In many European countries, news agencies use "alleged" until conviction or appeals are completed. Truth as an absolute barrier to defamation is a purely American ideal.
Or, if that reply link/button doesn't show up, click on the timestamp of the comment you wish to rebut/remark/comment, then you will see a comment box with button.
That's been the problem both times this administration was in power. Some people like to call it 4D Chess (because they don't understand it and their conspiratorial thinking requires there to be "a plot" or "a plan"). The last person to get to the ear of this President is the cause of any new "process" or "policy". It is just whim. Like a dog seeing a squirrel. Something shiny has attracted his attention. And that new squirrel gets chased.
That involved a rather genocidal approach in 1065 - killing everyone related to, or doing business with the Vikings. This tends to get downplayed by historians. And when the Vikings/Norsemen came back for revenge in 1066, King Harold 2nd managed to kill off the Viking force at Stamford Bridge, but was too exhausted when William invaded down south (being defeated at Hastings). 300-ish miles is a short drive by car, but in an era long before preserved food or mechanized transport, such a march over about 2 weeks would have been terrible.
Enron managed to mangle/free-marketize California's electricity system. Utilities have to purchase electricity at market prices on an exchange that Enron built.
My state almost got a bill passed that would have made data centers pay for the new generating capacity. The House passed it, but the Senate strangled it. Thanks lobbyists!
MS did a lot of lobbying to prevent European governments from trying to migrate to Linux and/or OpenDocument.
Groklaw was a website that was started by a paralegal to try to understand, explain and report on the SCO lawsuit - who benefited and how they benefited. It ended up expanding into the EU anti-trust action against Microsoft and OpenDocument (and how OpenOffice was created as a trojan horse to defang OpenDocument).
It isn't just Trump. The CLOUD Act basically gives Washington the power and ability to turn off any server operated by any US company at will/whim.
The Wikipedia page only talks about stored data on (optionally foreign) servers without any sort of regard for the laws of the country where that server is located. It ignores the part of the statute where the feds can basically "turn off" that server. And that is the part that the EU is panicking over.
> We should stop treating digital pictures of physical documents as some sort of credentials.
This is how biometric "authentication" works - you slide a picture (of a face, or maybe a fingerprint or hand geometry) under a door, and the guard on the other side of the door looks at the picture, maybe compares it to some database somewhere and then says PASS/FAIL. Maybe the device taking the picture has some sort of cryptography to prevent yourself from shoving a picture of some authorized person. Usually not.
People keep trying to find the correct magic spell to make biometrics "foolproof". That's a waste of time. Blackhat/DEFCON type conferences were showing people how to make fingerprints out of (the gelatin that makes) gummy bears back in the late 90s. Make them thin enough and you can fool pulse detection (carjackers in some Asian countries were chopping fingers off to bypass theft deterrent systems that used fingerprints).
My original SSN card has "not valid for identification" printed on it. Originally, it was supposed to only be used for filing taxes. The first 3 digits identified the state you applied in, the second 2 digits identified the office (in that state) and 2 of the last 4 digits identified the filing cabinet.
Over the years, it ended up becoming the de facto federal identity number. It has no check digits, so you can make up any you want (I used to use a phone number of a major customer - only dropping 1 digit). I was a rebel/jerk/butthead back then. Now I just yell at clouds.
Long ago, I worked at a place that handled electronic prescriptions, lab results and insurance claims. There were huge numbers of incorrect SSNs which meant there were huge numbers of duplicates. Someone transposed 2 digits? Yep. Someone remembered their number incorrectly? Sure. Someone made one up? Like from a phone number? Oh noes! Before 911, trying to match someone with faulty ID numbers and messed up names was called "patient matching" and after 911 all the academics doing research into this stuff disappeared into large defense contractors or 3-letter-agencies trying to find more terrorists/bad guys.
For a good start in this area of research, I recommend this dissertation:
> Adaptive detection of approximately duplicate database records and the database integration approach to information discovery
> The most misused SSN of all time was [see link]. In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher.
> The wallet was sold by Woolworth stores and other department stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red, and had the word "specimen" written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own. In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda's number.
Most state agencies redact the SSN from public records. I want to say that they all do, but I work for a state and I see too many in all the wrong places.
> which wants... a social security number because why?
Because of federal child support legislation. If you are $2500 (or more) in arrears, your passport gets cancelled. Most states will also suspend/revoke your professional licenses and possibly driving license when you cross that state's threshold.
> In 1996, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (42 U.S.C. § 666), which required that states adopt UIFSA by January 1, 1998 or face loss of federal funding for child support enforcement. Every U.S. state has adopted either the 1996 or a later version of UIFSA.
When I worked for my state's motor vehicle bureau, one of the verification apis that the driving license/ID folks got to use was a verification of citizenship/lawful residence service. Which used SSNs.
My first university, back in the 1970s, used my SSN as my student ID and was embossed into the ID card (who is that stranger in the photo?). Nowadays, no university uses SSN for student IDs. There's a saying that applies: the past is a foreign country.
Nowadays, for US passports (I don't know about other countries), the number/key needed to let the chip talk to you is printed on the photo page, so the older way of reading the NFC from afar won't work without that number.
As long as the janitors aren't using electric floor buffers, like NASA used to do, the tapes will last forever. However NASA ended up losing the data (from 1960s space missions) on the bottom 2 rows of tapes. It took a couple decades though.
The Payment Card Industry takes breaches deadly seriously. It is my opinion that any organization that collects PII should be held to the same standard (and penalties) that any organization that collects/processes credit card information.
The Trump administration has been treating dissent as illegal speech/behavior. It would be reasonable to presume that a replacement administration will continue this treatment.
Plato was being a crotchety old fart, complaining about "kids these days". As every generation has done since Plato has complained about how "kids these days don't do X like our generation did". He was complaining that "kids these days don't memorize poetry (like my generation did), instead, they're using this new-fangled technology called 'writing'". This is exactly how older generations complain about new technology like cellphones/pagers/television/radio/telephones/horseless carriages/telegraphy/steam engines/etc.