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Facebook after Death
Posted on June 6, 2017 by ISLAT Admin
By Michael Goodyear
With nearly two billion users, Facebook is firmly entrenched in 21st century life. A person's Facebook account serves as a digital doppelgänger: their thoughts, interests, pictures, friends, and memories are available in perpetuity. But what happens to the digital profile when its physical owner dies? With physical property, there is often a presumed heir. A Facebook account, even if it doesn't have monetary value, can have significant emotional value—after all, it is a record of life, a sense of personality and who the deceased individual was. Should a parent, significant other, sibling, or someone else have access to a Facebook account after the owner has passed away?
No, said a Berlin court yesterday. A 15-year-old girl had been killed by a subway train back in 2012. Her parents wanted to access her Facebook to determine whether she had committed suicide by looking at her posts and reading her chats. The parents had petitioned Facebook to grant them access to the account, but when it was denied the parents went to the German courts.
Back in 2015, a regional court had ruled in favor of the parents, classifying Facebook messages and posts as similar to letters and diaries, which can be inherited. But the court of appeals instead looked to the privacy of those with whom the deceased girl had communicated. Granting her parents access to her account would compromise those other individuals' constitutional right to privacy. The case could be appealed all the way to Germany's Federal Court of Justice.
But for now, Facebook's policies on a deceased person's account are maintained. There are actually only three options for a deceased person's Facebook account: 1) leaving it, 2) memorializing it, and 3) removing it. Facebook has a special form for a deceased person's account, but this is only for memorializing or removing the account, not accessing it. Facebook's policy is to not allow anyone other than the account user to log in to their account, including the family of the deceased.
But while Facebook does not turn over account access to family members, it does respond to requests from the government, including access to posts and messages if the government supplies a warrant. This means that there is a threshold where even privacy is outweighed by a greater goal.
Back in 2005, the family of a deceased marine, Justin Ellsworth, was granted accessed to his Yahoo email account after an Oakland County probate judge ordered Yahoo to grant them access. Cybersecurity law experts Julie E. Cohen of Georgetown University Law Center and Henry H. Perritt, Jr., of Chicago-Kent College of Law argued that emails were like other types of information or property routinely accessed or transferred after someone's death and that access should be granted to survivors.
But seven years later in 2012, a California district court quashed a subpoena by a deceased individual's family members to have access to the contents of her Facebook account. Sahar Daftary had died falling from the 12th floor of an apartment building in Manchester, England. Similar to the German case, her family wanted to know whether it was an unfortunate accident or suicide. The court upheld Facebook's policy, noting that the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712, protected the contents of Daftary's Facebook account. The court did note that Facebook could turn over the contents voluntarily, but that would be unlikely given Facebook's policy on the accounts of deceased persons.
"I think it's a good idea for sites not to have a blanket policy to hand this stuff over to survivors. This information is private and you assume that it's private, you assume that your Facebook account is private, you assume that your email account is private," said Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
While someone's public posts on Facebook were intended for others' eyes, their private messages were not. Even in the case of children, it is unlikely that they would want their parents reading their private messages when they were alive. Why should it be different now that they are deceased? In addition to the deceased individual themselves, the privacy of those with whom they communicated would also be at stake. The German appeals court's decision supports a broader point: a loved one's death is tragic, but even it should not trump the constitutional right to privacy.
Michael Goodyear, who has a BA in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, is part of the ISLAT team.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged courts and Facebook, deceased Facebook, Germany Facebook	| Leave a reply
Alexa, Am I Violating Legal Ethics?
Posted on May 31, 2017 by ISLAT Admin
By Peggy Wojkowski
Thomson Reuters announced its release of Workplace Assistant, which allows attorneys to record, inquire about, and use a timer to calculate billing entries via Amazon Echo and Alexa-enabled devices. The new Workplace Assistant interacts with the existing Elite 3E platform used by law firms to manage workflow and to streamline tasks. Thomson Reuters indicates that Workplace Assistant "always works within the firm's security walls." Workplace Assistant does, however, interact with the Amazon environment, although Thomson Reuter's considers the interaction "low touch," which means very little interaction between Workplace Assistant and the Amazon environment. This minimal interaction, beyond a firm's security walls, could draw ethical concerns for the attorneys who use the Alexa-enabled aspects of Workplace Assistant.
Alexa- enabled voice assistants, such as Amazon Echo and Amazon Dot, respond to voice requests from users. These devices either stream or record the voice requests to servers which access the requests and form responses. For the Alexa-enabled Amazon products, the wake-up word, "Alexa," activates these voice assistants, which then respond to voice requests. Therefore, in order to hear the wake-up word, the voice assistant's microphone must be active even when a user is not actually making a request, i.e., the voice assistant is listening, even when the device is not awake. When an Alexa-enabled product is used with the Workplace Assistant, the device is listening for the wake-up word inside the attorney's office. The Workplace Assistant manages the voice requests regarding client billing with the client information from the Elite 3E platform, the law firm management software. Even if the Elite 3E platform is ultimately handling any voice requests pertaining to billing, it is not clear who is handling any other voice requests or who has access to the microphone when Alexa is not awake. This scenario requires investigation in order to comply with the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
The American Bar Association's Model Rule 1.6 pertaining to confidentiality of information in an attorney-client relationship indicates in part (c) that "a lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client" (emphasis added.) The committee provides insight as to what defines reasonable efforts in Comment 18 to Model Rule 1.6, which requires attorneys to act competently to preserve confidentiality. In acting competently, attorneys know not to discuss confidential information in public places, with others outside of the legal team, or with those individuals with whom communication is not necessary to adequately represent clients. Because competent representation includes awareness of individuals (physically and electronically) present when discussing confidential information, the Workplace Assistant could pose a problem as to conclusively determining who is listening, or has access to, the microphone and its recordings on the Alexa-enabled device.
Model Rule 1.1 also requires that an attorney provide competent representation to clients and, in its comments, addresses technology used by attorneys. According to Comment 8 of Model Rule 1.1, this competency includes the attorney keeping up-to-date on changing law "including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology." Therefore, attorneys cannot blindly use technology without knowing the security measures and the possible ramifications on client representation. The benefit of the Workplace Assistant is the time saved in recording and inquiring about billing. The risk is having an active microphone within an attorney's office able to record client-privileged information, which may be a risk that attorneys do not want to take.
However, Amazon does have another product, the Amazon Tap, which may lessen the risk associated with voice assistants but still allow attorneys to use the Workplace Assistant program. Although this device also uses Alexa to respond to voice requests, a wake-up word is not required because the user must touch the button on the top of the device to activate the microphone. Therefore, the microphone is not listening for the wake-up words, which alleviates some concerns regarding confidentiality.
Either way, attorneys may still hesitate to use any of these gadgets due to actual reactions from clients, who may step into the office for a meeting and see the microphone in an area where they want to discuss private, confidential information.
Peggy Wojkowski graduated from Chicago-Kent College of Law in May 2017. She will be joining a large IP boutique firm in September 2017 after sitting for the Illinois bar exam in July 2017.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged Alexa, Legal Ethics, Workplace Assistant	| Leave a reply
Bots Can Order Pizza For You. And Then Spy on You.
By Keisha McClellan
Although we are well into 2017, here's a belated welcome to the Year of the Bot. Bots are revolutionizing the way we fuse technology with our everyday lives and posing challenges to our privacy.
Your actual phone or smart speaker may record your wish for a cheap plane ticket or an Uber ride, but it is the software application known as a bot that executes the command. At their core, bots engage us in an interaction where we can give a command and the device can execute the command. Some bots enable two-way conversations with us, others offer more simplistic engagement.
From celebrity chatbots like Kim Kardashian's or Maroon 5's, to bots that can help us with health queries or financial budgeting, bots are popping up in our lives in all kinds of nifty ways. But the bots associated with "smart speakers," such as Amazon.com's Alexa and Google Home, are particularly wrapping convenience and controversy all into one.
Why should we care? The benefits of gaining a virtual assistant in the devices we carry around or use at home come with a creepy caveat: bots can infringe on our privacy in ways we never imagined.
Take Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, or a Google Home smart speaker: these essentially are voice-controlled virtual assistants that can make life simpler, speedier and, perhaps, more enjoyable. You're literally only a shout-across-the-room-away from ordering your favorite pizza.
That bots listen for our commands is innovative. Echo's Alexa allows you to do many things including making a to-do list, providing a weather forecast, placing a toy order and streaming a podcast on voice command.
That the technology can also listen and record things you're saying without you realizing it, is scary. It may even be incriminating.
An Arkansas prosecutor demanded Amazon turn over recorded data on an Echo in hopes that the speaker was recording at the time a man died in a friend's hot tub. The device, at times, records the goings on in one's home even when it hasn't been directed to do so. In this case, the prosecutor hoped that the cloud recordings would shed light on how the man died. Until the owner granted consent for his Echo information to be turned over to prosecutors, Amazon refused to comply with requests for the recorded data citing the First Amendment as protecting the recordings.
The fact that these smart speakers may be listening and recording you without your knowledge, is disturbing enough. A reporter was startled when a private conversation between him and his wife was eerily interrupted when Echo's Alexa "barged into the conversation with what sounded like a rebuke."
But more troubling is what are companies doing with the data these smart speakers collect? Bots gather "massive amounts of data about us. And that raises a dark side of this technology: the privacy risks and possible misuse by technology companies," says the Washington Post's Vivek Wadhwa.
In all, Albert Gidari, director for privacy at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, says the "reality is that technology…kind of blurs law for privacy."
Bots behaving badly can take many forms. For instance, Lin-Manuel Miranda of "Hamilton" fame was so alarmed about bots driving up the price of tickets to sports, music events and Broadway shows in some cases by more than 1,000 percent, that he penned an op-ed in the New York Times blasting brokers' use of ticket bots.
President Obama and Congress were concerned enough about the potential for some bots to harm consumers that they passed the BOTS Act of 2016 to deter local ticket scalpers going hi-tech using bots.
Sure, bots can do bad things. But like two sides of every coin, bots have good capabilities too.
Siri helped a little boy save his mother's life. When his mother fell unconscious, a 4-year old used his mother's finger to open an iPhone and he used Siri to call 911 and reach an operator for help.
In this year of the bot, you may be itching to take the plunge and buy a new gadget that features a bot virtual assistant. While the numerous benefits are many, be sure to protect your privacy in the process. For starters, Nextadvisor.com's Jocelyn Baird advises that you review the settings of your device's microphone and even consider adding an "audible tone when it's active, so you know when it's recording."
Keisha McClellan is a rising 2L law student at Chicago-Kent College of Law and a founding board member of Chicago-Kent's Cyber Security and Data Privacy Society.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged bots, privacy	| Leave a reply
Just a Fingerprint Away: The Risks of Fingerprint Scanning
Posted on April 11, 2017 by ISLAT Admin
The fingerprint scanner is perhaps one of the best known security features in the world. In spy movies, no safe or villain's lair is complete with one. But they aren't foolproof: in "Diamonds Are Forever," James Bond uses a fake fingerprint to get past such a scanner. In the nearly 50 years since that movie was released, fingerprint scanners have become increasingly ubiquitous and as a common protection mechanism for smartphones, they are the sealed gate to your data. But that gate is not as secure as we might think, and it no longer takes a legendary spy like 007 to crack it open.
A recent study by researchers at New York University and Michigan State University brought the technological risks of fingerprint scanning to light. The researchers used computer simulations to create "MasterPrints," real fingerprints from databases or synthetically created ones that can spoof one of the stored fingerprints in a scanner's database to unlock a phone. Although the study did not use real phones, instead using cropped images on the commercial verification software Verifinger, the findings were still alarming. The researchers' generated prints could match the real ones up to 65% of the time. Even if the percentage with phones was much lower, it would still be a considerable risk.
One of the greatest weaknesses of your phone's fingerprint scanning technology is that it doesn't actually take a full fingerprint scan. Those would be nearly impossible to falsify. But your iPhone or Android phone only scan partial fingerprints, a much smaller area with fewer unique features. This risk is exacerbated by the fact that your phone typically takes eight to ten scans, giving the fingerprint scanner a database of eight to ten fingerprints it can use. Now hackers have eight to ten chances to spoof your fingerprint rather than just one. If you give register other people's fingerprints on your phone (your spouse or children perhaps), it increased the risk again. It's like if you have a lockbox with several different keys; the greater the number of keys, the greater risk that someone will get their hands on one or be able to copy one.
Professor Stephanie Schuckers, Director of the Center for Identification Technology Research at Clarkson University, noted that because the study didn't involve actual phones, the takeaways were limited.
But while a full study of Apple and Android fingerprint recognition programs will be necessary to uncover the exact risk of falsifying fingerprints, any risk is too high. Our phones hold a world of data about us. By unlocking your phone, someone wouldn't just be able to make a call, but would know your deepest secrets. Your contacts, your intimate texts and emails, your interests, and even your health data, all stored on your phone with only fingerprint recognition to protect them, would be at risk.
Perhaps the most alarming consequence of this security vulnerability is what it means for your finances. Services such as Apple Pay and Android Pay allow you to make purchases with the swipe of your finger. Banks are increasingly starting to have fingerprint recognition for signing into your app (and all of your financial data). Large banking institutions such as Chase and Bank of America, as well as credit card companies such as Capital One, are now just a swipe away for you…and your hacker.
When someone's information gets stolen due to a false fingerprint, who will be liable? The phone developer and financial institution, by having used falsifiable fingerprint tracking technology, would be at risk of being held responsible. In the short term, however, it is the user who will suffer. Their personal and financial information will be compromised, leading to countless hours trying to secure everything again, not to permanent damage that could be done by your data getting out.
Fingerprint technology is not the only option (written passwords are usually still offered), so customers do have a choice of whether or not to trust that the fingerprint technology will protect their data. But since fingerprints are unique, fingerprint scanners have been seen as the safe choice, a much more secure method than a four number password.
Reporters have actually questioned the security of fingerprint scanning systems for years. But while previous fears were often just lists of everything that could go wrong, the new NYU and MSU study has quantifiable data to prove that fingerprints can be spoofed.
Technology has advanced so much that you can do practically anything from your smartphone. But we have to remember that with progress come downsides. When all that stands between your sensitive personal information and a thief is a fingerprint, you need the technology to be ironclad. James Bond may have had noble aims in tricking a fingerprint scanner, but it is unlikely that data hackers will have those same scruples. It may be easy to flip your finger and open your phone and all of your apps, but ease is not worth the risk of losing your information to modern day spies.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged data security, fingerprint, fingerprint scan, privacy, spoof fingerprint	| Leave a reply
Hacking at the Downbeat: How Music Can Take Over Our Devices
Posted on March 15, 2017 by ISLAT Admin
Hacking into electronic systems is certainly not new. People have taken over entire smart homes and data breaches have cost companies such as Target and Home Depot millions of dollars. But a team of researchers has found a new way to hack: music.
Researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of South Carolina have found a weakness in Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers, standard components of electronic systems ranging from your smartphone to automobiles and drones. MEMS accelerometers have a sensing mass that shifts depending on the accelerative forces exerted on it, which in turn sends out a voltage signal that correlates to the sensed acceleration function. By exerting acoustic interference, the researchers displaced the sensing mass, basically causing involuntary actions in the device.
These acoustic attacks could just be a relatively harmless interference. For example, by using a YouTube music video interspersed with special tones, the researchers spoofed a MEMS accelerometer to send out a signal that resembled the word "WALNUT," which became the name of the team's acoustic attack.
But the consequences could be much more dire. Some systems depend on the MEMS accelerometers to make automated decisions. By playing a malicious audio file, the hacker could take control of these devices or surreptitiously influence them.
WALNUT was used to take over a remote-control car via an app on an infected phone. While a rogue remote-control may not be too scary, MEMS accelerometers are also used in much larger systems, such as cars and drones, which could cause immense amounts of damage if they were taken over.
The researchers also used WALNUT to alter the amount of steps on a Fitbit. While the researchers did not think such an attack posed a serious security risk (they instead pointed out that it could be used to garner free Fitbit rewards through programs such as Higi.com), the ability to alter health data on a device could have serious consequences. If health data such as that on a Fitbit can be changed, the resulting inaccuracies could negatively impact those that depend on the apps or devices for managing their health, potentially leading them to follow incorrect data and make a decision that could damage their health. Even more dangerous, mobile health apps that control devices such as pacemakers or insulin pumps, or even the devices themselves, could be changed to create a fatal heart rhythm or administer the wrong dosage of insulin.
WALNUT is not just a fringe technology that can only affect the occasional device. The researchers found that 65% of the accelerometers (15 of 20 accelerometer models by 5 different app manufacturers) were vulnerable to an acoustic output control, where devices such as the remote-control car could be taken over. They also found that 75% of the accelerometers they tested were vulnerable to an acoustic output biasing hack, where information like your Fitbit step count could be altered.
The Internet of Things offers many advantages, but as WALNUT illustrates, it can be infiltrated with something as simple as a YouTube song. The consequences of our dependence on technology could not only hurt our privacy, but also our physical wellbeing. In their paper, the WALNUT team outlined how to better protect against the acoustic takeovers, but if the accelerometer chip makers don't follow the advice, maestro hackers may just have one more instrument in their orchestra for assailing the Internet of Things.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged hacking by music, hacking device, MEMS accelerometers, remote controlling accelerometer, WALNUT	| Leave a reply
Altering Prisoners' Sense of Time: The Moral Regression of a Futuristic Technology
Posted on February 8, 2017 by ISLAT Admin
B y Caroline Thiriot
What if you could give a prisoner a pill that changed their perception of time? A 10-year sentence could feel like millennia. Or a person could experience a 10-year sentence in two years.
Science has already brought us to the brink of this technology. In a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the nature of time perception is outlined and science seems to conclude in favor of Kant's "subjective" and "ideal" view of the matter. Indeed, "[o]ur perception of time constrains our experience of the world and exerts a pivotal influence over a myriad array of cognitive and motor functions." (emphasis in the original). The result of the study demonstrated "anatomical, neurochemical, and task specificity, which suggested that a neurotransmitter called GABA (Gamma-Amino Butyric Acid) contributes to individual differences in time perception". With this increased understanding of how we perceive time, perception altering medications may follow.
Psychoactive drugs could be used to distort the prisoners' perception of time and make them feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence, which is legally available in the United States. As detailed in Slate and Aeon, philosopher Rebecca Roache is undertaking a thought experiment to explore the ethical issues involved in using perception altering drugs and life extension technologies in the corrections context.
Medical and scientific advance could change the way prisoners serve time and dramatically alter our prison system. As for an economic purpose we could imagine that prisoners would physically spend one day in prison while they would psychologically experience it as lasting x years. Considering the high costs of prisons, psychoactive drugs could thus be a solution to save money. However, the risk benefit ratio does not seem to be favorable at all.
There already are cases where perceptual distortions such as "disorientation in time" can occur, we can relate to the practice of solitary confinement. "There is long history of using the prison environment itself to affect prisoners' subjective experience," highlights Rebecca Roache. On October 18, 2011, Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez presented his thematic report on solitary confinement to the United Nations General Assembly. He called on all countries "to ban the solitary confinement of prisoners except in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, with an absolute prohibition in the case of juveniles and people with mental disabilities." He stressed as well that "Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation, the aim of the penitentiary system."
Two points made in the statement above are worth being further discussed. First, we will address the issue of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Then, we will focus on a more philosophical controversy: the aim of the penitentiary system.
Torture is universally condemned. The prohibition against torture is well established under customary international law as jus cogens as well as under various international treaties such as the Convention against Torture or Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ratified by 136 countries (including the United States in 1994). Even if the effects of perception altering drugs have not been studied yet, we can relate to those of solitary confinement to some extent. Indeed, one can picture the subject whose time perception is altered as experiencing another reality than the one commonly experienced. Thus, as the physically isolated prisoner, it seems to be reasonable to conclude that this subject will be deprived of normal human interaction and may eventually suffer from mental health problems including anxiety, panic, insomnia, paranoia, aggression and depression. In addition to the mental health risks, there exist physical health risks as well because the needs for sleep or food may be perceived differently.
As for the aim of the penitentiary system, several questions arise, especially concerning rehabilitation and recidivism. Some authors argue that prisons should be abolished and replaced by "anti-prisons," that is, locked, secure residential colleges, therapeutic communities, and centers for human development. Indeed, nowadays it makes no doubt that punishment fails and rehabilitation works. From such perspective, altering prisoners' time perception in order to make them feel like they spend more time in jails could thus be seen as a step backwards instead of a progress. According to the American Correctional Association (ACA) 1986 Study of prison industry, there are three categories of contemporary prison institution goals. Those are offender-based (good work habits, real work experience, vocational training, life management experience), institution-oriented (reducing idleness, structuring daily activities, reducing the net cost of corrections) or societal (repayment to society, dependent support, victim restitution). If such technology was implemented, most of these goals would not be completed. On the opposite, it appears we would instead go back to an era when solitary confinement was thought to foster penitence and to encourage reformation, but in a rather extreme form causing more harm to the individual possibly to the extent of mental illness.
The Eighth Amendment states that "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Professor Richard S. Frase has analyzed constitutional proportionality requirements. He noticed that since 1980, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the prisoner only once out of the six cases in which the duration of a prison sentence was attacked on Eighth Amendment grounds. Even if "The Court has never made clear what it means by proportionality in the context of prison sentences. Justice Scalia believes (and perhaps so does Justice Thomas) that this concept only has meaning in relation to retributive sentencing goals," he concludes. When it comes to sentencing goals, one should thus distinguish retributive goals from non-retributive. While the first theory considers only the defendant's past actions and focuses on the punishment itself, the second one (also considered as "utilitarian") takes the future effects of the punishment into account. On the basis of such distinction, one must conclude that the possibility of making prisoners feel like they were spending a very long time in jails would only serve a retributive purpose and would absolutely fail at addressing the non-retributive ones.
Also, we live in a society in which, if individualism seems to be the supreme rule, interdependence remains a governing concept. To the question "What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?" Robert Nozick asks in this famous "Experience Machine," he concludes that, dealing with pleasure, we would rather choose the everyday reality rather than an apparently preferable simulated reality. Despite the fact his thought experiment deals with a notion that is opposite to punishment, we can rely on the conclusion that the reality we commonly experience matters more than our subjective experience of it. As a consequence, one should not forget that the victim's subjective perception of justice matters as well. Therefore, it may appear difficult for them to know that a criminal is out of jail after having spent a little time there and is able to enjoy the rest of their life free. Even if we only focus on retributive goals, such technology seems to have subjective limitations.
In the end, there seems to be no argument but the economic advantage for allowing the use of such psychoactive drugs able to distort the prisoners' perception of time. On the contrary, it can be seen as torture and does not serve any rehabilitation aim, which is the main focus of prison sentences nowadays. The use of such technology would therefore appear to be regressive rather than progressive.
Caroline Thiriot, who has a Master's in International Law and Human Rights from the Université Panthéon-Assas and an LL.M. in international and transnational law from Chicago-Kent College of Law, is currently a Master's student in Bioethics at Université Paris Descartes.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged crime and punishment, ethics of imprisonment, privacy, time distortion, time distortion as punishment, time distortion drugs	| Leave a reply
Fake News: A Little White Lie or a Dangerous Crock?
Posted on December 7, 2016 by ISLAT Admin
Since early November, press coverage on the problem of fake news stories has exploded. These fake stories have included everything from the Pope endorsing Donald Trump to a woman stealing 24 dogs from an animal shelter. While they may seem harmless enough, the impact of people releasing such stories can range from simple confusion to active violence.
But what happens when the police create fake news? Even if it is well-intended, police dissemination of fake news can lead to a series of consequences, such as negative impact on neighborhoods, increased danger for citizens, violence, and distrust.
A few days ago, the Santa Maria Times uncovered a fictional news release in court documents, ten months after it had reported the same story as fact. The news release stated that two cousins, Jose Santos Melendez and Jose Marino Melendez, had been taken in for identity theft and were now in the custody of immigration authorities. It seemed like a simple report; in actually, it was part of an elaborate, but deceitful, plan—not by crooks, but by the police. .
The Santa Maria Police Department had been running Operation Matador for months at this point. The police had been eavesdropping on members of MS-13, a dangerous international gang, in the goal of eventually arresting gang members. Through wiretaps, they learned that MS-13 planned to murder the Melendez cousins. This raised a new issue: if they acted to save the two cousins, their operation would be exposed and the progress of the past months would be lost. A fake news story could solve this problem. The police took the Melendez cousins into hiding for their safety while the fake news story provided a cover, explaining the disappearance of the Melendez cousins without arousing suspicion and also protecting the cousins' family, which might have been harmed by MS-13 if they believed the cousins were merely hiding.
In the following weeks, the police brought Operation Matador to a successful conclusion: 17 gang members were arrested on charges of murder and intent to kill in March. In July, a criminal grand jury indicted all 17 of them on a combined 50 felony counts. Lives were saved and gang members were successfully arrested, so what is the problem?
Whether well intentioned or not, fake news can have real consequences. By releasing false information about crime or police action, the police alter public perceptions of their community. If the police falsely report a crime in one neighborhood to divert attention from another, that reported neighborhood will seem more dangerous to the populace, even though in actuality the stated crime didn't occur there. This could lead to a downturn in local business and desire to live in that neighborhood. It would also make the neighborhood where the crime actually happened seem better in the eyes of the unwitting public, who might go to that neighborhood despite the dangers it could present.
Similarly, reporting that a crime has been solved, while in fact it has not, would also alter the public's perceptions and possibly their actions. For example, the police could falsely report that they had solved crimes or reduced crime rates in a neighborhood in order to improve confidence in the police and intimidation of criminals. But it could also make people unreasonably more confident in the safety of an area, causing more people to go into what in actuality is still a dangerous neighborhood.
In addition, reporting that a crime has been solved when it has not could lead to greater violence or harm the police's chances of actually solving the crime. For example, saying that the police have uncovered information about a crime or solved a crime when they haven't could lead a perpetrator to harm those whom he thinks may have informed the police about him. It could also cause the perpetrator to flee the area to avoid arrest.
The police making it seem like crimes are being committed when they actually aren't could also lead to harmful individual action. For example, earlier this week a fake conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was operating a child sex ring from Comet Ping Pong, a popular Washington, D.C., pizza parlor, led to a vigilante action. Edgar Maddison Welch decided to go investigate "Pizzagate." Inside the restaurant, he fired a shotgun, damaging the interior of Comet Ping Pong but not injuring anyone inside. Although bloodshed was adverted in this case (Welch surrendered peacefully when he found no sign of the fabricated child sex ring), fake news undoubtedly put people's lives at risk.
Although the Pizzagate example was not caused by the police, the police reporting fake crimes could lead to similar results: vigilantism and violence. As CNN aptly put it in regards to Pizzagate, "fake news, real violence."
Fake news also harms our collective knowledge and our ability to tell truth from lie. While any piece of fake news has the potential to mislead and harm others, the police releasing such a story is especially harmful to our trust. We look to the police as honest defenders of justice; releasing fabricated stories undermines that, duping the public and the press as well as the suspect. As Louis Dekmar, vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, pointed out, such ruses create "a real distrust between the police and the folks we rely on." Such a lack of trust undermines the relationship between police and the community, and, according to the Department of Justice, trust is one of the key factors in maintaining public safety and effective policing. Although fake lures are often used in sting operations, such as fake prizes, fake news on this scale is unprecedented.
Although police use of fake news may be rare, the police have a widely-used precedent for faking: fake Facebook profiles. Cops across the country have created fake Facebook profiles to uncover more information about suspects and even help track them down. For example, back in 2009 the police created a fake profile picture of an attractive young woman and friended Adam Bauer, a 19-year old college student, to access pictures of him drinking that were posted on his account, later ticketing him for underage drinking.
And even though Facebook officially bans the practice, a federal judge ruled back in 2014 that cops can create fake social network profiles for investigative purposes. The Department of Justice even said that police usage of fake Facebook profiles is ethical. Yet this is at odds with the Department of Justice stressing the importance of trust between police and the community. Bauer and other college students that were charged with underage drinking through photographic evidence from Facebook stated that the fake Facebook profiles undermined trust between college students and police.
This mostly likely will not be the last time the police fake a news story. In regards to the fake news story in Operation Matador, Ralph Martin, the Santa Maria police chief, defended the tactic, even saying he would not rule out releasing a fake news story again in order to protect lives. But given the risks with fake news, in general and especially when the police are behind it, such a tactic could have much more costly ramifications than predicted.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged fake news, Melendez, Operation Matador, Pizzagate, police, police Facebook, police fake news, police trust, privacy, Santa Maria Police	| Leave a reply
The Need for Speed: When Apps Inspire Dangerous Behavior
Posted on November 22, 2016 by ISLAT Admin
By Nadia Daneshvar
Mobile apps may be designed with good intentions, but what happens when those aims lead to dangerous user behavior? This is the case for Strava, a popular cycling app whose promotion of speed led to deadly consequences and spurred new questions regarding the responsibilities of app developers.
Strava lets users record cycling data using a smartphone or GPS device and upload that information to track, analyze, and share with friends or the public. The app records where cyclists rode and how long and how fast they rode. It then compares a user's times with personal records as well as the fastest times of other users.
The app also tracks a cyclist's performance on "segments"—any stretch of road, path, or trail mapped out by a user for the purpose of a multiplayer competition of who can go the fastest, whether up a hill, down the street, or on a descent. Strava compares each user's times on a particular segment to the times of everyone else who has ridden it before and uploaded the data to the app. The fastest riders are given the title "King of the Mountain" ("KOM") or "Queen of the Mountain" ("QOM").
Although the app may record data virtually, the cycling and decisions of users are very much in the real world. A Strava employee admitted that Strava does not account for safety, danger, stop signs, speed limits, or the fact that in order to beat certain KOM records, users would have to break the law. But, after at least three people have died in incidents related to the Strava app, perhaps we should expect Strava app developers to account for such factors, adjusting app design to comply with the realities—including the laws and regulations—of the real world.
On June 19, 2010, William "Kim" Flint, Jr., an avid Strava user, died after he hit an SUV while speeding downhill on a Strava segment on South Park Drive, the steepest road in the East Bay area of San Francisco. Flint had learned that his record was taken by another rider shortly before the accident, and Flint had set out to reclaim his KOM title when he hit the car. He was going too fast to stop.
Despite this incident, in 2012 Strava began fueling even more competition, sending alerts notifying users that their record was broken: "Uh oh! [another Strava user] just stole your KOM….Better get out there and show them who's boss!" Since then, they changed the message to: "Uh oh! [another Strava user] just stole your KOM….Get out there, be safe and have fun!"
On March 29, 2012, Chris Bucchere was tracking himself using Strava while riding a segment known as the "Castro Bomb" when he hit and killed a pedestrian, 71-year-old Sutchi Hui, who was crossing the street with his wife. According to Bucchere, as he entered the intersection where he hit Hui, he was "way too committed to stop." According to a witness, "he crouched down to push his body weight forward and intentionally accelerated," milliseconds before hitting Hui. Bucchere was charged with a felony for vehicular manslaughter. He later pled guilty.
On September 18, 2014, Jason Marshall, an avid Strava user, hit and killed a pedestrian, Jill Tarlov, in Central Park as he was illegally speeding downhill in lanes reserved for pedestrians and child cyclists. According to a witness, Marshall did not stop or slow down at all, but instead yelled to Tarlov to "Get out of the way!" Hours before the accident, Marshall had recorded 32.2 miles of cycling in Central Park, with his highest speed at 35.6 MPH, which is over the 25 MPH speed limit for bikes in Central Park. Marshall had fastidiously recorded every one of his previous rides that year—yet there was no Strava record of his ride that fateful afternoon.
What can be done to avert such tragedies?
Educating the general public about these tragic examples of light-hearted biking gone wrong could help reduce them. The day after Tarlov's death, Bike Snob NYC launched a "#noStrava" hashtag on Twitter as a "gesture of respect" to Tarlov's family, arguing that Strava shamelessly capitalizes on cyclists' competitive inclinations.
Take away the leader board
Strava's leaderboard is what gives rise to the spirit of competition that has arguably contributed to all of these tragedies. Furthermore, Strava's arrangement of the cycling data on the leaderboards is problematic. As Suffolk University's Professor Michael Rustad noted: "[I]t's like Strava is creating a drag race. [Strava is] not just posting what third parties do—they're organizing it…. Its [undifferentiated-skill-level] leaderboards are comparable to taking people from the bunny slopes up to the black-diamond run. Even ski trails are marked by degrees of difficulty."
Legal action against the rider
Some might also consider taking legal action against the rider. As noted, Bucchere was charged with a vehicular manslaughter felony. Additionally, the Huis brought a civil suit against him (which was later dismissed). This approach might make riders think twice before risky riding, nudging them to consider the legal and moral consequences of their actions.
Legal action against the developer
The parents of Kim Flint filed a wrongful death suit, deciding that "enough is enough." In the complaint, they claimed Strava was negligent, and "breached their duty of care by: (1) failing to warn cyclists competing in KOM challenge that the road conditions were not suited for racing and that it was unreasonably dangerous given those conditions; (2) failing to take adequate measures to ensure the KOM challenges took place on safe courses, and (3) encouraging dangerous behavior." The complaint went on, "It was foreseeable that the failure to warn of dangerous conditions, take safety measures, and encourage dangerous behavior would cause Kim Flint Jr. to die since Kim Flint Jr. justifiably relied on [Strava] to host a safe challenge. Had [Strava] done the aforementioned acts, Kim Flint Jr. would not have died as he did."
The Flints' lawyer argued: "The danger and harm alleged in this case originates out of Strava's own actions in…manipulating it through its designed software into leaderboards, and then using those leaderboards to encourage cyclists to race at increasingly faster speeds for awards and titles."
Strava's attorneys based their argument for the case's dismissal on the principle that Flint explicitly assumed the risks implied in cycling by agreeing to Strava's terms and conditions when he joined the network. Strava's terms and conditions stated: "In no event shall Strava be liable to you or any third party for any direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, special or consequential damages arising out of or in any way connected with… your use of the site." The case was eventually dismissed on these same grounds.
All three of these deaths received attention from news sources across the country, with writers and the public wondering how this could have happened. Even those changes that Strava made since the deaths in 2010 and 2012 did not fix the problem. Although the Flint case may have been dismissed, Strava has played a role in the promotion of risky and illegal behavior. But where exactly the line lies between user agency and developer responsibility remains to be determined.
Nadia Daneshvar is a former ISLAT Fellow, and is currently a second-year student at The George Washington University Law School.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged biking app, dangerous apps, dangers of apps, need for speed, physical danger app, privacy, Strava	| Leave a reply
Poképrivacy: Privacy and Legal Issues in Pokémon GO
Posted on July 18, 2016 by ISLAT Admin
When Pokémon GO was released in the United States on July 6 it garnered 15 million downloads in just the first week. Pokémon GO has rapidly become one of the biggest apps ever. Its daily active user total has now outstripped Twitter and on current installs it has beat most other popular mobile app games. But despite its quick rise to fame, Pokémon GO has raised a series of concerns about privacy, from what permissions and personal information the app itself accesses to how the app potentially infringes on personal residences.
Pokémon GO is an augmented reality game that inserts virtual imaginary creatures, Pokémon, onto the physical world via your phone. They can appear anywhere, even on your wife's hospital bed as she is giving birth. The goal is to catch and train Pokémon as part of one of three teams.
Privacy concerns abound with Pokémon GO, even attracting the attention of Senator Al Franken, the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. The chief initial concern with Pokémon GO was that iOS users had granted "full access" to their Google accounts. While technically this could include being able to see the contents of Gmail and all other Google programs, in reality Niantic, the company that developed Pokémon GO, only accessed basic account information, such as the name of the user and their Gmail address. More than anything it was a combination of Niantic using an out-of-date version of the Google sign-in process and poor wording that led to this seemingly alarming concern. Niantic has since made an update that fixed this problem, with the app now only requesting access to basic information.
Although this problem has received by far the most press, there are other legitimate concerns about how Pokémon GO handles privacy. The app itself has access to your IP address and the most recent webpage you visited, providing some indicators about your location and habits. In addition, the app tracks your GPS location and has control over your camera. While these are essential to using the app, just consider the possible implications if some third party acquired this data. Unless Niantic's security is ironclad, there is always the possibility that hackers could get this information and have access to your phone. And with an app as huge as Pokémon GO, hackers will definitely be on the lookout.
Others with malicious intent have already started taking advantage of the app's security shortcomings. A function of the app is that you can create a beacon, which attracts more players and Pokémon to an area. This has been a hotbed for muggers taking advantage of unsuspecting players. Muggers have used the beacons to lure in players and rob them. Police departments from O'Fallon, Missouri to Australia have expressed their concern over the security risks the app creates, especially when players are paying so much attention to the virtual surroundings on their phone that they are not aware of their physical surroundings.
In addition to beacons created by the players, Niantic itself has created virtual Pokémon gyms, basically battle hubs for players to come and play against other teams for control over the gym and win the accompanying prestige, across the globe. Naturally this makes them fairly popular spots. For this reason, Niantic generally locates the gyms at popular sites, although this occasionally goes awry, from the controversial (Trump Tower and the Westboro Baptist Church) to the just plain dangerous (on the South Korea-North Korea border). And sometimes it even registers people's homes as gyms. Now, it is not as though Niantic asked the permission of Donald Trump or Boon Sheridan to put a gym on their property, but of course the gym itself is a virtual entity, albeit one with very real consequences. As major draws to players, gyms can attract dozens to hundreds of people, infringing on the privacy and peace and quiet of individuals and businesses. And this brings up a host of legal trespassing issues and questions of attractive nuisances that are bound to be raised, all for the benefit of trying to catch a rare Pokémon.
So while players are battling with their captured Pokémon, they also have to be on the defensive. Mind property laws and don't infringe on real estate, and protect your privacy and safety, or else it might be your information being captured instead of the Pokémon.
Posted in Privacy	| Tagged dangerous apps, legal issues of Pokemon GO, Pokemon GO, Pokemon GO and the law, Pokemon GO privacy problem, privacy, property issue	| 4 Replies
Privacy Concerns Influence Consumer Purchases
Posted on June 22, 2016 by ISLAT Admin
Back in 2011 just 54% of U.S. consumers, a slim majority, stated that they decided not to purchase a product due to concerns about their personal information's confidentiality. But that number has been on the rise. Today that figure has grown to 82%, the vast majority of U.S. consumers. Of course many potentially privacy-invading products are not bought on a yearly basis, such as computers or cell phones. Yet even in the past 12 months 35% of consumers still decided not to purchase goods from a specific company due to privacy concerns.
Different groups of consumers considered privacy concerns differently in regards to making a purchase. The portion of the American population that reacts most to privacy factors is that with a higher income and also that with a higher level of education (consumers with a college or post-graduate degree). Although respondents noted several chief concerns about privacy, 52% of U.S. consumers identified identity theft as their greatest concern. This was a sharp increase from 2011, when identity theft constituted only 24% of respondents' chief privacy concerns. In addition, the next highest figure was the greatest privacy concern of only 10% of consumers, compared to the 52% on identity theft.
These findings are from a November 2015 online survey of 900 consumers, undertaken by the law firm Morrison & Foerster to gather quantitative data on the emerging trend of privacy presenting real threats to business. The results confirm the increasing role of privacy in our lives. In this case, privacy concerns influence our decisions as consumers,
but what other aspects of our lives have privacy concerns also come to influence? What about our privacy when downloading a mobile app or entering our social security number into an online application? With advances in technology and the increasing amount of personal information that ends up online, privacy concerns are here to stay. It is up to each individual to decide how he will engage with his personal privacy concerns and to what degree those concerns might influence his decisions and his life.
Posted in Privacy	| Leave a reply


Are You One and Done ?
♦ What is your actual Number of how much dividends and interest your portfolio earns?
Is it $ 3,000 monthly? Is it $ 2,000 monthly? Is it $ 4,000 monthly?
Once you get your number you will know approximately how much you can spend year after year.
♦ "Probabilities of how your portfolio may perform in a sideways-trading market."
Some years ago I had a first appointment with a retiree who later became a client. He said to me, " John, one more bear market and I'm done." I said, "you're done with what?" He replied "I'm done playing golf. I'm probably done eating three meals a day." He then asked " Do you know of any high paying jobs for a 77-year-old former engineer?" He was wondering what he could do about it and what actions could he take. You may also have some of these concerns.
It may be nice to learn strategies designed to answer the question of how not to run out of money during retirement, but even more important to the retired investor is the answer to the question, how do I not run out of money? The only way to answer that question is to understand what your Number is (more about your Number later).
Do you wonder if your money will last?
That is an important question to ask yourself. I believe every retiree should understand exactly what's going on in their portfolio. They should know what their number is (the number, once again, which I'll expand on, is the actual dividends and income being generated by your portfolio). Zig Ziglar once said "How can you hit a target you can't see? Even worse, how can you hit a target you don't even have!?" After thirty-plus years' experience in the retirement income field, I cannot stress the importance of having a written plan detailing your investment strategy.
I'm not talking about your cholesterol, the number of steps you take a day, or your blood pressure. I'm talking about the key number in your retirement, and it is how much income and dividends the portfolio actually producing. I have been involved in retirement income planning for 30 plus years. I've helped hundreds of retirees and probably talked to thousands via workshops, radio seminars, one on one interviews. I can probably count on one hand the number of retired investors who could tell me how much income and dividends their portfolios produce.
I'm not talking about withdrawals. I'm talking about pure income streams. Most retirees have multiple investment accounts, whether it's brokerage accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, bank accounts, but you would probably have better luck finding gold at the bottom of the ocean than wading through these accounts to find your number.
For example, you can call up the company and request them to send you $2,000 a month. They will normally say "sure." They will usually set up the withdrawal, but rarely discuss if and how much of your portfolio is being sold. In my experience, most of it comes from selling the principal.
Let me write briefly about the three kinds of markets and explain them.
Bear Market. You can think back to 2000 to 2002, 2008 to 2009. There's definitely something to worry about. Nobody's happy. Normally the market is very painful with a drawdown of 20 to 50%.
"Sideways Trading" Market. Similar to the last two to two and a half years. There are really no positive returns. There are no huge losses. But this matters tremendously if you're doing withdrawals.
As a saltwater fishing enthusiast, one of the movies I enjoyed the most was George Clooney's The Perfect Storm. The story was about a crew aboard an ocean fishing vessel in the Northeast waters. Everything that could go wrong weather-related did go wrong, and there was no escaping it. There was nothing that could have been done. It didn't really matter how big the boat was, or sturdy the boat, or how experienced the captain. The boat was going down. A bear market is kind of like the perfect storm where nothing goes right with investing.
Sideways Trading Market – Honey, we are taking on water back here ?
A boat captain's biggest fear is being out on the water with his family and then hearing a scream from the stern of the boat, "Honey, we are taking on water back here ?" People unfamiliar with boats don't understand that boats take on water. They can take on water from water coming over the side, from a wave or a wake. Many have live bait wells that actually pump water.
Boats have bilge pumps. Now, bilge pumps are actually a pump that sits in the back of the boat in the transom that pumps water out. And when it pumps water out, it can pump out 800 gallons an hour, or even more. The key question is, does your bilge pump remove more water than what is coming in ? And in most cases the answer is yes. But if your bilge pump turns off or the water coming in, for example, from a very large wave, exceeds the bilge pump, you're going to have a problem. I hope you know how to swim.
With a bilge pump the objective is to pump out more water than the boat takes in. Similarly, with retirement income planning the objective is to make sure the portfolio is producing as much income if not more than the amount we are withdrawing. See if this doesn't make economic sense to you. It's far better to take income streams (from dividends and interest) than sell your principal.
Once you sell your principal it is gone forever. The only market where selling principal may be appropriate (as long as the percentage of principal sold is below the market return) is a long-term bull market.
In a bear or sideways-trading market selling your principal is detrimental to your finances. That is why in today's (sideways-trading) market every retiree should know their Number.
Today is a good day! You may ask "Why is today a good day ?" It is because today I am offering three free reports to you that will answer these questions. And we are only able to provide a limited number of reports. We can offer this to only to the first 50 respondents.
Report #1 – What is your Number ? It is designed to tell you the probabilities of what you can withdraw from your portfolio under different situations .
Report #2 – A written plan to help you forecast your income and expenses going forward.
Report #3 – A customized Morningstar report to help you identify if a portfolio is appropriate for retirees.
Ask yourself, "does it make economic sense to know what your number is ?
* John Romano, CFP® has over 30 years experience in the financial field. John is a Registered Representative with Securities America, Inc. (member of the FINRA and SIPC), and an Investment Advisor Representative with Securities America Advisors. He has prepared hundreds of reports for retirees to assist in their retirement income planning needs. He is dedicated to providing portfolio analysis, dividend and income information, and investment management services to retirees (and those preparing to retire) in The Villages, Florida and surrounding areas. He is an active member in good standing with the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and an advisor in good standing with the Certified Financial Planning Board.


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Cynthia Erivo Addresses Backlash Over 'Ghetto American Accent' Comments
ByJose Martinez
Jose is a contributing writer for Complex Media. @ZayMarty
Image via Getty/Shannon Finney
In an interview with Shadow and Act during the Toronto International Film Festival, Cynthia Erivo responded to the recently resurfaced tweets that have followed throughout the press run for Harriet, the biopic based on the life of Harriet Tubman starring Erivo in the titular role.
Be free or die. Watch the official trailer for #HARRIET, the unbelievable true story of Harriet Tubman. In theaters this November. pic.twitter.com/HcSUX4ZkAA
— #HARRIET (@HarrietFilm) July 23, 2019
"I would say it took a lot of hard work to get to this place [of playing Harriet Tubman] and I didn't take it lightly," Erivo said. "I love this woman and I love Black people full stop. It would do me no service, it would be like hating myself."
Erivo, who is British, came under fire for tweets from 2013 which appeared to be mocking black Americans. Given that Tubman is a prominent historical figure in American history, people felt like an actress with a less controversial former social media presence should have portrayed her.
We will not allow the hype of a prestige film to compromise our sacred ancestor Harriet's legacy. #HarrietDeservesBetter #ADOShttps://t.co/J7Rffq6hN6
— 🇺🇸🌴eBoPeep🌴🇺🇸 (@eBoPeep) July 23, 2019
"As for the tweets, taken out of context without giving me the room to tell you what it meant--and it wasn't mocking anyone really," Erivo said. "It wasn't for that purpose at all. It was to celebrate a song I had wrote when I was 16." She previously spoke about the controversy at TIFF where she proclaimed that she has "never spoken negatively about people."
POST CONTINUES BELOW
"I would never…I've never spoken negatively about people because I don't want that, I don't want that energy from me to others, Erivo said. "I don't believe that serves us at all, I don't believe it serves a purpose other than bringing negativity into my life and your life and I just don't want that."
'Widows' Star Cynthia Erivo is Ready to Blow
NewsRacismTwitterHarriet TubmanCynthia Erivo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We do a family potluck at Thanksgiving, so we have everything from the traditional turkey and ham to macaroni and cheese to a variety of sweets and pies, including my own sweet potato pie.
Dad was allergic to mushrooms, so no "toadstools" allowed in the house!! The thundering herd (teens) always had to wait until Grandma, Dad and guests had helped their plates, then the teens could inhale the rest of the food. The Macy's parade, football, and hours of HGTV filled in the rest of the day.
Stuffed to gills, I usually have to leave that evening because Black Friday isn't just a big day in the stores -- we sell a lot of gift items through the call center. So hi-ho, hi-ho, home I go so I'm ready to get up at o'dark thirty and head out for work.
Growing up in Europe, Thanksgiving was a religious holiday with a big feast. My mom was an excellent cook, so most of the family members kind of invited themselves to holiday dinners. We were expecting about ten guests on this particular Thanksgiving Day when I was thirteen-years-old, but mom had to go on an unexpected business trip and she wanted to cancel the dinner, but my dad said we can handle it. Mom was a bit skeptical but told us that everything we needed was in the fridge and cupboard, so it would be easy to cook the feast. Soon dad realized that he made a very foolish promise when he checked the fridge. There was no goose in it that mom had planned to roast. She forgot to tell us that we had to kill and pluck the goose ourselves.
Dad scratched his head, grabbed a knife and said, "We're going to kill a goose."
My blood froze when I remembered seeing mom catching and killing a chicken so I sad, "No way! I'm not going to and I will not even watch you do it!"
Dad sighed and headed out to the fenced backyard where we kept the chickens, ducks, and geese. I turned the volume up on the TV to block the frightened sounds of the birds.
A few minutes later dad came back empty-handed and told me, "I couldn't do it. As I held the goose, it looked at me with those eyes... I swear that bird knew what I wanted to do. I'll go to the butcher and buy a goose."
He did and we cooked and baked all day feeling pretty good about ourselves. Mom made it home just in time to quickly wash up before the guests arrived. Dad and I set the table, got the pastries, that mom baked the day before, ready, and the goose was still roasting in the oven.
The guests arrived and when everyone was ready to eat, dad started carving the goose at the small table in the corner of the dining room. He suddenly stopped, glanced at me and motioned to me to come over. He whispered, "Did you put stuffing in the goose after you washed it?"
"No, dad, it was in there," I replied.
"Well, there was a neat package inside the bird, so I thought it was the stuffing wrapped in paper and we were supposed to bake it with the goose."
"Oh, crap!" he said. "It must be the gizzards and we were supposed to take it out. Your mother is going to kill me!"
"Not if she doesn't find out," I whispered glancing at the table where mom was entertaining the guests with a story.
"Nobody is looking, give me that package. It's cooked, so I'll give it to Mop."
Dad's face lit up, "Right! He'll get rid of the evidence." He winked and reached inside the bird with a fork and moved a little so the guests would not see what we were doing.
In my haste, I didn't think and just grabbed the package and with tears in my eyes, I walked out of the dining room. The wrapped gizzards were so hot that it took all my strength to fight the urge to drop it. In the mudroom, I shook out the gizzards from the wrapping paper into my dog's bowl and he happily gobbled it up.
The dinner was a success, everyone enjoyed the food. After dinner mom went to feed the dog but came back and said, "Something is wrong with Mop. He sniffed his food but he doesn't want to eat."
Dad flashed a quick smile at me and said, "We fed him before dinner."
Thanksgiving Day when I was a kid was always a big affair. While we celebrated in the usual way, with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and such, being Sicilian, my family also served lasagna, stuff shells, meatballs, Italian sausage, cannoli, anisette cookies, and other pastries. I remember my Dad, always filling bowls with fresh fruit and nuts -- all kinds of nuts: walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, Hazelnuts, almonds, and pecans. And olives, plenty of olives. Some of my female cousins would fill bowls with cream cheese, add a different food coloring to each, stir them up, and then fill short stalks of celery with different-colored cream cheese. Of course, there was always a lot of loud conversation and arguing going on, before and after dinner. The men would go off to watch football, the women would sit around and tell stories, and we kids would watch the Macy's parade. If it was nice outside, we'd go out and play. The best part was always the day after: Black Friday. That was a no school day for us, and one of my aunts used to take us kids into downtown Chicago to enjoy all the decorations on State Street and the window displays of all the department stores. Of course, we hit every toy department we could find, and we always had lunch at the old Marshall Field's, around their huge Christmas tree. It was an all-day affair, starting at about 8 AM until about 4 or 5 PM. Sometimes we'd even take in a movie at one of Chicago's grand and elegant movie theaters, before returning home to eat leftovers. But that was then, before grandparents, and first-generation aunts and uncles began passing away before older cousins got married, before both my paternal and maternal families started moving from the city to distant suburbs, and to other states. While my Mom's family keeps growing and growing, my Dad's family, with whom I lived and grew up with, has dwindled. There is only a handful of us left now. The holidays don't mean as much to me since my parents passed away, and I have no wife, ex-wife, kids or grandkids, but I still celebrate with a cousin, her husband, their two sons, and two granddaughters. Sometimes a girlfriend or two join us. The food's the same, although not as much of it. The conversations and arguments are the same, but instead of football and movies, we end the day watching movies on Netflix, and I usually end up spending the night. But I cherish my childhood memories, and I am most thankful for those, for the family I had, the family I have, and the many blessings that I never stop counting.
My husband and I are stuck in a perpetual family tug-o-war. We spend one holiday with his family and the other with mine; the next year we alternate. There was one year though when a bit of magic occurred. Somehow, we were able to get away, just the two of us, so we decided to head to Atlantic City.
I know Atlantic City doesn't scream Thanksgiving, but it was just what we needed. We rented a timeshare so I could have access to a kitchen, where I prepared our couples Thanksgiving feast. The weather was just on the verge of being cold, the nice kind of cool that requires a scarf and jacket, but no need to bundle up.
We ate out the first night and then headed to bed since I'd worked that day and needed to wake early to plan our feast. I prepared a Garlic Apple glazed chicken, a rosemary potato and apple medley, honey and roasted garlic glazed carrots, green beans, and served a store-bought sweet potato pie.
The next day when we decided to visit The Pier, boardwalk, and casinos, we learned that an Asian Cultural festival was happening. It was so much fun. All the diverse Asian people asking us to take pictures of them and wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving. As much as I truly enjoy those special moments, of glee and even frustration spent with family, plus all the homemade casseroles and desserts, I'll never forget the peace and romance of that one couples' Thanksgiving my husband and I were able to experience.
Everyone has a favorite holiday…some the more traditional, others the more obscure. Thanksgiving is and always has been my favorite holiday.
I grew up in Northern Montana, an only child. My father died when I was nine years old, and my stepdad a couple years after that. Most of my growing up was spent alone with my mother. She was a fabulous cook. We always had turkey, homemade dressing and gravy real mashed potatoes, green beans, and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream.
The day began with her putting the finishing touches on dinner and us sitting down to watch the Thanksgiving Day parades…Macy's parade from New York, Gimbel's parade from Philadelphia, J.L. Hudson Parade from Detroit with its smattering of mummers, and my favorite of all—the Eaton Santa Claus Parade from Toronto, Ontario Canada.
Dinner would be served around noon. After dishes were done, we'd spend the afternoon playing canasta or some other card game until I got bored and retreated to my room to do my own thing. Usually, after a dinner of leftovers, Christmas decorations would find their way to the kitchen table.
As a young 30+ adult with two growing boys, our tradition was much the same, except we usually had a house filled with friends and family…all fighting over who was going to get the legs of the 25# turkey I'd cooked!
Now, in my silver years (to some old age!), family is down to just me. My sons do their own thing and I usually have a friend for dinner and we sit and visit the afternoon away.
In this season of my life, it's no longer about the food or the companionship, but rather about me taking stock in the many blessings in my life. You know, those things that we have that we need to be thankful for. I'm thankful for a safe living space in a beautiful neighborhood, for knowledgeable/competent physicians who truly care about their patients, for friends who've become family, for talents and gifts—writing, knitting, painting, public speaking. It's about being thankful and finding ways to be kind and compassionate to those around me. It's relying on my faith foundation to stoke my flames and carry forward the peace that's in all of us.
Take a moment to reflect on Thanksgiving 2017…on all the moments up to this point and utter a word or two of gratitude. Gratitude changes attitude. It truly does.
Happy Thanksgiving!! It was lovely to read about your different traditions!!
Our remembrances make us unique and bring us together, thankful for those differences that truly are similarities. Thanksgiving blessings to all of you!
What a lovely post on this day of thanksgiving. I'm so thankful to have found place within this group. Whether celebrating or not, I wish all the very best. Happy Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating this day of giving thanks. Some lovely posts here on memories of family get togethers.


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style / Clothing
How I Found My Pride Through Style At This Year's Eid
In Bensonhurst, young Muslims stunt in vivid thobes and Prada sneakers.
By Ali Suliman
Photographer Ali Suliman
It is 82 degrees, and the sun is beaming at 8 a.m.; it is September 24. It is Eid-al-Adha, a Muslim holiday that celebrates Abraham's would-have-been sacrifice of his only son as a test of his unwavering faith in Allah. I'm posted up at Ceasar's Bay with my cousin and brother, just outside of Bensonhurst Park, where thousands of Halal mamis and papis have congregated for Eid prayer. Decked out in grey cropped pants and a pair of cokeboy all-white Nike Huaraches, I left my house feeling godly. But upon walking into the park, I was surrounded by the most exquisite of thobes, the most colorful of saris, and the most elaborate dashikis paired with icy Air Force Ones and shiny Prada sneakers. As the crowd came stomping down the Shore Parkway Pier, I realized I was the most underdressed person at what I had thought was Eid prayer, but was clearly some kind of Islamic Fashion Week.
Anybody who still preaches that naive notion of "New York City is a beautiful melting pot!" bullshit needs to rethink; it does not work like that. Fresh off the figurative boat from Yemen, my family moved to Brooklyn in '95, when I was two years old. In the two decades since, I still have not come close to mastering the balance between the two cultures: the Arab heritage I inherited and the American culture I assimilated into. In grade school, I'd come back from winter break and my white classmates would ask, "What Christmas presents did you get?" When I replied "Oh, I don't celebrate Christmas," there'd be this look on their faces, as if I had told them I was homeless and dying. If I missed a day from school because of Eid—shout out to Mayor Bill De Blasio for finally turning it into an official holiday for public schools this year—I'd have to explain to students and teachers alike, "I guess Eid is like Christmas or Chinese New Year, except it comes twice a year, so, like, mad family gets together and I get money." (Eid-Al-Fitr commemorates the end of Ramadan, which is determined by the lunar year and accordingly moves up two weeks in the calendar every year. Eid-Al-Adha is celebrated two months afterwards.) Since an early age, it was evident to me that the "Western" culture I adapted to just did not mess with my Middle Easterness.
In 2001, my family moved to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the section of the city that boasts the title of the second-highest concentration of Middle Eastern folk outside the Middle East. In Bay Ridge, Arabic speakers flood the streets, dates can be purchased all year round, a block is sketchy if it doesn't have a shisha café on the corner, and a man can kiss another man on the cheek as a greeting without it being confused as romantic involvement. It's a place where we can yowl passionately over cell phones without people thinking we are going to self-detonate, and where the adhan (Muslim call to prayer) blares out from mosque speakers into the streets five times a day before each prayer, whether it's 5 a.m or 5 p.m. I lived three blocks away from the mosque and could still hear the prayer calls over the Honda Civic parked outside blasting Cassidy and R. Kelly's "Hotel." This was our new home, and we tried our best to make it like our birthplace.
That sense of unification amongst a group of people that America had black-sheeped gave us the strength to keep existing in a country that so clearly doesn't want us here. That feeling is amplified tenfold every Eid when, no matter what, I feel proud to be Muslim—and so does everyone else. Blessings are exchanged between family members and strangers, kisses land on the hands of women and on the cheeks of men. Men hold hands without a care in the world as the Imam—the Islamic equivalent of a preacher—shouts "Takbeer!" through the loudspeaker. In response, waves of "Allahu Akbar" erupt from the crowd. Prayers are so packed you'd think a celebrity was making an appearance. But, nah, this is all us. We'll be hundreds deep in the mosque during the frigid months, but the warmer days are the best—thousands strong in an open park, all dressed to impress.
This September, I might not have got the memo but everyone else clearly did. There were kufis rocked proper, some with a slant to let you know, "Yeah, I'm from Sudan, but don't get it twisted, this is still Brooklyn." The older heads came sporting what was traditional garb to us: dishdashas and thobes hung freely, blowing in the wind of the breezy Shore Parkway pier. My Uncle Tariq pulled up in a loose-fitted Calvin Klein suit that he bragged about: "Feel it, I bought it from Macy's." But it was the youth who really stole the show: the combinations of Western and Middle Eastern styles were astounding. Cream-colored checkered khuffiyehs hung around the necks of young, fair-skinned Lebanese and Palestinian men, paired with Gucci and Louis Vuitton sneakers—fake or not, the outfits were fresh. Ray-Ban aviator frames hid the faces of those too cool for the sun. Adidas Superstars and Stan Smiths graced the feet of Americans who for far too long have been told "go back to your own country." Eid was not a day for retro Jordans; it was the day you broke out the OGs and stunted down that asphalt pavement.
Interrupting morning runs, causing traffic delays for commuters on their way to work, all up in their faces—we were unashamedly halal, flossing in all kinds of intricate dress you'd never seen. America is killing us over there, but we are killing the game over here. They never understood us, but they don't have to. Twice a year, they witness us: unapologetic Muslims, flexing on you.
Ali Suliman, Clothing, Photography
music / Experimental
style / Features


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Tag Archives: Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey
Atelier, Atelier Mysterious
The Music of Atelier, Vol. 14: Atelier Firis – The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey
October 9, 2021 Pete Davison	2 Comments
This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
< Prev. | Contents | Next >
Another Atelier game in the books, another opportunity to celebrate the series' incredible music — and the sterling work of Gust's sound team in general, who consistently put out some absolutely amazing tracks.
Atelier Firis' soundtrack is a beast, consisting of 125 tracks in total. Considering the massive scope of the game, this shouldn't be altogether surprising, but what's impressive is that each and every one of those tracks is worthwhile and enjoyable to listen to, whether it's a simple field theme or the most intense battle themes the score has to offer. As always, we'll be taking a look at a few selections from the complete score rather than the whole thing!
Music this time around was provided by Kazuki Yanagawa, Tatsuya Yano and Daisuke Achiwa; it seems Hayato Asano took a break from the series for this one, which isn't altogether surprising, as he was likely busy putting together the absolutely amazing soundtrack for Nights of Azure at the time. And, if you picked up the physical release of the complete Mysterious Trilogy from Play-Asia, don't forget that it comes with a code to download the full soundtracks until April 21, 2024!
Continue reading The Music of Atelier, Vol. 14: Atelier Firis – The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey →
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – What I Want to Do
As we started to explore in the previous part of this feature, one of the things that makes Atelier Firis so interesting as a modern role-playing game is that once you're into the game's "second quest", there's no set goal where you can say that you have definitively "finished" the game.
I mean, okay, if you do literally everything the game has to offer, fill out all the collections to 100%, max out all your characters and make it so the only quests available are repeating ones, then yes, you've probably "beaten" Atelier Firis. But what I mean is that for people who aren't obsessive completionists, you can pretty much choose what your own personal "win state" is, reach that condition and then, if you choose, set the game aside.
If you're anything like me, of course, the temptation to just have "a quick look" at what else the game has to offer may be too much to bear, however… so let's talk about this side of things, with a particular focus on what it means for Atelier Firis' overall narrative.
Continue reading Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – What I Want to Do →
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – The Second Quest
September 18, 2021 Pete Davison	4 Comments
It's not at all unusual for RPGs these days to contain a significant post-game component: something to spend your time with once the credits have rolled for the first time.
It's a little more rare for games to take the approach that Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey does, which is for what is technically the "post-game" to feel pretty much like a whole new game in its own right.
Yes, you could quite feasibly put Atelier Firis down after you help her pass her alchemy license exam. But you'd be missing out on so much — so let's explore what this whole "second quest" has to offer!
Continue reading Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – The Second Quest →
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Dangerous Roads Ahead
The overall structure of Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey is rather interesting — because for the most part it allows you to focus on the aspects of the game that you find most appealing.
Of course, in order to successfully prove Firis' worth in the alchemy examination, you'll need to display at least basic competence in all the main areas of gameplay, but once that's done — and indeed for a hefty length of time in the run-up to the exam — you can approach the game as you see fit.
Unusually for a role-playing game, this actually means that you can get away without doing very much fighting at all if you so desire. But, as the Atelier series as a whole has repeatedly demonstrated up until this point, the best alchemists out there are the ones who know how to defend themselves. So it's this aspect of Atelier Firis we'll be looking at today!
Continue reading Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Dangerous Roads Ahead →
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Proving Your Worth
One thing that a lot of 21st century gaming enthusiasts aren't a big fan of is the idea of the "20 hour tutorial" — the feeling that, for a significant chunk of a game, you're being held back from being let loose on all the game's mechanics until you prove you have a good understanding of them.
Of course, in some cases, a lengthy learning period is essential — and not always provided. I am still completely incapable of playing large-scale "grand strategy" games like the Crusader Kings series because I have absolutely no idea what to do, for example; in instances like that, I would have very much appreciated the software walking me through a complete game so I could get some practical experience!
Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey adopts an interesting approach in that the first 15-20 hours of the game are very much a case of "proving your worth" — but at the same time, you're afforded plenty of freedom to approach this task as you see fit. Let's take a closer look at how that all works — and what it means for the game as a whole.
Continue reading Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Proving Your Worth →
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Mix and Match
August 22, 2021 Pete Davison	1 Comment
While, as the name suggests, a significant part of Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey is about Firis going on her journey of self-discovery, it is still an Atelier game — and as such you'll be spending plenty of time crafting items.
Atelier Firis doesn't completely reinvent the alchemy mechanics from Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, but it does feature some new twists on the formula established in that game. Once again we have the series' classic "bung everything in a pot and see what comes out" base combined with some almost puzzle game-esque mechanics — and the result is an enjoyable, satisfying alchemy system.
Get your apron and your stirring stick, then — it's time to take a closer look.
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Taking a Trip
August 14, 2021 Pete Davison	2 Comments
Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey isn't the first time that the Atelier series has attempted to focus on a protagonist going on a long journey. Far from it, in fact.
While the "modern" Atelier games are typically associated with the structure of being based around a "hub" location and then radiating out from there, this style of play only makes up some of the series. Atelier Totori and Atelier Ayesha are both explicitly about going on a journey, while Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny, Atelier Meruru and Atelier Shallie all have a significant "journey" component to their narratives, even if they also feature a "hub" location to call home.
But Atelier Firis manages to be a bit different by virtue of the way that it is constructed. Its "open world" nature gives a very different feel to the protagonist's journey — and makes it stand out amid its peers in a very interesting and positive way. So let's take a closer look at this idea.
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Your Friendly Neighbourhood Alchemist
July 31, 2021 Pete Davison	3 Comments
There's a recurring theme throughout Atelier games: the idea that alchemy isn't inherently "good" or "evil", but that its value to society is determined by how its practitioners make use of it.
This is most commonly explored through the means of Atelier protagonists deciding that they want to make use of their talents and skills to help people around them — and Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey is no exception to that rule.
The big difference in Atelier Firis, of course, is that rather than being centred on a single location as in many other Atelier games, our heroine is instead on the move, hoping to eventually reach a final destination in order to prove herself. So let's take a closer look at what that means for the overall game structure.
Continue reading Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Your Friendly Neighbourhood Alchemist →
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Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Atelier Hits the Open Road
The Atelier series, as we've seen numerous times over the course of its complete length, is not one to sit still for long — even within the scope of a single subseries.
Despite this, Atelier games have always managed to establish a sense of coherence between different installments — even when they might appear, at first glance, to be radically different from one another.
Such is the case with the second of the Mysterious trilogy — Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey may initially appear markedly different from its immediate predecessor Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, but the more you spend time with it, the more you'll realise there are some interesting elements in common amid all that seeming change.
Continue reading Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey – Atelier Hits the Open Road →
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HomeSRADOH: No budget for SRA, benefits of health workers in 2022
DOH: No budget for SRA, benefits of health workers in 2022
Nonoynet 9/02/2021
One sad development in the ongoing Congress hearing for the proposed 2022 national budget: No funds were allocated for Special Risk Allowance (SRA) and other benefits of nurses and other health care workers.
In the budget hearing at House of Representatives on Thursday, Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque confirmed that there is no funds for benefits of health workers after their request was denied by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
The DOH initially proposed ₱73.99 billion worth of COVID-19 response funds, of which ₱50.41 billion was for SRA, hazard duty pay, meals, accommodation and transportation, and life insurance of health workers, Duque said. But the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) only approved ₱19.68 billion, he added.
"The budget we proposed to DBM was actually ₱73.99 billion," Duque said in a House hearing, referring to funds for pandemic response. The department's total budget proposal was ₱242 billion.
Duque made the remark after Rep. Stella Quimbo pointed out that the ₱19.68-billion budget seems "too small" compared to the total COVID-19 response funds released from March 2020 to June this year, which stood at ₱160.97 billion.
Quimbo then asked him if SRA funds were among those affected by the budget cut. Duque said Quimbo's assumption was correct.
Duque added the DOH is counting on the passage of the Bayanihan 3 bill to fund health worker's benefits next year, but Quimbo told him there was no "itemized appropriation" for SRA in the proposed law. Quimbo then asked Duque if the DOH would propose a budget increase. He said the department will submit a new proposal, which may include funding for the compensation of frontline personnel who caught the coronavirus.
Bayanihan 2 specified that all "those catering to or in contact with COVID-19 patients" shall get SRA. This law expired on June 30. Despite the expiration of the validity of funds for appropriations under Bayanihan 2, many healthcare workers have yet to receive their SRA.
Citing DBM data, Quimbo also noted that the DOH still has ₱51.2-billion worth of unobligated pandemic funds as of June 30, and asked why these can't be used for the payment of the benefits.
Rowena Lora, OIC-Director IV of the DOH's Finance Management Service, said that as of end-August, a significant amount of these remaining funds has already been obligated for additional vaccines. She added their operating units still have a lot of other COVID-related expenses.
"We have been trying to look for the funds needed for the benefits of the health workers," Lora said. "Since last week, we have been coordinating with them para ma-prioritize kung ano 'yung kailangan at pwedeng ma-free up from the funds [to prioritize what's needed and what can be freed up from the funds]," she continued, referring to meetings with the DOH regional offices and operating units.
Duque also asked that the department be given more time to assess which funds can be realigned for the SRA.
"Give us time and we will identify, most certainly, what these programs or activities and projects [are], which yield the lowest impact among all that we have been implementing," he said.
The DOH earlier asked the DBM twice for additional SRA funds.
The DBM has so far released ₱311 million for the first batch - which comprises 20,156 health workers, of which ₱308 million has been disbursed to medical facilities, DOH Director Larry Cruz earlier said. T
The DOH earlier sought another ₱201 million for the second batch - which covers over 17,000 health workers. It plans to submit another budget request for the SRA of 80,000 more, Duque previously said.
Health Assistant Secretary Mylene Beltran said 399,325 health workers have already received their SRA as of Aug. 26. (via CNN)
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Met Karolingisch duidt men een periode aan die tijdens de regering van Karel de Grote (768-814) werd ingezet. Grofweg van het midden van de achtste eeuw tot en met het begin van de tiende eeuw van onze jaartelling.

Karel zette actief een nieuwe bloeiperiode in gang op het gebied van wetenschap en cultuur. Hiertoe verzamelde hij geleerden en kunstenaars uit zijn hele rijk om zich heen. Met name de Angelsaksische geleerde Alcuinus van York speelde aan het hof een grote rol als stimulator en leraar van onder anderen Karel de Grote zelf en zijn kinderen en andere familieleden.
Deze Karolingische renaissance zou grote invloed hebben op het Europa van de 8e en 9e eeuw.

Ook voorwerpen uit die tijd (zoals de fibula van Dorestad) worden met de term Karolingisch aangeduid.

Frankische Rijk
Stijlperiode

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia