Is TikTok really dangerous?

Much is being written about the risks of using TikTok. Governments and some corporations are banning the app. Let's understand what privacy and security risks are and are not raised by TikTok.

Like every other social media platform — Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and on and on — TikTok knows what videos you watch and for how long. TikTok knows what kind of phone you have and your approximate location. In the same way, Google scans every email you send or receive on Gmail. There is simply no way to avoid this; permission for the social media provider to do so is written into the Terms of Service, and despite what you may read on Facebook, you cannot alter the Terms of Service by posting a notice (or by any other means).

Messages between TikTok users are not encrypted. TikTok has full access to that message content, and so does anyone else in transit. Many but not all social platforms have a more secure messaging implementation. Of course, regular email is not encrypted either. Never put anything in an email or a social media message that you don't want to be made public. And for heaven's sake, don't put significant personal information like a Social Security Number or a credit card number into an unencrypted email or message.

If you grant TikTok permissions on your device, it will know your exact location, all the details of your contacts, your age, your phone number, and any payment information that is stored in your phone. That's true for every other social media platform. But here's the critical thing: you have control over whether TikTok can access this information. On an iPhone, all these permissions are off by default. You must enable them, although TikTok will repeatedly ask you to do exactly that. You do not have to say Yes.

In the same way, if you allow it, TikTok will have full access to the microphone and every camera in your phone. If you want to create your own TikTok video, you have no choice but to allow this. If you simply watch other people's videos, TikTok will not access your microphone or camera.

In 2020, Apple detected that the iOS TikTok app was accessing the clipboard on a user's device — even when the clipboard data came from another app. TikTok fixed this. Whether it was intentional or just lazy programming, I can't say.

There is no two-factor authentication in TikTok. Your password may be easily compromised unless it is strong.

I believe many people distrust TikTok specifically because it's Chinese. Well, I have friends in China and they have the same feeling about operating systems and apps from the United States. I don't know what the long-term future of China-U.S. relations are. Some people believe a war over Taiwan is inevitable. I don't believe that's the case, although it certainly could happen. I hope not.

My thoughts on Roe v Wade

Today's overturning of Roe v Wade is the biggest news at the Supreme Court since their decision on Bush v Gore that settled the 2000 presidential election, for better or worse. Personally, I believe abortion should be permitted. That's not my point in this blog, though.

Relying on case law — and that's what Supreme Court opinions are — to provide a right is a tricky proposition. Case law can and does change, as we have seen. Yes, there is a legal concept stare decisis that courts should not routinely change case law. Otherwise, the administration of justice would be unmanageable.

The question is, how firm should stare decisis be? Courts make errors, and the Supreme Court has made some whoppers. Here are thirteen. Whatever your political persuasion, you will probably find some cases among those that cry for reversal. We need some flexibilty when applying stare decisis.

The majority of the current Supreme Court has, it appears, taken a view that stare decisis is less important than getting something right — in their opinion. I wonder how much case law will now be open to revision. This could be the advent of a golden age for appellate lawyers.

There are alternatives to relying upon case law.

If you want to secure a right in the strongest manner possible, write it into the state and federal Constitutions. That's how we got the Bill of Rights. The whole debate over gun control and the Second Amendment is predicated on a constitutional right. There can still be disputes about the interpretation and application of that right, but you start from the high ground when the Constitution says something in your favor in plain language.

The next best course of action is to have your right established by legislative law (or the absence thereof). It's not as permanent as a constitutional provision, and it's also subject to both executive and judicial interpretation and application. But it's better than relying on case law.

Today's ruling puts abortion into the domain of legislative law, which is created by directly elected officials who, presumably, are more attuned to the will of the public than the judges who write case law and whose rulings are constrained by judicial practice. I always thought the mechanism to decide Roe v Wade was a stretch even though I agreed with the outcome.

The challenge for those who wanted to see Roe v Wade remain intact is to mobilize politically in a quest for legislative law or outright constitutional guarantee at the state level, the federal level, or both. Relying solely on state constitutions and state laws, of course, creates the possibility that something is legal in one state and illegal in another. Well, that's been the case since 1787. A change to the federal Constitution is the best answer, but it's the most difficult to obtain. Ask anyone who supports the Equal Rights Amendment.

Countries that won't go on record as opposing Putin

All you really need to know is the outcome of the vote on the UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1. 141 countries voted to adopt the resolution. 5 countries voted to reject the resolution:

• Belarus,
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
• Eritrea,
• Russia, and
• Syria.

No surprises there. Belarus is fully under the control of Vladimir Putin. Kim Jong-un probably sees Putin as a role model. Eritrea is a dictatorship that Putin probably sees as a role model. The government of Syria remains in power because of Russian military intervention.

What's more interesting is the list of abstentions on ES-11/1. I've arranged these countries geographically.

• Africa: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
• Americas: Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
• Asia: Armenia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan.

I'm not surprised by how many African countries did not want to go on record as crossing Putin. Russia does not have a history of cruel imperialism in Africa, but western Europe certainly does. And, dating back to the Soviet Union, many of these African countries have been trading partners with Russia or have received developmental assistance.

But South Africa? That's an eye-opener.

Likewise, I'm not surprised by how many Asian countries abstained. India and China are playing the middle, at least for now. Many of the others have a common border with Russia ("we could be next").

As for the Americas, note that Cuba — the most strident supporter of Communism in the Americas throughout my life —  did not oppose the UN resolution outright. I wonder to what extent the positions of Bolivia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua reflect antipathy toward the United States.

The Raleigh News and Observer reports that Minnesota-based Compute North has withdrawn its request to the Pitt County, NC Board of Commissioners for permission to build a massive data center.

Good.

Nearby residents had complained about the noise that would be generated by the 1,246 fans required to cool the facility, which would be as close as 1,000 feet to existing homes. Opponents also noted that Compute North had chosen a parcel in a census tract where the majority of residents are Black or Hispanic. This would have been another instance of putting an environmentally undesirable facility in the backyards of poor people.

Those are excellent reasons why the Pitt County commissioners should have denied permission to build. But there's a different reason why I'm delighted that the project is dead.

The data center would have consumed 150 megawatts of power. To put this in perspective, the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant near Raleigh generates 900 megawatts when it's operating at 100%. Yes, that's right, a single data center would have consumed the equivalent of one-sixth of the entire nuclear plant.

If this were Google, Amazon, or Apple's data center, I wouldn't object. Those companies provide services to paying customers. But Compute North wanted to build this $54 million data center for bitcoin mining, a for-profit activity that benefits no one except the miners — and only when the price of bitcoin, which has gyrated wildly over the years, is high enough to justify the expense of the electricity.

China, which is chronically short on electricity and also deeply suspicious of cryptocurrency (and probably for good reason), recently tossed bitcoin miners out of the country. Now those miners are looking for other places. Imagine that… China is outsourcing an undesirable business to the United States. Welcome to the new world.

Before you say that the data center's enormous appetite for electricity could have been met with solar, bear in mind that the data center will run at full capacity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The sun doesn't shine that much.

Before you say that the data center would generate jobs, bear in mind that Compute North's filing indicated that the data center would be largely unstaffed during operation. Well, of course — the bit miners' profitability would be decreased if the data center actually needed employees.

Compute North pointed out that the data center could be used for purposes other than, or in addition to, bit mining. That's like saying that a school bus could be used to deliver Amazon packages. Yes, it's technically possible but that's not why school buses are built and it's how how 99.99% of school buses are used.

Good riddance, Compute North.

To clarify vaccination and masks

Vaccination and masks are both crucial at the moment, but they accomplish different things.

In the context of the delta strain, vaccination:

• reduces the possibility that you develop symptomatic illness,
• greatly reduces the possibility that you require hospitalization,
• nearly eliminates the possibility of your death,
• saves a space in a hospital for someone else who has serious Covid or a problem unrelated to Covid (car accident, heart attack, stroke, cancer surgery, etc), and
• reduces financial stress on the insurance providers (another reason why employers are beginning to require vaccination before their employees can return to the office.)

If everyone gets vaccinated, the hospitals will get back to a sustainable patient load. Well, except for the pediatric ICUs.

In the context of the delta strain, a mask:

• nearly eliminates the possibility that you pass the virus to someone else, and
• if the mask is a true N95 and is properly worn, greatly reduces the possibility that you acquire the virus.

If everyone wore a mask in a public place, the pandemic would subside.

As long as the pandemic is raging, I don't want to be in a public indoor place unless 100% of the people are wearing masks 100% of the time. I'm vulnerable indoors when someone else — anyone but my wife  — isn't wearing a mask, except when I'm wearing an N95. For the time being, this rules out indoor restaurants except to duck in the door briefly and get takeout.

Gatherings with friends are no exception. There are many anecdotes of small parties where half the people attending came down with Covid. If you hold a party at your house or you're invited to one, consider the mask situation carefully.

Another example: when I visit a former neighbor who's now living in an assisted living facility, I wear an N95.

Outdoors is ok without masks as long as air can move freely and everyone truly is outdoors. I don't believe a football stadium filled to the brim on a day with stagnant wind is safe. Besides, people in stadiums will still line up at metal detectors, concession stands, and bathrooms. That's an N95 situation for me, if I go at all.

Your mileage may vary. I'm at higher risk than the average person, so I'm being more cautious than perhaps you care to be. But remember, 25-40% of the population is at higher risk (age, weight, preexisting medical conditions such as diabetes, etc). If you are at higher risk, give thought to where you personally draw the line on your exposure.

But for God's sake, get vaccinated and wear a mask when you're in public indoors. Just yesterday I stared down another customer at the tire store. Eventually he pulled a mask out of his pocket and put it on.

How long will COVID-19 be around?

Yesterday I entered a shop that I frequent. Noticing that the front door has a sign requiring masks now that Raleigh has reinstated its requirement to wear them, I asked the owner Brian about the outlook for his business. He shook his head and said, "I'm so tired of this."

I hate to say it, but this might go on for years.

You don't hear much about herd immunity from COVID-19 these days. The available vaccines aren't bullet-proof against mild infection or contagion by the B.1.617.2 (delta) variant, which was first detected in India just nine months ago. About the only defenses we have against contagion of delta at present are masks and social distancing.

That's not to say that vaccination is useless against delta. It prevents serious illness among nearly all people, except those who are severely immuno-compromised or have another life-threatening condition. ("Nearly all" remains to be better defined by statistics. We should get better statistics in another two months or so.) Please, please encourage your unvaccinated family and friends to get the shots — and continue to fight against misinformation about the vaccines.

But as this article indicates, it's likely that new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to emerge around the world from time to time. Save the topic of how immoral it is that so few Africans are being vaccinated for another blog post someday. International travel isn't going to stop, so agencies like CDC and its counterparts in other countries will be challenged to identify, track, and manage the emergence and spread of these variants.

In short, don't be surprised if we see epsilon, zeta, and eta. They won't necessarily be more contagious or more deadly than delta, and they won't necessarily evade the original vaccines any better than delta does. But it's possible. And the economic and political reality is that it could take decades (plural!) to attain the success against COVID-19 that we've achieved worldwide for polio or smallpox.

Unless medical science can develop a vaccine that is effective across a wide range of coronaviruses or a treatment that reduces the mortality rate of any coronavirus infection to near zero, this threat to public health will be on our radar for the foreseeable future.

Chick-fil-A is tearing down relatively new restaurants to install multiple drive-through lanes despite the loss of indoor square footage. They're onto something.

How fast do things change, really?

This is the first of a three-part series.

As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to abate, movie theaters are reopening in many areas of the U.S. (although subject to limitations). But some movie theaters that closed during the pandemic — such as the one closest to where I live — have decided not to reopen at all, believing that the business will never recover.

It's very difficult to assess how many people have permanently switched to streaming as their preferred or only way to consume new entertainment. Clearly the powers in Hollywood, like Disney, intend that some new releases will be streamed exclusively. The flip side of the question is that a big screen with big sound can still be a pleasurable experience, and most people do like to get out of their homes on occasion. Teenagers need places to take dates, for example.

It's not the first time that the survival of movie theaters has been questioned. Predictions of the demise of movie theaters were widespread 70 years ago when television entered its mass-market stage. In retrospect, those predictions were only half right. Some movie theaters did close, especially the large ones in downtowns that were deteriorating. But suburban movie theaters, particularly multi-screen theaters, actually thrived despite TV.

Many also predicted that VCR and DVD sales and rentals would hurt movie theaters. That turned out to be true for art houses specializing in exhibiting old movies; they were vulnerable to Criterion Collection DVDs available from Netflix. But it wasn't true overall.

If you own a shopping center, this question is top-of-mind because you might get stuck with a lot of empty real estate if your movie theater tenant goes out of business… and you can't count on leasing that space to retailers because they're being run out of business by Amazon and Walmart.com. If you're an investor or a creditor of the large movie theater chains (AMC, Regal, and Cinemark) that borrowed a ton of money during the last 25 years to expand, you are justified in worrying that your investment is at risk. And if you're a farmer who grows popcorn or the employee of a candy maker, your own livelihood could be threatened.

I'm not that interested in the movie business, but it's an example of how quickly things might or might not change. People who can accurately forecast the rate of change can make a killing. Knowing the direction that a trend is taking is one thing. That's merely being observant and imaginative. Knowing the pace and the extent of the trend is something else. That's a rare skill. Corporations pay top dollar to get those skills in-house or to engage consultants with those skills.

Parts II and III of this series will look at gasoline stations and the travel industry (specifically, hotels and airlines). They're facing major change, too.