Google Wi-Fi Data

It's just been so long since I mentioned Google here. So here is a disturbing article about wi-fi data Google collected that lots of people would love to get their hands on. Privacy? What?

Google said it didn’t realize it was sniffing packets of data on unsecured Wi-Fi networks in dozens of countries for the last three years, until German privacy authorities questioned what data Google’s Street View cameras were collecting. Street View is part of Google Maps and Google Earth, and provides panoramic pictures of streets and their surroundings across the globe.

Google Adds Suicide Prevention Hotline Result to Suicide Queries

Google has added a link to a suicide prevention hotline to results of a suicidal seeming query. I approve of this. It seems like a step toward responsible information access without censorship.

FAQ: Google, China, and Censorship

WIRED.com has made an FAQ (a list of Frequently Asked Questions) regarding Google, China, and Censorship. It is useful!

Popular Science

Popular Science articles are now online and free. You can browse by issue.

There better be stuff about ROBOTS in there or I'm gonna be disappointed.

Onion Google Article

While only the AV Club section of The Onion is an actual news site, some people get a little confused. So: this is not a real news article about Google responding to privacy concerns in an unsettlingly specific apology.

"Americans have every right to be angry at us," Google spokesperson Janet Kemper told reporters. "Though perhaps Dale Gilbert should just take a few deep breaths and go sit in his car and relax, like they tell him to do at the anger management classes he attends over at St. Francis Church every Tuesday night."

"Breathe in, breathe out," Kemper added. "We wouldn't want you to have another incident, Dale. Not when you've been doing so well."

Google Execs vs. Italian Privacy Laws

Some Google executives were charged with breaking privacy laws of Italy because someone uploaded a video to YouTube in which a child with Down's Syndrome was taunted and hit by other schoolchildren.

While the executives had nothing to do with the incident, they still had charges filed against them and received suspended sentencing. One of them, David Drummond, had this to say about the verdict:

"I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent. If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability."

Google plans to appeal the verdict.

Google's Algorithm

It's been far too long since the Google tag has come up. Here, learn about their search algorithms.

Take, for instance, the way Google’s engine learns which words are synonyms. “We discovered a nifty thing very early on,” Singhal says. “People change words in their queries. So someone would say, ‘pictures of dogs,’ and then they’d say, ‘pictures of puppies.’ So that told us that maybe ‘dogs’ and ‘puppies’ were interchangeable. We also learned that when you boil water, it’s hot water. We were relearning semantics from humans, and that was a great advance.”

But there were obstacles. Google’s synonym system understood that a dog was similar to a puppy and that boiling water was hot. But it also concluded that a hot dog was the same as a boiling puppy. The problem was fixed in late 2002 by a breakthrough based on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theories about how words are defined by context. As Google crawled and archived billions of documents and Web pages, it analyzed what words were close to each other. “Hot dog” would be found in searches that also contained “bread” and “mustard” and “baseball games” — not poached pooches. That helped the algorithm understand what “hot dog” — and millions of other terms — meant. “Today, if you type ‘Gandhi bio,’ we know that bio means biography,” Singhal says. “And if you type ‘bio warfare,’ it means biological.”

For the Love of Culture, Google, Copyright and our Future

I can't really package this any better than the site I got it from, BoingBoing. This is one of those links that's also a placeholder for me so I can go back and read later; this one is long: For the Love of Culture, Google, Copyright and our Future. I'm so cheap I'm even grabbing the same quote BoingBoing did:

Whatever your view of it, notice first just how different this future promises to be. In real libraries, in real space, access is not metered at the level of the page (or the image on the page). Access is metered at the level of books (or magazines, or CDs, or DVDs). You get to browse through the whole of the library, for free. You get to check out the books you want to read, for free. The real-space library is a den protected from the metering of the market. It is of course created within a market; but like kids in a playroom, we let the life inside the library ignore the market outside.

This freedom gave us something real. It gave us the freedom to research, regardless of our wealth; the freedom to read, widely and technically, beyond our means. It was a way to assure that all of our culture was available and reachable--not just that part that happens to be profitable to stock. It is a guarantee that we have the opportunity to learn about our past, even if we lack the will to do so. The architecture of access that we have in real space created an important and valuable balance between the part of culture that is effectively and meaningfully regulated by copyright and the part of culture that is not. The world of our real-space past was a world in which copyright intruded only rarely, and when it did, its relationship to the objectives of copyright was relatively clear.

We forget all this today.

Google Search Customization Sans Logins

Minus ten points for me, I didn't even realize Google personalized the search results of people logged into their site. Now they're doing it for people who aren't even logged in via cookies. This has some people concerned, as using Google without being logged in was sort of a way to avoid Google's data collection.

According to the article, you can turn this feature off. I'm not sure if I will or I won't. For one thing, I have multiple accounts. I don't run my main email through the megducation address. Otherwise, I wonder if the same problem I have with Amazon's recommendations will come up. The recommendations are all well and good and sometimes useful, but should I happen to buy a book to send to my friend who likes vampires, I'm getting a lot of vampire-related book suggestions I really don't want.

Google Fingers

Tiny, but it made me smile: scans of Google Books with fingers in them. The comments are maybe the best part. If you want to just check for yourself, here is the search for google books fingers.

6 Ways We Gave Up Our Internet Privacy

It's actually only four ways if you're a Canadian as far as I know.

More of the same; another article urging readers to have a little common sense about what they post about themselves.

• Google: Always with the Google. Using Google's calendar services and others like it makes it possible for people to know all kinds of information about you and where you're going to be. People used to keep organizers and physical calendars for this sort of thing; yes, Google can store it online where you can get to it from anywhere with an internet connection, but you could also just carry it with you or keep it on your desk and tell people you'll have to check your agenda and get back to them. Astonishing.
• Social Networking: The same thing goes for Facebook and Twitter and using it to constantly update with what you're doing. How much could a stalker find out about your whereabouts from what you post up for the general public? Is there anything out there you wouldn't want your ex-boyfriend to know? Take it down. This isn't even getting into someone finding out a password or two.
  
• RFID Cards and Loyalty Cards: I've never heard of RFID cards before this, but that might be because I just wasn't paying attention and not because I'm Canadian and this article is written by an American. Loyalty cards, maybe. I'm not sure how those are so much worse than using a debt or credit card, save for providing information about what you buy to the specific company you buy it from... don't they already get that, though? Okay, it's still information gathering, it's just old news.
  
• The Patriot Act: Skip. Be assured security went up in Canada, too, but it's nowhere near the US.
  
• GPS: Again with the creepy. Use a map.
• The Kindle: I can see it providing slightly more information than just ordering a book through a website could - the article says it can process how quickly you read a selection, for example - and then it's back to the summer bugaboo of items being removed without warning.

Just read a spy or crime book and take some tips from what the bad guys do in them. Hooray for paranoia!

The Relationship Between Public Libraries and Google

This paper by Vivienne Waller, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Research of the Swinburne University of Technology, explores the relationship between Google and public libraries. It's pretty interesting and raises some good points:

• Google tends to 'perfect technology first' before 'working out how to make money from it'. This could mean ads. Google already insists it be the only search engine allowed to link to the content of the Google Book Project. Some libraries are balking.
• Search engine bias and the idea of relevance to search queries.
• What happens if Google, perish the thought, goes out of business and the archive is inaccessible?
• The motives of Google's project.

She also discusses infogration, described as 'the integration of aspects of the world in to the medium of information into which targeted ads can then be placed'.

To be successful, infogration requires that we live more of our lives on the Web. Hence, Google has been actively encouraging us to live more of our lives in the “Googleverse”. Google wants us to not only use its search engine to search for information, and to read using Google Books but also to use Google products (a shopping site) to buy things, to plan to buy things using Google Shopping List (a Web–based list of intended purchases), to let friends know what we want for our birthday or Christmas using Google WishList (a public list of what we wish we could buy), to find out what is happening using Google News, to share tagged photos using Google Picasa, and to hang out with friends using Orkut (Google’s version of a social networking site, very popular in Asia and India), or connect with people with similar interests using Google Groups. The list continues and expands with each new Google product. Google encourages us to communicate using Gmail, to plan trips using Google Maps, to bring Google along for the ride with Google Maps integrated into our cars and giving us directions, to virtually visit other places using Google StreetView, to describe ourselves in blogs (using Blogger) and be updated with the blogs we are interested in using FeedBurner. Google suggests that we manage our financial information using Google Finance and that we manage our health using Google Health (a repository for all of our medical records and a way of keeping our doctors up–to–date about our health).

That doesn't sound at all creepy!

I think the most important point to remember is 'libraries need to pay attention to that which is concealed by Google’s search results and by digitised information. What is concealed includes vital aspects of human knowledge and culture and it is part of the task of the public library to preserve these things.'

Discovery Interface is Kind of a Crummy Name

Ever wish library catalogues worked more like Google*? You're not alone. Some libraries are trying to find better search software. More power to them! However, there are 'pockets of resistance':

'Some argue that new search products—sometimes called next-generation catalogs or discovery interfaces—amount to a dumbing-down of catalogs.'

What? A library catalogue that would help users actually find something? Horrors!

Very cool idea, but very expensive, and it seems another argument for librarians being computer savvy. (I don't mind that. I'm comfortable around computers. I think computers plus libraries equals brilliant.) Adjusting to a specific library's needs will require better strategies for organizing the information in the database and knowledge as to how to make the searches relevant. The article gives an example of how searching for a book on Thomas Jefferson got someone papers from a conference in Brazil. Not so useful.

Adjusting systems to specific needs instead of trying to cram it into the one-size-fits-all standard isn't new; my current course instructor told us about a project organizing aviation materials. If it's all aviation, standard cataloguing doesn't work so well.

It seems that computer know-how is becoming a lot more important in the information sciences; I think programming experience could be of immense help and now I'm kind of interested in pursuing that avenue to help with my future librarianing.


* Again with the Google. I know.

Internet Longevity and the Treehouse

Quentin Hardy writes for Forbes,

"If Google's actions seem entirely wrong, consider how we would feel if, in response to all the criticism, Google simply destroyed the 10 million-volume corpus. We would feel an almost irrevocable loss."

I would, I really would. I've only used Google Books once to poke around in it, but it's one of those things I intend to go back to, to poke at whenever the urge strikes. I think the immediate gut reaction to the notion of that database being erased is about on the same level as hearing about a fire in a library. The initial action, mind you. Buildings burning are lamentable in their own way as well.

Another part of me thinks that database that's already scanned in isn't going to go anywhere. One thing I liked about Tad Williams' Otherland series was its depiction of the Treehouse, a site with no set address, a networking of machines set up to be the last true place of freedom on the internet. Is the database too big to be stored elsewhere? I don't know. I just know that once something's out here, it seems like it's out here forever. And that is why I am very glad cell phones didn't have cameras when I was in high school, because the embarrassing stuff that happened to me that would have been captured and posted would never, ever go away. And that is why we all heed the tragedy of the Star Wars Kid.

As an aside, Jonathan Zittrain's TED Talk 'The Web as Random Acts of Kindness' mentioned that it's been agreed on not to post the real name of the Star Wars Kid on that Wikipedia article. You can find it easily enough, but just not on Wikipedia. The discussion page of the article points to a policy regarding the biographies of living persons.

"Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so... Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy... This is of particularly profound importance when dealing with individuals whose notability stems largely from their being victims of another's actions. Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization."

On the other hand, I bet 'Star Wars Kid' isn't even in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Google Book Search and Why I Still Haven't Seen Pulp Fiction

Google hatched a plan back in 2002 to scan books so they could be searched and read online. Not just some books: all of them.

My immediate reaction is that this is an awesome project. Think about it - the world's biggest library. The world's library. Everything you could read, online and waiting. Isn't that what a library is? Access to books and information? Libraries and the internet have already started holding hands. Is this the perfect marriage?

I can go to a library and take out any book for free. I don't have to pay for my library card. The library bought the book, or someone donated it but they bought the book, whatever - the book was paid for in some manner. Once the book is in the library, anyone with a card can take it out. This is true in tiny communities all the way up to big cities; anyone can take this book out provided they don't take it so far as to strand it far away from its library home. I've never heard of an author having any problem with this, but then again, I haven't looked.

I've never heard of authors complaining about people lending their books to their friends. The friend doesn't buy a copy, so just like the library, the author doesn't get any cash from it. That's still okay. So where's the point where it's not okay to pass books around without paying for them? When the books travel between cities? Can they only go X number of miles?

Authors should be paid for their works. Authors are often a struggling lot to begin with; they put in work, they should be paid so they can do things like, say, eat. Or sleep somewhere warm and dry. Maybe even get a new shirt every once in a while, that kind of thing. We all agree on that. We all agree that libraries are good things, too, so at what point does it become wrong to distribute those books for free?

Musicians have had this problem ever since someone came up with file sharing. I always hear differing reports: either the music industry is crashing because of people downloading music, or it's actually pretty much doing the same. I like to think it's doing about the same, but I don't have the facts on that one and I'm not sure I'd trust anyone who said they did. I know I was very pleased when iTunes started selling single tracks for ninety-nine cents. I could preview it for thirty seconds, which was often enough even if it wasn't perfect, and it was still better than buying a CD for one track I knew I liked and thirteen others I had no idea about. It's convenient, and I buy a lot more music than I used to because of it. iTunes can be dangerous; ninety-nine cents adds up quickly.

I don't have to buy music. I have the ability to go find a torrent site, look up what I want, and just take it for free. It's illegal, but I can do it. I have a responsibility not to do that, a responsibility to pay for things I take. This paying thing makes it possible for the people who make the music to eat, sleep in warm places, and sometimes get a new shirt. That's how it should be.

I guess what puzzles me is where the line is for books. I don't agree with authors being denied money for their work. I don't like that there are some books I can never read. I don't even like it when I try to rent a movie at the store and they don't have it. If it's not new, it's just not there, and that bugs me. Some of us haven't seen Pulp Fiction yet. I would hate for it to become difficult to read a book just because it wasn't new. More difficult, anyway. Some of those suckers are out of print and I'd have to scour second hand book stores in cities far larger than the one I live in. So Google books would be good, right? Yes. And no. Maybe. I'm not the only one having a hard time deciding.