Month: June 2022

Have you had enough of voles treating your garden as an all-you-can-eat buffet? I have.

Voles might be cute and furry, but they seem intent on destroying our garden. They’ve been feasting on every bulb, root, or tuber we put in the ground. We haven’t seen a whole beet or sweet potato for months!

I don’t mind sharing the fruits of our labor with others, but I do mind when they steal everything, leaving nothing for us humans to enjoy.

The Destructive Power of the Vole

Common Vole Woodland Vole

Several different species of voles cause mayhem and destruction, damaging lawns, orchards, trees, and even buildings. The most widespread of these is the meadow vole which is usually responsible for the maze-like grid of tunnels running through your garden.

Prairie voles are more commonly found on golf courses, while the woodland vole focuses its efforts on orchards and residential properties with lots of leaf litter.

One of the biggest problems with voles is how quickly they breed. A female vole becomes sexually mature at just 35 to 40 days old and produces 5 to 10 litters per year thereafter. With litter sizes ranging from 3 to 6, your vole population could explode in just a few months!

Not only do voles eat roots and tubers, but they also gnaw the stems of young trees and other woody plants and burrow through the ground, leaving a wasteland of dead plants in their wake.

Seven Ways To Stop Voles Wrecking Your Garden

Before we introduce you to the three most common ways of getting rid of voles, we need to deal with some of the legal implications of vole eradication. Always check the laws in your own state.

In some states, like Noth Carolina, it’s illegal to trap or kill nuisance animals unless you have a permit. If the law prevents you from using traps, you might want to try repellents and habitat modification to deter the little critters instead.

#1 Habitat Modification can Deter Voles

Meadow voles forage above ground, so they prefer areas of dense vegetation. The thick ground cover protects them against potential predators, whereas bare earth exposes them for all to see.

Removing weeds, vegetation, and heavy mulch from your garden help to eliminate their food source and remove any protection they might get from that ground cover.

Keeping your lawns closely mowed and removing grass and weeds from the bases of young trees can help prevent vole damage and encourage them to seek out new food sources.

It may sound a little drastic, but removing bird feeders from your garden can also help reduce your vole population. Bird feeders inevitably spill some seeds on the ground, attracting the neighborhood’s voles to the area. Removing them will give the voles less reason to invade your property.

You can also clear sections of land…

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An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report last year on the “Identity Crisis” posed by a shift to digital IDs pointed out a slew of potential threats to privacy that should be considered, including police access to people’s phones, user control over data, and even longer-term issues like potential expansions in the information contained or requirements for use remotely. Along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), they submitted a series of questions to the Department of Homeland Security, seeking to have these concerns addressed before the technology is in use widely.

Read more here.

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Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

There is historical precedent for how disasters affect the clothing choices of any population. World War I and World War II changed the way people thought how they dressed, not only for practical reasons but for emotional reasons as well. For the first time, women started to wear pants on a regular basis as they filled the roles of men in the work force.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s forced a radical change in clothing as fashion was replaced by durability and functionality. People also had to think about wearing and living with a smaller wardrobe as the cost of clothing had to be balanced with essential needs like food. 

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It’s hard to imagine the desperation of a depression or another world war, but economic collapse is an ever-present possibility, and a failure of the power gird for any number of reasons could lead to a radical and sudden shift in day-to-day life.

And then there’s the increasing threat of natural disasters, an on-going war in Eastern Europe, and the potential for new pandemics devastating the supply chain. That’s when everything changes, but the one thing we won’t be able to change all that often is clothing, so it’s time to take some lessons from the past as we ponder an uncertain future.

Clothing 101

It seems silly to analyze what we wear, but when it comes to assessing the best choices for clothing in difficult and demanding times, it’s worth a moment of reflection. Stop and take a look at the clothing you and your family have in your closets.

We’ll cover ideal characteristics, but first: stop throwing clothes away. If no one is wearing something anymore, store it. There may come a time where a little repair or a simple barter transaction can add new value to those old clothes.

There’s another factor to consider as well. We usually think of clothing as something to protect us from the elements whether it’s heat, cold, rain, or snow. In an uncertain future where the grid may be down, some of us may find we’re wearing the same clothes indoors and outdoors.

If you’ve ever camped in winter, you may have slept in a coat and hat. In summer, you may have spent the day in gym shorts and a T-shirt. Without air-conditioning, that could become your indoor wardrobe as well. 

The point is, clothing won’t be as much a fashion statement as a survival statement, and the most critical characteristics will be defined by 3 qualities:

1. Practicality
2. Utility
3. Durability

Practicality 

Practicality in clothing is driven by cost and fabrics. Cotton is historically cheapest, wool costs more, and some synthetic fabrics can be the most expensive. Many of us have heard the expression, “Cotton kills” as a clothing…

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By Sara Geoghegan, EPIC Law Fellow

On May 19, the Federal Trade Commission unanimously voted to approve a Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) policy statement that warns against surveillance as a condition of accessing educational tools. The statement explains that “Children should not have to needlessly hand over their data and forfeit their privacy in order to do their schoolwork or participate in remote learning, especially given the wide and increasing adoption of ed tech tools.” The FTC emphasized COPPA’s prohibition against mandatory collection, limitations on the use and retention of data, and security requirements.

The education technology (ed tech) sector expanded dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic as schools and students shifted to remote learning. Although ed tech can serve a valuable role in classroom settings, an alarming number of ed tech systems have been found to surveil children and exploit personal data. These tools can pose serious threats to student and children’s privacy through overcollection of personal information, reliance on biometric data, lack of security, opaque algorithms, and unreliable AI. The FTC’s statement highlights the special risks that ed tech tools present, explaining that “Concerns about data collection are particularly acute in the school context, where children and parents often have to engage with ed tech tools in order to participate in a variety of school-related activities.”

The Commission’s COPPA statement “demands enforcement of meaningful substantive limitations on operators’ ability to collect, use, and retain children’s data, and requirements to keep that data secure.” It lays out the FTC’s commitment to ensuring that ed tech tools “and their attendant benefits do not become an excuse to ignore critical privacy protections for children.”

In investigating potential COPPA violations, the Commission will focus on:

Prohibition Against Mandatory Collection: COPPA-covered companies, including ed tech providers, must not condition participation in any activity on a child disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary for the child to participate in that activity. These businesses cannot stop students from engaging in an ed tech activity if they do not provide information beyond what is reasonably needed to administer the students’ participation in the activity. For example, if an ed tech provider does not reasonably need to be able to email students, it cannot condition the student’s access to schoolwork on students providing their email addresses. Students must not be required to submit to unnecessary data collection in order to do their schoolwork.

Use Prohibitions: COPPA-covered companies, including ed tech providers, are strictly limited in how they can use the personal information they collect from children. For example, operators of ed tech that collect personal information pursuant to school authorization may use such information only to provide the requested online education service. In this context, ed tech companies are prohibited from using such information for any commercial purpose, including marketing, advertising, or other commercial purposes unrelated to the provision of the school-requested online service.

Retention Prohibitions: COPPA-covered companies, including ed tech providers, must not retain personal information collected from a child longer than…

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John Davisson, the senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a comment to The Verge that the promise that this policy won’t share data in new ways sounds good, but “the problem is that Facebook already funnels user data at industrial scale into a vast targeted advertising ecosystem. So the status quo is not good for privacy.”

Read the full article here.

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As explained by John Davisson of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, “Facebook already funnels user data at industrial scale into a vast targeted advertising ecosystem.” For Davisson, it’s “unrealistic” to believe that Facebook users will read dozens of pages about how the company is handling their data, but of course Meta will try to make it seem like the company is now more concerned about privacy.

In other words, nothing has changed, which is not good since we’re talking about Facebook.

Read the full article here.

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Often touted as a “survival superfood”, pemmican has a deep history in North America as it has sustained populations for centuries.

It is currently used as survival food or for preppers eager to bolster their reserves. It can be formed into bars or strips to be eaten as is or used in a variety of recipes for nutrition and flavor.

In our age of convenience and abundance, you don’t hear much about pemmican in mainstream educational outlets.

Packed full of nutrients, proteins, and fats you can easily meet your calorie and nutrition requirements with this indigenous tradition.

It has been adopted by modern civilizations as a way to prepare for situations where food will come by. Pemmican stores extremely well if you take the time to preserve it properly.

But how long can it last?

Pemmican has a high shelf life of anywhere between 3 years to 5 years if prepared and stored properly. The variability in how long it stores for lies in the meat quality, preparation method, and storage process.

Native cultures in North America have been using pemmican for centuries which was then acquired by the first settlers.

It was a tradeable commodity and used as both a survival food in lean times as well as a special treat during times of celebration or holidays.

Pemmican is so versatile that it’s been used in rations during times of war. Let’s look at what makes this survival food so versatile and ideal for long-term storage.

What Is Pemmican Made Of?

Pemmican consists of dried meat, animal fat, and dried fruit. Beef jerky is a popular dried meat to use because it already has a long shelf life and can add flavoring.

The dried meat is then combined with rendered animal fat (suet is popular) and dried berries. You can substitute the suet for tallow if that is more convenient for you.

It can be made with any type of meat, as long as it can be dried and pulverized into a flour-like texture.

Traditionally, bigger animals such as moose, deer, and elk are used as they make an excellent jerky.

While you can use animals such as fish, rabbits, and squirrels, they don’t have the fat content that you want to have when forming your pemmican.

The meat can be drier than typical jerky because you are going to end up smashing it into a coarse mixture and doesn’t need to be chewy.

Some people prefer chewy pemmican but the more moisture you have the less shelf life it’ll have.

The next step in making pemmican is to render your source of fat. You want to bring the fat up to temperature and then cook it for several hours.

You’ll notice bubbles forming on the top of the mixture which is an indication to keep cooking. It needs to stay at a low temperature and can be taken off when the bubbles stop forming.

Afterward, strain your fat to get rid of any particulate matter and set it aside for a few minutes. Mix your beef shred with…

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By Bulelani Jili, EPIC Scholar-in-Residence

Many Chinese tech companies continue to export their facial recognition technologies into Africa markets while supporting domestic surveillance practices that include Uyghur and ethnic minority detection. Facial recognition technology, once framed as a potential ameliorant to social challenges like crime, is now widely criticized for racial bias and the risks the technology poses to privacy and civil liberties. These risks and more are clearly present in China’s current testing and expansion of facial recognition systems in Africa. The technology’s arrival in African countries like Zimbabwe is a mark of China’s growing geopolitical footprint and Chinese corporate expansion. 

What is facial recognition technology?

Facial recognition is a digitally automated process of comparing images of human faces to determine whether they represent the same individual. This process is contingent on an algorithm that first detects a face and then is able to rotate, scale, and align the image so that every face the algorithm compares it with will be in the same position. The algorithm also aims to capture qualities like skin pigmentation and eye color. The algorithm then examines and compares faces found in a biometric dataset where it issues a numerical score reflecting the degree of similarity between the face detected and the ones found in the dataset.

 Crucially, this probabilistic approach aims to identify likely matches. 

Identifying black faces

These systems do not operate perfectly and are, in fact, plagued by inaccuracies and biases, resulting in false matches which can undermine civil liberties or failures to match correct identification which can lead to denial of access to services or functions. The substantial disparities in the accuracy of being able to identify dark-skinned people has inspired much research and urgent attention from commercial companies. Recent studies show that algorithms trained with biased data have resulted in algorithmic discrimination. For instance, Buolamwini and Gebru have produced extensive work demonstrating bias present in automated facial analysis algorithms and datasets in regard to race and gender. Purportedly in an attempt to improve accuracy in these areas, companies like CloudWalk, a Guangzhou-based start-up, have entered developing markets like Zimbabwe in part to improve their means of facial recognition. By gaining access to a black population, their algorithm will supposedly be better trained at identifying darker-skinned people. 

More to the point, computer vision systems with better performance in identifying dark-skinned people give Chinese companies a comparative advantage over Western competition. 

cloudwalk and the zimbabwean state

The Zimbabwean government, working with CloudWalk, aims to establish a mass facial recognition program. This initiative was supplemented by a grant from the Guangzhou municipality given to Cloudwalk.  The purpose of this initiative is to supposedly improve administrative and security capacity. The Zimbabwean state has insisted that these technologies would empower the state to fight crime and advance the state’s law enforcement ambitions. Yet digital rights advocates have expressed trepidations over the country’s poor human rights record and the unwarranted surveillance and collection of citizens’ biometric data. Examining how these improvements in phenotypic and demographic accuracy of facial recognition could be used or abused requires urgent…

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Many Chinese tech companies continue to export their facial recognition technologies into Africa markets while supporting domestic surveillance practices that include Uyghur and ethnic minority detection. Facial recognition technology, once framed as a potential ameliorant to social challenges like crime, is now widely criticized for racial bias and the risks the technology poses to privacy and civil liberties. These risks and more are clearly present in China’s current testing and expansion of facial recognition systems in Africa. The technology’s arrival in African countries like Zimbabwe is a mark of China’s growing geopolitical footprint and Chinese corporate expansion. 

Read more here.

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