Posts tagged: privacy
- Big brother is Google
- One reaction is to diversify: Hotmail instead of Gmail, MapQuest instead of Google Maps, AOL Instant Messenger instead of Google Chat ’ though that would mean losing the accumulated benefits of linked services. Another reasonable response is to focus efforts on improving our (new) media literacy so that we’re more mindful of how much even [...] [18 Feb 2010]
- To password mask or not password mask?
- That is the question Jakob Nielsen sparked with last summer’s column: Stop Password Masking. In this week’s A List Apart, Lyle Mullican discusses The Problem with Passwords, and writes: However, making such a sweeping change to a fundamental user interaction could present serious problems. Consider some contexts in which a password might need to be entered [...] [9 Feb 2010]
- On bringing clarity to privacy policies
- If Privacy Icons become widely adopted (and I think Mozilla is in a unique position to help make that happen) then the correlation of good companies using the icons and bad companies not using the icons becomes rather strong. If a privacy policy doesn’t include any icons it’s synonymous with that policy making no guarantees [...] [13 Jan 2010]
- On visibility in public
- By and large, those who are looking are those who hold power over the person being observed. Parents look. Teachers look. Employers look. Governments look. Corporations look. These people are often looking to judge or manipulate. Given the powerful position they are in, those doing the looking often think that they have the right to [...] [10 Dec 2009]
- Remy Sharp introduces you to web storage in HTML5
- From his 24 Ways piece, Breaking Out The Edges of The Browser: The Web Storage API is basically cookies on steroids, a unhealthy dosage of steroids. Cookies are always a pain to work with. First of all you have the problem of setting, changing and deleting them. Typically solved by Googling and blindly relying on PPK’s [...] [2 Dec 2009]
- Memory and the Internet
- Via NPR’s latest Technology podcast, a piece on the permanent memory of digital data, and what one computer scientist is doing about it. Digital Data Make For A Really Permanent Record Vanish: Vanish: Enhancing the Privacy of the Web with Self-Destructing Data [6 Nov 2009]
- Hunch.com: a review after 60 minutes of tinkering
- Earlier today, I received an email from Caterina Fake, team inviting me to check out her latest web venture. Fake, as you probably know, was a founding member of the photo-sharing community Flickr. Flickr was sold to Yahoo! in 2005 and last summer Fake left Yahoo!, presumably to start her Next Big Thing. Well that [...] [28 Mar 2009]
- Twitter, privacy, and informational self-determination
- UPDATE: Tweetdeck does, in fact, tell you whether someone’s updates are protected if you click on the user name and view his or her profile. It does not however do this at a glance. If you’re not listening from the CBC’s Search Engine podcast, shame on you. It’s a kick ass show that looks at technology [...] [23 Mar 2009]
- What I’m reading: Privacy, security, pervasive technology and society
- I’ve been thinking about pervasive technology, society, macroeconomics, the Internet, control, our environment, our mass delusions surrounding privacy, and the efficacy of voting this morning. They’re seemingly unconnected, and yet very connected. I like to think that I am an above-average user of technology by American standards. And yet, if I am overwhelmed by the [...] [1 Aug 2008]
- Sniffing users’ browser history and Firefox extensions to stop it
- Go read Niall Kennedy’s post about using JavaScript to sniff a user’s browser history. It’s an inventive use of your user’s browser history, though I suspect it could potentially be used — in combination with cookies and logins — to detect which of your users are also regular porn surfers. With that little bit of fearmongering out [...] [8 Feb 2008]