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]
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]
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 [...]
[23 Mar 2009]
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]
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 [...]
[8 Feb 2008]
With its latest version, TrueCrypt has released a version for Mac OS X. OS X comes with its own encryption feature known as FileVault. But in my experience, FileVault can cause some performance issues. If you don’t regularly log out of your machine, you may find yourself running out of hard-drive space faster than you [...]
[6 Feb 2008]
For 10 months I had a public profile on Twitter. I shared the minutae of my days or what I was thinking at the time, links to stuff I was reading, or jokes with friends. Somewhere along the way a total of 150 people started following me. I only knew or knew of about 60 [...]
[14 Jan 2008]
Thomas Mrozak, a spokesman for the United States attorney here, declined Wednesday to confirm that the office had issued subpoenas. The Los Angeles Times, citing unnamed sources, reported that the investigation would determine if the creation of a fake identity to harass the 13-year-old, Megan Meier, could be considered Internet fraud under federal statutes. (Emphasis [...]
[10 Jan 2008]
You’ll need to read the Flickr forum thread for some context regarding Jeremy’s post, but Jeremy’s point is a good one: As sites like Flickr and Last.fm move from having early adopters into the mainstream, this issue becomes more important. What isn’t clear is how the moral responsibility should be distributed. Should Flickr provide clearer [...]
[5 Oct 2007]