Andrew Hoffman’s Blog

As I sit and tirelessly read my BarBri bar review outlines and watch the lectures, sometimes my mind drifts off. There’s just so much law to review learn for the first time that it gets tedious sometimes. I think about how studying for the bar could be more exciting and what I would do if I were to start my own bar review company one day. I think my bar review company would have to involve Mr. T as the primary lecturer.

BarBri has a pretty good thing going with Chuck Shonholtz, one of the BarBri main lecturers. He has that cocky attitude that I love and hate at the same time. Chuck has called his viewers “sucker[s]” and “hippie[s]” and threatened to come to the viewers’ houses and kick us if we were to read a hornbook on the rule against perpetuities (not that I would ever do that!). He also said that viewers must use “common-freakin’-sense” in answering Multistate questions—does that imply that if we get the answer wrong, we have no common sense? And then he makes bombastic statements like, “the LORD does not look favorably upon jerks.” He does a good job.

But what Chuck does well, I think Mr. T could do better. Mr. T already has at least a 25 year record of “pity[ing] the fool,” a record I think Chuck is trying to emulate. Although Chuck does a good job, I think a Mr. T bar lecture would be more exciting. Mr. T could toss in his catch phrases to liven things up—who wouldn’t want to hear Mr. T say “don’t make me mad” and then growl? He could weave the phrase “shut up, fool” into his examples. Or if people were talking in the live lecture, he could say, “quit your jibba jabba!” These are things I would pay to hear and I think would make studying a little more exciting.

Additionally, Mr. T already has a long-established record of advocating for education and perseverance, qualities that are necessary to pass the bar exam. He is a fierce advocate of good study habits, as evidenced by his 1984 motivational video, “Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool,” in which he rapped (at 2:55 in the video):

You better study real hard and stay in school /
And everybody knows Mr. T don’t knock /
And it ain’t no fun just scrapin’ by /
So if you want to be cool, just like me, /
You better try real hard to be somebody

With the broad U.S. economy arguably in a recession and the legal market suffering massive layoffs, passing the bar now is of the utmost importance. To “be somebody” and avoid “just scrapin’ by,” a law school graduate must procure legal employment; to accomplish this, passing the bar exam is necessary. I think Mr. T knows what’s best.

Many people with Facebook accounts have logged on to Facebook to find a photo of them tagged that they would rather not have others see. Sometimes the photo is so embarrassing or scandalous that the person depicted in the photo will ask the poster of the photo to remove the photo from Facebook. But often, detagging the photo is a reasonable alternative: although the photo will still be accessible through Facebook, others’ attention is no longer drawn to the photo by a tag and the photo is rendered into practical obscurity. In other words, the photo is difficult to find and is accessible only by browsing through the poster’s entire photo album.

Face.com’s Photo Finder application may mean that photo de-tagging is no longer a realistic option. Photo Finder is a facial recognition application designed for Facebook that will traverse through all of a user’s photos and all the photos of friends that are accessible to the user and attempt to recognize faces. Thus, if I can see Sally’s photos and install the Photo Finder application, the application can also see Sally’s photos. Photo Finder will then “auto-tag” those photos it thinks contains Sally’s face. Note that an “auto-tag” only exists within the Photo Finder application—the “auto-tag” is not stored on the Facebook photo itself—so a person who does not have Photo Finder installed would not know of the “auto-tag.” After Photo Finder “auto-tags” Sally’s photo, any of Sally’s friends with the Photo Finder application installed can see her “auto-tagged” photo unless Sally user chooses to hide the “auto-tag” first through the Photo Finder application.

As Professor Desai noted regarding iPhoto’s facial recognition software, this type of technology can have tremendous implications for (government) tracking of individuals. Although the Photo Finder developers state that they’re “not about encouraging stalkers, embarrassing anyone, or selling information to some basement dwelling government orgs,” this is a potentially unavoidable result of their application’s existence. And while face.com promises not to sell the information to the government, I wonder if the fourth amendment would preclude the government from using the Photo Finder technology. After all, doesn’t posting photos on Facebook constitute a voluntary conveyance of information? Would allowing your photo to be taken implicate the third party doctrine, thus barring any reasonable expectation of privacy? Would a user’s acquiescence to a photo remaining on Facebook when detagged bear on the fourth amendment analysis?

It’s not so far-fetched to think that Facebook photos will be used by the government against a defendant. Although there is no suggestion that face.com’s Photo Finder application was used in this scenario, already Facebook photos have been offered to show that an underage DUI defendant was not complying with a court order to abstain from alcohol consumption and to avoid being around people who are drinking. Presumably those photos were tagged; but even if they were not, Photo Finder possibly could have been used to locate those damning photos if they were posted on Facebook. In the context of divorce proceedings, Time Magazine reported that Facebook profiles have been referred to as “evidentiary gold mines.”

Currently, the Photo Finder privacy protections are too limited; they must be expanded to protect user privacy sufficiently. Currently, Photo Finder allows Sally to hide her “auto-tag” on photos in which Photo Finder thinks Sally is pictured. However, to hide this “auto-tag,” Sally must actually install Photo Finder, which in turn will grant Photo Finder access to scan potentially even more photos that might contain Sally. Although Photo finder is in alpha testing now, Sally can still install the application to view the photos that Photo Finder has found of her so far and choose to hide the “auto-tag” it placed on those photos; but without an invitation to be an alpha tester, she will not be able to view her friends’ “auto-tags.”

Improving privacy controls on Photo Finder should not be too difficult. First, users absolutely should be given the option to opt-out of having their photos scanned and having any of their “auto-tags” appear to anyone, ever, in the Photo Finder application. Thus, Sally should be able to say to Photo Finder, “never auto-tag me.” If Sally does not opt-out of the Photo Finder application, Sally should be given advanced notice when Photo Finder detects Sally in an otherwise untagged photo. Sally should then be given a limited period of time to respond before Photo Finder broadcasts that embarrassing photo’s existence to others. I wish Facebook itself would implement a similar privacy control with photo tagging, rather than making tags accessible instantaneously. Facebook users need to be given more control over a third party’s actions on Facebook that implicate the user.

Although Photo Finder is a new technology, the privacy concerns it raises seem eerily similar to Facebook’s development and release of the newsfeed in 2006–before the newsfeed was incorporated into Facebook, information Sally placed on her Facebook profile was not broadcasted to her friends; rather, Sally’s friend would have to visit Sally’s profile to view any updates. Facebook only implemented privacy controls for the newsfeed after users protested the broadcasting of information that was once practically obscure. And to date, the protest group still contains over 182,000 members. And now I fear that the Photo Finder application raises similar concerns, as it provides the capability to broadcast the existence of photos that Sally detagged in the first instance with no significant privacy controls. Will protests against Facebook and the face.com developers be forthcoming? Only time will tell.

Users, beware. If you think that simply detagging a photo is a good solution to maintain your privacy, think again. With face.com’s Photo Finder now in existence, asking the poster of the photo to remove it may be the only way. If you’re concerned that Photo Finder may have found untagged or detagged photos of you already, you should consider installing the application to see if it has found any photos depicting you.

I first heard of Kiva in 2006 when Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering micro-lending to the poor. Although I thought micro-lending through Kiva was a great concept when I first heard of it, I simply put Kiva to the back of my mind and never actually made any loans through the site. It wasn’t until my rather unsatisfying experience with for-profit lending in the United States that I began to consider lending with Kiva. I decided to contribute $500 in loans to assist entrepreneurs and small-business owners in the developing world because I think these micro-finance loans, in the aggregate, truly have the potential to help improve the quality of life in the developing world and to reduce poverty abroad.

For those who are unfamiliar, Kiva is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that helps to make available micro-finance loans in the developing world in amounts ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Lenders offer their money interest-free to Kiva, which sets a $25 minimum increment for each loan made. The money from multiple lenders is pooled and then distributed to entrepreneurs who pay interest on the loans, albeit at a drastically lower rate than would otherwise be available to them from local lenders. Although interest rates of 26%, for example, might seem usurious to U.S. citizens, consider that the only available alternative to some of these entrepreneurs are loans at the rate of 80-120% APY.

I think these Kiva loans have the potential to improve the quality of life of the recipients of the loans. These loans reward hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit; there’s no sense of entitlement to these funds amongst the loan applicant. As far as I can tell, the loan recipients use the money they receive to help build their small businesses. These loans aren’t a handout; they need to be repaid on a schedule. These loans allow for the creation of wealth, which in the aggregate, will help to pull people in these developing countries out of poverty. It’s a concept that I can–and now do–support.

One aspect of Kiva that really intrigues me is the low default rate on the loans. As of June 10, 2009, the default rate for Kiva is listed at only 1.65% with a delinquency rate of 5.06%! As I understand it, this means that for every $1,000 of loans made, on average, only $16.50 ultimately will be uncollectable.

Compare that low default rate to one of my for-profit ventures, writing unsecured loans on Prosper.com to individuals in the United States. I think the results really say a lot about the level of financial responsibility of entrepreneurs in the developing world, versus loan seekers in the United States (note: not all of my loans on Prosper were for entrepreneurial purposes, so a direct comparison isn’t possible). On Prosper, I contributed about $50 to 54 separate loans at an average interest rate of 14.29%. Fifteen loans defaulted, and two more are currently involved in pending bankruptcy proceedings–I expect these to be discharged, as well. That puts my default rate at 31.48%, nineteen times higher than the default rate on Kiva loans in the developing world! I’ll be lucky if I break even!

Thus, I decided to write $500 worth of loans with Kiva, re-loaning the repaid funds to other entrepreneurs. So far, I have made twenty $25 loans to entrepreneurs around the globe. The average loan term of my loans is about 10 months, so I should receive around $50 back each month, assuming there are no delinquencies or defaults (probably wishful thinking). Thus, I could fund an additional two loans each month and assist a total of 24 entrepreneurs in the developing world each year.

I encourage everyone to sign up for Kiva and contribute $25 to at least one loan to an entrepreneur in the developing world. Given their low default rate, chances seem pretty good that you’ll get your money back. You can view the loans that I’ve funded here.

I just received an email today informing me that I passed the exam to become a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP)!

The CIPP is a certification provided by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). The CIPP certification covers U.S. federal laws for the protection of personal information, U.S. federal regulation of marketing practices, U.S. state data breach notification laws, and the regulation of workplace privacy. Before receiving CIPP certification, one must pass the Privacy Foundation exam which covers global approaches to privacy, information security, and online privacy.

The IAPP website is http://www.privacyassociation.org/.