text:
In the Matter of
FACT Act Biometric Study
File No. R411005
COMMENTS OF THE
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) applauds the Department of the Treasury for soliciting public comment on the use of biometrics and similar technologies to combat identity theft.[1] EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. EPIC maintains an archive of information about biometrics online at http://www.epic.org/privacy/biometrics/.
Increased use of biometrics will not combat identity theft in an effective or cost-efficient manner. In fact, such technologies could worsen the identity theft situation for some members of the public and impose a new nationwide system of identity for virtually all Americans. Furthermore, less invasive and less costly alternatives could be implemented to effectively combat identity theft. Below, we comment that it is not necessary to implement a nationwide system of biometrics to curb identity theft. Instead, we could address identity theft in a more cost-effective and privacy-friendly manner by changing aspects of the credit granting system.
I. Less Invasive, Privacy Friendly Changes to the Credit Granting System Could Stem Identity Theft.
In performing an analysis of methods to reduce risk of identity theft, the Department of the Treasury should consider less invasive and less expensive alternatives, including making simple changes in the credit granting system. Below we propose changes that could have a dramatic effect on identity theft while avoiding the creation of a costly and privacy invasive nationwide system of biometrics.
a. To Prevent Identity Theft, The Department of the Treasury Should Address Sloppy Credit Granting Practices.
We need changes in the credit granting system to prevent impostors from opening tradelines. As Professor Daniel Solove has argued, "many modern privacy problems are systemic in nature. They are the product of information flows…"[2] Identity theft is such a problem, as the availability of personal data under current information architectures makes it simple for impostors to obtain the identifiers needed to apply for credit. Solove argues that to address these "problems that are architectural, the solutions should also be architectural."[3] By creating an architecture that secures personal information and by establishing rights for individuals and responsibilities on data collectors, we can reduce the risk of misuse of personal information. Such an architecture encourages more involvement from the individual with respect to data, and often provides incentives for companies and governments to reduce the amount of information they collect.
But even if the information architecture were revamped to create greater protections for data, identity theft may continue to occur because of lax credit granting practices. Lax granting practices have continued because the credit reporting system law treats credit issuers, such as retailers and credit card issuers, as trusted insiders. As trusted insiders, credit issuers can easily gain access to reports with or without legal justification.
Lax credit granting practices are evidenced by the number of tradelines that are extended to household pets. Most recently, Chase Manhattan bank issued a platinum visa card to one "Clifford J. Dawg."[4] In this instance, the owner of the dog had signed up for a free e-mail account in his pet's name and later received a pre-approved offer of credit for "Clifford J. Dawg." The owner found this humorous and responded to the pre-approved offer, listing nine zeros for the dog's Social Security number, the "Pupperoni Factory" as employer, and "Pugsy Malone" as the mother's maiden name. The owner also wrote on the approval: "You are sending an application to a dog! Ha ha ha." The card arrived three weeks later.[5]
Mr. Dawg's owner contacted the issuing bank to cancel the card. According to the owner, the issuing bank explained that Mr. Dawg's name had been acquired from a marketing list.[6] The issuing bank's representative joked that the incident could be used as a commercial with the slogan "Dogs don't chase us, we chase them."[7] Mr. Dawg's Visa card illustrates some of the problems with credit granting. All systems, especially complex ones that are used millions of times, can fail and occasionally produce errors. But Mr. Dawg's case suggests that there is a more systemic problem in the credit application approval process.
The financial services industry might argue that this is an isolated event. But it is not a single slip up. Credit has been offered and issued to other dogs, including Monty, a Shih-Tzu who was extended a $24,600 credit line.[8] It also has been granted to children and babies.[9] These events suggest that the credit issuers are lax in their marketing and authentication efforts. It suggests that the applications are processed by a computer, and no human error-checks them to prevent fraudulent or improper credit granting.
i. More Scrutiny Needs to Be Focused on Users of Credit Reports.
Three factors lead to lax lending practices and inadequate protection of the credit report. The first is that under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), credit reporting agencies only are required to "maintain reasonable procedures designed" to prevent unauthorized release of consumer information.[10] In practice, this means that credit reporting agencies must take some action to ensure that individuals with access to credit information use it only for permissible purposes enumerated in the Act. The Federal Trade Commission Commentary on the FCRA specifies that this standard can be met in some circumstances with a blanket certification from credit issuers that they will use reports legally.[11]
This certification standard is too weak. It allows a vast network of companies to gain access to credit reports with little oversight. It treats credit issuers and other users of credit reports as trusted insiders, and their use of credit reports and ultimate extension of credit as legitimate. The problem is that insiders can pose a serious risk to security of personal information.[12] In this context, trusted insiders can obtain credit reports for use in fraudulent credit acquisition. For instance, criminals relied upon the relationship between Ford Motor Credit Company and credit reporting agency Experian to steal credit reports for identity theft purposes.[13] To create this relationship as a trusted user of the credit system, Ford Motor Credit Company would have had to certify that it only obtained and used credit reports for permissible purposes. Nevertheless, the criminals were still able to order 30,000 reports without a permissible purpose.[14] Since this fraud occurred over a three-year period, it suggests that a mere certification does not include adequate monitoring or auditing of access to the credit database.
ii. Credit Issuers Are Lax in Customer Authentication, Causing Impostors to Gain Access to Credit.
The second factor in leading to lax issuance is that credit grantors do not have adequate standards for verifying the true identity of credit applicants. Credit issuers sometimes open tradelines to individuals who leave obvious errors on the application, such as incorrect dates of birth or fudged Social Security Numbers.[15] Identity theft expert Beth Givens has argued that many incidences of identity theft could be prevented by simply requiring grantors to more carefully review credit applications for obviously incorrect personal information.[16]
TRW Inc. v. Andrews illustrates the problems with poor standards for customer identification.[17] In that case, Adelaide Andrews visited a doctor's office in Santa Monica, California, and completed a new patient's information form that requested her name, birth date, and Social Security Number.[18] The doctor's receptionist, an unrelated woman named Andrea Andrews, copied the information and used Adelaide's Social Security Number and her own name to apply for credit in Las Vegas, Nevada. On four occasions, Trans Union released Adelaide's credit report because the Social Security Number, last name, and first initial matched. Once Trans Union released the credit reports, it made it possible for creditors to issue new tradelines. Three of the four creditors that obtained a credit report issued tradelines to the impostor based on Adelaide's file, despite the fact that the first name, birth date, and address did not match.[19]
California has attempted to address the customer identification problem by requiring certain credit grantors to comply with heightened authentication procedures. California Civil Code § 1785.14 requires credit grantors to actually match identifying information on the credit application to the report held at the credit reporting agency. Credit cannot be granted unless three identifiers from the application match those on file at the credit bureau. However, this protection only applies when an individual applies for credit at a retailer.[20]
iii. Competition to Acquire New Customers Encourages Bad Practices Contributing to Identity Theft.
The last factor is leading to irresponsible credit granting is competition to obtain new customers. Grantors have flooded the market with "pre-screened" credit offers, pre-approved solicitations of credit made to individuals who meet certain criteria. These offers are sent in the mail, giving thieves the opportunity to intercept them and accept credit in the victim's name.[21] Once credit is granted, the thief changes the address on the account in order to obtain the physical card and to prevent the victim from learning of the fraud.[22] The industry sends out billions of these pre-screened offers a year. It 1998, it was reported that 3.4 billion were sent.[23] In 2003, the estimate increased to 5 billion sent.[24]
Competition also drives grantors to quickly extend credit. Once a consumer (or impostor) expresses acceptance of a credit offer, issuers approve the transaction with great speed. Experian, one of the "big three" credit reporting agencies, performs in this task in a "magic two seconds."[25] In a scenario published in an Experian white paper on "Customer Data Integration," an individual receives a line of credit in two seconds after only supplying his name and address.[26] Such a quick response heightens the damage to business and victims alike, because thieves will generally make many applications for new credit in hopes that a fraction of them will be granted.
This evidence of sloppy credit granting practices leads us to a simple question: why should all Americans have to enroll in biometric systems to prevent identity theft when credit card companies could instead clean up their sloppy practices? Why should Americans be subject to privacy invasive systems, ones that also create new security risks, when we could first clean up an industry that regularly issues credits to pets?
b. Identity Theft Could Be Prevented Through Giving Retailers and Issuers Better Incentives to Avoid Lending to Impostors.
Retailers and credit issuers deal directly with identity thieves when they give credit to them. Accordingly, retailers and credit issuers are in a better position than victims to prevent identity theft. There should be heightened incentives for retailers and credit issuers to avoid credit granting to impostors.
Identity theft victims' attorneys have attempted to curb identity theft by bringing negligence actions against sloppy credit grantors. The goal of the cases is to establish a duty of care between the credit issuer and the identity theft victim, and thus give the issuers a stronger incentive to make decisions more responsibly. However, the courts have been reluctant to assign liability to the credit granting companies.
In Huggins v. Citibank, the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected the tort of "negligent enablement of imposter fraud."[27] In that case, the plaintiff identity theft victim alleged that banks owe a duty to identity theft victims when they negligently extend credit in their name. The defendants argued that no such duty existed because the victim was not actually a customer of the bank. Focusing on the requirement that an actual relationship exist between victim and tortfeasor before a legal duty arises, the court rejected the proposed cause of action:
"We are greatly concerned about the rampant growth of identity theft and financial fraud in this country. Moreover, we are certain that some identity theft could be prevented if credit card issuers carefully scrutinized credit card applications. Nevertheless, we…decline to recognize a legal duty of care between credit card issuers and those individuals whose identities may be stolen. The relationship, if any, between credit card issuers and potential victims of identity theft is far too attenuated to rise to the level of a duty between them.[28]
Similar suits have failed as well.[29]
An array of credit-industry groups followed the Huggins case closely and wrote briefs as amici. These included the American Bankers Association, American Financial Services Association, America's Community Bankers, Consumer Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, MasterCard International, Inc., and Visa U.S.A., Inc.[30] These groups must be concerned about liability because periodically, absurd errors in the credit business come to light, such as the Clifford J. Dawg platinum Visa card.
c. Credit Card Fraud Could be Curbed Through Technical Changes in Credit Card Number Storage and Through the Adoption of Better Credit Cards.
Some credit card fraud could be addressed through changes in storage of personal information. For instance, some online retailers store customers' credit card numbers, often without the individuals' consent. These databases of credit card numbers are honey pots for malicious crackers. While storing the credit card number with an online vendor does speed transactions and provide more convenience, it comes with a cost of heightened credit card fraud. The Department of the Treasury should consider whether the practice of retailers collecting and storing credit card numbers without consent are exposing their customers to unnecessary and unfair risk of credit card fraud.
There are other technical steps that are less invasive than biometrics that could reduce credit card fraud. For instance, it has long been technically possible to create a credit card that does not "swipe" or produce an account number until the individual enters a pin to activate the card. Encouraging the use of such cards would not implicate individuals' privacy, and allow individuals to exercise more control over their credit card numbers.
d. The Department of the Treasury Should Analyze the Role that Affiliate Sharing and Marketing Play in Causing Consumer Fraud and Identity Theft.
While information sharing can be employed to detect fraud, it can also be used to commit fraud. For instance, major financial institutions have used their customer lists to target consumers for fraudulent telemarketing schemes. Capital One,[31] Chase Manhattan,[32] Citibank,[33] First U.S.A.,[34] Fleet Mortgage,[35] GE Capital,[36] MBNA America,[37] and U.S. Bancorp[38] all have provided their customers' personal and confidential information to fraudulent telemarketers.
The financial institutions provided the telemarketers with the names, telephone numbers and other information about their customers. They also gave them the ability to charge customers' accounts without having to ask consumers to provide an account number. This practice, called preacquired account telemarketing, has subjected thousands of individuals to unauthorized charges for products and services they never wanted or ordered. In one case, during a thirteen-month period a national bank processed 95,573 cancellations of membership clubs and other products that were billed by preacquired account telemarketers without customers' authorization.[39]
In some cases, financial information flows have allowed businesses to defraud non-customers. This can occur where a bank sells personal information to another business. Charter Pacific Bank sold its database containing 3.6 million valid credit card account numbers to a convicted felon who then fraudulently billed the accounts for access to Internet pornography sites that victims had never visited.[40] In fact, approximately 45% of the victims did not even own a computer. Charter Pacific did not develop the database from its own customers' information. Instead, it compiled the information from credit card holders who had purchased goods and services from merchants that had accounts at Charter Pacific. The information included the date of sale, account number, and dollar amount of every credit card transaction processed by the bank's merchant customers. The unrestricted sharing of this information resulted in over $44 million of unauthorized charges.
Affiliate sharing can expose the elderly and other at risk consumers to increased likelihood of fraud. NationsBank, for example, shared with its affiliated securities company data on bank customers with low-risk, maturing federally insured CDs.[41] The affiliate, NationsSecurity, then aggressively marketed high-risk investments to these conservative investors, misleading many customers to believe that the investments were as safe and reliable as federally insured CDs. Many customers, including retired elderly, lost significant portions of their life savings. After an investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission found that the companies intentionally blurred the distinction between the bank and the brokerage, and between the insured CDs and riskier investment products. Affiliate sharing of customers' information made this possible. NationsBank provided the investment representatives with maturing CD customer lists, as well as customers' financial statements and account balances. As a result, when these investment representatives called NationsBanks' customers and indicated that they were with the "investment division" of the bank, many customers reasonably believed that they were bank employees, not brokers. NationsBank is not the only bank to have engaged in such a practice. First Union settled a private lawsuit alleging a similar scheme.[42]
Many identity theft cases are "insider jobs," committed by employees who obtain access and misuse individuals' personal information stored in their employers' databanks. Other reports note that many identity fraud cases stem from the perpetrator's purchase of consumers' personal information from commercial data brokers. Financial institutions information sharing practices contribute to the risk of identity theft by greatly expanding the opportunity for thieves to obtain access to sensitive personal information.
e. Limits on Use of the Social Security Number Could Curb Identity Theft While Avoiding Privacy-Invasive Deployment of Biometrics.
Although biometric techniques provide a variety of methods to identify individuals, the best way to reduce the specific problem of identity theft is to reduce the use of the Social Security number as a record locator and personal identifier. States are now recognizing the source of the identity theft problem and have begun to enact legislation protecting use of the Social Security number. In Georgia, businesses face fines of up to $10,000 for not protecting consumer personal data. California gives consumers a right to freeze their credit report, so that no business can access it without their consent. Florida, as part of a Grand Jury Report on Identity Theft, has recently recommended that Social Security numbers be prohibited from being used as identifiers unless required by law, and that both government agencies and individuals should be held accountable for releasing personal identifying information with public records.
II. Biometrics Overview.
Biometric identification systems are automated methods of recognizing a person based on one or more physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, voice, or facial characteristics. Computer-based pattern matching is at the core of all biometric systems. The technologies available are subject to varying degrees of error, which means that there is an element of uncertainty in any match.
The accuracy of biometric systems is measured by their false acceptance and false rejection rates. A false acceptance is when the wrong individual is matched to a stored biometric. A false rejection is when an individual is not recognized who should have been. The two measures are dependent. In reducing false acceptances, the false rejection rate will increase. Reducing false rejections will cause the false acceptance rate to go up. Most biometric systems adjust false acceptances or false rejections to the type of application and the amount of security required. High security areas, such as bank vaults and military installations are protected by biometric systems that minimize fraudulent acceptances. The false acceptance rate must be low enough to prevent imposters, but as a result, people who rightfully should be accepted, are sometimes refused. In these cases, human intervention is typically available to provide authentication when the biometric system fails.
Fraud occurs when either an imposter is trying to be accepted as someone else to gain entry or usurp funds, or when an imposter is trying to avoid being recognized as someone already enrolled in the system and tries to enroll multiple times. The first is a form of identity theft, the second creates multiple identities for a single individual. Both types of fraud must be safeguarded against in any biometric system, however, depending on the application, it may be reasonable to relax one criterion to prevent the other.
There is no perfect biometric system. Each type of biometric system has its own advantages and disadvantages, and must be evaluated according to the application for which it is to be used.
a. Creating and Using an Identity Database.
There is a distinction between Authentication, Identification and Enrollment. Authentication is the easiest task for a biometric system to perform. Identification is more difficult and much more time consuming. The enrollment process determines the ultimate accuracy of the biometric system. A single biometric system can be created for identification or authentication, but not both, although the two applications can share the same database of biometric samples.
b. One-to-One Matching.
Authentication answers the question, am I who I say I am? A person presents a biometric sample, and some additional identifying data, such as a photograph or password, which is then compared to the stored sample for that person. If the person is not an imposter, the two samples should match. This is known as a one-to-one match. If a nonmatch occurs, some systems retake up to three samples from the person to find a best match. This is the simplest task of a biometric system because the independent identifiers help to corroborate the individual. The biometric acts as a secondary password to protect the individual. Authentication of an individual takes at most a few seconds.
c. One-to-Many Matching.
Identification means to answer the question, who am I? A person provides a sample biometric, sometimes without his knowledge, and the system must compare that sample to every stored record to attempt to return a match. This is known as a one-to-many match, and is done without any corroborating data. Because the matching process is based on the closeness of the new sample to a stored sample, most systems return a likely list of matches. Others return a single match if the sample is similar enough. The time for the result depends on the size of the database. The FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), which is used to identify criminals, can perform over 100,000 comparisons per second, usually completing an identification in 15 minutes with a database of over 42 million records.[43] If identification must be done on a wide-scale basis, the number of comparisons that will need to be done simultaneously will be astronomical. In addition, consumers might be unwilling to wait more than a few seconds to be able to use their bank ATMs or on-line service.
Negative identification is when an individual can be accepted to receive a benefit only if he is not yet enrolled in a database, such as a government-run welfare program or drivers registry. Even negative identification is susceptible to fraud. A person already enrolled in the system can avoid being recognized by attempting to falsify his biometric or skew the data collection. Rejecting imperfect images in the enrollment process, improves the integrity of the database, but cannot solve all enrollment problems.
d. Entering a New Person into the Database.
Enrollment is the process of introducing a new person into the database. The person's biometric must be sampled and stored together with his or her identity. The greatest problem is there is no existing guarantee as to that identity. A biometric system can only be as good as the accuracy of any background information that is relied on. If fraudulent information is used to enroll an individual, through a fake birth certificate or stolen social security number, a biometric can only verify the person is who they said they were at the time of enrollment. One important enrollment test is to match every new person against all other entries to check for duplicate entries and possible fraud. Without this check, once a person is in the database, it will be impossible to trace an imposter assuming multiple identities.
III. Identity theft will not be prevented through the use of biometrics.
Because of the numerous practical, logical, and technological flaws inherent in any biometric implementation, use of biometric technologies will not serve to effectively prevent identity theft. Instead, it will create new liabilities while draining away resources and threatening the privacy of those the technology ostensibly protects.
a. There are too many practical problems with Biometrics.
It is not possible to issue a new biometric if it is compromised.
It is important to understand that once a biometric identifier is compromised, there will be severe consequences for the individual. It is possible to replace a credit card number or a social security numbers, but how does one replace a fingerprint, voiceprint, or retina? These questions need to be considered in the design and deployment of any system of biometric identification for a large public user base.
Because biometrics systems are being sold as a more effective method for authentication and verification, it follows that users of these systems will have an increased trust, and thus reliance, in the systems performance. As such, if a biometric is compromised, the actions of the imposter who successfully circumvented the system would be more trusted than actions by non-biometric imposters as a result of the users perceived trust in the biometric system.
As a result, the trust placed in the effectiveness biometric system will act as a double edged sword that will greatly increase the damage done to victims of identity theft. Such trust in a biometric system is harmful and counterproductive for two reasons. First, because a biometric cannot be replaced if corrupted (stolen or used for identity theft), victims will effectively be expelled from the "trusted" system, prohibiting their participation in whatever the biometric system protects. Second, this trust will likely instill a false sense of security that will prompt users to entrust more valuable information to the system. This, in turn, creates a greater damage for the victim. In short, the more you entrust to the system, the more you will lose when it is corrupted.
b. It is too cost prohibitive to use biometrics on a wide-scale basis.
A user wishing to implement a biometrics system must pay for not only the "readers," but also must pay for the setup, instillation, and maintenance of a system that must be continuously updated due to the fluid nature of biometric identifiers. Additionally, a user must be financially prepared to deal with the cost of correcting the system if it is compromised with corrupted information (a knowingly forged fingerprint or vocal reproduction, etc…).
In order to deal with such a "corrupted information" problem, some companies require a card to be carried that contains an identifier embedded in a magnetic strip or smart chip.[44] Authentication is then based on the possession of the card in addition to the biometric feature. Therefore, if the information is compromised, the user will simply be issued a new card as the old one is cancelled. Thus, although the system can relatively remain effective, it is done at the expense of maintaining two infrastructures --the biometric sensors and the card readers.[45] "As a result, the costs of biometric authentication schemes will be considerably higher than those of a traditional system that is based on a card and a PIN or just on a password. These infrastructure costs pose a formidable barrier to widespread deployment of biometric technologies."[46]
c. A substantial number of people will be unable to enroll in biometric systems.
There will always be a small but substantial percentage of users who cannot enroll in biometric systems either because they are unable to produce the necessary biometric (a missing finger or eye) or they are unable to provide a quality sample at enrollment. Others repeatedly cannot match their biometric to the stored template. These individuals will never be identified by the biometric system. Even if only 1% of the general population, which is approximately 3 million people, could not participate in a biometric system, this number is significant enough to raise serious concerns about the effectiveness the system.
This fact not only raises the cost for biometric uses by requiring additional verification tools, but also increases the liability for identity theft. By accommodating those unable to participate in the biometrics system, users are unwillingly opening a backdoor to those wishing to circumvent the biometrics system. Such a liability could potentially render the existence of a biometrics system irrelevant.
Since some biometrics deteriorate with age, the elderly will be particularly affected. They will constitute the largest portion of those unable to enroll or be recognized by a biometric system. There needs to be an alternative solution for those who cannot be recognized by a biometric system so that they will not be denied rightful benefits.
d. The collection information for biometrics systems creates new threats to privacy.
It is important to recognize in the design of any system of biometric identification that the creation of a database linked to the individual and containing access to sensitive, personally identifiable information will create a new series of privacy issues. Administrators of these systems as well as those who gain access to these databases unlawfully will have access to personal information as if they were themselves the individual subject. It is conceivable that data could be altered either by administrators or by those who gain unlawful access to the database. The result would be records that wrongly indicate biometric authentication when in fact the subject did not engage in the event recorded. There are techniques to minimize these risks, but no system is foolproof.
e. There are too many technical problems with biometrics.
Biometric technology is too technologically flawed to effectively combat identity theft. In addition to inherent problems with any biometric system, the different types of biometric systems all have unique flaws, each of which are susceptible to some form of circumvention.
i. Uniqueness of biometric data is affected by time, variability and data collection.
The key to any biometric system is that the biometric being measured is unique between individuals and unchanging over time. Otherwise the stored biometric associated with an individual needs to be periodically updated. There are several factors affecting the accuracy of any identification. Biometric data collection can be affected by changes in the environment, such as positioning, lighting, shadows and background noise. But the biometrics of an individual are also susceptible to change through aging, injury and disease. Because of this, the accuracy of all biometric systems diminishes over time.
ii. Collecting biometric data introduces errors in the data.
Any biometric sample, whether a fingerprint, voice recording, or iris scan, is not matched from the raw data. There is too much data to store and compare during each attempted match, especially if the sample needs to be transmitted to a central database for matching. Instead, biometric systems use templates that represent key elements of the raw data. Face recognition systems need the most number of features to be extracted and hand scans need the least. The extracted features are compressed further into a sample template which is then compared to a stored template to determine if there is a match. Information is lost with each level of compression making it impossible to reconstruct the original scan from the extracted points. Since even minor changes in the way a sample is collected can create a different template for a single individual, matches are based on probability. Systems are adjustable to the amount of difference they will tolerate to confirm a match. The more independent the data available for matching, the more credible the match.[47]
iii. Increasing the speed of biometric systems can introduce error.
In extremely large populations, storage of templates is partitioned into characteristics, or bins, for ease of searching. These bins can be based on external characteristics such as gender or race, or they can be based on the biometric's internal characteristics. Traditional fingerprint identification has been based on the binning idea, with classifications based on whorls, loops and arches. Computerized systems take advantage of this concept. While binning can speed the time for identification and allows for better statistical matches within each bin, if a template is wrongly binned, it can never be found.[48]
f. Each type of biometric system contains substantial flaws.
i. Fingerprint scanning is the best known and most widely used biometric.
Fingerprints are the best-known and most studied biometric. Basic fingerprint technology has been around for over a century. Technically-sophisticated fingerprint scanners are available from $300 to just over $1,000, although an entire biometric installation can cost upwards of a million dollars. The FBI's IAFIS, which has cost several hundreds of millions of dollars, is 98% accurate with a database of over 42 million sets of ten-finger prints.[49] But fingerprint authentication systems still reject over 3% of authorized users when false acceptances are minimized.[50] Systems currently in use by state and local governments must use at least two-finger identification schemes in order to achieve that level of accuracy for much smaller populations, usually around a few hundred thousand people.[51]
Fingerprint patterns are created from the ridges on your fingers. The patterns, consisting of loops, whorls and arches, have been shown to be unique between people. Even on a single individual, each of the ten fingers has a different pattern. However, the ridges necessary to create the pattern age and deteriorate over time. Fingerprint templates are influenced by the pressure, position, and dryness of the finger on the scanner. Scars, calluses or cracks in the skin can change the template. While more sophisticated scanners can compensate for dirt or other contaminates, simple household cleaners can remove the ridges necessary to obtain a readable print. Even long fingernails can prevent a scanner from correctly taking a fingerprint. Still, fingerprint technology is the most cost-effective biometric available today.
ii. Retinal scans are the most accurate, but least acceptable to the public.
Retinal scans are the most accurate. They capture the pattern of blood vessels in the eye. No two patterns are the same, even between the right and left eye, or identical twins. Nor do retinal patterns change with age. The drawback to retinal scans is that typically the data capture process is also the most invasive. This makes them the most difficult to administer, thus making any sample subject to the most errors in data collection. To get a usable sample, an individual must cooperate by keeping his head fixed and focusing on a target while an infrared beam is shown through the pupil. The reflected light is then measured and captured by a camera. Retinas are also susceptible to diseases, such as glaucoma or cataracts, which would pose difficulties for those who suffer from these common conditions.[52]
iii. Iris scans are less invasive, but not proven.
Iris scans are a fairly new technology that appears to be almost as accurate as retinal scans. The advantage over retinal scans is collection of the sample template is not as invasive: a video camera is used to take a picture of the iris. Cooperation of the individual is still necessary, though. The person must be within 19 to 21 inches of the camera and focused on a target in order to get a quality scan, although work has been done with inserting lenses to sharpen the sampled image. Movement, glasses and colored contact lenses can change the template created from a single individual. Eyelids and eyelashes obscure part of the surface of the iris. Since the scan is based on the size of the pupil, drugs dilating the eye could defeat an iris scan.
Iris patterns are thought to be unique. However, since the technology is fairly new, a large enough database has not yet been assembled to prove this assumption. The iris allows for the fastest comparisons against a database, checking 100,000 records of iris codes in two seconds, compared with 15 minutes for a fingerprint scan to do the same task.[53]
iv. Face Recognition systems are the least reliable.
Face recognition is the least reliable of the biometrics available today. Lab tests by two of the nation's biggest testing centers, the Biometrics Fusion Center in West Virginia, run by the United States Department of Defense, and the International Biometric Group, a research and consulting firm in New York, show that correct matches are produced only about 54% of the time.[54]
Face recognition is a difficult task, usually requiring a system to isolate an image in a complex environment and then to compare it to a stored template that was sampled in a controlled environment. Face recognition relies on matching the same head position and angle, so several poses need to be collected to create a single template. Light, shadows, facial expression, weight gain, and sunglasses all affect the system's ability to produce a match, oftentimes making mistakes across gender. Even when the sample is taken in a similar controlled environment to the stored template, face recognition systems have trouble matching to images that were stored more than one year earlier.[55] Research groups are now trying different approaches to improve face recognition systems.
v. Other biometrics are only accurate for smaller groups of people.
Other biometric products and research are available, with differing degrees of success: signature scanners, vein patterns, gait recognition are a few. However, most are inappropriate to identity protection. For example, hand readers are currently in use in many installations. However, because they contain the smallest dataset, and because hand geometry is neither time-invariant or unique, their effectiveness breaks down in large populations, producing too many duplicate matches. Hand readers can also be defeated by jewelry and weight gain.
Voice recognition is skewed by background noise, and whether an analog or cell phone is used. While it is impossible to fool a voice recognition system through impersonation or mimicry, it is possible to use a tape recorder to commit fraud.
g. Every biometric system is subject to circumvention; some can be evaded with little difficulty.
There are several ways to try to circumvent a biometric system. False identification at enrollment, physically altering a personal biometric, skewing the sample collection by not cooperating, and hacking into or falsifying the database are all ways that biometric recognition can be compromised. Sample data could even be altered or stolen during transmission to a central database. How a biometric system is set up, protected and maintained will determine the effectiveness of the system.
One of the most often asked question is whether biometrics can be defeated by prosthetic devices. The best biometric scanners would detect a pulse or heat from the individual to make sure that the sample has come from a live human being. However, it should be noted that if biometric systems are going to be implemented on a grand scale, it is unlikely that the "best" (i.e. more expensive) scanners will be purchased, but rather the scanners will more than likely be bought with an eye toward budget.[56]
Additionally, a group of Japanese scientists have conducted a study whereby they were able to deceive fingerprint scanners with an astonishing success rate by using a mold made from a material similar to that which makes up "gummy bears."[57] The experiment, which tested 11 different types of fingerprint systems, found that all of the fingerprint systems accepted the gummy finder in their verification procedure more than 67% of the time.
We urge the Department of the Treasury to consider non-invasive, effective methods to curb identity theft through making changes to the credit granting system. Such changes would be more cost effective and friendlier to privacy interests.
Furthermore, a system of biometric identification, for the reasons articulated above, will not combat identity theft. Such a system would be expensive to deploy, would be privacy invasive, and excessive in light of alternatives, such as requiring credit issuers to be more careful in granting credit.
Chris Jay Hoofnagle
W. Neal Hartzog
IPIOP Clerk
1718 Connecticut Ave. NW 200
[1] Public Comment on Formulating and Conducting a Study on the Use of Biometrics and Other Similar Technologies to Combat Identity Theft, 69 Fed. Reg. 9895, (Mar. 2, 2004) available at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2004/04-4604.htm.
[2] Daniel J. Solove, Identity Theft, Privacy, and the Architecture of Vulnerability, 54 Hastings L. J. 1227, 1232 (2003). EPIC has attached this article to our comments.
[3] Id. at 1241. One generally accepted architectural framework is "Fair Information Practices" as specified by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. See Marc Rotenberg, What Larry Doesn't Get: Fair Information Practices and the Architecture of Privacy, 2001 Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 1 (2001); Will Thomas DeVries, Protecting Privacy in the Digital Age, 18 Berk. Tech. L.J. 283 (2003).
[4] Dog Gets Carded, Wash. Times (Jan. 30, 2004), available at http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040129-031535-6234r.htm; Dog Issued Credit Card, Owner Sends In Pre-Approved Application As Joke, NBC San Diego (Jan. 28, 2004), available at http://www.nbcsandiego.com/money/2800173/detail.html.
[5] Id.
[8] Identity thieves feed on credit firms' lax practices, USA Today, Sept. 12, 2003, p. 11A; Kevin Hoffman, Lerner's Legacy: MBNA's customers wouldn't write such flattering obituaries, Cleveland Scene, Dec. 18, 2002; Scott Barancik, A Week in Bankruptcy Court, St. Petersburg Times, Mar. 18, 2002, p 8E.
[9] Identity Theft Resource Center, Fact Sheet 120: Identity Theft and Children, available at http://www.idtheftcenter.org/vg120.shtml.
[10] 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(a).
[11] The Federal Trade Commission is statutorily barred from promulgating regulations on the FCRA. 15 U.S.C. § 1681s(a)(4). The agency issues a non-binding commentary on the Act. Credit, Trade Practices, 16 CFR § 600, 607 (1995).
[12] Brooke A. Masters & Caroline E. Mayer, Identity Theft More Often an Inside Job, Old Precautions Less Likely to Avert Costly Crime, Experts Say, Wash. Post, Dec. 3, 2002, p. A1.
[13] Benjamin Weiser, Identity Ring Said to Victimize 30,000, N.Y. Times, Nov. 26, 2002, p A1.
[14] Id.
[15] See Nelski v. Pelland, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 663 (6th Cir. 2004) (phone company issued credit to impostor using victim's name but slightly different Social Security Number); United States v. Peyton, 353 F.3d 1080 (9th Cir. 2003) (impostors obtained six American Express cards using correct name and Social Security Number but directed all six to be sent to the impostors' home); Aylward v. Fleet Bank, 122 F.3d 616 (8th Cir. 1997) (bank issued two credit cards based on matching name and Social Security Number but incorrect address); Vazquez-Garcia v. Trans Union De P.R., Inc., 222 F. Supp. 2d 150 (D.P.R. 2002) (impostor successfully obtained credit with matching Social Security Number but incorrect date of birth and address); Dimezza v. First USA Bank, Inc., 103 F. Supp. 2d 1296 (D.N.M. 2000) (impostor obtained credit with Social Security Number match but incorrect address)..
[16] Legislative Hearing on H.R. 2622, The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, Before the Committee on Financial Services, Jul. 9, 2003 (testimony of Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Deputy Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center).
[17] 534 U.S. 19 (2001); Erin Shoudt, Comment. Identity theft: victims "cry out" for reform, 52 Am. U. L. Rev. 339, 346-7 (2002).
[18] 534 U.S. at 23-25.
[20] Cal. Civ. Code § 1785.14(a)(1).
[21] Identity crises -- millions of Americans paying price, Chi. Tribune, Sept. 11, 2003, p2.
[23] Identity Theft: How It Happens, Its Impact on Victims, and Legislative Solutions, Hearing Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, Jul. 12, 2000 (testimony of Beth Givens, Director, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse) (citing Edmund Sanders, Charges are flying over credit card pitches, L.A. Times, Jun. 15, 1999, p. D-1), available at http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/id_theft.htm.
[24] Rob Reuteman, Statistics Sum Up Our Past, Augur Our Future, Rocky Mountain News, Sept. 27, 2003, p 2C; Robert O'Harrow, Identity Crisis; Meet Michael Berry: political activist, cancer survivor, creditor's dream. Meet Michael Berry: scam artist, killer, the real Michael Berry's worst nightmare, Wash. Post Mag., Aug. 10, 2003, p W14.
[25] Experian, Inc., Customer Data Integration: The essential link for Customer Relationship Management White paper 15, 2000, available at http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/cdi_white_paper.pdf.
[27] 355 S.C. 329 (SC 2003).
[28] Id. at 334.
[29] Garay v. U.S. Bancorp, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1331 (E.D.N.Y. 2004); Smith v. Citibank, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25047, (W.D. Mo. 2001); Polzer v. TRW, Inc., 256 A.D.2d 248 (N.Y. App. Div. 1998).
[31] Office of the Washington State Attorney General, "Settlement with Discount Buying Club Highlights Privacy Concerns," Aug. 4, 2000, available at http://www.wa.gov/ago/releases/rel_branddirect_080400.html.
[33] National Association of Attorneys Generals, "Multistate Actions: 27 States and Puerto Rico Settle with Citibank," Feb. 27, 2002, available at http://www.naag.org/issues/20020301-multi-citibank.php; Settlement document available at http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2002/feb/feb27b_02_attach.pdf.
[34] Office of the New York Attorney General, "First USA to Halt Vendor's Deceptive Solicitations," Dec. 31, 2002, available at http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2002/dec/dec31a_02.html.
[35] Minnesota v. Fleet Mortgage Corp., 158 F. Supp. 2d 962 (D. Minn. 2001), available at http://www.ag.state.mn.us/consumer/PR/Fleet_Opinion_61901.html.
[38] Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, "Minnesota AG and U.S. Bancorp Settle Customer Privacy Suit," July 11, 1999, available at http://www.ag.state.mn.us/consumer/Privacy/PR/pr_usbank_07011999.html.
[39] Supplemental Comments of the Minnesota Attorney General Office, FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule, FTC File No. R411001, http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/dncpapercomments/supplement/minnag.pdf.
[40] Federal Trade Commission, "FTC Wins $37.5 Million Judgment from X-Rate Website Operator; Bank Sold Defendants Access to Active MasterCard, Visa Card Numbers," Sept. 7, 2000, available at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/09/netfill.htm.
[41] Nationssecurities and Nationsbank, N.A., SEC Release No. 33-7532, May 4, 1998, available at http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/337532.txt.
[42] Risky Business in the Operating Subsidiary: How the OCC Dropped the Ball, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Commerce., 106th Cong. (June 25, 1999) (statement of Jonathan Alpert, Sr. Partner, Baker and Rodems).
[43] What Could Biometrics Have Done?, at http://www.biometricgroup.com/e/Brief.htm (last visited Jul. 15, 2002).
[44] Deutsche Ban Research, Biometrics - hype and reality, at http://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/999/PROD0000000000043270.pdf (last visited 3-30-04). EPIC has appended this report to our testimony.
[46] Id. at 6.
[47] James L. Wayman, Generalized Biometric Identification System Model, U.S. National Biometric Test Center, Proc. 31st IEEE Asilomar Conf. Signals, Systems and Computing (1997), http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/biometrics/nbtccw.pdf
[48] James L. Wayman, Large-Scale Civilian Biometric Systems, U.S. National Biometric Test Center, Proc. CardTech/SecurTech Government (1997), http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/biometrics/nbtccw.pdf.
[49] Congressional Statement, 2000 - Crime Regarding HR 3410 and Name Check Efficacy , athttp://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress00/loesch.htm (last visited Jul. 9, 2002).
[50] Erik Bowman, Everything You Need to Know About Biometrics, Identix Corporation (Jan. 2000), http://www.ibia.org/EverythingAboutBiometrics.PDF.
[51] Wayman, supra note 6.
[52] Bowman, supra note 9.
[53] John Daugman, How Iris Recognition Works, University of Cambridge, at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/jgd1000/ (last visited Mar. 30, 2004).
[54] See P. Jonathon Phillips et al, An Introduction to Evaluating Biometric Systems, Computer (2000), http://www.dodcounterdrug.com/facialrecognition/DLs/Feret7.pdf.
[55] William A. Barrett, A Survey of Face Recognition Algorithms and Testing Results, U.S. National Biometric Test Center, at http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/biometrics/nbtccw.pdf (last visited Jul. 15, 2002).
[56] See e.g. Lisa Thalheim, Jan Krissler & Peter-Michael ZieglerBody Check, Heise Online, Nov. 2002, available at http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/11/114/. EPIC has appended this article these comments.
[57] Tsutomu Matsumoto, et. al., Impact of Artificial "Gummy" Fingers on Fingerprint Systems, Prepared for Proceedigns of SPIE vol. #4677, Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques IV (January 2002), at http://cryptome.org/gummy.htm. The paper concludes that "gummy finders, namely artificial fingers that are easily made of cheap and readily available gelatin, were accepted by extremely high rates by particular fingerprint devices with optical or capacitive sensors." Id.
Page URL: http://www.epic.org/privacy/biometrics/factabiometrics.html


text:
BRONCOS WIN SEVENTH STRAIGHT, ALONE IN FOURTH
Four of the five Saturday night SJHL games saw a team in the top six defeat a club in the bottom six of the standings.
That was the case in Humboldt, where the Broncos ran their winning streak to seven straight with a 6-2 win over the Weyburn Red Wings. Humboldt came into action in a three way tie for fourth overall, and with Flin Flon losing Saturday, and Battlefords having the night off, the Broncos (31-16-2-1) now occupy sole possession of fourth spot.
Brayden Camrud (2g-1a) and Colin MacPherson scored twice each on Saturday. For MacPherson, it was the first two SJHL goals for the 6'5″, 225 lb defenseman in his 19th game with the club. Drew Warkentine (1g-1a) scored his 20th goal in just his 25th game this season, while Bryson Cecconi rounded out the scoring and Rayce Ramsay made 22/24 saves.
Jordan Kazymyra (1g-1a) and Ben Hiltz replied for the Red Wings (15-29-4-1), who picked up just one point on their three game trip. They're now winless in five (0-4-0-1) and still two points back of Melville for a playoff spot. Both the Wings and Millionaires have nine games left, including two head to head, both in Melville in late February.
The only game that did not see a top six and bottom six team going head to head was in Flin Flon, where the Bombers and Melfort Mustangs were separated by just a point heading into Saturday's action.
The Bombers were part of a three way tie for fourth while Melfort was one point back, and they leapfrogged Flin Flon with an 8-4 road win.
It looked promising for the Bombers early, as they quickly led 3-1 in the first period, but the Mustangs would score the next five straight and seven of the final eight goals on the night.
Colin Schmidt, exactly three weeks removed from a hat trick, did one better in Flin Flon, leading Melfort with four goals. Zach Anderson and George King each had a goal and two assists, while Jake Hobson (1g-1a) and Alex Rondeau added the others.
The Mustangs (30-15-4-0) have won four in a row, and sit alone in 5th place, one point back of Humboldt, one up on both Flin Flon and Battlefords now.
Daylan Marchi opened the scoring for the Bombers (30-16-1-2) just 2:02 into the contest. Donavan Houle-Villeneuve, Nate Hooper and Caleb Moretz each added a goal and an assist.
The Bombers have another crucial four games in five nights road trip this week beginning Tuesday. They'll be in Humboldt, Weyburn, Estevan and Notre Dame.
Will Koop and TJ Irey both scored twice, leading the Estevan Bruins to their ninth win in their last 10 games, a 6-2 win in Melville.
Jayden Davis (1g-1a) and Kade McMillen also found the net and Kadin Kilpatrick made 20/22 saves as the Bruins (27-21-2-1) stretched their lead to six points at the top of the Viterra Division over Yorkton.
Daniel Liberty (1g-1a) and Ryan Butler did the scoring for the Millionaires (15-27-4-3). They're off until a home and home with Yorkton Friday and Saturday. After that they have four more in a row at home, capped with two against Weyburn Feb 23 and Feb 27.
With Humboldt keeping the pressure on right behind them, the Kindersley Klippers won their fourth in a row, 4-2 over Yorkton to keep the Broncos two points back of the Global Ag Risk Solutions Division lead. Kindersley also has two games in hand on Humboldt.
After a scoreless first period, the Klippers (31-12-3-2) rattled off three in the second to lead 3-0. The first one from Devon Cyr before Caden Benson scored a pair.
Aiden Bulych and Branden Klatt (1g-1a) scored for the Terriers (25-24-1-0) to cut it to 3-2, before Noah Bankowski put it away with an empty-netter.
Justen Close made 33/35 saves in the win, while Ryan Ouelette was also solid for Yorkton, turning away 31/34 shots.
With the Terriers now six points back of Estevan for the Viterra Division lead, it's looking more and more like a Yorkton vs Notre Dame 8th vs 9th Wild Card series, with only home ice to be determined, but the Terriers do have a game in hand on Estevan, the head to head tie-breaker, and eight games remaining to get back into the division pennant conversation.
The Nipawin Hawks gained some more cushion at the top of the Sherwood Division, while also mathematically eliminating the La Ronge Ice Wolves from playoff contention with a 4-3 win Saturday in Nipawin.
Rookie Michael Makarenko scored twice for the Hawks (35-12-1-2), while Brodie Girod and Jack Lenchyshyn scored in the first period. It was the first SJHL for the big rookie defenseman Lenchyshyn. Patrick Pugliese made 17/20 saves, running his record to 15-2. Nipawin leads Melfort by nine points at the top of the Sherwood, while they're still six points up on Kindersley for the league lead. Kindersley has two games in hand, and they go head to head Tuesday in Nipawin.
Jake Gudjonson (1g-1a), Jordan Mish and Antonio Di Paolo scored, and Brendan Benoit made 36/40 saves for the Ice Wolves (10-39-1-1).
Nipawin's right back on home ice again on Sunday at 6:00 as the Battlefords North Stars come to town.
Previous PostFRIDAY RECAPSNext PostPLAYERS OF THE WEEK (Feb 11)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Matrix with the same value in all entries — which notation to use? Pretty trivial but for a matrix
\begin{bmatrix}x&x&\ldots&x&x\\x&x&\ldots&x&x\\\vdots&\vdots&\ddots&x&x\\x&x&\ldots&x&x\end{bmatrix}
with  $N\times N $, is there is simpler notation. I had $A=[x_{i,j}]\in \Bbb R^{N\times N}$ in my mind, but I can't find anywhere were it is used
Edit: I forgot to mention but, I need to work with the elements in the matrix, so like doing scalar multiplication (to do a proof by the principle of mathematical induction question). But it a $3\times 3$ so I figured out I do have to write every single element 9 times in a row. Is there any notation that can make my math simpler?

A: It is common for $J$ or $J_{n}$ to be used as a square ($n \times n$) matrix of all 1s, though not so common that you shouldn't specify that this is what you mean. You can also write $J_{m,n}$ for an $m \times n$ matrix of all ones.  It is also common for ${\bf{j}}$ to be used for a vector of all ones.
These all ones matrices and vectors come up in a variety of situations in algebra and combinatorics; for example

*

*$J_{n}-I_{n}$ is the adjacency matrix for the complete graph $K_{n}$

*$J_{m,n}$ is the identity element for the set of $m\times n$ matrices under the Hadamard product;

*the proof of Fisher's Inequality for combinatorial designs relies on the fact that the incidence matrix of such a structure must satisfy the equation $B^{T}B=(r-\lambda)I+\lambda J$ (where $r$ and $\lambda$ are parameters of the design).

A: Assuming that $x \neq 0$, it's a rank-$1$ matrix. Thus, to emphasize its rank-$1$-ness, I would use
$$\color{blue}{x \,{\Bbb 1}_n {\Bbb 1}_n^\top}$$

A: I don't think there is a common notation, as this type of matrix isn't extremely common. However in Statistics I have seen a column or matrix of ones written as a $J$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
PLUS Channel
Wisconsin Badgers NCAA FB
Wisconsin Badgers NCAA BK
Marquette Golden Eagles NCAA BK
Schedules & Tickets
Badgers drop to No. 11 in AP Top 25 poll
AP Dec 8, 2019 at 1:25p ET
After losing to Ohio State in the Big Tech championship, the Wisconsin Badgers dropped a spot to No. 11 in the Associated Press college football poll.
ELSEWHERE IN THE POLL
LSU finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25, followed by Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma.
The Tigers will head into postseason having been atop the AP poll for the last seven weeks. The Tigers received 47 first-place votes in the AP Top 25 presented by Regions Bank. The Buckeyes had 12 first-place votes and Clemson received three. The Sooners moved up two spots in Sunday's rankings after winning the Big 12 championship.
Georgia slipped a spot to No. 5 after losing the Southeastern Conference title game to LSU and Florida was No. 6. Oregon jumped six spots to No. 7 after winning the Pac-12 championship.
No. 8 Baylor held its spot after losing to Oklahoma in overtime. Alabama and Auburn were tied for ninth.
Utah fell seven spots to No. 12 after being upset by Oregon.
The only team of fall out of the rankings was Virginia, which was blown out by Clemson in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. Oklahoma State moved back into the rankings at No. 25.
FOX Sports Wisconsin
FOX Sports Wisconsin - Badgers


Are you thinking of starting up a business?
Are you trying to grow your business or diversify it?
Are you thinking of exiting a business?
There are different ways and options that we can suggest to help you accomplish your goals.


NEW YORK, Jan. 07, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BOLT® Solutions, Inc. (www.boltinc.com), the leading online distribution and customer support platform to the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry, announced today the addition of Scott Van Slyck as executive vice president of enterprise sales. In his new role, Van Slyck will lead the BOLT sales team, continuing its rapid response to growing market demand for the BOLT Platform and to the industry's increasing appetite for direct distribution solutions.
With nearly 15 years of business development and sales experience, Van Slyck brings to BOLT a strong skill set in sales and product management. Van Slyck most recently served as senior vice president of sales, insurance risk Americas for SunGard, where he oversaw the Americas sales strategy for over a decade.
Previous experience includes work with risk assessment technology provider BioSignia in business development, market research, and product development. Van Slyck's background and industry expertise provide a solid foundation for his work with BOLT as the company continues to broaden its market footprint.
Founded in 2000, BOLT® Solutions, Inc., an Actua company (Nasdaq:ACTA), enables property & casualty insurance carriers to offer products and services through direct distribution channels. The BOLT Platform is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering designed to connect carriers and their agents directly to consumers and deliver the ideal and optimized experience customers expect today. The BOLT Platform is compatible with an insurer's existing infrastructure, providing a single interface and a seamless process from consumer to back office systems, as well as a rich data set for reporting, analytics, and market and consumer intelligence. For additional information on BOLT Solutions and the BOLT Platform, visit www.boltinc.com.


Home›Health›Blood Type and Fibro: Precisely what does Your Blood Type Say About Fibro?
Although fibromyalgia is just not yet deemed an autoimmune disease, it is usually lumped alongside similar conditions for instance rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Researchers still aren't sure what causes these, but theories abound. We learned in the Human Genome Project that genetic markers often determine the likelihood of many diseases. But why not consider blood type? Should it determine if you will be predisposed to conditions like fibromyalgia? If that is so, exactlty what can you do regarding this?
Well, if you're up a very good controversy, you've arrived at the ideal place! Inside late 1990s, Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo's book, Eat Befitting?Your Blood Type became extremely popular. Some celebrities were even endorsing it and swearing by his diet solution. The reasoning is you adhere to a specific diet depending on your blood type, which leads to raised health insurance and longevity. It eventually got the label of a "fad diet" and was the target of scrutiny, including from eager?debunkers.?They basically claim that D'Adamo's diets are relatively effective considering they are essentially healthy diets and now have absolutely nothing to use blood types in anyway. They believe that D'Adamo's solution has nothing to do with science, despite his claims.
But Do you create backlinks?
Of course it works…for a few people. In truth, my professional acupuncturist has suggested I have found my blood type and give the dietary plan a test to support resolve a number of my own, personal medical concerns. Why? Because he's had a lot of clients do the same and it radially altered their lives with the better. I've owned the novel for countless years, but once I upset the nerve make use of the blood test I ordered all at once because the book, check had long expired without success. Actually, I'm waiting using a an alternative one. Perhaps I'll educate you for the efficacy of the diet after I've trained with time. In the mean time, it\'s easy to find ample online reviews, both negative and positive.
Let's just assume, in the mean time, who\'s works. Even though it's a \'placebo effect\', that's quite phenomenal inside of it.
How is Blood Type Linked to Fibromyalgia?
Apparently, the most frequent blood say hello to the world is Type O. One fibromyalgia patient messaged Dr. D'Adamo concerning the diet and in what way it helped their condition. D'Adamo added that "that athletes whorrrre type O and affected by fibromyalgia could see quite dramatic responses if they\'d like to keep to the wheat-free portion of the dietary plan the very best enough duration." This doesn\'t answer the issue on whether Type Os are more vunerable to fibromyalgia though. In truth, virtually all your analysis about blood types and susceptibility that is certainly readily obtainable online usually are derived from Dr. D'Adamo. That's fine, but it would be helpful to find other who will concur together with his findings.
Maybe he's right,?despite many of the data which claims you will find no proof whatsoever.?In the end, perhaps the?quality?of one\'s blood is a really important feature of Kinesiology which has been around and efficient for millennia. Indeed, D'Adamo's introduction sounds very harking back to Chinese medicine. Conversely, maybe he's wrong. Nevertheless, he?offers some valid dietary solutions for the treatment of common ailments and even symptoms in connection with fibromyalgia and similar diseases. Quite simply, when you have fibromyalgia, what in the event you lose at this stage through giving a completely new diet an effort??
Have you specifically tried the diet program to help remedy your fibromyalgia symptoms? Tell us your experience.


1. Bank of America took $336 billion in bailouts in 2009, but in 2010, flush with $4.4 billion in profits, it paid no taxes. Even Forbes magazine asked, how is that possible? Probably thanks to their 115 offshore tax havens.
2. Boeing just received $35 billion from our government to build 179 airborne tankers, but despite nearly $10 billion in profits from 2008 to 2010, it too paid no taxes, again thanks to foreign tax havens.
3. Citicorp took $476 billion from the bailout and then made monster profits in 2010, yet it paid no taxes, thanks to 427 subsidiaries in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong.
4. Exxon/Mobil, received huge oil subsidies from the government and earned $45 billion in 2009 but paid no taxes, again thanks to stashing profits in places like the Bahamas and Singapore.
5. Google utilizes a technique that moves most of its income through Ireland and Netherlands to Bermuda, making its tax rate 2.3 percent.
6. Mega Pharmaceuticals Merck earned $9 billion in profits and paid no taxes in 2010, while Pfizer (largest drug maker) owed $10 billion in taxes but found the necessary loopholes to pay no taxes, thanks to its offshore subsidiaries in places like Luxembourg and the Isle of Jersey.
7. News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's media monolith that owns Fox News avoids paying American taxes through its 152 subsidiaries in tax havens from the British Virgin Islands to Hong Kong.
8. Verizon, despite making $24.2 billion in pre-tax US income, paid no taxes and actually claimed a federal refund of $1.3 billion for the last two years, again all thanks to those offshore subsidiaries.
9. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank in the US, which took $107 billion in bailouts, wrote off all its losses by acquiring Wachovia, thus paying no taxes. Yet its CEO earned $5.6 million in cash for his salary and $13 million in stock.


Our goal is to maximize searcher happiness, which we do our best to quantify through metrics like click through rate (CTR), NDCG, engagement, etc. We have to measure the impact of ranking changes on all of these metrics to maintain a proper balance.
We need tools and frameworks to facilitate this (i.e., we need a search engine). As we talked about in earlier posts, we have decided to use Unicorn as the fundamental building block of our search engine. Here we describe how we extended Unicorn with search ranking capabilities.
A Unicorn instance (or vertical) may store an index that is too large to fit into the memory of a single machine. So we break up the index into multiple shards such that each shard can fit on a single machine. These machines are called index servers. Queries to Unicorn are sent to a Vertical Aggregator, which in turn broadcasts the queries to all index servers. Each index server retrieves entities from its shard and returns it to the Vertical Aggregator – which then combines all these entities and returns them to the caller.
Given that different entity types (users, pages, photos, etc.) have very different requirements for ranking, we decided to maintain each entity type in a separate Unicorn vertical and create a new entity–the top aggregator–that would coordinate activities across the verticals.
There are many instances (especially for social and contextual retrieval) where it is useful to weaken the semantics of "and" to allow some misses, and to strengthen the semantics of "or" to require certain matches.
The queries that are issued by our end users are (obviously) not in the format required for retrieval. So we need to rewrite the query to translate the user intent and their social context into a structured Unicorn retrieval query. This is where we try to understand the query intent, bias it socially, correct spelling, use language models for synonyms, segmentation, etc.
By default, Unicorn returns results in their static rank order–which means the relevance of the result for the query is not considered. Scoring is the step that takes place immediately after retrieval when a numeric score is assigned to an entity using both the entity data and the query.
Additional information about the entity (beyond what is in the inverted index) is typically required for scoring. We added the ability to store a blob of metadata for each entity in the index. The indexing pipeline facilitates the creation of forward index data along with the inverted index.
Scoring works on a single entity at a time and the score assigned is independent of the scores assigned to other entities. This can cause a result set to become very one-dimensional and offer a poor search experience, (for example, "photos of Facebook employees" may return too many photos of Mark Zuckerberg). Result set scoring offers yet another layer of filtering that looks at a number of entities together and returns a subset of these entities that are most interesting as a set (and not necessarily the highest scoring set of results).
When results come in from different verticals to the top aggregator, they need to be combined into a single result set. To do this, the top aggregator needs to blend the results together in the right order. This requires normalizing the scores from different verticals so they can be compared against each other.
For many Graph Search queries, we have to perform multiple searches across many verticals and "join" the results. For example, "restaurants liked by Facebook employees" requires a search on the user vertical to obtain Facebook employees, and then a search with these users on the places vertical to obtain restaurants liked by them. Although Unicorn provides native support for nested queries through the "apply" operator, we had to extend that with a framework to inject different scorers (and result set scorers) for the different searches, and to allow for these scoring components to share data with each other.
We built a framework to run ranking experiments where the happiness metrics are compared between various experiments against their controls. The Unicorn stack, with the components described above, is shown in the diagram below. The Top Aggregator maintains a separate query rewriter and a separate result set scorer for each vertical.
The interaction with Graph Search takes place in two distinct phases – the query suggestion phase, and the search phase. In the query suggestion phase the searcher enters text into the search box and obtains suggestions. The search phase starts from the selected suggestion and produces a results page.
The NLP module parses the query, and identifies portions to search in Unicorn. Steps 2 through 9 are then performed simultaneously for each of these search requests.
The Top Aggregator receives the request and fans it out for each vertical. Steps 3 through 8 are performed simultaneously for each vertical.
The Top Aggregator rewrites the query for the vertical. Each vertical has different query rewriting requirements. Rewritten queries are typically augmented with additional searcher context.
The Top Aggregator sends the rewritten query to the vertical – first to the Vertical Aggregator, which passes it on to each of the Index Servers.
Each Index Server retrieves a specified number of entities from the index.
Each of these retrieved entities is scored and the top results are returned from the Index Server to the Vertical Aggregator.
The Vertical Aggregator combines the results from all Index Servers and sends them back to the Top Aggregator.
The Top Aggregator performs result set scoring on the returned results separately for each vertical.
The Top Aggregator runs the blending algorithm to combine the results from each vertical and returns this combined result set to the NLP module.
Once the results for all the search requests are back at the NLP module, it constructs all possible parse trees with this information, assigns a score to each parse tree and shows the top parse trees as suggestions to the searcher.
The selected parse tree is sent to the Top Aggregator, which forms a query plan.
The query "(term employee:20531316728)" is prepared for the user vertical.
The Top Aggregator rewrites this query for the user vertical. The rewritten query is augmented with additional searcher context.
The rewritten query is sent to the Vertical Aggregator of the user vertical which passes it on to each of its Index Servers.
The Top Aggregator performs result set scoring on the returned results.
The returned results (fbid1, fbid2, …, fbidn) are prepared for the places vertical as the query "(and place-kind:273819889375819 (or liked-by:fbid1 liked-by:fbid2 … liked-by:fbidn)).
The rewritten query is sent to the Vertical Aggregator of the places vertical which passes it on to each of its Index Servers.
The resulting set of results is shown to the searcher.
The Unicorn queries shown so far only reflect the retrieval constraints imposed by the search query. In addition, the query has to be rewritten to bias it socially and contextually for the searcher. The weak "and" and the strong "or" retrieval operators are used to achieve this. Let me continue with the example from the earlier post to illustrate how different searchers looking for "mark" end up getting the most relevant Marks.
The rewritten queries shown above return all "marks" that are either friends or friends of friends of the searcher.
The above query requires 60% of the results to be either liked by me, or my friends, or be located in Palo Alto.
Generally when people talk about search, they immediately mention machine learning and scoring. Scoring is an important part of the search ranking pipeline, and it is the part that can be automated using machine learning.
Machine learning (as it applies to search) is the process of automatically coming up with a scoring function using data from lots of previous search queries and the actions taken on them. We build features that become inputs to the scoring function – features are developed using our domain knowledge and quantify important properties of the entities and/or the query. Examples of features are: the distance between a place and the searcher; the closeness of a user results from the searcher in terms of friend connections; the amount of overlap of the query string with the entity name; etc. Although machine learning frameworks can use many thousands of features, we have decided to limit the number of features and engineer these features well. We use machine learning frameworks that combine features in a simple manner – as a linear weighted combination of the feature values. This allows us to keep the scoring formula understandable and we are able to make manual tweaks to the trained formulae as necessary.
The retrieval operations allow for diversity during retrieval using the weak "and" and strong "or" operators. In order to maintain this diversity, we support diversity during scoring by Unicorn offering the ability to plug in multiple scorers for the same search query. This means an entity may have multiple scores assigned to it. We then have the ability to select the top results with respect to each of these scores. For example, we may decide to have three scoring functions for 'nearby' search – one that is based on overall popularity, one that is social, and one that gives lots of weight to distance. We can then come up with a policy to have a certain number of results with respect to each function and let the result set ranking do the final arbitration on which results to send up to the caller. We believe that a simple scoring framework along with additional support for diversity results in a more straightforward scoring framework that can be understood, maintained, and debugged most easily.
Now that we have launched Graph Search, we are learning from the usage to understand which queries are popular and how they need to be optimized. We are also extending our search capabilities to do better text processing and ranking and have better mobile and internationalization support. Finally, we are also working on building a completely new vertical to handle searching posts and comments.
While we have achieved a lot with the launch of Graph Search – by growing our index to hundreds of billions of nodes and trillions of edges – we have in many ways only scratched the surface in building a comprehensive search engine over the Facebook Graph. As Graph Search grows and we add more features, more people will optimize their data for the Graph Search engine (thus improving the quality of the Facebook Graph), leading to an even more awesome search experience. The next few months and years are going to be very exciting!


text:
Crime: murder
Date Of Execution: 10 Aug 1926
Crime Location: 6 Silver Street, Newcastle-uponTyne
Execution Place: Durham
Method: hanging
Executioner: Thomas Pierrepoint
Source: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C4166617
James Smith murdered his wife Catherine Smith 26 by stabbing her to death at 6 Silver Street, Newcastle on 26 April 1926.
James Smith was a ships fireman.
James Smith and Catherine Smith had seperated and Catherine Smith had moved into a tenement. On 26 April he called for her and she went to the head of the stairs to speak to him when he went up to her and stabbed her several times with a dagger. He then dragged her down the stairs by the hair of her head. She died within a few minutes with stab wounds to her chest and back. He then gave the knife to an aquaintence. When charged he replird 'Not guilty. I did not know what i was doing.'
James Smith and Catherine Smith were married in January 1925but had been living apart since February 1926 after having a number of quarrels when Catherine Smith had gone back home to her family at 6 Silver Street. The father left for work at 7.20am but was called back at 3.20 by his other 15 year old daughter who told him that 'Marler' had stabbed Kitty. When the father got home he found that Catherine Smith had been taken to the infirmary and when he got to the infirmary he found that she was dead.
The sister said that she had known James Smith for as long as she could remember but that he was greatly given to drink and did not provide her with sufficient money to keep a home. they had been living in Nixon Street, Gateshead until two months before when they parted. Since they seperated James Smith would visit each Friday and give Catherine Smith 7/- a week out of his unemployment benefit. Catherine Smith had complained that James Smith didn't give her enough money to live on but James Smith refused to give her any more money.
Catherine Smith's mother had seven furnished rooms to let to sub-tennents at 23 Silver Streetand on 18 April the mother went there and found James Smith and several other men gambling there with cards in the wash house and she informed the police at 6pm. The daughter later saw James Smith at the corner of City Street at 10.05pm who shouted at her but she ignored him.
At 3.30pm on 19 April the sister heard James Smith shouting at Catherine Smith and her mother who were at the window from Pilgrim Street. They then went out and quarreled with James Smith who were complaining that he and some other men had had their names taken for gambling the previous day. James Smith said he would take it out on Catherine Smith and attempted to strike her. Catherine Smith and her family then went home and informed the police.
At 4.15pm they were going upstairs in their house when they saw James Smith in the kitchen with Catherine Smith. The mother told James Smith to 'Get out of here this is not your house'. James Smith then pulled out a dagger and said 'I'll do the fucking lot of you in'. They then threw James Smith out into Silver Street and they didn't see him again until 26 April.
The sister went out at 1.50pm on an errand and when she returned at 2.30pm she saw James Smith and Catherine Smith talking on the top landing. The mother was in the kitchen. The sister said that they James Smith appeared sober and that they were talking quietly. The only other people in the house were the sister, her mother and Catherine Smith's baby who was in the cradle. At about 2.45pm Catherine Smith shouted 'Oh mother, mother.'
The sister went to see and saw Catherine Smith with blood on her jumper and about her left breast and moaning. The sister ran out for a policeman in the Royal Arcade. when she returned with the policeman James Smith was standing at the corner of Silver Street and Pilgrim Street.
When arrested James Smith said 'Yes, I have stabbed Kate, I am very sorry'. He then started to cry and sob and said 'I could not help it, she made me do it'.
see National Archives - HO 144/6926, ASSI 45/86/4
see Western Daily Press - Thursday 20 May 1926
see Western Daily Press - Friday 30 July 1926


TAXI Vancouver has done a great job re-branding Meinhardt. The simple execution and play on the store's name is a nice touch.
This is a really nice period designed tin for Peek Freens 150th anniversay. The hand crafted type is well done and plays a big part in giving the package that late 1800's feel.
Davis Design has created some nice designs for Pos Shredded Wheat. It's refreshing to see a simple, clean exectution for a category that is typically way over designed.


We provide assistance with the post death administration of the decedent's Will and/or Trust. If assets are held in your individual name, they are administered through the probate court following the directives of the Will with regard to the person who will be handling the administration (personal representative), the appointment of guardians for minor children, and the distribution of the assets to the individuals named in the Will. If there is no Will, the probate court will appoint a personal representative, name a guardian for minor children, and your assets will pass according to Michigan statute to your heirs-at-law.
If assets are held in the name of a trustee, no court intervention is necessary unless the trustee or a beneficiary requests the assistance of the probate court to settle a dispute or resolve an ambiguity in the trust document. The successor trustee will collect and preserve the assets, handle the payment of expenses and the filing of the requisite tax returns, and ultimately distribute the trust assets to the individuals named in the trust agreement.
We provide assistance to the personal representative and/or trustee in all aspects of the administration to assure an expeditious administration with the optimum tax advantage.


text:
Health Hero: Morehouse Students Reclaim the Black Body
Newspaper editors from Morehouse create a Body Issue to address self-esteem, sexuality and past abuse.
By Kellee Terrell
Photo: Courtesy of Morehouse's Maroon Tiger Magazine
While ESPN's annual Body Issue is always eye candy, The Maroon Tiger, Morehouse College's student newspaper's version will elevate your mind and help you view your own body differently.
The HBCU's Body Issue, which was published last week, features 30 students from Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta posing nude and opening up about a range of issues, including overcoming past sexual abuse, depression, body image issues and addiction. Most important, by showing a range of physiques from men and women (straight and gay), this issue highlights the need for Black Americans to reclaim and celebrate their bodies.
BET.com sat down with managing editor Jared Loggins, 21, and editor-in-chief Daren Martin, 20, who both posed for the edition. The two talk about the importance of academic spaces to talk about Black sexuality, getting students to take their clothes off for the camera and the power in telling your own story.
What prompted the newspaper to do this type of project?
Loggins: So many students struggle with their own bodies and we just thought that it would be a great idea to do an edition about the bodies that we have instead of the ones that we want.
Martin: Also, we wanted to show the link between the mind and the body. Many of us try to dissociate this idea of mental health and how past experiences [have affected] their bodies. For example, one of the students talked about past sexual abuse and how that played a role in their weight. Think about it: It's hard to take ownership of your body when someone else took something from you.
For us, this issue is about addressing those connections from a holistic point of view.
Was it hard to find students to pose naked?
Martin: We set up a website to gauge people's interest and 70 students replied. Through our site, we answered a lot of questions and concerns that people had. From there, we had a meeting where we talked even further about what we were trying to accomplish and linking our own personal stories to this work. After that meeting, we had about 30 people left.
What has the response been so far?
Loggins: Overall pretty positive. We've gotten a lot of support from students and even Morehouse College officially embraced our issue. And that's important because conservative institutions can no longer ignore progressive students. We need for academic spaces to speak about Black bodies and sexuality.
Yes, there has been some criticism: "Why are we naked?" or it's "gay." But I think this apprehension really sums up our own shame with our bodies and why this issue is so necessary.
When it comes to the history of our Black bodies, we have always been exposed and sold through slavery and now through media images. Why is it important for African-Americans to reclaim our bodies?
Loggins: Like I said before, our bodies have been shamed, but they have also been subjected. For example, in the 19th century, Sarah Baartman, an African woman, was paraded around and people paid money to stare at her body, especially her behind. And it's this history of our bodies being devalued that still affects us today.
So reclaiming our bodies is revolutionary. Part of that process means we have to start having really difficult and provocative conversations if we want to move forward. We hope that our Body Issue will help start that conversation.
Any advice for our readers who may be dealing with body image issues?
Martin: Be open with yourself to understand your flaws and accept that no one is perfect. And if you want to change them, do that for yourself, not for anyone else.
Read the full digital version of the Maroon Tiger's digital edition here.
BET Health News — We go beyond the music and entertainment world to bring you important medical information and health-related tips of special relevance to Blacks in the U.S. and around the world. Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
(Photo: Courtesy of Morehouse's Maroon Tiger Magazine)
sexual abuseRacismDepressionself-esteemmorehouse collegeMental healthobesityhealth newsHealth Hero


First Annual Forum on Sustainable Tourism Development video is available on the website ! Check it out in the forum section.
Lebanon Traveler issue 1 is out! Ask for your copy in main bookstores and explore the hidden Lebanon.
This website is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of FHI 360 and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.


Your role as a Technician is to operate and maintain lighting and sound including pre-rigging the auditorium to touring company and hirer's specifications. And to maintain all aspects of Howden Park Centre's technical operation and technical infrastructure in accordance with health and safety legislation and policy.
Delivering excellent customer service, resolving customer concerns and complaints if they arise.
Knowledge and experience of sound, including rigging, and operation of digital mixing desks.
Experience of dealing with suppliers to source equipment using negotiation and communication skills.


I've chosen for my bridesmaids to wear white/ivory/cream dresses of their choosing for our wedding. while I'm trying to be very open to what they pick, I can't help but point them in the direction of pretty dresses I find. these two from Anthropologie are beautiful contenders.
Oh my goodness I love that second dress so much! Wish it came in other colors so I could wear it to a wedding I'm going to this summer!
I'm loving the dresses AND the idea for bridesmaids. How lovely. Anything from Anthropologie is absolutely divine, isn't it?
What will you be wearing then? How will you stand out?
love love love the second one! two of my bridesmaids wore anthropologie dresses… so pretty!
good question Taylor! one of my bridesmaids was concerned about the same thing. I fretted over which color dresses I wanted many, many times and nothing really stuck out to me. I'm such a fan of neutral palettes, that in the end I stuck with ivory.
Yes I am definitely in love with these!
I am a bridesmaid at a wedding this June and not sure if the bride is ok with white/ivory dresses for us. I wish these came in other softer colors. Anyone know of great dresses in peach, light grey, or sage green?
Jessica, have you looked at J. Crew? they have some beautiful pastel dresses! peach sounds so pretty.
i love the idea of a completely neutral palette.
Alyson – The JCrew Slub silk daydream floral Lorelei dress would have been perfect, but it's no longer in my size. I'll keep searching! Thanks for the tip!
More people should let their bridesmaids pick their own dresses… Everybody wearing the same dress and the same shoes is, I personally think, borderline tacky. Mixing it up is so much more appealing. And I feel like the bride will always be able to be distinguished.
The second dress is awesome!
Both of these are gorgeous. Love the details of the belts and subtle pleating. Who needs color?
Your wedding sounds like it will be stunning.
Hope you have a lovely weekend, Alyson.
what a great idea — i wouldn't mind be pointed in the direction of these two dresses!
I love your approach and either of these dresses would be perfection. Your bridesmaids will love being able to choose with such freedom!!
ha everyone has an opinion when it comes to what we should wear…I'll wear whatever makes the bride happy! here is a cute pic of bridesmaids that wore white, and I still think the bride doesn't stand out AS much, although you can still tell the bride!
love the idea of a neutral palette, it suits you so well! soft and warm and simply elegant.


OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES."
I mean, for years [my father] would been doing everything imaginable ... from speed to downers to you name it. I used to call that "changing seats on the Titanic," and I used to say that I myself was not only changing seats on the Titanic but dating the crew.


text:
Akhilesh Yadav gives new lease of life to 5 Kalidas Marg
AVINASH CHANDRA MISHRA/TSI TEAM | Lucknow, April 2, 2012 14:45
Tags : Akhilesh Yadav | 5 Kalidas Marg | Jairam Ramesh | Uttar Pradesh | Rajendra Choudhary | Mayawati |
With the change of guard in Uttar Pradesh, the traffic movement at the earlier heavily fortified 5 Kalidas Marg, the official residence of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, has now been opened to the general public.
Earlier, even the vehicular movement of the senior government officials of the previous Mayawati government was barred due to heavy barricading on the Kalidas Marg route. The route was barricaded after Mayawati took over as UP CM in 2007.
The move to open the 1.5 km route by Akhilesh would provide a reprieve to commoners.
Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Rajendra Choudhary said that with Akhilesh taking over the reins, a new dawn of democracy has ushered in the state.
"Now there is a democracy in the state unlike Mayawati's dictatorship. The CM is directly interacting with people, listening to their problems and people of the state can approach with much ease. He has also restored the old protest place in front of the state assembly," Rajendra Choudhary said.
Meanwhile, State Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's is gearing to revive the weekly Janta Durbar where he would meet people and enquire about their problems. The weekly meeting had remained suspended during the Mayawati regime and will take place every Wednesday starting April 18.
Compared to Mayawati's purported disconnect with the aam aadmi, Akhilesh's strategy to be accessible to the general public is likely to enhance his image as a people friendly CM, apart from paving the way for the general traffic on Kalidas Marg road.
Recently, Akhilesh took his security staff by surprise when he climbed watch tower, overlooking his official residence, to know about their well being and their problems.
When Mayawati became CM she stopped meeting people and many of her party colleagues indirectly blamed her for being out of bound for the general public and heeding to advice of coterie and 'sycophants'.
The Uttar Pradesh CM's move to meet security guards had surprised everyone keeping in view the previous Mayawati regime that apparently encouraged isolation.
Earlier, the UP administration also threw open the road for general public in front of 13 Mall Avenue on March 16. Mayawati had then ordered to erect the barricades on the said route.
The removal of barricades from the road in front of 13 Mall Avenue has provided much needed relief to the locals who were forced to take a longer route to reach their residences.
Apart from the commoners, Akhilesh has also started receiving central ministers at his official residence which was completely unheard of in the Mayawati regime that had a complete disconnect with central government.
Akhilesh on Saturday met with Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, who assured him of every possible support from the Centre.
Previously, many central ministers had complained of non-cooperation by the then Mayawati government and even many of them were denied proper protocol.
Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain Aditya was forced to take a cycle rickshaw to the Congress headquarters after he did not get a car from the government as per protocol.
Current Rating 0
Assam tense over upcoming ULFA rising...
Valley readies for another blockbuster tourist...
Gladiator Akhilesh!
The Loss of Faith
Will Akhilesh'S Magic Work Again?
Mahotsav blues for Akhilesh
Holes in water project
Is AIUDF B-Team Of Congress ?
Pune's pre-poll Jitters
Wheel within Wheels
Finally, Party time in Odisha