Posts Tagged ‘ surveillance ’

Why online privacy matters (TED lecture by Alessandro Acquisti)

December 24, 2013
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In this informative and also humorous TED lecture, Allesandro Acquisti, a researcher on the behavioural economics of privacy, talks about the current state of privacy online and why we should care about it. He concludes his talk with the following thought: “I do believe that one of the defining fights of our time will be the fight for the control over our personal information. The fight over whether big data will become a force for freedom rather than a force which will manipulate us. Right now, many of us do not even know that the fight is going on. But…

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Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance (article)

June 27, 2013
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The recent revelations by Edward Snowden of the global surveillance of internet communications by the American NSA was a vivid reminder of the need for everyone to think much more carefully about their online behavior. However, many people seem to regard Snowden’s revelations as interesting or curious but not startling. Such people seem to think that they would never be the target of US government surveillance or that, even if they were, there would be nothing to fear as they are law-abiding people. This article, written by Moxie Marlinspike for WIRED challenges these comfortable assumptions. It is well worth reading. Some notable paragraphs:…

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Anonymous leaks alleged governmental surveillance data

September 26, 2012
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The Anonymous collective recently released one million and one Apple UDIDs, the unique device identifiers used by Apple for its iPhones, iMacs, iPads, etc. Within their release-statement, Anonymous gave detailed information on the origin of these UDIDs, claiming that they came from an FBI computer. In fact the database they accessed had information on and from more than 12 million devices. Before publishing this information Anonymous edited out personal data such as names, cell numbers, addresses zip codes, etc. leaving only the data columns, which would enable users to look up whether their devices are listed or not. According to…

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Applying the laws of robotics to smart phones

September 13, 2012
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The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the visionary science fiction author Isaac Asimov. In his books and stories these rules were introduced to ensure robots would serve the goal to maximize human well-being, serving their direct masters in the first place and secondarily any other human being. These rules read as follows: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must…

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Augmented and bot-mediated reality

June 13, 2012
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While Google’s  Project Glass has recently generated quite a stir with the possibilities of augmented reality, the idea is not exactly new.  In the 1990’s MIT Cyborgs carried around huge backpacks stuffed with computer hardware to remain connected to the digital world via their clunky screen-goggles. Sherry Turkle, an MIT researcher herself, discusses them in an article entitled “Always-on/Always-On-You: The Tethered Self,” which analyzes how augmented reality transforms human interaction into a world in which people are ensnared in round-the-clock digital social networks. Yet the official description for the Google’s Project Glass is just as optimistic as Turkle’s analysis is cynical: We believe technology…

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Recording everything: digital storage as an enabler of authoritarian governments

May 18, 2012
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The Brookings Institution recently published a paper entitled “Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments“. The executive summary reads as follows: Within the next few years an important threshold will be crossed: For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders—every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner. Governments with a history of using all of the tools at their disposal to track and monitor their citizens…

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More on consumer surveillance

February 21, 2012
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In a previous post I described a new technological approach to track consumer behavior, utilizing data from security surveillance cameras and outlined some of the ethical issues that arise from the use and abuse of this technology. A recent NYT article (How Companies Learn Your Secrets by Charles Duhigg) adds valuable insight to the issue. Duhigg outlines the conversations he had with Andrew Pole, one of the leading statisticians of Target, the second largest retailer in the United States, focusing on Target’s interest in identifying pregnant female costumers to be able to specifically target them with advertisements. Though I recommend reading the…

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Consumer surveillance

February 7, 2012
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Until recently brick-and-mortar businesses have looked upon on-line operations like Amazon with envy because the latter have something that the traditional business do not–an easy and legal way to track consumer behavior and conduct market research. While many proposals have been put forward, none of them have been entirely effective, appropriate (RFID tracking, Payback/Loyalty Systems) or legal (METRO Loyalty card). But recently a new technological approach has been introduced by Prism Skylabs, utilizing the data from security surveillance cameras to track consumer behavior. On their website they state that: Prism Skylabs’ goal is to transform the world’s multi-hundred billion-dollar camera network…

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