he was part of a fractured majority in the Bakke case, which put the brakes on some affirmative action policies. That same year, he wrote the majority opinion forFCC vs. PacificaFoundation, upholding an obscenity ruling revolving around the broadcast of a George Carlin comedy routine. In both cases, he voted with the court’s conservatives.

Gradually, though, Stevens became more and more associated with the court’s shrinking liberal wing, though it’s a matter of debate as to whether he changed or whether the court simply outflanked him on the right.

“I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times in 2007. “I think as part of my general politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.”

A number of his most-prominent opinions certainly can’t be considered liberal. In 1997, he wrote for a unanimous court inClinton v. Jones, a case that allowed Paula Jones’s lawsuit against Bill Clinton to continue even though he was president. He also wrote the dissents in a pair of cases (Texas v. Johnson, U.S. v. Eichman) that upheld the right to burn an American flag.

Still, Stevens clearly moved to the left on some issues, changing his view on the death penalty — in a 2008 decision, he said he now believed it to be unconstitutional — and affirmative action, forming part of the 5-4 majority in the 2003Grutter v. Bollingercase.

With the 1994 retirement of Harry Blackmun, he became the senior associate justice, a position that allowed him to assign either the majority or minority opinion in each case. He became known for his ability to use that power to build coalitions in such cases asHamdan v. Rumsfeld(2006) andRasul v. Bush(2004), civil liberties cases resulting from the war on terror. In both cases, the rulings went against the Bush administration.

He was also part of the majority inLawrence v. Texas(2003), which overturned restrictions on same-sex sexual activity, and wrote the opinion inAtkins v. Virginia(2002) that deemed it unconstitutional to execute mentally handicapped defendants.

“It is largely because of him” wrote the Washington Post’s Charles Lane in 2006, “that a court with seven Republican-appointed members, and nominally headed by a conservative, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, produced a string of relatively liberal results in recent cases.”

Stevens also wrote a number of prominent dissents.

In December 2000, he was on the short end of a 5-4 vote inBush v.Gore, the decision that ended the legal wrangling over that year’s presidential election. His dissent was scathing: “Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”

Stevens was also in the minority in the 2010 Citizens United case, which struck down campaign financing restrictions.

His dissent in the 5-4 ruling ran 90 pages: “At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense.”

Through the years, Stevens never attracted much attention from the public.

“The man himself, it is agreed, is quiet and mild-mannered,” wrote “The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1995.”

“At one time or another, he has played serious squash, bridge, tennis and golf and flown his own small airplane. He possesses a puckishness that now and then finds its way into his opinions — particularly his concurrences and dissents. Justice Stevens has a fondness for bow ties, which, too, in its way, is a dissenting opinion.”

After his retirement, Stevens attributed his longevity to one simple thing — having married a dietitian, Maryan Mulholland Stevens in 1979, shortly after his divorce from Elizabeth, his first wife. “The most important key to my survival,” Stevens said, “is the advice I’d give to everybody in the room: Marry a beautiful dietitian.” She died in 2015.

Stevens later wrote a book titled “Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir” that focused on the five chief justices of his professional career, starting with Fred Vinson. It was a low-key book that reflected his great respect for the institution, though not without both praise and pointed criticisms for some of his fellow justices. In 2014, he followed with “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.”

Asked in April 2014 on ABC’s “This Week” about his achievements, Stevens offered a mixed view.

“It’s really awfully hard because it’s a series of individual, important events,” he said. “And some are terribly disappointing and some are terribly gratifying. you mix them all together, it’s really hard to pass judgment on the entirety.”

“All I can say, I did the best I could. I didn’t do well enough on many occasions.”

Five years later, NPR’s Nina Totenberg asked Stevens, fresh off a table tennis game in his Florida condo, to elaborate on his overriding judicial policy.

“I’m a person who plays Ping-Pong once in a while,” he told her.

Jennifer Epstein contributed to this report.

Read More

[illustir]

Highlights for Surveillance Valley

The people gathered at city hall that night saw Oakland’s DAC as an extension of the tech-fueled gentrification that was pushing poorer longtime residents out of the city.

the Internet was developed as a weapon and remains a weapon today. American military interests continue to dominate all parts of the network, even those that supposedly stand in opposition.

An even more disturbing dimension of the AIR’s pacification work in Thailand was that it was supposed to serve as a model for counterinsurgency operations elsewhere in the world—including against black people living in American inner cities, where race riots were breaking out at the time.

He began to see that in a society mediated by computer and information systems those who controlled the infrastructure wielded ultimate power.

Where Wiener saw danger, Lick saw opportunity. He had no qualms about putting this technology in the service of US corporate and military power.

Indeed, intelligence agencies were among the first users of the tools ARPA’s command and control program produced just a few years later.

Like many upper-class Americans of his day, North worried that the massive influx of immigrants from Europe was destroying the fabric of American society, causing social and political unrest, and threatening the nation’s racial purity.47 This fear of immigration would become intertwined with anticommunist hysteria, leading to repression of workers and labor unions across the country. North saw statisticians like himself as technocratic soldiers: America’s last line of defense against a foreign corrupting influence. And he saw the tabulator machine as their most powerful weapon.

Deemphasizing ARPA’s military purpose had the benefit of boosting morale among computer scientists, who were more eager to work on the technology if they believed it wasn’t going to be used to bomb people.

Fliers posted on both campuses railed against “computerized people-manipulation” and “the blatant prostitution of social science for the aims of the war machine.”

Pool saw computers as more than just apparatuses that could speed up social research. His work was infused with a utopian belief in the power of cybernetic systems to manage societies. He was among a group of Cold War technocrats who envisioned computer technology and networked systems deployed in a way that directly intervened in people’s lives, creating a kind of safety net that spanned the world and helped run societies in a harmonious manner, managing strife and conflict out of existence.

The language of Licklider’s proposal—talk about propaganda and monitoring political movements—was so direct and so obvious that it could not be ignored. It confirmed students’ and activists’ fears about computers and computer networks and gave them a glimpse into how military planners wanted to use these technologies as tools for surveillance and social control.

Today, people still think that surveillance is something foreign to the Internet—something imposed on it from the outside by paranoid government agencies. Rowan’s reporting from forty years ago tells a different story. It shows how military and intelligence agencies used the network technology to spy on Americans in the first version of the Internet. Surveillance was baked in from the very beginning.

Indeed, the army referred to activists and protesters as if they were organized enemy combatants embedded with the indigenous population.

In the 1990s the country was ablaze with sweeping religious proclamations about the Internet. People talked of a great leveling—an unstoppable wildfire that would rip through the world, consuming bureaucracies, corrupt governments, coddled business elites, and stodgy ideologies, clearing the way for a new global society that was more prosperous and freer in every possible way.

Kevin Kelly, a bearded evangelical Christian and Wired editor, agreed with his boss: “No one can escape the transforming fire of machines. Technology, which once progressed at the periphery of culture, now engulfs our minds as well as our lives. As each realm is overtaken by complex techniques, the usual order is inverted, and new rules established. The mighty tumble, the once confident are left desperate for guidance, and the nimble are given a chance to prevail.”

Brand disagreed. In a long article he filed for Rolling Stone, he set out to convince the magazine’s young and trend-setting readership that ARPA was not some big bureaucratic bummer connected to America’s war machine but instead was part of an “astonishingly enlightened research program” that just happened to be run by the Pentagon.

Brand was deeply embedded in California’s counterculture and appeared as a major character in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Yet there he was, acting as a pitch man for ARPA, a military agency that had in its short existence already racked up a bloody reputation—from chemical warfare to counterinsurgency and surveillance. It didn’t seem to make any sense.

Brand took a different path. He belonged to the libertarian wing of the counterculture, which tended to look down on traditional political activism and viewed all politics with skepticism and scorn.

Neuromancer coined the term cyberspace. It also launched the cyberpunk movement, which responded to Gibson’s political critique in a cardinally different manner: it cheered the coming of this cyber dystopia.

Leverage is a good word for Kelly’s sudden religious inspiration. His faith in God matched his faith in the power of technological progress, which he saw as a part of God’s divine plan for the world. Over the years, he developed the belief that the growth of the Internet, the gadgetization and computerization of everything around us, the ultimate melding of flesh and computers, and the uploading of human beings into a virtual computer world were all part of a process that would merge people with God and allow us to become gods as well, creating and ruling over our own digital and robotic worlds just like our maker.

At Wired, Kelly injected this theology into every part of the magazine, infusing the text with an unquestioning belief in the ultimate goodness and rightness of markets and decentralized computer technology, no matter how it was used.

It seemed more a networking hub and marketing vehicle for the industry, a booster intended to create a brand around the cult of technology and the people who made and sold it, and then repackage it for the mainstream culture. It was continuing a tradition that Stewart Brand had started, overlaying an increasingly powerful computer industry with images of the counterculture to give it a hip and grassroots revolutionary edge.

Wired’s impact was not just cultural but also political. The magazine’s embrace of a privatized digital world made it a natural ally of the powerful business interests pushing to deregulate and privatize American telecommunications infrastructure.

John Malone, the billionaire cable monopolist at the head of TCI and one of the largest landowners in the United States, made the cut as well. Wired put him on the cover as a punk counterculture rebel for his fight against the Federal Communications Commission, which was putting the brakes on his cable company’s multi-billion-dollar merger with Bell Atlantic, a telephone giant. He is pictured walking down an empty rural highway with a dog by his side, wearing a tattered leather jacket and holding a shotgun. The reference is clear: he was Mel Gibson of Road Warrior, fighting to protect his town from being overrun by a savage band of misfits, which, to extend the metaphor, was the FCC regulators. The reason this billionaire was so cool? He had the guts to say that he’d shoot the head of the FCC if the man didn’t approve his merger fast enough.

That’s where Wired’s real cultural power lay: using cybernetic ideals of the counterculture to sell corporate politics as a revolutionary act.

Brand saw computers as a path toward a utopian world order where the individual wielded the ultimate power. Everything that came before—militaries, governments, big oppressive corporations—would melt away and an egalitarian system would spontaneously emerge.

People treated the search box as an impartial oracle that accepted questions, spat out answers, and moved on. Few realized it recorded everything typed into it,

The book demonstrates that Page and Brin understood early on that Google’s success depended on grabbing and maintaining proprietary control over the behavioral data they captured through their services. This was the company’s biggest asset.

One thing was certain in the wake of the AOL release: search logs provided an unadulterated look into the details of people’s inner lives, with all the strangeness, embarrassing quirks, and personal anguish those details divulged. And Google owned it all.

Taken together, these technical documents revealed that the company was developing a platform that attempted to track and profile everyone who came in touch with a Google product. It was, in essence, an elaborate system of private surveillance.

The language in the patent filings—descriptions of using “psychographic information,” “personality characteristics,” and “education levels” to profile and predict people’s interests—bore eerie resemblance to the early data-driven counterinsurgency initiatives funded by ARPA in the 1960s and 1970s.

There was only one difference: instead of preventing political insurgencies, Google wanted the data to sell people products and services with targeted ads. One was military, the other commercial. But at their core, both systems were dedicated to profiling and prediction. The type of data plugged into them was irrelevant.

The truth is that the Internet came out of a Pentagon project to develop modern communication and information systems that would allow the United States to get the drop on its enemies, both at home and abroad.

All these CIA-backed companies paid Facebook, Google, and Twitter for special access to social media data—adding another lucrative revenue stream to Silicon Valley.

From their inception, Internet companies banked heavily on the utopian promise of a networked world. Even as they pursued contracts with the military and their founders joined the ranks of the richest people on the planet, they wanted the world to see them not just as the same old plutocrats out to maximize shareholder value and their own power but also as progressive agents leading the way into a bright techno-utopia.

Snowden’s views on private surveillance were simplistic, but they seemed to be in line with his politics. He was a libertarian and believed the utopian promise of computer networks. He believed that the Internet was an inherently liberating technology that, if left alone, would evolve into a force of good in the world. The problem wasn’t Silicon Valley; it was government power.

The cypherpunk vision of the future was an inverted version of the military’s cybernetic dream pursued by the Pentagon and Silicon Valley: instead of leveraging global computer systems to make the world transparent and predictable, cypherpunks wanted to use computers and cryptography to make the world opaque and untrackable. It was a counterforce, a cybernetic weapon of individual privacy and freedom against a cybernetic weapon of government surveillance and control.

I was puzzled, but at least I understood why Tor had backing from Silicon Valley: it offered a false sense of privacy, while not posing a threat to the industry’s underlying surveillance business model.

While couched in lofty language about fighting censorship, promoting democracy, and safeguarding “freedom of expression,” these policies were rooted in big power politics: the fight to open markets to American companies and expand America’s dominance in the age of the Internet.51 Internet Freedom was enthusiastically backed by American businesses, especially budding Internet giants like Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Google, and later Facebook and Twitter. They saw foreign control of the Internet, first in China but also in Iran and later Vietnam, Russia, and Myanmar, as an illegitimate check on their ability to expand into new global markets, and ultimately as a threat to their businesses.

China saw Internet Freedom as a threat, an illegitimate attempt to undermine the country’s sovereignty through “network warfare,” and began building a sophisticated system of Internet censorship and control, which grew into the infamous Great Firewall of China.

The correspondence left little room for doubt. The Tor Project was not a radical indie organization fighting The Man. For all intents and purposes, it was The Man. Or, at least, The Man’s right hand.

Despite Tor’s public insistence it would never put in any backdoors that gave the US government secret privileged access to Tor’s network, the correspondence shows that in at least one instance in 2007, Tor revealed a security vulnerability to its federal backer before alerting the public, potentially giving the government an opportunity to exploit the weakness to unmask Tor users before it was fixed.

From a higher vantage point, the Tor Project was a wild success. It had matured into a powerful foreign policy tool—a soft-power cyber weapon with multiple uses and benefits. It hid spies and military agents on the Internet, enabling them to carry out their missions without leaving a trace. It was used by the US government as a persuasive regime-change weapon, a digital crowbar that prevented countries from exercising sovereign control over their own Internet infrastructure. Counterintuitively, Tor also emerged as a focal point for antigovernment privacy activists and organizations, a huge cultural success that made Tor that much more effective for its government backers by drawing fans and helping shield the project from scrutiny.

Most people involved in privacy activism do not know about the US government’s ongoing efforts to weaponize the privacy movement, nor do they appreciate Silicon Valley’s motives in this fight. Without that knowledge, it is impossible to makes sense of it all.

In 2015, when I first read these statements from the Tor Project, I was shocked. This was nothing less than a veiled admission that Tor was useless at guaranteeing anonymity and that it required attackers to behave “ethically” in order for it to remain secure.

The old cypherpunk dream, the idea that regular people could use grassroots encryption tools to carve out cyber islands free of government control, was proving to be just that, a dream.

Silicon Valley fears a political solution to privacy. Internet Freedom and crypto offer an acceptable alternative. Tools like Signal and Tor provide a false solution to the privacy problem, focusing people’s attention on government surveillance and distracting them from the private spying carried out by the Internet companies they use every day. All the while, crypto tools give people a sense that they’re doing something to protect themselves, a feeling of personal empowerment and control. And all those crypto radicals? Well, they just enhance the illusion, heightening the impression of risk and danger. With Signal or Tor installed, using an iPhone or Android suddenly becomes edgy and radical. So instead of pushing for political and democratic solutions to surveillance, we outsource our privacy politics to crypto apps—software made by the very same powerful entities that these apps are supposed to protect us from.

So instead of pushing for political and democratic solutions to surveillance, we outsource our privacy politics to crypto apps—software made by the very same powerful entities that these apps are supposed to protect us from.

The IBM machines themselves did not kill people, but they made the Nazi death machine run faster and more efficiently, scouring the population and tracking down victims in ways that would never have been possible without them.

But not all control is equal. Not all surveillance is bad. Without them, there can be no democratic oversight of society.

By pretending that the Internet transcends politics and culture, we leave the most malevolent and powerful forces in charge of its built-in potential for surveillance and control. The more we understand and democratize the Internet, the more we can deploy its power in the service of democratic and humanistic values, making it work for the many, not the few.

via English – alper.nl https://ift.tt/2PjNyh5

[neptunecreek]

The Next Supreme Court Justice: Here's What the Senate Should Ask About New Technologies and the Internet

Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination has sparked a great deal of discussion about his views on reproductive rights and executive authority. But the Supreme Court tackles a broad range of issues, including the present and future of digital rights and innovation. As Congress plays its crucial constitutional role in scrutinizing judicial nominees, Senators should take care to press the nominee for his views on how the law should address new technologies and the Internet.

We hope that the Court will ensure that constitutional protections extend to our digital landscape. To better understand whether Kavanaugh is likely to help or hinder, here are a few questions Senators should ask.

As an initial matter, any nominee to the Supreme Court must appreciate how the Court’s rulings may impact digital rights now and far into the future. In a 1979 case called Smith v. Maryland, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled that people do not have a privacy interest in information they hand over to third parties (like the numbers you dial on a telephone). That case—where police had reasonable suspicion that a single individual was committing a specific crime—has shaped police practice in the digital age, and provided a contorted legal defense for mass domestic surveillance programs like the NSA’s call-records program, even though they subject millions of people to continuous monitoring based on no suspicion of any particular crime.

But the Court is starting to understand how much the Internet and the ubiquity of mobile devices have changed daily life in the United States. In Packingham, the Court acknowledged that social media has become the “modern public square,” and in Riley the Court ruled that law enforcement cannot search cell phones at the time of arrest because of the vast quantities of personal data they store. And just a few weeks ago, in Carpenter the Supreme Court ruled that the 4th Amendment applies to cell-phone-based location tracking—so if law enforcement wants historical customer location information from cell-phone providers, they will now have to get a warrant.

We hope this is a trend, and that the Court will do its part to ensure that constitutional protections extend to our digital landscape. To better predict whether Kavanaugh is likely to help or hinder, here are a few questions the Senate should ask him, keeping in mind that nominees traditionally steer clear of commenting on specific pending cases.

Mass Surveillance

In 2015, the D.C. Circuit refused to hear a case challenging the NSA mass telephone surveillance program. Kavanaugh issued a concurrence saying:

“The Government’s collection of telephony metadata from a third party such as a telecommunications service provider is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment, at least under the Supreme Court’s decision in Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)...”

And that even if the collection is a search, it is reasonable because:

“The Government’s program for bulk collection of telephony metadata serves a critically important special need – preventing terrorist attacks on the United States See The 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT (2004). In my view, that critical national security need outweighs the impact on privacy occasioned by this program.”

Given this broad assertion, the Senate should ask:

Fourth Amendment jurisprudence requires the government to have individualized suspicion before intruding against a person’s privacy. How would the Framers view mass data collection by the government—for example, copying or viewing all Internet activity routed through a service provider?

How should the Constitution address those who are impacted by, but not targeted by, surveillance?

Do you believe that the government can collect digital information from individuals without that collection constituting a “search” for Fourth Amendment purposes?

Do people have a privacy interest in metadata that can be used to create a detailed timeline of someone’s actions?

Do bulk surveillance programs that create detailed pictures of the lives of millions of Americans, where they go, and who they associate with, implicate rights guaranteed under the First Amendment?

Are there any constitutional limits on the executive branch’s national security authority? What are they?

You have written that the government’s bulk collection program is a special need. What factual showing should the government make to use this doctrine? Is there a distinction between special needs exceptions for national security and law enforcement purposes?

Law Enforcement Access to Digital Information

When US v. Jones was on appeal before the DC Circuit, Kavanaugh issued a dissent arguing that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in their “public movements,” but law enforcement nonetheless violated the 4th amendment by tampering with Jones’ car.

To better understand Kavanaugh's view on digital privacy, the Senate should ask:

Do you believe that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy when they move about in public?

Does tracking the location or other information about a subject over long periods of time implicate any further interests?

Is the reasonable expectation of privacy a “failed experiment?”

Do rights to privacy extend beyond a person’s property interests? Do you agree with the well-settled law long established in this area?

Do Terms of Service agreements and other contracts that caution users that their information may be shared with the police affect a person’s privacy interest?

Law enforcement is now using technologies like Automated License Plate Readers to track people as they move in their cars. Can the volume of data become a privacy harm, or a harm to First Amendment principles such as freedom of association, speech, and assembly?

With “smart cities” on the rise – cities that are beginning expansive government and third party data collection programs to offer more tailored services to the public – do constitutional safeguards against unreasonable searches extend to data the government has collected for a non-law enforcement purpose?

Net Neutrality

In a dissenting opinion, Kavanaugh decried the DC Circuit's decision upholding the 2015 Open Internet Order -- and order, for which millions of Internet user fought long and hard, that forbade practice such as throttling, blocking, and pair prioritization-- saying that the Federal Communications Commission did not have clear authority from Congress to issue the 2015 Order. He also insisted that the rule infringed upon Internet service providers’ First Amendment rights. In fact, as EFF and ACLU explained in an amicus brief, while the ISPs do have First Amendment rights, the 2015 net neutrality rules appropriately balanced those rights against the public interest in a neutral Internet.

In light of this case and the multiple ongoing efforts to rescue  net neutrality after the FCC abdicated its role in protecting the Open Internet, the Senate should ask:

Can paid prioritization practices run afoul of consumer protection or civil rights laws?

How should the broadband Internet market be analyzed under current competition laws?

Does the Federal Communication Commission have the authority to determine the classification of broadband internet service providers?

Does the Communications Act occupy the field and preempt states and municipalities from passing their own laws blocking throttling, paid prioritization, and zero rating by broadband internet service providers?

How would the Constitution view Federal attempts to limit State broadband regulation?

Innovation

Recent Supreme Court rulings have provided some balance to a patent system that many thought had gotten out of control. For example, in a 9-0 decision in Alice Corp v. CLS Bank the court invalidated an abstract software patent, essentially ruling that adding “on a computer” to an abstract idea does not make it patentable. The Court also ended rampant venue shopping that had led to more than 1,000 patent cases a year being filed in the courtroom of a single federal judge in East Texas. Thanks to decisions like these, many small businesses have been able to stave off unfounded legal threats.

Patent cases continue to appear on the Court’s docket, many of which will have consequences for software patents. To figure out Kavanaugh’s views, the Senate should ask:

Some people say that the U.S. patent office issues too many bad patents, allowing patent trolls to threaten operating companies trying to innovate, especially small start-ups. Others say the Supreme Court has gone too far in its recent cases that cut back patent protection on abstract ideas. What do you think are the purposes of our patent system?

Do you think that patent protection should extend to laws of nature or abstract ideas? Should small businesses have ways to protect themselves from unmeritorious patent claims, other than paying litigation cost-based settlements?

In addition, the long-running Oracle v. Google case may finally make its way to the Court, potentially giving the Justices a chance to opine on both the scope of copyright in software and the application of the fair use doctrine. The central question in the case is whether Oracle can claim a copyright on Java APIs and, if so, whether Google infringed these copyrights. Many, including EFF, argued that the APIs in question were not copyrightable in the first place. If the Court decides to review the case, its decision could affect software development for many years to come. Again, Kavanaugh won’t comment on pending cases, but the question of the scope of copyright is likely to come up one way or another. Given the impact of this area of law on digital innovation and expression, the Senators might ask:

What is the purpose of copyright generally? Do copyrights (and patents) exist primarily to reward their owners, or should their grant benefit the public generally?

Are there situations in which copyright may disserve innovation and expression? How should courts deal with such a situation?

Is fair use an affirmative right as opposed to a narrow defense?

Should companies that want to use a small portion of another’s copyrighted work be required to get a license, rather than rely on fair use? One of the judges for whom Kavanaugh clerked, Alex Kozinski, has publicly stated that a license should be required, rather than using an unlicensed work under circumstances that are fair use. Does Kavanaugh agree?

Can software be covered by both patent and copyright? Are there limits to this?

Competition

Finally, many widely relied-upon Internet functions are now controlled by a few giant companies, and the dominance of these companies has proven to be sticky. It’s still easy and cheap to put up a website, build an app, or organize a group of people online—but a few large corporations dominate the key resources needed to do those things, and basic Internet access as well. That, in turn, gives those companies extraordinary power over speech, privacy, and innovation.

Against this background, policymakers are considering whether and how to recreate conditions for competition. Many are looking to antitrust law for a solution, but it’s not yet clear how antitrust law will apply to these circumstances. Meanwhile, the DOJ’s challenge to the AT&T-Time Warner merger is on appeal. If the DOJ or the FTC decides to take on the tech giants, and/or the appeal reaches the Supreme Court, its ruling could reshape competition law. The Senate might ask:

Does antitrust law authorize courts to remedy harms caused by the lack of competition in a given market, or is it limited to ensuring a narrow measure of consumer welfare? For instance, can regulators and courts scrutinize the acts of a monopolistic enterprise that lowers prices for consumers but also undermines competition?

Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices have been described as a “Kabuki” performance. With the next generation of American jurisprudence—and technology—hanging in the balance, we encourage Senators to thoughtfully and rigorously challenge the nominee to share his views.

from Deeplinks https://ift.tt/2mENWpS

[isaacscrawford]

Who Owns Your FitBit Data? Biometric Data Privacy Problems

By JASON CHUNG

The following blog post is adapted from a talk the author gave at the “Data Privacy in the Digital Age” symposium on October 26th sponsored by the U.S. Department Health and Health and Human Services.

Today, I’ll be focusing on the data privacy issues posed by sports wearables, which I define to include both elite systems such as WHOOP or Catapult and more consumer-oriented products such as Fitbits, and why the U.S. needs an integrated federal regulatory framework to address the privacy challenges posed by private entities commercializing biometric data.

Sports wearables have evolved from mere pedometers to devices that monitor heart rate and sleep, tell athletes how to maximize recovery, and even track food intake and sexual activity – all uploaded to the cloud.

These technologies are now ubiquitous and have wide appeal to consumers – in fact, I’m wearing a Fitbit right now.

But these devices raise several key problems for consumers that are not yet being adequately addressed by the U.S. legal and regulatory system.

Employee Freedom

I begin with what will likely be the biggest impending battle over sports wearables: how employers may use them as a potential economic weapon and restrict employee freedom.

Biometric data isn’t just for personal, voluntary use anymore but is being increasingly used for employee monitoring and evaluation.

In the sports domain, companies such as WHOOP are using wearables to track individual athletes’ data – and sharing it with not only athletes but coaches and other team officials as well.

At the professional level, this has already raised some eyebrows. But professional athletes have high visibility and bargaining power through sports unions, making their use of wearables subject to collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

For example:

The NFL Players’ Association signed a deal with WHOOP to make it the Officially Licensed Recovery Wearable of the NFLPA and allow players to commoditize their own data

In their new CBA, the NBA and NBA Players’ Association agreed to terms protecting the right of individual players to decline the use of wearables at any time

This is great for pro athletes but most U.S. workers don’t have robust unions protecting them. Employers increasingly offer sports wearables as part of efforts to promote employee wellness and bring down health insurance costs. BP uses data provided by sports wearables to adjust premiums for their employees, and CVS has actually fined employees for failing to disclose health vitals such as weight and body fat percentage.[1]

And this is encouraged to a certain extent by the federal government.  In June 2013, the Department of Labor and HHS shared Affordable Care Act wellness program regulations which allowed, and in some cases mandated, that employees share personal information with their employers in the form of a health risk assessment (HRA).[2] Sports wearables have the potential to help in such efforts. Thus, employers are being incentivized to address major public health concerns – like tackling obesity among the workforce – by creating major privacy concerns.

All of this amounts to an ethical quandary.  What will happen in the future if an employee doesn’t want to share his health data or refuses to wear a Fitbit? Even athletes, whose entire jobs depend on peak physical performance, regularly balk at excessive invasions into their physicality and privacy that render them feeling like “lab rats.” How can, say, Oracle justify similar biometric data tracking for a systems analyst?

Furthermore, what happens when the person in question isn’t an employee at all?  For instance, while the NCAA constantly reiterates that collegiate players aren’t “employees” but “student-athletes,” advanced sports wearables are already being used by at least two collegiate athletic departments. The purported goal is to get athletes to make “positive” behavioral changes with “strong” encouragement to wear WHOOP.[3]  But the data could also be used to monitor every aspect of athletes’ lives and penalize them for “poor” choices such as drinking the night before a game or failing to get enough sleep.

Without better rules on who can access and handle biometric data, fears of Big Brother may shift from the government to Big Business – all under the guise of companies trying to promote “wellness”. 

Security

These issues are further compounded by questions regarding security and technological accuracy.

With sports wearables comprising 24/7 products and often paired with technologies like GPS, collected biometric data can paint a very accurate picture of a person’s habits and proclivities.

And reports show that this data is often easily hacked. This opens wearables users up to unintended access and even falsification of data, threatening harm to economic – and possibly even legal – interests.

Furthermore, we don’t know if the data produced by these devices is even accurate, or capable of being meaningfully used. No universal standard exists regarding how sports wearables operate, and a class action lawsuit has already risen alleging inaccuracies in Fitbit’s measurements. Expect questions about the viability and reliability of sports wearable technology to grow as they become more pervasive – and more central to determining, in dollars and cents, how to evaluate the health of an individual for economic purposes.

The Legal Landscape

Now that I’ve outlined some of the privacy problems surrounding sports wearables – what can Americans do?  Well, currently not much, as the United States remains an outlier by failing to have a comprehensive national policy regarding data privacy.

States appear to be leading the charge on data privacy thus far. All but two have laws in place requiring notice from private and public bodies when security breaches have leaked personally identifiable information[4].  Three states have gone further, defining what is meant by “biometric identifier”, specifying data security requirements, and limiting the period that biometric identifiers can be retained. Illinois goes furthest by creating a private right of action by which consumers can directly sue companies that misuse their biometric data.

From a consumer perspective, it’s good that the states seem to have a plan – because the federal landscape is, frankly speaking, a mess.  I’ll illustrate this by speaking about three major pieces of legislation that demonstrate how the U.S. government and its agencies are ill-equipped to deal with the future of commercialized biometric data. 

HIPAA

HIPAA’s exemption of “mHealth technologies” that include sports wearables leaves current federal regulation largely to the FTC and FCC.  While HIPAA does cover privacy and security of health information, what is covered by HIPAA can get quite parsimonious.  For instance, health information captured under a workplace wellness program isn’t protected unless it is specifically part of a group health plan.

The FTC regulates through its application of Section 5 of the FTC Act which prohibits “unfair or deceptive practices” including failure to properly disclose privacy policies or obtain authorization to disclose personal data. The FTC has also issued a general guidance regarding collection and use of biometric information, though that was primarily based on facial recognition technologies.[5]

The FCC is also getting into the regulatory space through its Connect2HealthFCC senior task force which is designed to review how broadband-enabled health solutions – including sports wearables – should be regulated. There is also growing recognition that the FCC is expanding its regulatory footprint in data privacy more generally by joining such groups as the Global Privacy Enforcement Network.[6]

In short, the FTC and FCC are using their competency in their respective domains – consumer protection and communications, respectively – to attempt to regulate in the brand-new sector of sports wearables. While their commitment may be admirable, the problem is that the U.S. is betraying a siloed history and sectoral approach to a pervasive modern problem.

What I propose is that the U.S. government take an issue-based view of the matter at hand – namely, how do we protect the American citizen from the privacy threats posed by potentially increased access to health data? – and clearly assign policy and enforcement competence and jurisdiction in this field to a single regulator at the federal level.  Not only would this eliminate the inefficiency of having multiple departments and agencies examining the same issue but it would grant the citizen a clear resource for information and for lodging complaints. 

The Rest of the World

Doing what I just mentioned isn’t crazy.  In fact, in much of the rest of the world, data privacy – a broad concept that includes biometric data – is viewed as a right.  The EU has specified that “everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her” and that “data must be… for specified purposes”.  The EU Parliament has also outlined regulations and directives confirming the importance of consumer data privacy and clearly defining and regulating biometric data. To safeguard these principles and laws, most EU states also charge a single government agency with federal responsibility over data privacy matters, specifically including biometric data.

To the north, Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronics Act and Privacy Act govern how private and public sector organizations must, respectively, handle Canadians’ personal information.  A single federal regulator, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, is tasked with investigating possible violations of both Acts.

Even Hong Kong, often called the “freest economy in the world”, has an Office of the Privacy Commissioner and a dedicated Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.

So What Should Happen Here?

While the U.S. doesn’t necessarily need to precisely emulate the Privacy Commissioner models of other countries, there is a need for better coordination and greater transparency – and at the very least a single body tasked with initially interfacing with the public on such matters.  This pro-citizen approach will alleviate confusion as questions about biometric data collection grows.

As is often the case, the sports world will be the testing ground for the initial stages of this battle over ownership of individual biometric data.

In the near future, expect companies who claim “anonymized” data belongs to them – and experts who contend that true anonymization is impossible. Insurers and employers will provide incentives to leagues and players to offer up their data for “research” purposes. Privacy advocates will contend that such data is personal patrimony and that athletes are giving up such information much too cheaply.

These are all worthy debates to track.  But here, at HHS and in Washington DC, I’d like to point out that such battles will soon pass from the sports and technology pages to the front page – and Americans will begin asking, as they rightly should – what is the plan and who is responsible?  It only makes sense, then, to band together and present a singular voice/agency to speak to Americans about this critical subject.

Article source:The Health Care Blog

[atticusblog2016-blog]

New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/pai-keeping-open-mind-on-mobile-consolidation/

Pai keeping open mind on mobile consolidation

Federal Communications Fee (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai (pictured) refused to rule out permitting consolidation inside the US wireless market, that may see the wide variety of national operators reduced from four to 3.

Speak at the yank Agency Institute, Pai stated he had no preconceived plan as to the best variety of operators which have to be within the marketplace and could compare any proposed transactions based on their effect on opposition and customers.

“My technique to the regulatory role is one in every of humility,” Pai said: “I don’t claim to realize in a vacuum what the most appropriate market shape is, what the ‘proper’ quantity of competition should be. Our purpose is constantly to make certain the marketplace features in a way that blessings the general public interest.”

“To me at least, we strive and take a look at the market because it stands to attempt to parent out: is their competition, are costs going down, is application and carrier innovation going up, and make the correct judgment.”

The coverage suits with Pai’s desire to go back to a “mild touch” regulatory stance, which lately noticed the FCC are seeking for to attempt to reverse a number of the preceding management’s flagship rules which includes regulations around internet neutrality.

marketplace moves

Consolidation in the US wireless marketplace is the situation of severe media speculation, which caused both T-Mobile US CEO John Legere and SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son fielding the question of consolidation of Sprint and T-Mobile – or potentially different partners – of their respective monetary consequences shows inside the past fortnight.

Talks of Softbank revisiting a merger of its Dash commercial enterprise with T-Cellular surfaced in advance this yr with reports in February Son changed into organized to provide T-Cellular’s minority shareholder Deutsche Telekom manipulate of Sprint to revive the deal first floated in 2014.

The original proposed deal became dropped amid sturdy regulatory stress

Open Database Connectivity

  ODBC or Open Database Connectivity is an open widespread utility programming interface used for having access to heterogeneous data sources.

Believe you have written numerous Personal home page programs which make a connection to an Oracle database. For a few reason now you have got determined to use MYSQL rather than Oracle. Supposing you’ve got used a proprietary connection to Oracle, then it’d take a whole lot of coding attempt to modify each of the Personal home page packages to make it connect to MYSQL as it already has connected strings to Oracle.

Serena William’s french open 2016

Now ODBC offers seamless open database connectivity the use of simple APIs to a selection of facts assets consisting of MYSQL, MS-Access, MSSQL, Oracle and so forth., One has to create an ODBC connection to the particular data source. This may be performed the usage of the ODBC dialog box which is offered from the manipulate panel. One calls for an ODBC driver to be established via Dynamic Hyperlink Libraries. There are 3 varieties of DSNs (statistics Supply Names), particularly Consumer DSN, Machine DSN and Report DSN.

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After making sure that the driver required to connect to a statistics Supply is present one desires to add the facts Supply by means of manually including a data Source from the ODBC conversation box in the manipulate panel. After including a database one has to configure it. The method to configure a database varies from one database to another. As an example, it’s far unique for Oracle than MS-Get admission to as Oracle has a layer of TNS (Obvious Community Substrate). inside the case of Oracle, the TNS provider call is mandatory to create an ODBC connection among patron and server. inside the case of Microsoft Get admission to one has to simply specify the Network region of the Access database and the call of the database. The ODBC manager on hand from the control panel will take care of these kinds of troubles at the same time as attempting to create a DSN call.

Is Mobile Car Valeting Service a Good Option After the Holidays?

So the holidays are over and you are now considering whether or not to have your vehicle cleaned through a cell vehicle valeting employer. This is really a smart idea, mainly in case your vehicle has persevered the elements so far and you will want to apply even greater after the vacations.

Many human beings question the usefulness of cellular automobile valeting offerings after the holidays, however, the truth of the matter is that the time is simply as precise as any to ebook a service. Despite the fact that you could sense like you have to depend on your conventional vehicle wash to clean your automobile, there are some arguments pointing toward hiring a valeting provider:

What does mobile mean

You get it achieved at your property – nobody loves to depart their home, in particular, while it is simplest to get the automobile cleaned. Who is aware of how bloodless it is outdoor and what kingdom the roads are in. There is probably snow and ice and the forecast may not be promising. To avoid this hassle altogether, you could truly have your car cleaned at your private home, due to the fact that is what cellular vehicle valeting is all about. it is a huge advantage, which you may take advantage of at once after the holidays.

mobile wiki online recharge

you can recognition on different obligations – since you don’t have to waste time getting the auto to the car wash, you can actually get different work finished. This consists of taking some time to relaxation after the tense Christmas and New Year Eve’s events and perhaps getting something done in your house. In spite of everything, if you held a celebration there, it is probably clever to cognizance your attempt on coping with the mess in preference to wasting some time and electricity on car cleaning.

you can gain from special gives – it isn’t a secret that many organizations provide their services at discounted fee right now after the vacations. in case you are seeking to shop money and still get the job completed, then now’s the high-quality time to e-book one. Of course, you shouldn’t be worried that the provider you are supplied may be of terrible quality, as many organizations are extreme and will now not compromise their work.

Your car will appear like cutting-edge – they say that New Year is time for brand new things, so what better to get your vehicle looking like new than right now after that. whether you’ve got paintings to do with the car otherwise you simply want to experience appropriate in it, a right smooth can assure that it is searching immaculate.mobile

Mobile Alabama’s attractions

you are spared the attempt – let’s face it: cleaning the auto within the iciness isn’t a favorable activity. You would a great deal rather be doing something else. In an effort to spare yourself the attempt, you could certainly hire a mobile automobile valeting provider and move this chore off your list without lifting your finger.

Hiring a cell car valeting service straight away after the vacations sincerely is a smart choice. you could gain first-rate advantages so don’t hesitate

Student Loans – FAQ’s for Loan Consolidation

With pupil loans, there continually appears to be some unanswered questions. There are numerous questions that students need to ask and we can solution some of the greater important ones here.

LendingTree credit card consolidation

The thing to remember, earlier than you commit to any sort of mortgage consolidation is to make certain to arm yourself with as an awful lot understanding as you may.

One of the first places you have to attempt are the councilors at your instructional organization, they may have all of the today’s neighborhood knowledge about loans and consolidation as it applies to their college mainly.

The second one region to get more solutions is an easy internet seek

The trick to consider here is that the extra questions you ask, the greater solutions you may get.

Achieve a small notebook and write all your records down in a single vicinity, preserve the front of the e-book to your answers and use the lower back of the e-book to listing your questions as you think of them. Small notebooks are very accessible to maintain with you at all times due to the fact you never recognize while a query will pop into your head.

Q 1. Why? Why is there a want to consolidate?

A. you’ll greatly lessen the month-to-month repayment amount, reduce the primary of the loan and probably pay your loans off lots quicker.

Q2. while? when is the high-quality time to get a consolidation mortgage?

To get the most advantage you need to recall consolidating instantly after your graduation. You’ll be capable of taking advantage of the grace length and therefore you will be capable of getting the pleasant feasible interest rate. Q3. What? What in case you aren’t eligible for a consolidation loan?

There may be some conditions a good way to make you ineligible to acquire a consolidation plan. Those can be such things as:

· You have had a previous consolidation

· The quantity of your mortgage is less than $20,000

· If your debt is handiest to one organization.

If this is the case, then you could bear in mind the subsequent solutions…

· Inspect a non-public consolidation plan.

· Take a look at liquefying any belongings you could have.

· Think about obtaining a loan from another institution

Suppose Outside The Field

[movietvtechgeeks]

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Net neutrality back under fire from Donald Trump administration

Not long after Donald Trump signed the internet privacy repeal, the administration is looking to do the same for net neutrality. No more keeping things open and fair on the internet, and you can bet plenty of companies will be more than happy about this. This rule was created to keep Internet providers from deliberately speeding up or slowing down traffic for certain websites or apps. This was a common problem happening, and if this passes, it will begin again so if you have a news site that isn't so kind to the administration, you may suddenly feel yourself being affected. Internet companies are readying for a showdown with a Republican-controlled government over a policy near and dear to their hearts: net neutrality. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said in a Wednesday speech that he wants to ditch the Obama-era rules, hated by telecoms, that prevent broadband and wireless companies from interfering with the sites and apps that consumers use. He wants to undo their legal basis and to eliminate the FCC's broad powers to monitor Verizon, AT&T and Comcast for bad behavior. Pai, the nation's chief telecommunications regulator, said he will seek an FCC vote at a May 18 meeting. The FCC plans to release an official proposal for the vote on Thursday. Pai doesn't have an immediate plan to replace net neutrality but is seeking input on how to "approach" its core: three hard-and-fast rules that bar broadband providers from steering users toward (or away from) particular internet sites and services. Existing net-neutrality rules mean companies like Comcast and Verizon - which offer their own video services they'd very much like subscribers to use - can't slow down Netflix, can't block YouTube, and can't charge Spotify extra to stream faster than Pandora. He said the 2015 rules were unnecessary and have hurt broadband investment, a point contested by activists and companies that support net neutrality. EARLY TECH RESISTANCE The internet industry, which considers net neutrality essential for its business, hasn't stood still as Pai telegraphed his intentions, and it may be keeping some of its most potent tactics in reserve. Many internet companies have already been running the Washington playbook - lobbying Congress, schmoozing government regulators, and signing letters of protest. Boston tech companies and venture capitalists met with Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, last Friday to discuss defending net neutrality. Smaller companies have made the loudest noises so far. Engine, a policy group for startups, called up small internet companies to keep them updated and got more than 800 signatures for a letter that urges the FCC not to dismantle the net neutrality rules. Etsy brought sellers to meet with legislators or their staff members in Washington last month, although the company says the visit involved other issues in addition to net neutrality. Roku, the streaming-video gadget maker, hired lobbyists to set up D.C. meetings for the first time. CALM BEFORE THE STORM The industry's giants, however, have mostly stayed silent beyond offering blanket statements of support for net neutrality. The Internet Association, which speaks for Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Uber, earlier called on Pai to support net neutrality, and Wednesday issued a statement warning that his changes would "result in a worse internet for consumers." Meanwhile, the FCC chairman has also been looking for allies. Pai traveled to Silicon Valley last week to meet with big tech companies, a visit that was "extremely well received," according to Oracle senior vice president Ken Glueck. (Oracle sides with the telecom industry in opposing net-neutrality rules.) Pai attended an event held at Cisco, with attendees from Oracle, Apple, Facebook, HP, Salesforce and Intel, Glueck said. (Pai said he met with Oracle, Cisco, Intel, Facebook and other companies.) At least one big supporter of net neutrality - Netflix - has tempered its rhetoric recently. The streaming-video company said in January that weaker net neutrality wouldn't hurt it because it's now too popular with users for broadband providers to interfere with its service. The company added that it still supports net neutrality "on a public policy basis." WHAT COMES NEXT The tech industry is pretty good at getting consumers on its side when it decides to fight for a cause. In 2012, internet companies took on the entertainment industry in a fight over online piracy. Thousands of websites, including Wikipedia, one of the internet's most well-trafficked sites, temporarily went dark to protest legislation that would have given the government power to "blacklist" sites from the internet. Companies collected millions of signatures and asked users to protest to lawmakers. The bills, which aimed to curb illegal downloads and sales of movies and songs as well as other products, were dropped. In 2014, smaller companies held an "internet slowdown" event to remind users of the net-neutrality fight. Sites such as Reddit, Etsy and WordPress displayed a "site loading" icon intended to signify the slowdowns users could theoretically expect without net neutrality. John Oliver also dedicated a show segment to the topic, which raised awareness of an otherwise jargon-y, abstract issue. But until Wednesday, there had been no net-neutrality development to rally around. "Next steps haven't been figured out yet," Kickstarter general counsel Michal Rosenn said in an interview two weeks ago. "I certainly think we will try every possible avenue, including reaching back out to John Oliver," said Engine's executive director, Evan Engstrom.

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