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Irish MEP serving as a rapporteur on reform of the EU data protection regime, was given an award by an advertising trade group last month:
Sean Kelly, Fine Gael MEP for Ireland South [who serves as the EU’s Industry Committee Rapporteur for the General Data Protection Regulation], has been selected to receive the prestigious IAB Europe Award for Leadership and Excellence for his approach to dealing with privacy concerns over shortcomings in the European Commission’s data protection proposal. IAB Europe represents more than 5,500 online advertising media, research and analytics organisations.
(tags: iab-europe awards spam sean-kelly ireland meps politics eu data-protection privacy ec)
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No subject appears to be more controversial to distributed systems engineers than the oft-quoted, oft-misunderstood CAP theorem. The purpose of this FAQ is to explain what is known about CAP, so as to help those new to the theorem get up to speed quickly, and to settle some common misconceptions or points of disagreement.
(tags: database distributed nosql cap consistency cap-theorem faqs)
seeing into the UV spectrum after Cataract Surgery with Crystalens
I’ve been very happy so far with the Crystalens implant for Cataract Surgery […] one unexpected/interesting aspect is I see a violet glow that others do not – perhaps I’m more sensitive to the low end of the visible light spectrum.
(via Tony Finch)(tags: via:fanf science perception augmentation uv light sight cool cataracts surgery lens eyes)
Instagram: Making the Switch to Cassandra from Redis, a 75% ‘Insta’ Savings
shifting data out of RAM and onto SSDs — unsurprisingly, big savings.
a 12 node cluster of EC2 hi1.4xlarge instances; we store around 1.2TB of data across this cluster. At peak, we’re doing around 20,000 writes per second to that specific cluster and around 15,000 reads per second. We’ve been really impressed with how well Cassandra has been able to drop into that role.
(tags: ram ssd cassandra databases nosql redis instagram storage ec2)
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Oh god. this sounds like an impending privacy and anti-spam disaster. “business-focussed”:
Overall, the [Irish EC Presidency’s] draft compromise text can be seen as a more business-focused, pragmatic approach. For example, the Presidency has drafted an additional recital (Recital 3a), clarifying the right to data protection as a qualified right, highlighting the principle of proportionality and importance of other competing fundamental rights, including the freedom to conduct a business.
and some pretty serious relaxation of how consent for use of personal data is measured:The criterion for valid consent is amended from “explicit” to “unambiguous,” except in the case of processing special categories of data (i.e., sensitive personal data) (Recital 25 and Article 9(2)). This reverts to the current position under the Data Protection Directive and is a concession to the practical difficulty of obtaining explicit consent in all cases. The criteria for valid consent are further relaxed by the ability to obtain consent in writing, orally or in an electronic manner, and where technically feasible and effective, valid consent can be given using browser settings and other technical solutions. Further, the requirement that the controller bear the burden of proof that valid consent was obtained is limited to a requirement that the controller be able to “demonstrate” that consent was obtained (Recital 32 and Article 7(1)). The need for “informed” consent is also relaxed from the requirement to provide the full information requirements laid out in Article 14 to the minimal requirements that the data subject “at least” be made aware of: (1) the identity of the data controller, and (2) the purpose(s) of the processing of their personal data (Recitals 33 and 48).
(tags: anti-spam privacy data-protection spam ireland eu ec regulation)
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wow, great view of which MEPs are eviscerating the EU’s data protection regime:
Currently the EU is negotiating about new data privacy laws. This new EU Regulation will replace all existing national laws on data privacy. Here you can see a general overview which Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are pushing for more or less data privacy. Choose a country, a political group or a MEP from the “Top 10” list to find out more.
(tags: europe eu privacy data-protection datap ec regulation meps)