Reset the Net - net privacy

A good video that explains what Reset the Net is and why it is important.

Mobile data and security [infographic]

Electronic Health Records - metadata and your health [infographic]

Interesting overview of health records and metadata

Should you post a selfie? [infographic]

Kind of humorous but some good practical advice!

Facebook privacy updates; Open Graph false advice post are circulating again

 So the Facebook / Open Graph privacy posts are making the rounds again. Facebook does have a pending privacy change  but they are holding off on it due to concerns  (seriously - did you vote? I did) . I've written about this before, but since it's going around again (and probably will every time facebook changes), it's a timely topic. 

REMEMBER YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL YOUR OWN PRIVACY SETTINGS

Easy solution, use friends only (another option create a closed list) 

• Only me = only you
• Friends = Only those that you are friends with (not pages or public accounts you follow UNLESS they are in your friend list) 
• Friends of friends = everyone within the network of EACH of your friends (you can see how this is a potential for trouble, can't you?)
• Public = the world

Unfortunately, the fake post below (or some variation) keeps going around. It's just not the way facebook works. If you "unsubscribe" from someone's content, you're just not seeing it. They are still broadcasting; you're still broadcasting. If their settings are public, they are still broadcasting to the world (you've just turned the channel).  Apps will override settings sometimes (games, instagram, etc.) so ALL privacy settings need to be checked.
  More information at http://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/graphapp.asp
A sample of the post:
Hello to all of you who are on my list of contacts of Facebook. I would like to ask a favor of you: You may not know that Facebook has changed its privacy configuration once again. Thanks to the new “Graphic app,” any person on FB anywhere in the world can see our photos, our “likes,” and our “comments”. During the next two weeks, I am going to keep this message posted and I ask you to do the following and comment “DONE.” Those of my friends who do not maintain my information in private will be eliminated from my list of friends, because I want the information I share with you, my friends, to remain among my friends and not be available to the whole world. I want to be able to publish photos of my friends and family without strangers being able to see them, which is what happens now when you choose “like” or “comment”.

SO THE FOLLOWING DOESN'T WORK:
Unfortunately, we cannot change this configuration because FB has made it like this.
1. So, please, place your cursor over my photo that appears in this box (without clicking) and a window will open.
2. Now move the cursor to the word “Friends,” again without clicking and then click on “Settings.”
3. Uncheck “Life Events” and “Comments and Likes.” This way, my activity with my family and friends will no longer be made public.
4. Now, copy and paste this text on your own wall (do not “share” it!). Once I see it published on your page, I will uncheck the same.

Who is spying on you? [infographic]

Managing mobile identity [infographic]

Some really good tips courtesy of TrendMicro and Pcmagazine

ERIC removes PDFs due to privacy issues

Researchers have started hitting deadends in ERIC (the Educational Resources Information Center) database when trying to download/view fulltext PDFs. PDFs downloads were ceased due to privacy concerns. I haven't seen much written about this other than a brief post at Inside Higher Ed.

ERIC's statement included this message:

A limited number of ERIC full-text documents are available at this time due to privacy concerns about information contained in some of the collection. Although the documents in ERIC had been publicly available in microfiche for many years, the advent of the Internet has amplified the possibility that someone could make improper use of information in these ERIC documents.

 On 8/23/2012, they posted an update about the restoration of access to some PDFs including a list of what has been restored.http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/resources/html/news/eric_news_132.html

"While searching for full text on the ERIC website at eric.ed.gov, note that there are some temporary search and display limitations caused by the recent, unexpected suspension of PDF downloading. As soon as the majority of full text is restored to the site, all features will return to normal operation. Limitations include:

• PDF links continue to display in ERIC records, even when full text is currently not available.

The ability to limit search results to only records with associated full text may not return reliable results."

HMMM..... As if patrons aren't confused enough with the results they receive.

In the article from Inside Higher Ed (published prior to the update statement at ERIC):

There’s nothing on the site explaining exactly what that concern is, but some speculate that documents that once were distributed to libraries on microfiche (if the library could afford it) are much more exposed on the web, and it may be that someone discovered that one or more of the documents contained sensitive material  that identified subjects in a study or possibly revealed a social security number.

This does seem to be the case as a separate ERIC post states:

We apologize for the inconvenience, and we are working to isolate the affected documents to ensure that personally identifying information that authors may have inadvertently included is not displayed. Our goal is to return full text access to users as quickly as possible.

All of this does raise interesting questions about preweb materials being digitized or uploaded to web based databases. Tools and better scanners have made scanning and dumping content into a database much easier; yet, the ability to review materials and assign appropriate metadata for better search results - at some point those require human oversight. I'm not sure how the materials get into ERIC, but I've worked on enough digital projects where content is dumped in, with either machine generated or user generated metadata to know that there has to be experienced staff involved - otherwise, things which should not be in the database end up there, materials are hard to find due to a lack of appropriate keywords/subject headings (metadata), and mistakes abound. Our machines are just not able to effectively apply context to data (yet).

Experiments in social media - what people are doing

Given that many social media sites use databases on the backend and APIs, there are a lot of interesting 3rd party apps and experiments culling through data and repurposing.

One such experiment is WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com - the Atlantic gives a good overview of how this works:

Let me give you this hypothetical about privacy. You and a friend walk into a public subway station having a conversation about how much you hate your boss. Someone happens to be recording every word spoken listening for the search string "hate my boss" while running facial recognition software to figure out who you are. This information is then being posted in another public location for anyone and everyone to see. Would that be OK?

 My intuition is that almost everyone reading this post would say no. And yet, that is precisely what the website, WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com is doing with public Facebook updates. The site scrapes public Facebook updates and searches for people saying "hate my boss," discussing doing drugs, giving out their phone numbers, or complaining about being hungover. It then handily formats them for broader consumption.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/weknowwhatyouredoingcom-when-trashing-your-boss-on-facebook-suddenly-becomes-very-public/258998/#.T-nsKev84f8.twitter

Interesting isn't? If you say something publicly, can you ever expect privacy? Is privacy really dead? Is Facebook then indeed really public (I say YES), and if so, why does it pretend to have privacy?(money, money, money - imho)

Then we have this experiment with twitter - a snapshot of twitter around the world in realtime: http://aworldoftweets.frogdesign.com/ Somehow this seems less threatening, perhaps, because, it does not focus on individuals... but it is using real time information from twitter users.

So, what makes one cool and one kind of scary? I would argue, the perception of privacy and the false sense of security that some feel with Facebook.

Facebook privacy settlement & an overview of some of the privacy breaks

Article about some of the egregious breaks in privacy at Facebook as well as the conditions of the proposed settlement against Facebook (-- still the WORLD wide web, though!)
----------------
Facebook has agreed to settle the Federal Trade Commission’s eight-count complaint in which the FTC charged that the social networking service, which is widely used by libraries, had deceived consumers by promising to keep their information private and then repeatedly making it public.
......
Under the proposed settlement, Facebook is:
    barred from making misrepresentations about the privacy or security of consumers’ personal information;
    required to obtain consumers’ affirmative express consent before enacting changes that override their privacy preferences;
    required to prevent anyone from accessing a user’s material no more than 30 days after the user has deleted his or her account;
    required to establish and maintain a comprehensive privacy program designed to address privacy risks associated with the development and management of new and existing products and services, and to protect the privacy and confidentiality of consumers’ information; and
    required, within 180 days, and every two years after that for the next 20 years, to obtain independent, third-party audits certifying that it has a privacy program in place that meets or exceeds the requirements of the FTC order, and to ensure that the privacy of consumers’ information is protected.

read more here
http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2011/11/social-media/facebook-settles-privacy-complaint-with-ftc/

New workshop on Privacy & online security

UGAers ~ New & free class for you!  If you're a Facebook user and don't know about security settings, this is a class for you. If you travel and use public wifi, this is a class for you!

Privacy & YOU:
Focusing on best practices and practical tips for maintaining your privacy using skills that can be applied to any website from Facebook to Google+. We will explore basics of online security: tips for using public Wifi safely, how to create a more secure password, and how to use social media sites more securely. 

November 9, 2-4PM UGA Training & Development

Peekyou, search across the web, social media & more

peerindex (a reputation management/metrics site) has launched a new search engine called peekyou (http://www.peekyou.com).

It searches across facebook, linkedin, twitter, friendster, myspace, several people search engines (intellius, spokeo, etc.) and even wikipedia. Results include email addresses, phone numbers, documents, web sites, and public records (although some of those results are offered through paid services like through peoplesearch or spokeo).

An interesting idea even though search filtering is rather limited.

For those of you interested in privacy, according to the website:
PeekYou will:
1. Index only public web content
2. Always respect the user privacy preferences of social networks
3. Allow individuals to opt-out from its service simply and easily

PeekYou will not:
1. Purchase app/developer data from social platforms
2. Index an individual's medical or financial information
3. Knowingly work with any individual or business that violates these rules

Big changes to Facebook privacy (an overview)

So Facebook is rolling out new changes to your news feed (you may have it already). On the plus side for privacy: You can control who sees stuff that is posted about you (like tagged photos) which finally closes one huge privacy leak (changes will not affect older photos but you can retrospectively change them - tomorrow's blog topic!). You can also limit old posts - an interesting idea for possible use for pages (part of tonight's post which publishes in the morning)
 
Facebook now makes it  extraordinarily easy to add location info (data) into your post (use this carefully - I can see where it would be very useful to include that info with events, but please please please remember public = everyone on the www. Think before you tell people where you are or will be ...) So, as always, it is up to you to decide how much info you want to share.

The first time you see your new settings you'll be guided through the process (you can read about the changes here); after that your settings will apply to all new posts. Settings can be changed via the little buttons at the bottom (and you can still set some default (override) settings via your privacy page.

• What's on your mind [default]: same as before for the most part
• Say who you are with - when you @ someone it tags them 
• If you don't understand how this works, when you tag someone it shows up in their feed and their friends can then see your post too (depending upon their privacy settings).  You now have final control over that privacy setting.
• You still control who sees your status update. If you already have a custom status update, that should stick (but it's worth checking). The big news here is that you can control whether friends of your friend who tagged you can see the info (or photo).

I can see some good uses of tagging location as it will make for an an easy way to add location for direction purposes for events, but I won't be using it like foursquare (will you?)

...and don't forget to take a look at your new privacy page which has been  "simplified" - it looks better, but I think there still needs to be an Advanced or ALL that shows exactly all settings for everything on all page (vs. splitting them up into sections).

Always doublecheck your settings any time Facebook rolls out changes. You don't want to get caught unaware. Now would be a good time to go through your applications, removing any old games or apps you no longer use. Also, if you are not seeing everyone in your stream, do not forget to change that via  Recent> Edit Options> Choose All
 
In a nutshell, the biggest changes I see are

• Giving control over content posted by others to you.  From Facebook: "We removed a setting that limited whether the friends of people you tagged could see a post. Now you control this by choosing who you tag and approving tags other people add to your content. Your old posts won't change - unless you limit older posts.
• Finally changes the terminology "everyone" to "public" since that is what it is. From Facebook: "Also, we've changed the label for "Everyone" to "Public," but your posts will still reach the same people."
• Made it easier to add location / geo  info.

Google tip of the day (privacy settings)

If you're a Google user (any of their products) don't forget that you can review and change your settings for all services you use via the Dashboard. I always forget just how handy the Dashboard is for updating settings across the Googlesphere.

https://www.google.com/dashboard/

..and don't forget you can turn of search history which directly ties your account to your searching.

New privacy settings for Facebook -- updated today

Oh, hurrah. First, an apology of sorts ("we just missed the mark" -- REALLY?!?) and today more control over privacy settings (see below for screenshots of the settings)... but remember, if you post it to the web it is archived somewhere on the WORLD WIDE WEB.

...and really -- is it so surprising that Facebook was doing this?
"The Wall Street Journal reported that advertising companies, including Google's DoubleClick and Yahoo's RightMedia, were receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation."

Facebook is a company, not an altruistic network. For those still interested in quitting facebook, May 31 has been proclaimed Quit Facebook Day.

New privacy settings: May 2010




Basically, you just want to go through each of these carefully.
Under Account>Privacy Settings







Personal information and Posts

• More options to provide tighter control over who can see information.
• Don't forget individual application settings, either -- especially important if you do game play, quizzes, etc. Just click on the link at the bottom of the Personal Information and Posts section.
  

Contact information

• I don't really notice much difference here, but I haven't compared my screenshots from earlier versions, either. I have my website info open because I do want people to be able to find me on the web -- I just don't want them to be able to see what I am communicating to my friends without me approving them first (by accepting a friend request).
  

Friends, Tags and Connections section

• More options to provide tighter control over who can see information.
• Don't forget to doublecheck your networks, either, by following the link at the bottom of the Friends, Tags, and Connections section.
  

Search

• How people can find you, especially on the web. Remember everyone = everyone on the 'net
• Because I want people to be able to find me, I do allow my profile to be indexed in Google and elsewhere. If you do not want your profile displaying (preview it to see what it will look like to a random stranger) then uncheck the allow box (if it is checked)
  

Applications and websites -- which includes the instant personalization

• How applications interact with you and is different from application settings via the Personal information and posts. Application settings available there are how the individual applications interact with your wall and profile.
  
• Because I want people to be able to find me, I do allow my profile to be indexed in Google and elsewhere. If you do not want your profile displaying (preview it to see what it will look like to a random stranger) then uncheck the allow box (if it is checked)
• 
  

Please do review the Instant Personalization settings, as this really opens up your information.


Sorry this is hard to read but it says:
"Facebook's instant personalization pilot program helps you connect more easily with your friends on select partner sites. You'll find a personal and social experience the moment you arrive on our select partner sites -- currently Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora, and Yelp. We're working closely with these partners in a pilot program so you can quickly connect with your friends and see relevant content on their sites. These sites personalize your experience using your public Facebook information. When you arrive on these sites, you'll see a notification from Facebook at the top of the page. You can easily opt-out of experiencing this on these sites by clicking "No Thanks" on the blue Facebook notification on the top of partner sites."

Finally, you can block people by email address:

..and always, check your profile!

Facebook is "uncool"

"Facebook is officially 'out,' as in uncool, amongst partners, parents and pundits all coming to the realization that Zuckerberg and his company are - simply put - not trustworthy," Calacanis wrote on his personal Web site.

[and more]

Earlier this month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and 14 other privacy and consumer organizations filed a complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing the popular social network of "unfair and deceptive trade practices" and violating users' expectations of privacy and consumer protection laws.

Full article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/14/MNIO1DEDJL.DTL#ixzz0nvaCzM1h

In all reality, it's just a matter of having a better choice, until then, I'm not sure anything would drive away the facebook community. If (When) someone(s) will build the next thing, which is easy to use (and possibly migrate and/or interact with existing facebook users), people will use it. Myspace is a perfect example -- lots of people I know WERE there, now they are facebook. Perhaps, myspace should use this opportunity to rebuild...and where is Google in all of this? Orkut didn't seem to really take off in the U.S.

Facebook was fortunate in that it built a huge community of educated and engaged users (given that it started out primarily tied to .edu email accounts) before it was opened up to the world -- and in the process, sucker punched users.

..but then again, why would we trust our privacy to a 3rd party company?

more of my writings on facebook here and privacy here.

Facebook & privacy (viva le revolution)

First off, one big caveat: It is simply impossible to have the old Facebook experience with the old level of privacy. If you want the old level of privacy, you're going to have to give up some functionality; if you want all the old functionality, you're going to have to give up some privacy.

http://gawker.com/5522433/how-to-restore-your-privacy-on-facebook

There you go, from the horse's mouth (and also tips about how to tighten down privacy). Of course, we are using a COMPANY's website, so I wouldn't have a problem with fb eliminating ANY illusions of privacy. At least, in that capacity, it might be more honest... and of course, my usage of it (as well as many users) would drop or change dramatically. What bothers me is the constantly shifting sand of privacy, at times, seemingly at odds with its origins.

I realize things change, but change has been dramatic for Facebook and stands in stark contrast to its early days. When I joined facebook, you have to have an .edu email address -- in other words affiliated with a university or school in some way. EVERYONE meant everyone in facebook, not the world. No one could see ANY of your info, unless they were another facebook user (and logged in). You could control what was shared from your wall through your friends. Privacy was tight and set by the user.

The exact opposite is true now. Public is the norm and if you want privacy, you have to work hard to tighten it down (and keep it tight), plus give up some of the ORIGINAL functionality.

Maybe these folks can build the next SM site to take down Facebook -- but then I wonder, can they make it viable without selling out their most coveted assets -- our demographic and personal information?

I bet Myspace never thought they would fall, either. Perhaps, it is time someone takes a whack at Facebook. viva le revolution!

the tell all generation, privacy & cultivating a digital identity

Very interesting article about privacy concerns, digital identity, especially as relates to social media:

In a new study to be released this month, the Pew Internet Project has found that people in their 20s exert more control over their digital reputations than older adults, more vigorously deleting unwanted posts and limiting information about themselves. “Social networking requires vigilance, not only in what you post, but what your friends post about you,” said Mary Madden, a senior research specialist who oversaw the study by Pew, which examines online behavior. “Now you are responsible for everything.”

Indeed, because if you are not creating your digital identity, someone is creating it for you... on a social media site, on a discussion board, on the web in general...

More here

Google datasharing and what do about it

Institute of Disruptive Studies... love it... (sorry, I was having a monty python moment...)

-----

The project, called GoogleSharing, is a Firefox add-on that uses an anonymous proxy service that gives Google false information when someone uses services that don't require an account, such as its search, news, and images services, said Moxie Marlinspike , a security consultant and penetration tester with the Institute of Disruptive Studies.

Google collects a vast amount of information about its users, said Marlinspike, who gave a presentation at last week's Black Hat conference. The company collects IP (Internet protocol) addresses, search requests, browser type and more.

More here at yahoo news

About googlesharing: http://www.googlesharing.net/

---------

Also, for web editors who use google analytics, you might want to read Google's data sharing informational blurbage...

More scary facebook privacy news

You know, facebook, you keep this up, users will eventually leave... Really. myspace probably never thought it would happen to them, either.

-----------------

Facebook's new system for connecting together the web seems to have a serious privacy hole, a web developer has discovered.

Some people report that they are able to see the public "events" that Facebook users have said they will attend – even if they person is not a "friend" on the social network.

More here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/26/facebook-privacy-hole

My writings about facebook and privacy here (including how to protect yourself and still be part of facebook):

http://contentdivergent.blogspot.com/search/label/facebook

and on privacy

http://contentdivergent.blogspot.com/search/label/privacy