111–120 of 300 posts
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People have been fired or denied employment from "groups" they "liked" way back in the heydays of Facebook. Very benign things can activate very discretionary things in other people.
If I get fired because of my Facebook profile I'm sure I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
Google.
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For the sake of discussion, why is that scary rather than kind of nice? Unless you take the AdBlock route, aren't well targeted ads better than irrelevant ones?
Its scary because its intrusive. I didn't post the picture so that I would get better ads - rather, to inform my friends that we were having a jam session. But now, we're all going to be bombarded with ads for instruments we don't need to buy (because we already have them). The most uncomfortable angle is just how quickly Facebook tuned into what we were doing and then changed its ad-delivery algorithm to match. I ha…
This assumes that your and Facebook's intent and interests are aligned. Clearly they are not. Why you posted your picture onto someone else's database is relevant primarily to you, and perhaps also to some subset of your friends.
You're not obligated to turn that process into a money-making proposition.
As Eben Moglen warned us a long time ago [1] the arrangement between you and Facebook (et al) is neither complex nor confusing:
You get some PHP doodads and you get spying for free all the time.
[1] https://www.google.com.au/search?q=eben+moglen+doodads+and+s...
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These days, I'd be willing to bet that "ordinary street surveillance" uses facial recognition algorithms. It wouldn't be as effective as FB's, because FB has an enormous stream of training data coming in all the time. However, that could change if law enforcement got access to FB's data - hence this article.
Facial recognition software can only recognize you if your face is already in the database and identified as you. It's not going to magically know your identity otherwise, no matter how sophisticated it is. On the other hand, I guess it could do some inference, such as: person X seen at location Y is also seen going in to residence Z every evening and coming out of the same residence every morning for the last 6 mont…
Right, which is exactly what would happen if law enforcement/governments could access FB's database.
I've been using Facebook since college (circa 2005). Never "hidden" my profile from anyone or the public. Never deactivated anything or deleted a post. Recruiters and acquaintances look up my profile all the time. Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. I still trust Facebook leadership very much in this regard. Maybe it's because I trust myself and how I utilize the technology. Or may…
>Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. Are you sure? Facebook has a patent on lowering your credit score based on who is in your friends list[1]. They also feed data to credit score companies who directly examine your posts and use it to tweak your credit score yet further[2]. It's totally possible that your use of Facebook has affected your ability to buy a car or house, or get a jo…
I deleted my Facebook account in 2010 after appearing in the Times regarding technology addiction. It was my most time consuming social media application at the time. For the article, they had me install an application tracker to see how much time I spent in focus on a particular app. I was alarmed at how often I checked Facebook chat. Today, after much investigation, I've come to a hypothesis that technology's purpo…
Exactly, although it's being done in a roundabout and non-obvious way. There are millions of tech folks, all (in my mind) honestly trying to create technology to empower folks to do things they've never done before.
But the beauty of tech is generalization, creating cookie-cutter choices. Everything we do, and in ever way we interact with tech, it's more and more leading us down pre-canned behavioral pathways. Even when completely unintended, the place where tech is taking us unless we drastically change our ways is something like the commodification of the species. It's a freaking horror show.
The Borg are going to go from sci-fi super villains to an accurate description of our great-grandkids in just a generation. Amazing.
Will the last human please go outside and do something unique?
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Yeah, I always get annoyed at standing in line for building security needing to take yet another photo of me and stare at my license. Let's just be friends on Facebook so their security cameras can identify me when I walk in the door.
I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
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In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government - not to dictate policy but just to dictate infrastructure. Is it "fear-mongering" to bring up this episode again? Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Reda…
> Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS What's SNS?
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What you're missing is what security people call defense in depth. The primary goal is to prevent a system that can target anyone, but it is a historical fact that we have not always been able to achieve that goal. What happens then?
> What you're missing is what security people call defense in depth. I didn't miss it, I deplore it. True "defense in depth" puts all civil rights aside. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin. > What happens then? Citizens fight back. The outcome that tyrants dearly wish for is a population that simply doesn't care,…
It seems, then, that the part you're missing is that in authoritarianism the authoritarians are the government? The entire concept of civil rights in general and privacy in particular is as a defense against a bad government.
> Citizens fight back. The outcome that tyrants dearly wish for is a population that simply doesn't care, or that can be frightened into submission. It's my hope that we're not that population.
Except that you didn't object to Facebook having all your information, so when the jackboots march in and seize their servers, they get everything they need to know to identify anyone with the inclination to resist and can dispose of them before they can organize.