slamboard

The founder of lifelock has famously displayed his social insurance number on the splash page for his product. Detractors like to say that his identity was stolen (or at least that an attempt was made) shortly after that. I say ‘SO WHAT?’

The service offered to consumers does not involve publishing your information on their homepage. It involves periodically triggering the heightened vigilance that is inherent in the system. Certain large companies are upset because they carry out the heightened security and it costs them money that they cannot legally pass on directly to individuals. That gets another SO WHAT? from me. Lifelock provides more security for its customers and they have a huge guarantee should this security get breached. I would hate to have my identity stolen and I worry about it occasionally.

I don’t like Facebook very much and my participation in it is minimal. One app that I did add to my page was a music player. I uploaded an MP3 of my own singing and guitar playing. Yesterday I tried to play the thing and I found out that it is disabled because of a demand made by the RIAA.

I suppose a lot of people were using this application to illegally share copyrighted music. This is not what I was doing. I’m a little bit disappointed.

Take a guess as to where this particular quote came from…

“Credit laws do not provide for a third party to place fraud alerts on behalf of a consumer.”

Using the process of elimination, you can first rule out the third party in question, lifelock. That leaves two parties to consider; everyday consumers and established Credit Reporting Agencies that are accustomed to the revenue that they get from these consumers in relation to combating identity theft. Hmm, have you guessed it yet?

Experian is Goliath suing a David, AKA LifeLock. They provide identity theft protection services for a monthly fee. Ok, I want to remain neutral with this, so forget about how the David and Goliath story goes. Besides, us bloggers know of another very big entity that starts with the letters ‘G’ and ‘O’…

This is a familiar fight, the big boys claim it’s an ethical thing while the obvious truth is they see a chance to stomp on an upstart competitor for one of their revenue streams and they take it. Basically LifeLock acts on the behalf of its subscribers in a preemptive way and Experian bears some of the cost. I am not 100% certain, but it seems that consumer protection laws require that they react to fraud alerts and that they bear the cost.

You will not find too many Presidential candidates vowing to carry on the torch for Bush and Cheney. I think at last count, it stood at Zero. Since the present administration is not in a position to help with any campaigns, they have more time to do what they have been doing all along… hand out favors and alienate the rest of the World.

The general public has enough to worry about with the really big issues, like the war (which Bush and Cheney can take full credit for) and the economy (for which they deserve at least partial credit). The administration has walked behind this giant pile of lemons and opened up a little lemonade stand where they are giving away judicial appointments and other sweet stuff to the little people that have helped make it all possible.

Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV was on loan to team Cheney to prepare him for debates in 2000 and 2004. He has made millions as the general counsel for CCA the private company that houses many of America’s federal prison inmates. Putting a man who has made obscene profits from imprisonment on the bench as a trial judge seems counterintuitive, but so does installing a man who made obscene profits as an executive for a defense contractor as Vice President.

I was surprised to read that Joe Scarborough had a successful career as a congressman after trying to offer pro bono representation to a terrorist who shot and killed an abortion doctor. The judge at the criminal trial refused to allow it because of his inexperience in criminal defense law. His motivations were based on his pro-life views. I am willing to assume that since he was by no means the best lawyer available, there was self interest and self aggrandizement at play as well. I am not implying that anybody is ever undeserving of a vigorous defense. Joe’s volunteering was something else.

Joe Scarborough is now a controversial broadcaster. I don’t know what his response would be to a question about his views on people who side with terrorists in the present socio-political climate.

I was able to find one transcript that supports my argument that there is a double standard. Terrorism is abominably wrong even if you agree with the viewpoint of the terrorist.

Mississippi has more than its share of obese people. One politician is raising awareness of the problem by making an indecent proposal to enact a law that would force restaurant owners to refuse to serve the obese.

His colleagues aren’t happy about the bill and there has never been any chance of it passing.

There are analogous situations. Bar owners in many areas cannot serve patrons alcohol if they are intoxicated. Obviously that law is ignored to some extent. Drinkers would not be able to make an accusation of discrimination in the same way that obese people could if Mississippi actually tried to play nanny state in such a ridiculous fashion.

Source for this post: AP

I had to do it…

Dear sir or madam,

I assume that you are aware of the fact that the founder of Kimkins committed fraud by claiming to have had a dramatic weight loss. I noticed that you are continuing to update your affiliate site and I am wondering if you realize that you are exposing yourself to potential legal action by continuing to publish lies.

I would appreciate any response to this email and I must advise you that I would consider publishing the content on a blog.

Sincerely,

Martin

And, less than 20 minutes later (Know any people who get into trouble with impulsive behavior ?)

wouter van dyck to me 8:22 pm (23 minutes ago)

who are you and why should i justify myself to you?

i don’t now how you do your research but that blog isn’t updated in like 2 months

and as far is i now, i really don’t follow that, there has been no conviction or arrest so legal action against me?

please

wouter didn’t put his name at the bottom of the response. I don’t know if he had intended to reply anonymously.

I was a bit dismayed when I saw a blogger telling a bald faced lie on the official Google blog. If you read the official Google blog and you truly believe that NORAD tracks Santa with Google, I have some news for you. There is no Santa Claus. Your parent or legal guardian wrote that letter from Santa apologizing for not being able to get a Wii

The Magic Chicken Diet has striking similarities to Kimkins and some key differences. The moderately priced lifetime membership model mirrors Kimkins to a T. A hike from an earlier amount to its present fee of just over $60 lags just behind a similar hike that occurred with Kimkins. There is an publicly available page where someone who is presumably now the webmaster of the site was asking for bids on site design. Here is one sentence from his description of the project:

I would like it to be a clone of www. kimkins.com with ability to change background color and easily edited on my end as a webmaster for editing, adding pictures .

I am not shocked by this. Web business, like every other kind of business involves attempting to replicate the success of others. One big difference here is that the founder and spokeswoman for this diet appears to be a genuine weight loss success story, with a progress slideshow and a first and last name. The question of whether this woman has a plan that involves healthy choices cannot be answered by the uninitiated. From the name, we have to assume that it involves chicken.

I do not know if this site has good information and support for weight loss. I do not know whether the owner is monetizing something with real value or just taking advantage of people. In any case, I would suggest that she change to a payment form that inspires more confidence. There are PayPal logos on the site, but the payment does not appear to be through PayPal. You fill in your credit card information on a very basic submit form.

Conrad Black may be more well known in Canada than in the US, where he has been convicted of fraud. He was the poster child for media monopoly in Canada for many years. He also made quite a stir when he renounced his Canadian citizenship so that he could accept a noble title from Great Britain.

I haven’t been following his trial at all because I knew that it would be an excruciatingly drawn out affair. The discussion in the media today is about whether his lack of remorse will be a factor in sentencing. I think the judge will must know that the sentence will be appealed and he will therefore aim for a sentence length that is long enough to make the judge look tough and short enough to make Conrad look girlier than Martha Stewart.