According to the directive, where internet access is concerned, this means the ISPs must retain the user ID of users, email addresses of senders and recipients of email, the date and time that users logged on and off from a service, and their IP address — whether dynamic or static applied to their user ID.
Like most ideas of this nature, it's sold with a plausible premise of catching criminals, but if innocent people are to accept such an invasion, it must first be shown that:
The data actually DOES help catch bad guys.
The data won't be abused and misused by the government.
In the US, we fail most consistently on the second. I don't know, but I'm going to guess that Australia's track record isn't a lot better.
The world needs a simple word or term that means "the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users into sharing more info about themselves than they really want to." Suggestions?
Although we didn't specifically mention Facebook in our question, … suggestions included "Zuckermining", "Infozuckering", "Zuckerpunch" and plenty of other variations on the name of Facebook's Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Others suggested words like "Facebooking", "Facebaiting", and "Facebunk".
In the end, they went with a suggestion of "Evil Interfaces" which refers to any user interface that is designed to trick people out of their data or make them do something they don't want to do. Check out the source article for examples of the kind of "Evil Interfaces" they're talking about.
And one more thing before we go:
OK, perhaps the word "evil" is a little strong. There's no doubt that bad user-interfaces can come from good intentions. Design is difficult, and accidents do happen. But when an accident coincidentally bolsters a company's business model at the expense of its users' rights, it begins to look suspicious. And when similar accidents happen over and over again in the same company, around the same issues, it's more than just coincidence. It's a sign something's seriously wrong.
Today, Facebook removed its users' ability to control who can see their own interests and personal information. Certain parts of users' profiles, "including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests" will now be transformed into "connections," meaning that they will be shared publicly. If you don't want these parts of your profile to be made public, your only option is to delete them.
Of course, this doesn't affect me since my REAL friends already know all that stuff so I saw no reason to enter it into Facebook in the first place, but if you or someone you know has it, tell them to pull it down or put in fake data instead. Why broadcast information to strangers hoping that none of them will use it against you?
Update
It looks like Lifehacker posted an article on how to restore your privacy after the change. Check it out
Privacy groups like epic have been warning us about these things for a long time and it seems like as much as the TSA would want us to believe otherwise, we were justified in raising the alarm.
In this case a male worker at Heathrow flipped the machine on as an attractive female co-worker walked near the machine. He apparently made some lewd comments and though I haven't been able to find any sources saying what those comments were, I think I can make some general guesses.
The British House of Commons said this of the machines when they were deployed:
"Having witnessed these full-body scanners working at first-hand, we are confident that the privacy concerns that have been expressed in relation to these devices are overstated and that full-body scanners are no more an invasion of privacy than manual "pat-downs" or searches of bags," the committee said.
Oh really? A pat down and a nudie scanner are the same thing? What do you think?
LexisNexis and ChoicePoint are two of the largest data-brokers in the world. They’re only product is information about you which they buy and sell with little to no regulation of any kind. I have always wondered what kind of information they keep about us, and now I know. In the profile I ordered from them, I found not only several pieces of my personal information, but descriptions of other kinds of information that they collect. Here is a summary:
Information they Had
Full first, middle, and last name
Wife first, middle, and last name
Address history with dates and locations
Social Security Number
Full date of birth
Driver’s License Number
Vehicle VIN
Insurance history including companies, policy details, dates of coverage, accidents, claims filed, etc.
Information they Collect, but Didn’t Have For Me
Auto and property insurance history
Pre-employment background report including “personal credit information” and state driving record.
An Esteem® report which lists admitted or convicted cases of theft while visiting or working at a retail company (used by retailers for hiring).
A ScreenNow® report which displays a ChoicePoint national criminal records search of your name and personal information (used for hiring and volunteer work).
A Resident Data® history that includes personal credit information and a criminal record search (used for rental applications).
A Resident Data® eviction report used for resident screening.
FAA Aircraft Registrations
Uniform Commercial Code filings (when securing a loan with collateral).
All that aside, assume that setting your privacy controls is still better than not setting them. Facebook pulled a real jerk move recently when it required all users when they first logged in for the day to make a decision about their privacy settings. You had to click to keep your current settings, but if you didn't, it would open your profile up using the new default settings.
Though it doesn't probably change anything in the long run, it's quite satisfying to know that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, fell prey to his own tactic.
In a bit of very interesting timing, Zuckerberg’s photos have been made public to the entire internet, mostly through a post from gossip blog Gawker, after Kashmir Hill at True/Slant discovered and reported that Zuckerberg was sharing photos with a wide circle — friends of friends — and his event calendar with everyone.
Serves him right.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment about whether Zuckerberg’s changes to his privacy settings were deliberate, leadership-by-example-style actions. But in a status update on his profile (pictured above), Zuckerberg says he sets most of his content open and “didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear ”
Sure… He claims that he didn't mind that they were public and that he did it on purpose. Of course it wasn't proof positive that the settings changes are confusing and designed to nudge people out of their privacy into the public eye. Still, some would claim foul.
But why did Zuck suddenly decide to be less private than two months ago, when his settings were uber-private? You couldn’t even friend him before, and you certainly couldn’t see him shirtless..
The fact that Zuck drastically reduced his privacy settings makes me think the Facebook CEO did this accidentally, and now doesn’t want to change back for fear of the resulting PR disaster.
I wonder if Zuckerberg is regretting this move now. He can't go back towards privacy without making it seem that he's a hypocrite. Still, you have to wonder if he's going to start posting less information to his event calendar and photo albums than before since it's been forced for PR reasons to remain public.
This is so wrong, I barely know what to say. I sure hope this trend doesn't start to catch on, because a lot of people would give up the information when they're pressured instead of doing the right thing and refusing.
"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc." the form reads. But Bozeman isn't simply interested in finding out where to look for potentially embarrassing personal details; the city wants full disclosure, since the form demands username and password information for each.
Here is the contact information for the relevant people in the city if you want to ask them why they thought this would be a good idea.
And just in case someone were to change the form, here's a copy of the original found on their website:
This is for real... they actually expect you to give up your account details!
The funniest part of this is that they're trying to convince their public that it's a good idea to have a national ID card containing even more data and that they'll be responsible with that data.
Said someone from an anti-ID card group:
"It's inevitably good news for our campaign because it proves to people that this government, and indeed any government, cannot be trusted with this amount of information. For 25 million people this is a catastrophe but it is just a small herald of the national ID scheme which would mean a potential catastrophe for 60 million of us."
TJX has settled under charges that they had insufficient computer security protecting their systems, but the only thing TJX must do under the settlement is upgrade their security. Woo.
And this:
"By now, the message should be clear: companies that collect sensitive consumer information have a responsibility to keep it secure," said FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. "Information security is a priority for the FTC, as it should be for every business in America."
If after you read an article, someone comes to mind that you really want to share it with, remember to use the "Share this" button and send them an e-mail using my handy shortcut
”
