Category Archives: Uncategorized

Philmoco Biometric Consulting: Arkansas Fingerprint Expertise

It’s true that most of your independent consultants aren’t newcomers in their industries. (If they are newcomers, they aren’t any good.)

That’s certainly the case with Phillip Moore’s latest endeavor, Philmoco Biometric Consulting. He has worked with fingerprints for decades.

I worked with Phil after Safran acquired Motorola’s “Printrak” biometric business unit and merged it with Sagem Morpho to create MorphoTrak. (He came from Sagem Morpho, I from Printrak.) Oddly enough, we primarily worked on driver’s license proposals together (which was actually the domain of our chief competitor, Safran’s own MorphoTrust).

Before Sagem Morpho and MorphoTrak, Phil worked for NEC, Crossmatch, Smith Heimann Biometrics, and Identix. After MorphoTrak, Phil worked for Fulcrum Biometrics and other fingerprint firms.

So he knows fingerprints.

And now he’s dispensing his expertise on his own terms…to a specific geographic audience.

“I help Arkansas organizations understand fingerprinting requirements, workflows, and equipment needed to offer compliant fingerprinting services.”

Compliant with what? Compliant with requirements to submit fingerprints to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system and not having them get rejected.

So if you’re performing fingerprinting in Arkansas, Phil’s your expert. Reach him via Facebook.

“Accept Without Posting” Issue Resolved…Even Though I Appeared To Be Very Evil

Here’s the resolution to the “Accept Without Posting” issue that I discussed on Saturday.

You’ll recall that I initiated a Zelle transfer to my account at “the blue bank,” but the blue bank “placed this transfer on hold so they can conduct further review.”

With no word on what the blue bank was reviewing. And the “blue bank” representative whom I spoke with on Saturday didn’t know either.

  • I had already ruled out the simple explanations, such as either the sending Zelle account or the receiving Zelle account didn’t exist.
  • I figured that perhaps my use of Zelle was the issue. The day before I sent the “on hold” transaction, I had sent another transaction. I figured that two transactions in two days tripped up some odd alert of possible account draining.

Neither of these turned out to be the issue.

On Monday (just after I had rated the “blue bank” 5 out of 10 for its handling of the issue; coincidence, or no?) I received a call from someone at my local “blue bank” branch.

Turns out that the issue was the COMMENT that I attached to the Zelle transfer.

My comment referenced another individual. Without revealing this person’s personally identifiable information (PII), I will state that his first name begins with a K, his last name begins with a P, and he is a “Junior.” So because acronyms are wonderful, I referred to this person as “KP2” in the Zelle transfer field.

Which was an extremely evil thing to do, because that tripped up an anti-money laundering check.

“AML.” Google Lyria. Public Domain.

Basically, anti-money laundering checks verify that a person isn’t transferring money for a sanctioned person.

And I didn’t trip up just ANY anti-money laundering check.

This one was bad.

AML catches evil people.

Really bad.

AML catches evil people.

How bad?

  • Let’s look at ISO 3166 country codes. The alpha 2-digit country code for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is…KP. KP-02 is the specific administrative code for South Pyongan Province (Pyeonganbuk-do).
  • And the Korean People’s Army includes a II Corps that is sometimes abbreviated as…KPA II Corps or KPA 2nd Corps.

Back to the call I received from my local “blue bank” branch. The representative didn’t go into all that, but just said that my comment about “KP2” looked like a reference to North Korea.

I burst out laughing.

I gave the “blue bank” representative the full name of K[REDACTED] P[REDACTED] Junior, explained that there were five “KP”s, and that I used numbers to tell them apart.

Ironically, both “KP2” and “KP4” are veterans. I wonder if they realize their initials associate them with this guy.

Kim Jong Un. By Mil.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177498377.

Anyway, my answer satisfied the banker, the hold was removed from the Zelle transfer, and I received the money within minutes.

And I know to be careful when using acronyms beginning with the letter “K” in financial transactions.

Third/Fourth Party Risk Management and Age Verification

Let’s say a bar wants to check the ages of its patrons, but does not want to use the patron’s physical ID card (in my country, usually a driver’s license).

But a bar cannot perform digital age verification on its own. The bar has to contract with some other entity that knows how to do this.

This freaks some people out…massively.

“New cybersecurity research indicates that one of the world’s leading age verification providers collects and shares highly sensitive personal data—including facial photos and device fingerprints—with third parties.”

The research, conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology and UC Irvine, focused on one of the big age verification vendors, Yoti.

“The research team determined that the process Yoti uses to verify a person’s age broadcasts the person’s personal information to third- and fourth-party companies….

“According to the researchers, the data is…sent to credit card companies, IP geolocation services, and data brokers. The researchers found that the information being shared can be used to identify and track devices. For example, a single verification attempt may transmit a user’s facial image, IP address, and device fingerprint to credit card companies.”

Yet to my knowledge the researchers did not propose an alternative.

Other than having each entity develop its own age verification system. Perhaps someone like Meta could do that, but Frank’s Bar certainly couldn’t.

Age verification is not unique in terms of data sharing. Third Party and Fourth Party Risk Management vendors encounter these issues all the time. And yes, sometimes companies that have other companies’ data are hacked. That’s why they use TPRM in the first place.

Image source: GET Group NA, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/get-mobile-verify/id1501552424.

And don’t forget that if you don’t use digital age verification, you’re going to use physical age verification, where the guy behind the bar learns EVERYTHING about you. I don’t think that’s necessarily better.

It’s time to think through the consequences of abandoning technology.

What is AI “Retreading”?

You’ve probably noticed my repeated ridicule of companies who ONLY talk about their use of AI. And my concurrent wonder about how car companies never talk about “tire intelligence,” or “TI.”

After all, tires are critically important to car companies, just as AI is critically important to tech companies. But car companies don’t hammer their prospects by interjecting “TI” into every conversation and advertisement.

So it’s time to delve into tires…and one important aspect of the tire industry.

Sailun and retreads

Retreading:

“Retreading has been part of the commercial tire industry for decades, yet for some fleets, hesitation still remains.”

And for individuals. I am personally reluctant to buy a retread.

But Sailun, a tire manufacturer, believes my reluctance is outmoded.

“Concerns around safety, consistency, and durability are often rooted in outdated perceptions of how today’s retread process works. In reality, modern programs follow controlled, standardized procedures shaped by engineering, inspection protocols, and widespread industry adoption.

“Today, nearly 90% of large trucking fleets rely on retreads, and an estimated 44% of commercial truck tires currently in service are in their second life or beyond.”

For details on how some tires (cough, cough, Sailun) are ideally suited for retreading, read the article.

Now let’s delve into AI.

Your favorite LLM…and retreads

Is there an AI equivalent to retreads?

The question initially sounds silly. Every AI prompt is brand new.

But there’s a cost to always getting new responses. A huge cost.

“An anonymous AI consultant told Axios that one of its clients accidentally spent half a billion dollars in a single month because it never bothered to put a usage limit on employee access to Anthropic’s Claude. That is… a lot. Like to the point of straining credulity.”

Even big companies don’t have half a billion dollars to waste on tokens. They would have to fire EVERYBODY, including all their executives and their boards of directors, to fund that level of AI use.

But before a company does something as drastic as actually firing an executive, perhaps it could look at a “retread” strategy.

Take the knowledge gained from AI prompts and store it for future reference without requiring tokens to be burned.

(Bredemarket does this all the time, even though I’m not charged by the token.)

Admittedly the re-use (retreading) of old information lessens exposure to new, updated information. But if AI is getting dumber anyway, that’s a good thing.

Promo For “It’s Time”

I still haven’t natively shared yesterday’s “It’s Time” video on my socials.

And I probably won’t until early Monday morning Pacific Daylight Time (mid-morning in the East). I want to maximize its visibility.

But I plan to reel in Sunday scaries folks by sharing this teaser.

“It’s Time” promo. Google Lyria/Gemini.

Let’s Go

Here we…go.

Behind the scenes

In the ultimate example of repurposing, I adapted the Bredemarket promotional video “It’s Time” to serve as a vehicle for my search for full-time employment—an embedded position with employer benefits.

Yes, many of the video’s themes are identical to those I emphasize in my Bredemarket consulting…because…I am Bredemarket. Even my AI helper Bredebot knows this.

And I use the same Google Lyria song.

“Liturgy of the Falling Rain.” Google Lyria.

Let’s Go

Here is my repurposed personal version of a Bredemarket video.

“Let’s Go.” Google Lyria/Gemini.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbredehoft