Posts tagged privacy
When did we all become so private?
May 20th
People are more scared than ever, aren’t they? Take today’s news for example that Google’s face recognition technology has sparked fears that it will aid stalkers. Or Switzerland whining about StreetView. Or Facebook employees getting fair up Mark Zuckerberg about his privacy settings. Why are we so scared all of a sudden?
When I was a teenager I begged my father for a computer. All the kids in my class had one, they were always going on about Netscape Navigator, Dogpile and Encarta as well as all those cool computer games. I was reading the Encyclopedia Britannica we’d bought from a door-to-door salesman and was still playing Alex the Kid on the Sega Master System.
But nothing would convince my father that computers and the internet was the future. He told me the internet was a fad and believe that movie with Sandra Bullock, The Net, as gospel (bad things happened in that movie).
He believed that people could hack into computers and steal your money, that they could overhear your private conversations, read your mail and ruin your life with ill-credible sources of ‘information’.
Fast forward many years later and my father lives his life on the internet. Banking, bills, email, phone calls, news and TV. All of a sudden, he believes in the power of the password and the internet’s intention to actually make our lives easier.
These are fears that were expressed by many at the beginning of the millennium. We’ve come round to the idea that we can safely do our banking online, that we can book holidays online, buy anything we want with a credit card online, call people, send emails, etc.
So, in coming to grips with all that, do you think we will one day realise that the vast amount of the information and technologies around the internet aren’t actually out to get us?
Why have we become so private? The internet once made us extroverts, we became more vocal, we all got blogs and starting shouting our opinions but now we’re scared of who’ll see and hear what again. What’s happened that we’re now boycotting Facebook – the very tool that brought together 500 million people across the globe and put us back in touch with our friends?
It seems as if we’re all taking a giant leap backward. Shouldn’t we be embracing our open future?
Prepare for more Twitter attacks, only 21% of users are ‘true’ users
Mar 11th
Only 21% of Twitter users are ‘true Twitter users’ according to a new report from Barracuda Networks, does that mean that everyone else a) got bored or b) are hackers?
A true Twitter User as someone who has three main attributes:
· Has at least 10 followers
· Follows at least 10 people
· Has tweeted at least 10 times
The Twitter growth rate spiked at 21.17% in April 2009 due to what is known as the ‘Twitter Red Carpet Era’.
This falls between November 2008 and April 2009 and is the period of time during which a handful of ‘celebrities’ – including 27 of the top 50 and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users – joined.
In the beginning of 2008, Twitter was growing approximately 0.31% per month. By November 2008, that growth increased to 1.95% per month.
After December 2008, Twitter’s growth exploded from nearly two percent per month, and rising to approximately three-to-four percent per month, before finally peaking at nearly 20% per month in April 2009.
At the end of the ‘Twitter Red Carpet Era,’ growth appears to have normalized, dropping back to 0.34% by December 2009.
Barracuda’s 2009 Annual Report, Twitter’s Red Carpet Era – Celebrities and Criminals’, reveals data from three areas: Twitter trends and tracking, Web threats and trends, and email spam and viruses.
The report drills down into 2009’s fastest growing social networking application Twitter, and reviews growth drivers, usage trends and the overall Twitter crime rate.
Barracuda Labs analyzed more than 19 million Twitter accounts, both legitimate and malicious, for frequency and content of tweets, user-to-user interactions, and each account’s overall activity level.
The report also revealed that 49% of Twitter users, and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users, joined during the Twitter Red Carpet Era[2], indicating the significant impact celebrities have on the social networking landscape as they bring their real-world fans over to Twitter.
During the Twitter Red Carpet Era, the Twitter Crime Rate increased 66% and continued to escalate reaching 12% in October 2009, indicating one in eight accounts created was deemed to be malicious, suspicious or otherwise misused and subsequently suspended.
Social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide a perfect opportunity for attackers to find their victims, leveraging what users assume to be a ‘safe’ environment. Attackers employ various techniques to build up their follower list, poison trending topic threads, or initiate other campaigns which can increase the visibility of their tweets, and therefore draw users in to suspicious sites, malicious downloads or other malevolent activity.
As social networks continue to gain momentum – and millions of users – there is no doubt that criminals will look to create more sophisticated and serious social engineering attacks against unsuspecting users.
Facebook privacy tools launched. Now the backlash begins.
Dec 10th
Is Facebook really handing over control of privacy to its users? That’s the social network’s stance with the launch of new tools.
Users welcomed their new lease of empowerment with open arms but some quarters are verging on the side of caution claiming the move simply allows Google to wipe their hands of future problems.
“Let’s get one thing straight: Facebook is forcing users to choose their new privacy options to promote the Everyone update, and to clear itself of any potential wrongdoing going forward,” said Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch.
“If there is significant backlash against the social network, it can claim that users willingly made the choice to share their information with everyone.”
He adds, “That’s why there are all of these notifications informing users about what these privacy features do. And it’s why there’s now a Privacy Center.
“The vast majority of users will ignore this information the same way 80% of them have ignored privacy settings in the first place. But Facebook will still be able to claim that it did its best to get their informed consent.”
Kincaid’s claims have been backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“These new “privacy” changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.,” said the Foundation.
Kincaid went on to predict future problems with prospective employers stumbling over Facebook users’ potentially sensitive information.
He added that problems would be compounded when Facebook starts sharing status updates with the search engines and other third parties.
“Bing will be getting access to Facebook ‘Everyone’ status updates in early 2010. Google will only have access to Fan Pages at first, but don’t be surprised if they cough up the cash for access to the status updates too,” he wrote.
“In other words, if users do wind up sharing far more than they intended to, Facebook can’t do much to repair the damage.”
The bottom line. Will usage of the site diminish? Kincaid doesn’t predict this will happen.
But the private nature of the site – which made it popular in the first place – has now gone.
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