Interwebology: Privacy piracy
Facebook is coming under fire
over proposed changes to its privacy
policy.
It must be Tuesday.
Back in December Facebook made some questionable changes to its privacy policy, including the widespread rollout of the previously more subtle “everyone” setting. While the feature had long been available, it had been somewhat more clandestinely worked into the privacy settings. Additionally, just about every Facebook feature had the option of being visible only to friends, with some having the option of being visible only to the user.
When the “everyone” setting became more prominent, certain data also became viewable to “everyone” by default, including profile pictures. Now the setting is going a little further as Facebook is making some information available to third party services without any consent from users. What this means is you could at some point go to a new site that you have never previously visited and find it has already “customized” itself to your age, gender, and interests.
While Facebook considers this to be a good thing, it does raise questions about the constantly widening net through which our information is disseminated, without user knowledge. This is worrisome when one considers the rising dangers of social networking sites, which saw a roughly 70 per cent increase in spam and malware over the past year.
This change is also being rolled out within weeks of Facebook's most recent privacy scandal, when a system error made users' hidden email addresses publicly viewable for roughly 30 minutes on the evening of March 30.
Facebook isn't the only site facing privacy issues, but rather than loosening the reins of control, Google Buzz is attempting to tighten them up after public criticism. When first launched, Google Buzz automatically set users to follow their most frequent contacts. This unpopular default was corrected within the first four days, but the new settings only applied to new users, not the millions of reported early adopters. The first week of April saw this corrected as all users were prompted to review and reset their privacy settings.
Other cross-integrated technologies such as geo-location have also fallen under fire for making people easier to stalk, both online and in person. While the services have only become popular within the past few years, spearheaded by apps like Foursquare, they are building on a social phenomenon that boasted roughly eight million reported cases annually in Canada alone.
This risk was particularly highlighted by sites like PleaseRobMe, which aggregated posts from users who linked Foursquare into their publicly viewable Twitter accounts to show when people were not at home.
Police officers are not oblivious to the dangers of social networking, but they are keen to exploit the information, with offices ranging from local county sheriffs up to the NSA using social media to research potential criminals, witnesses, and even victims.
There is little regulation for this sort of investigation, but the Digital Due Process Coalition hopes to change this oversight by regulating the way websites turn over information to the police. This is especially relevant in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that unwarranted email searches of the kind approved by the Bush administration are in fact unlawful, and with a case in San Mateo County, CA, as to whether police ought to be allowed to search someone's phone as readily as their wallet, even in lieu of password protection.
And it isn't always the police. A school board in Pennsylvania recently made headlines when it attempted disciplinary action towards a student accused of taking drugs. While the supposed drugs eventually turned out to be Mike ‘n' Ike's candy, the disturbing part of the story was the source evidence: school supplied laptops with remotely activated built-in cameras. The vice-principal imposed disciplinary measures over an image of the student taken when he was in his own home, by a camera that had been activated remotely by school officials.
Warner Bros. is also going the secret agent route, and is recruiting students for a 12-month internship wherein their job will be to patrol Torrent sites for pirated WB and NBCU content.
Apparently it is no longer enough to worry about former friends poking about our lives. Now we must be on guard against social networks, mobile apps, email clients, federal governments, school boards, and entertainment companies taking too close an interest in our lives. We may well be on the cusp of an Orwellian dystopia where privacy is fiction and maintaining a controlled reputation is just a pipe dream of the proletariat.
It must be Tuesday.
Back in December Facebook made some questionable changes to its privacy policy, including the widespread rollout of the previously more subtle “everyone” setting. While the feature had long been available, it had been somewhat more clandestinely worked into the privacy settings. Additionally, just about every Facebook feature had the option of being visible only to friends, with some having the option of being visible only to the user.
When the “everyone” setting became more prominent, certain data also became viewable to “everyone” by default, including profile pictures. Now the setting is going a little further as Facebook is making some information available to third party services without any consent from users. What this means is you could at some point go to a new site that you have never previously visited and find it has already “customized” itself to your age, gender, and interests.
While Facebook considers this to be a good thing, it does raise questions about the constantly widening net through which our information is disseminated, without user knowledge. This is worrisome when one considers the rising dangers of social networking sites, which saw a roughly 70 per cent increase in spam and malware over the past year.
This change is also being rolled out within weeks of Facebook's most recent privacy scandal, when a system error made users' hidden email addresses publicly viewable for roughly 30 minutes on the evening of March 30.
Facebook isn't the only site facing privacy issues, but rather than loosening the reins of control, Google Buzz is attempting to tighten them up after public criticism. When first launched, Google Buzz automatically set users to follow their most frequent contacts. This unpopular default was corrected within the first four days, but the new settings only applied to new users, not the millions of reported early adopters. The first week of April saw this corrected as all users were prompted to review and reset their privacy settings.
Other cross-integrated technologies such as geo-location have also fallen under fire for making people easier to stalk, both online and in person. While the services have only become popular within the past few years, spearheaded by apps like Foursquare, they are building on a social phenomenon that boasted roughly eight million reported cases annually in Canada alone.
This risk was particularly highlighted by sites like PleaseRobMe, which aggregated posts from users who linked Foursquare into their publicly viewable Twitter accounts to show when people were not at home.
Police officers are not oblivious to the dangers of social networking, but they are keen to exploit the information, with offices ranging from local county sheriffs up to the NSA using social media to research potential criminals, witnesses, and even victims.
There is little regulation for this sort of investigation, but the Digital Due Process Coalition hopes to change this oversight by regulating the way websites turn over information to the police. This is especially relevant in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that unwarranted email searches of the kind approved by the Bush administration are in fact unlawful, and with a case in San Mateo County, CA, as to whether police ought to be allowed to search someone's phone as readily as their wallet, even in lieu of password protection.
And it isn't always the police. A school board in Pennsylvania recently made headlines when it attempted disciplinary action towards a student accused of taking drugs. While the supposed drugs eventually turned out to be Mike ‘n' Ike's candy, the disturbing part of the story was the source evidence: school supplied laptops with remotely activated built-in cameras. The vice-principal imposed disciplinary measures over an image of the student taken when he was in his own home, by a camera that had been activated remotely by school officials.
Warner Bros. is also going the secret agent route, and is recruiting students for a 12-month internship wherein their job will be to patrol Torrent sites for pirated WB and NBCU content.
Apparently it is no longer enough to worry about former friends poking about our lives. Now we must be on guard against social networks, mobile apps, email clients, federal governments, school boards, and entertainment companies taking too close an interest in our lives. We may well be on the cusp of an Orwellian dystopia where privacy is fiction and maintaining a controlled reputation is just a pipe dream of the proletariat.
