Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Admin

  • GDPR & You Glibertarians.com

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    SP: “Hey, Webdom, do you know a good GDPR consultant?”

    Webdom: “Yes.”

    SP: “Can you give me her email address?”

    Webdom: “No.”

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    If you’ve ever signed up for an email newsletter, registered for a user account online, or purchased something from an online purveyor, you’ve undoubtedly been bombarded the last week (or longer) with emails like the one above. You’ve noticed the new cookie notice here on Glibertarians.com. You might have even read our Privacy Policy.

    I’m not going to get into the details of the mind-numbing array of things the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires to be in compliance. I’m not a lawyer and much of it is open to interpretation.

    If you’re interested there is no shortage of online resources, including the EU’s own website. Companies across the globe have been working on this compliance since the law was passed in April 2016.

    No, what I want to rant about is the fact that as of May 25, 2018, the provisions of the 2-year-old regulation are now enforceable.

    I hear you saying, “So what? It’s an EU law, and we aren’t in the EU.”

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    You crack me up.

    The new regulation is supposedly to protect EU citizens and their “personally identifiable information” (PII) that may be collected, processed, stored, and transferred online.

    What the EU considers PII is much broader than what the US has generally considered PII. The EU insists that anything that could directly or indirectly be used to identify someone is included.

    Personal data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual.

  • Different pieces of information, which collected together can lead to the identification of a particular person, also constitute personal data.
  • Personal data that has been de-identified, encrypted or pseudonymised but can be used to re-identify a person remains personal data and falls within the scope of the law.

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    So, how the heck is the EU going to enforce the myriad complex and heavily nuanced provisions of the law? Fairly and objectively.

    OK, I couldn’t even type that with a straight face.

    The EU provides this helpful information:

    Stronger rules on data protection mean

  • people have more control over their personal data
  • businesses benefit from a level playing field

    • Oh, good! Businesses are going to benefit!

    Well, Uncle Sam wants to help make sure that US businesses are also going to benefit. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework is the mechanism by which the EU can impose their laws and regulations on US businesses and non-profits.

    What’s that? Non-profits like the Glibertarian Foundation? Why, yes!

    The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has committed to work closely with the DPA (SP note: data protection authority in the EU) to provide enforcement assistance, which, in appropriate cases, could include information sharing and investigative assistance pursuant to the U.S. SAFE WEB ACT.

    Indeed, one of the key provisions of the GDPR is increased territorial scope. Because of this, any website that “processes” any data from anyone in the EU must comply. Your business website may only ever have one visitor from the EU and if you set a web browser cookie for any reason whatsoever, you must meet the requirements of the GDPR. Seriously.

    What’s the penalty for non-compliance?

    Infringement: the possibilities include a reprimand, a temporary or definitive ban on processing and a fine of up to €20 million or 4% of the business’s total annual worldwide turnover.

    Oh, and that fine is whichever is greater. No potential there for abuse or selective enforcement! But remember, this is not about grabbing money or controlling the world. Because the Forces of Evil said it’s not.

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    So, what are US businesses doing? Most have been working on compliance for a long time now and are falling into line. Nobody really wants to lose their European customers and site visitors, after all.

    Except for a bunch of media outlets and businesses that apparently weren’t ready for the enforcement to start on Friday. But, the EU says, don’t worry! There will not be an effect on innovation or access. Oh, wait, other organizations have just decided not to bother complying, closing business segments or blocking access from European countries.

    Here at Glib HQ, we’ve determined that we have only one European registered user. We’ll miss you Pie in the Sky!*

    We all know who is making bank from the GDPR, as is usual from regulation: lawyers and politicians. On Friday, many lawsuits and complaints were filed against large American tech firms like Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet. We can expect dozens more to be filed in the coming weeks, months, and, probably, years.

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    Does my disgust and cynicism mean I am anti-privacy? Hell, no.

    I have many stylish and useful tinfoil hats, as you all know. I use VPNs, encrypted email, mask my phone numbers, block cookies, browse from different browsers and devices, use cash for everything I can, have a prepaid cell phone for certain uses. The list goes on.

    What I am is anti-government intrusion and regulation.

    Remember, kids, with the exception of this Glibertopia, “If the product is free, the product is me.” Don’t like what Facebook does with your data? Don’t use Facebook; but don’t insist your congress critter pass another law or allow the FTC to enforce a cumbersome and impossible-to-get-right regulation from across the pond. Individuals and their rights always lose when bureaucracy wins.

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    * Just kidding, Pie.

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  • What we did with the money…so far.

    Now that we are a year into The Glibertarian Age, the POWERS THAT BE decided to hold a meeting. Our…organization… took in some money this year (from your donations and a bit from the sales of Glibs merch). We have set aside some to keep the site up and running (with SP’s patience being tried every once and while). So, what to do with the remainder? As the POWERS THAT BE had agreed earlier, two particular organizations would receive a donation.

    The first donation was $600 to the Institute for Justice.

    This is a group that is truly fighting the good fight. They wade in and fight on four main issues: Educational Choice, Economic Liberty, First Amendment and Private Property. As much as we can disagree and dispute (from things as serious as abortion to as fun as pizza) – I think we can all cheer on the IJ.

    One of the most difficult aspects of fighting the constant encroachments on liberty, is the money to engage in litigation can be scarce for the little guy. This is where the IJ steps in. They send in the lawyers who will walk in and say “not so fast”. They will fight cases all the way to the end. Once they start to help, there is no running the abused party out of money or time.

     

     

     

     

    The second donation was $300 to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

     

    This group has been useful in shining a light on the administrations of various schools/colleges/universities attempts to rid themselves of those pesky rights of speech, due process and the like. They will also get in there and assist with the defense of individual faculty and students.

     

     

    FIRE’s mission …

    The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE’s core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.

     

    This support for liberty has been made possible by YOU, the Glibertariat. YOUR donations, and purchases have helped defend liberty. Raise a glass to yourselves, or pat yourself on the back. You deserve it.

     

    UPDATE: We also should point out the link on the right side of the page…

    GLIBS ON KIVA.ORG

    Microfinance lending. A hand up, not a handout.

  • Grrrrr

    Yes, I know.

    I had previously renewed the security cert, but apparently Comodo has not seen fit to update their records. DO NOT TAKE MY MONEY AND FAIL TO DELIVER THE PROMISED SERVICE.

    Stay tuned.

    In the meantime, we are still safe and un-hacked. Accept our “unsafety” and click through anyway.

    Now I need a drink.

  • Memopalooza – The Continuing

    Due to the earlier content blast, the regular Friday Afternoon Links are off today. Go wallow in the earlier posts instead. Or here. Whichever trips your trigger.

    I heard some noise down in the Writer’s Lounge that sounded like screaming…so I am going to take that as a sign that STEVE SMITH will be doing Evening Links duty, so tune in before 7pm Central. Or whenever he finishes what he is doing. And by doing, I think you all know what we mean.

     

    FRIEND!

  • From the Mailbox

    Rand(om) Spammer. Not a Glib although it does look like Winston's Mom's basement.I, for one, am heartened to see that spammers in 2018 here in Trump’s AmericaTM are now at least trying to tailor their spam to the pages and posts which they target. This is a new and classier breed of spammer. Spammers who take pride in their work. Spammers who go the extra mile. The best spammers. And the Glibertariat can be proud that we’ve got ’em.

    Let me reassure you, gentle reader, that I am not singling out a certain Glib whose posts were recently captured by the spam filters for somewhat obvious reasons. No, it is not The Accidental Spammer to whom I refer, but rather, the spammer who employs penny-a-post orphans laboring in shitholes worldwide, who seeks to dupe naive site admins into “partnering” with them by having said orphans fill out the website contact form.

    Here are three of my recent favorites.

    Exhibit 1.

    The exceptional spammers of today know what really matters to the Glibs: sports. Our extensive sports coverage (thanks, Sloopy!) prompted the following:

    My name is Joey and I’m a writer at [made up magazine]. I was doing research on tennis training and just finished reading your wonderful blog post: https://glibertarians.com/2017/06/thursday-morning-links-16/

    In that article, I noticed that you cited a solid post that I’ve read in the past: [article: martina-navratilova-calls-margaret-court-homophobe-open-letter]

    I just finished writing a guide that is even more detailed, updated and comprehensive on tennis training. It is spread over multiple pages (30k+ words in total) and packed with practical tips and advice. This is completely free and you can find it here: [website redacted by SP to protect the innocent and their devices]

    If you like the guide we’d be humbled if you cited us in your article. Of course, we will also share your article with our 50k newsletter subscribers and followers across our social platforms.

    Uh-huh. Game, set, and match to SP!

    Exhibit 2.

    Our Family Friendly Certification continues to pay dividends in ways too numerous to mention. We’re always looking for new writers that get what we’re about. Look! Here’s one!

    Hi,
    As a parent (and an educator), I know how important it is for parents to share helpful insight and advice with each other when it comes to raising our children. I’d like to do just that, so I’ve listed some great parenting resources below that I hope you find value in. I’ve included some articles with practical parenting advice as well as some focused on kids’ and parents’ mental health (I know how difficult this type of information can be to find). If you like these, I also encourage you to post them somewhere online – maybe on your page here: http://glibertarians.com/2017/03/monday-morning-links-4/?

    I appreciate your time, and if there is any other information I can send you, I’m happy to do so. I love to write in my spare time, so if you’d like me to write something on parenting especially for you, please let me know!

    Article: Keeping Kids Safe at Home: A Parent’s Guide to Child Safety (with Infographic)

    Maybe she noticed OMWC lurking in the backyard?

    Exhibit 3.

    On a recent STEVE SMITH links post, the industrious orphan scanned the article and decided that the perfect come-on to Glibs.com was as follows:

    I found the glibertarians.com website while browsing through some Outdoor themed sites and have to say I was extremely impressed with the many great resources your site displays!.

    I have recently added a really useful article – a camping checklist – to my blog. With the huge number of campers and hikers at all levels there are across the world now, I felt that creating an ultimate guide to inform, in particular beginners and casual campers was something of real interest.

    STEVE SMITH REAL INTERESTED AND BY INTERESTED MEAN….

  • Yeah, I Know

    As many of you have pointed out, there have been some extremely annoying changes happening to the site this past week. Yes, I was fully aware. Thank you.

    Most of the problems are cosmetic, but a couple are not. Comment numbering, I’m looking at you.

    This week was a perfect storm of massive security updates, starting with the machine that hosts our server, huge WordPress updates, a theme update and plugin updates because of the WP updates.

    All of these updates probably did make things more secure. But they also broke tons of stuff.

    I’ve been spending 18 hour days fixing all the new problems for my actual paying clients, so I apologize for not getting everything here at this labor of love straightened out yet.

    There will undoubtedly be ongoing, random issues as I address things here in my “free time” over the next few days. So, just be happy that the site still allows articles and commenting. And stay tuned.

    This concludes this Public Service Announcement. I now return you to your regularly scheduled snark.

  • UPGRADE!!!!

    Unemployed Server Squirrel?

     

    Our hosting service is upgrading some security features (Hi there, NSA and FBI!) – they claim that if there any outages, they should be brief.

    Upgraded

     

    We shall see.

  • New Year Site Update

    New Year Site Update

    Happy New Year, Glibs!

    Just wanted to point out a couple new site features, in case you haven’t noticed them.

    1. I’ve added a Recipe Submission form that can be found on the top navigation menu on desktop version, and toward the bottom of the menu on mobile. We’ve been talking about creating a Glibertarians.com cookbook; this is the first step in gathering recipes so they can be formatted consistently. I’m planning on also creating a section of the site to house all the recipes.

    2. The Search function has been changed to index comments, in addition to posts. Be aware that because we have over 406,000 comments (so far), it may take a little while to search and searching for very common terms might result in a gateway timeout. Try to be as specific as you can for best results.

    3. The GlibFit posts will be found by going to the obviously-named GlibFit category. I’ve added a link in the footer menu for easy access since the posts will be quickly pushed off the front page.

    That’s it for now!