Data Anxiety

"No. This isn’t good journalism. Although it is an opinion piece, the anti-government, pro-corporate bias is disturbing, and misrepresents reality. TechCrunch alleges that eight U.S. Congressman are behaving irresponsibly by sending a written list of questions “directly to CEO, Larry Page”."

—

Comic XKCD Nails Google Glass Critics (Especially Congress) - reviewed by Ellie Kesselman - NewsTrust

The congressmen are DOING THEIR JOBS! They are supposed to protect our Fourth Amendment rights, and that is what they are doing! Google is a U.S.-domiciled company. U.S. Congressmen don’t need “to Google search” for information! The author of the article states that they “shouldn’t be permited” to address inquiries directly to the CEO of Google.

This is additionally irresponsible, as it is unfair to, and misrepresents Google. Google has not made a public statement regarding the questions, negative nor otherwise.

Apparently, TechCrunch is acting as self-appointed corporate advocate for Google (as well as misappropriating Randall Munroe’s xkcd webcomic, posting it without the requisite alt tag and text).

Going Bright

Wiretapping without Weakening Infrastructure

Abstract

“Mobile IP-based communications and changes in technologies, including wider use of peer-to-peer communication methods and increased deployment of encryption, has made wiretapping more difficult for law enforcement.”

Law enforcement wants to be able to have the same functionality used in the past, but for newer technologies. Two problems:

Extending wiretapping to Internet-based services would result in even more security risks.
It might have a negative impact on innovation.

The article suggests this as the solution:

“Law enforcement’s use of passive interception and targeted vulnerability exploitation tools creates fewer security risks for non-targets and critical infrastructure than do design mandates for wiretap interfaces.”

Is it effective? I’m inclined to believe it may be. One of the authors is a well-regarded information security professional. He is temporarily working with the Federal Trade Commission, but will return to being a teacher. That’s an understatement! “full tenured professor in Computer Science at Columbia University” is more accurate. He also is a good friend of @TheRealSpaf, which is an indicator of integrity.

Source for excerpts:

S. Bellovin, M. Blaze, S. Clark, S. Landau, Wiretapping without Weakening Communications Infrastructure, IEEE Security & Privacy, January/February 2013 Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 62-72; DOI: 1540-7993/13/

Online Tracking Jumps

Online tracking on 50 of the most-visited websites has risen sharply since 2010… The average visit to a Web page triggered 56 instances of data collection, up from just 10 instances when Krux conducted its initial study, in November 2010.

The article refers to results from Krux’s most recent study, in December 2011.

The use of (automated) online auctions by advertisers competing to purchase website visitor’s behavioral data is disturbing. Certainly the sharp increase in usage of this method is disquieting.

In real-time bidding, as soon as a user visits a Web page, the visit is auctioned to the highest bidder, based on… the type of page visited or previous web browsing by the user. To make the auctions work, advertising companies are racing to place tracking technology on as many websites as possible. That technology gives them user and Web-page data to sell.

A lot of energy and effort is being focused on what seems to be a shrinking pool of potential customers:

We’ve moved from a traditional advertising model of buying 1,000 impressions. Now you evaluate and buy a single impression.

This could be due to improvements in big data (“data harvesting”) and analysis methods.

It DOES seem odd to me, that for such a huge growth area as e-commerce, there would be competition at a single-user impression level. This is especially curious, given that it was three orders of magnitude higher, just a few years ago.

Why?

Is it due to a diminishing pool of potential customers? Fewer clicks on banner ads overall? Or something else that I haven’t even thought of.

Facebook to start asking all users to verify their phone numbers

bitshare:

In true Facebook fashion, they are trying to get every possible bit of information from their 900+ million users. The next step will be a new message that will sit atop your news feed. Some are already seeing it. The new message will ask you to “stay in control of your account” and send you over to the Facebook Security page - where you can verify your mobile number with the social giant.

Read More

As though the information that Facebook ALREADY has about users is insufficient, now they want this as well!

Facebook has offered the means to include phone number, as well as mother and father’s names, birth dates, all sorts of stuff, in one’s profile, should users want. But Facebook never requested it explicitly. It was merely a field that you could choose to fill in or leave blank and forget about.

Why now, Facebook?

I wonder what Facebook’s motive is, in choosing to push users for this information.

Well, from David’s post, the request is for mobile phone numbers only.

Ahh, okay, that answers my question!

It is part of the Facebook mobile strategic plan. This might involve a mobile phone O/S, and certainly included purchase of Instagram and even more recently Pieceable, a mobile app testing platform.

(Source: bitshare)

"So.
There’s apparently some Facebook app that allows people to answer questions about you and it shows up on your page?
My sister just read a few things that showed up on hers. People say:
- she’s a jerk
- wouldn’t look good in a bathing suit
- is dumber than britney spears
and several more like this.
Who’s bright idea was it to create that bullshit?"

—

Come on in, drop a line~:

UPDATE

The conversation that follows is between me and the woman whose younger sister had the experience described above with a new Facebook app.

dataanxiety I just reblogged your first post and was going to reblog the rest, and URLs on Twitter, because it makes me so sad about this Facebook app. It made me cry almost, because I know how much it hurts, those mean words. I want other people to be warned. But maybe you don’t want me to do that. I don’t have an agenda. Before I post, I am EllieAsksWhy on Twitter, I want to ask for your permission.

Oh, yes that’s fine. The name of that app (I just asked her) is “Between You and Me”. I have to wonder whatever else is on it, considering the questions my sister got. :( I’m seriously just… augh I never liked facebook for several superficial reasons but this is just disgusting.

It’s awesome that you’re trying to get the word out about this? :) My sister at the moment can’t find a way to block it, so if anyone gets back to you with it, can you let me know? I think it’d be good to warn other people too.

dataanxiety Okay, thank you. Is your sister under 18 years old? That makes it worse. But it honestly doesn’t matter if she’s a minor or an adult. I don’t like Facebook. I realize this kind of crud can happen in any online context. But it is particularly awful if it happens on Facebook and your friends, parents and cousins see it too. It isn’t like they’ll laugh at you, but it is humiliating anyway. You don’t need to tell me if your sister is 13 - 18 yrs old.

Yes, she is younger. She now says she tried using the app once after these things showed up on her dash (though she also says she steered clear of any negative answers because “everyone likes getting compliments but who wants to see that someone thinks their ugly or something”) to see who it was saying these things about her.

I don’t know if it shows up publicly, and neither does she. That didn’t even occur to me— I was just worried about the damaging effects it could have on the person it was intended for. :c

Yeah, this happens on tumblr all the time with rude/hate anons and such but… idk it’s like by having this app Facebook is encouraging it, if that makes sense??

(Source: facebook.com, via yaminoyume)

Another Shoe Drops on Facebook

A reader whose Facebook account was hacked wasn’t happy with the company’s efforts to assist, so he asked the Haggler for help.

Manually replicating the social graph

Attention!

All social network homophily algorithms!

This is how it really works. Please don’t replicate.

I enjoy the DIY experience. It promotes genuine serendipity. FastCompany’s Facebook-praising article (17 May 2012) does NOT describe what I consider serendipity:

Back in the late ’90s, with the arrival of sites like Amazon and Google, we bemoaned the loss of serendipity. The web was now a place where you had to know what you were looking for in order to find anything. The social network is helping shift the balance back toward discovery… it’s also making discovery possible on other sites, by giving those sites tools that let their visitors filter content by Facebook friends, e.g Yahoo that integrated with Facebook to let you see what your friends are reading on its news sites, or design store Fab, which allows you to browse a feed of items that your friends are buying and favoriting. The result is that the web is increasingly a place for serendipity, facilitated by Facebook and your friends.

Read the Disqus comments following the article. I did. Most were in agreement with me. It seems a false distinction that FastCompany makes, claiming that

“searching gives way to discovering”

That is, searching with Google was bad, but using the internet with the input from one’s social graph, as guided along by Facebook, is now “discovering”, which is good, an improvement. I think not. It is more like an intrusive invasion of privacy, to me.

So. I embarked on my little adventure, and realized to what extent my behavior was reflected by the FastCompany article. Yes, I do use Twitter. No, I don’t use Facebook nor have any suggested search options enabled in Chrome browser when I search on Google (there is plenty of tracking and nudging in place already, I realize…). I want to do things my way, without algorithm driven input from “friends” facilitated by Facebook tracking! I use Twitter or other tidbits of information as I choose. Or disregard entirely. I am sure there are behavioral effects a-plenty already, from even the non-Facebook services I use.

Anyway, this is how it went.

I read a pleasant post about English grammar, Indefinite Articles: A versus An on a blog with the subtitle “Cloud Security Infrastructure Architecture”, making it an especially welcome treat! I left a comment, which is what I am referring to above, as real, or natural, or even organic serendipity. A (very slightly modified) excerpt of my comment follows.

Organic serendipity

“Your post is accurate. It was a pleasure to read. Good job! Grammar and usage deities and demigods (and perhaps demagogue’s) will commend you for your efforts to maintain and uphold Free and Open Standards of communication, accessible to all!

In case you are curious, or even if you aren’t, I found my way here via the blog of a Lanier, Zach [@quine] who follows you. Is he related to Jared Lanier? Zach lives in Brooklyn, or so he says, and I know that Jared’s father grew up on or near Bleeker Street in Manhattan. I grew up in the same town as Jared and his father taught me at Hebrew school, well Sunday school, not on Bleeker Street though! Somewhere very far west and south of there.

I found @quine because:

I was looking at a paper posted on Twitter[PDF!!!] via @ioerror, who I only knew as someone who took happy photos on Flickr, for a long time, and
the paper was by EDIT a group in France, HOWEVER, @ioerror’s subsequent Twitter update was about an open source security company called @subgraph and seems interesting, see slides about their security product, Using and Extending Vega and
I decided to follow @attractr the leader or owner or founder of Subgraph the company and
Twitter then suggested that I follow @msuiche if I like @attractr’s content and
when I looked at @msuiche (who works for Microsoft Security, ironically, maybe), Twitter suggested young Zach, the proprietor of HipsterGenocide dot com, who follows your blog, thus bringing me here, to this delightfully grammatical post!”

"The other implication is that every website you visit that includes “tweet this” buttons or `iframe`-embedded tweets is enabling Twitter to track you on the web."

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Daring Fireball Linked List: Twitter Is Tracking You on the Web

Gee, thanks for the privacy tip, guy who uses Google Analytics on your site!

via mwfrost

HAHAHAHA.

via pegobry

Ummm… guess what: This is equally applicable with Facebook.

But the near ubiquity of Google Analytics, that distinctive

gaq UA-xxx…n

is worth noting, and should be considered a public service message to any seekers of anonymity.

* gaq always makes me laugh, every time I see it… I think ”asynchronous snippet” and GAQ (gag? quack?) will be impossible for me to ever dissociate.

(via pegobry)

thenelsontwins:

mylifeasaclown:

I don’t know what pushed me.

Hey! It probably has to do with the lame and pointlessness of Facebook. Good work!!!

I Know What You Downloaded on BitTorrent

Via TorrentFreak.

Russian service says they created this surveillance web site YouHaveDownloaded in order to raise awareness about privacy.