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.

Stop Thinking of Internet Privacy in Human Terms

David Hurley from Intellectual Freedom Roundtable (IFRT) writes about how liking Star Trek could hinder your chances at a job in childcare. Sort of. Hypothetically!

Rather than a person knowing discrete facts, the database allows your data to be carefully analyzed as part of the aggregate. And when you analyze such a huge pot of data, you start finding odd correlations.

Silentale

So Silentale (and there's an ominous name) is a web service that backs up and archives all your electronic communications. All of them - Twitter, Facebook, GMail.

Well, that's just creepy. Consider the privacy issues with Twitter, Facebook, and GMail separately: there are many. Facebook is now notorious for farming personal information, slowly revealing more and more of its users over the years and never, ever deleting it even if the user deletes their account. As for GMail, people don't realize that everything they send around via Google documents becomes property of Google. It is not secure at all.

Here is a database that clumps everything together, all in one spot. At least make identity thieves and corporations work a little to get information.

ALA Choose Privacy Week

It's Choose Privacy Week! The American Library Association recommends teaching people, especially kids, how to control how much information they post about themselves online.

Google and Microsoft Push US Feds to Update Privacy Laws

It's only in the States, but it's worth noting: A coalition of the net’s biggest online service providers, including Google and Microsoft, are joining with the top internet rights groups to demand Congress modernize the nation’s privacy laws.

“With the emergence of location services and the transfer of a huge amount of data to the cloud and our huge reliance on cloud storage of e-mail messages, the law has become outdated and needs to be updated,” Dempsey said in the conference call.

For instance, when the law was crafted, e-mail was almost always downloaded from a central server to a user’s computer. Any messages left after 180 days were considered abandoned, so the law allows police to obtain any e-mail older than six months simply by issuing a subpoena — meaning no judge is involved. If those e-mails had been downloaded to a user’s computer and removed from the server, the police would need a search warrant, based on probable cause, to get at them.

But now that Americans store gigabytes of e-mails on Yahoo’s, Google’s and Microsoft’s servers, those different standards make no sense, and the law should be platform independent, according to Dempsey.

Memory Hole

The Memory Hole is a site that keeps track of changes to official government pages and other things procured by the Freedom of Information Act, like images of the coffins of dead US soldiers from Afghanistan.

The memory hole is a reference to George Orwell's 1984:

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

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."

Spycam Again

This Frontline video looks at a school improving after introducing laptops for all the students. It's called 'How Google Saved a School', but aside from using Google documents, I don't know how true that is. Right about four and a half minutes in the assistant principal shows how he can monitor the students. He can see if they're using chat programs and interrupt them to tell them to go back to work. He can also take pictures of them with the laptop's camera, which is still really creepy.

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.

School Spycams

A school in Pennsylvania has a security feature on the laptops it lends out to students that allows them to snap photos of the students in their own homes. The system has been disabled due to a lawsuit. How very, very creepy.

123 Hack Me

A New York Times article reveals many people are still using simple, easily-guessed passwords.

Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was “12345.” Today, it’s one digit longer but hardly safer: “123456.”

This list comes from a list of 32 million passwords a hacker posted from a company that makes software used by social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. It was only briefly posted, but it was downloaded and examined by hackers and security specialists alike. What a great resource!

According to the article, here are the top 32 passwords:

• 123456
• 12345
• 123456789
• password
• iloveyou
• princess
• rockyou
• 1234567
• 12345678
• abc123
• nicole
• daniel
• babygirl
• monkey
• jessica
• lovely
• michael
• ashley
• 654321
• qwerty
• iloveu
• michelle
• 111111
• 0
• tigger
• password1
• sunshine
• chocolate
• anthony
• angel
• FRIENDS
• soccer

I knew this guy in high school with a PDA. I was intrigued by it; he let me play with it. I remember asking him what the password was and he would say, "It's a secret." After a sadly long time, I clued in that the password was 'itsasecret'.

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.

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!

Social Media Policies

Do you really need a policy at your library or school regarding social media? Twitter. Facebook. Blogs. LiveJournals. There are all kinds of ways you can get yourself in trouble on the internet, yes. People have been fired over things they've posted, even.

Here is a simple rule: if you have something to say that might not be well received by the parties in question, do not say it online. Just don't. As secret as you think your Twitter account, Facebook page, blog, or LiveJournal is, you don't know for sure that someone can't find something incriminating online. That's just for personal stuff, like saying something snarky about your sister-in-law.

When you work for an organization and can be recognized, do not badmouth that organization. Don't post about it. If you simply must tell a story, give everyone a fake name or don't name names at all.

Be careful what you sign your real name to. Nothing on the internet ever truly goes away; you can write something that can get pulled up years and years later, and things that seem like a good idea when you're seventeen don't really reflect well on you when you're twenty-seven. Anything you post can be used against you. If you're going to use your real name, you had better be very professional.

Some of the suggestions in the article include:

• Use a disclaimer. Agreed. The opinions expressed do not reflect on BigNameCompany.
• Don’t share secrets. Agreed again. You do not want to be breaking news.
• Be yourself. Not really agreed for all situations. You can 'be yourself' in the way your mom told you to be yourself without using your real name. There's always the option to reveal your real name later, but there are no takebacks. You may not want the kind of attention you can get.
  
• Respect copyright. Don't pass someone else's stuff off as your own. Not articles, not blog posts, nothing. Always give credit when you can.
  
• Respect your colleagues. And your friends. If your best buddy you went drinking with and got trashed with that one time and took pictures of can't friend his dear old Aunt Petunia when she asks, you need to take that stuff down. Or at least take it down if asked.
• Avoid online fights. Debates? Mostly okay. Fights, definitely not. No matter how angry or annoyed you get, don't get into personal things with your opponent. And don't pick fights with people you don't like; the internet is full of opportunities for deception that might seem tempting but have serious consequences.
  
• Post accurate information. Ever played the telephone game? One small bit of misinformation can turn pretty weird. See what happens when you don't get your facts straight. Bloggers get annoyed!
  
• Consult the employee manual. Handy anyway. Really, I can't photocopy my rear end? No kidding.
  
• Use good judgment. Well, yeah.
• Provide value. It's not necessary. There are people who are happy talking about what their cat did that day and there are people who are happy to read it. If someone doesn't think what you're saying is valuable, they can choose not to read it. I personally hate Twitter. I choose not to read Twitter posts because I find the majority of people post just to post.
  
• Accept responsibility. Seriously, this is an 'all the time' thing. If you mess up, admit to it. Apologize to offended parties. This one really annoys me.

I suppose policies are a good idea. Common sense just isn't common enough. Remember, lots of employers will put your name through a search engine before hiring you. So will people you date! Then again, maybe it's a good thing to know that nice guy you met is into wandering around in a fur suit before you get too attached to him. Or, you know, maybe that's attractive to you. I'm not judging you, as long as you're not hurting anybody.