> For example if data shows that millions of people are visiting a webpage that is broken, that site would be moved lower in the search results.
Cue endless SEO community debate & speculation in 3...2...1...
Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#52I am an American high school senior and can say confidently that most American students are screwed over pretty extensively when it comes to the software they are forced to use. I have several classes that require the use of proprietary software such as Google classroom, Microsoft silver light, and Adobe flash. On top of that I cannot even remember the last time I was given a document that wasn't a .docx. It would be…
You think that's bad...I work in a university and a different segment of my department is responsible for implementing and managing ExamSoft SofTest on student computers.
For those that aren't aware, it's essentially a solution to the issue of BYOD. Students want to use their own laptops to take exams (and I'm sure it's also a lot more economical for the school since each student will already own a computer whereas building large computer labs and maintaining many machines just for computerized testing would be prohibitively expensive in our current facility).
The way it works is you essentially grant the software low level root/admin access to your machine so it can sandbox exam software and prevent you from running anything else during tests. This alone would drive me batshit insane if I was a student forced to use this setup but the worst part is that the actual software always seems out of date and doesn't support current OS versions.
We had so many problems this term when students arrived in the fall with new laptops running Windows 10 and OSX 10.11. Apparently, ExamSoft hadn't had enough time to make sure their software worked properly with these new releases so students were told a) if you haven't upgraded to the most recent OS version yet, don't do so. b) if you have recently upgraded to the most recent OS version, you should downgrade. c) if you just bought your computer with the latest OS version installed, um...we'll try to work something out.
I am so glad I am not in the group that handles this stuff because it seemed like a total shit show. The nature of the software prevents it from running in a VM so you can't just run an instance of Windows 8 or OSX 10.10. A lot of the exams aren't simple computerized versions of the old scantrons or paper tests and require the use of software run from inside SofTest. And the worst part is that people generally want to keep their OS fully updated and patched for security and support purposes (not to mention the money people spend on new computers only to find that the required software only runs on old OS versions).
From my end, dealing more with online course delivery, I've thankfully been able to move us away from Flash or Silverlight players for watching recorded content but there's still infrastructure that we need to work around since we can't simply replace it all if the frameworks in place still require some plugin or another for the time being. Not so much a privacy issue as one of keeping up with advances and standards when enterprise/education software can be slow to adapt.
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
My two sons are in middle school. The school has been transitioning to Google (from self-hosted Windows/Office). They presented a computer/network use and privacy policy for parents to sign. After reading it I sat my kids down and told them to under no circumstances do anything with the school's computers or WiFi network other than activity strictly related to their school assignments. No personal email, no casual we…
+1 for paying attention to the privacy policy! Our daughter and son in law are also similarly careful about our grandkids' use of school systems and the Internet in general.
Well, I did have to endure some major eye-rolling from their mother while I held up the line at student enrollment for 20 minutes while I parsed the agreement ;)
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's just their policy not to use that data when using machine learning and whatnot to get a result out of it. So Google is like a child that wants to eat candy, has candy , but doesn't eat it? Of course they're using all the data they can, to the extent they can. They're just telling us there's no reason to worry, while they feed their data to the NSA's surveillance machinery etc. You see, Google is not the only "…
That's pretty accurate. Google seems to have a huge fascination with collecting data, refuses to let us opt out of most of that data collection (without opting out of those services entirely), and then just expects us to 'trust them' that they aren't using it inappropriately.
"Trust we're doing this" is basically what "Pledge" means.
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#55Besides not addressing the points that EFF raised, one of my serious problems with Google Apps (as a user) is data leakage across services and accounts. Some examples: - Google Hangouts is one of the covered apps. But to be actually useful (e.g. if you want to share images), you had to turn on Google+. Images end up in Google+ photo albums, which are not covered by the Google Apps agreement and the data can be mined…
It turns out that protecting one's privacy in the digital age is really inconvenient.
It was before the digital age too ("What do you mean your phone number isn't in the phone book?"), but people are more aware of it now.
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#56Besides not addressing the points that EFF raised, one of my serious problems with Google Apps (as a user) is data leakage across services and accounts. Some examples: - Google Hangouts is one of the covered apps. But to be actually useful (e.g. if you want to share images), you had to turn on Google+. Images end up in Google+ photo albums, which are not covered by the Google Apps agreement and the data can be mined…
I am one of the suckers that try to live with two google accounts. It is maddening. For example, if you do not agree to g+ on your main account and by mistake you select that account on the dropdown from hangouts or the play store* then you get the EULA agreement and there is no way to go back to the app and select another account if you don't agree. Because as soon as you decline you exit the app, and opening the ap…
I find that using Chrome with the multiple accounts feature helps a great deal. You can theme the different Chrome accounts differently to provide a visual hint when you're in the wrong window. And if you consistently log into only one web account from each Chrome account, you never get the multiple-login selector.
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#57Man, how far Google as fallen. Reading that corporate press release made me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable for all the people who had (unwisely) trusted Google over the years. Maybe they are not (currently) using the data in the very legalese-specific way that they have claimed. But, there's no doubt that they will build unrelated products using that data to make their owners gazillions. That's fine, you say - we…
That would be super-convenient, as long as the AI is still helping me find what I'm looking for, wouldn't it?
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
And why exactly are you supprised that services designed to be integrated deeply with one another are integrated with one another? Integration pretty much guarantees that data will leak between them. This is one of the main reasons why I don't use Google services, except for their search engine.
Have you tried DuckDuckGo? With the exception of maps and directions, I actually prefer their search experience to Google's.
Unfortunately ddg is not as good as Google for non English searches.
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 for paying attention to the privacy policy! Our daughter and son in law are also similarly careful about our grandkids' use of school systems and the Internet in general.
Well, I did have to endure some major eye-rolling from their mother while I held up the line at student enrollment for 20 minutes while I parsed the agreement ;)
This is more evidence that there should be a minimum-reading-time requirement for contracts to be considered valid.
We now have the capability to algorithmically generate an estimate of how long it should take an average person to read any given text. Take something like 3/4 of that time (this value is tunable), and if a person wasn't given at least that much time to read a contract, then there patently cannot be a "meeting of the minds"[1] and the contract was never established.
This removes much of the social pressure against holding up the line, and discourages extra-long contracts. Every contract should be read and understood completely.
Re: Response to EFF complaint about student data privacy
#60When Google starts to state that the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) agrees with their policies, you know that something's amiss. Looking at fpf.org, they present themselves as a Thinktank, but it's probably more honest to describe them as industry lobbyists. (i) Pages like https://fpf.org/issues/ad-tracking/ don't present a critical and balanced view on ad tracking but put forward the view of ad companies. (ii) A rand…
https://fpf.org/about/ https://fpf.org/about/our-mission/ Their "About Us and "Mission" pages are identical, and are full of glowing talk about convening a discussion that "seeks to advance responsible data practices", and doesn't say anything about privacy. This smells strongly of a corporate/lobbyist PR front.
The Future of Privacy Forum's future of privacy is "no privacy".