HAX

Category: Big Data

  • Now, your headphones might spy on you

    Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged.

    Reuters: Bose headphones spy on listeners: lawsuit »

  • The Guardians of Truth?

    Bloomberg » Google Brings Fake News Fact-Checking to Search Results: Search giant is letting partners and publishers decide what’s true, what’s false and what’s in between »

  • Big Data

    Youtube »

  • Online porn and your privacy

    The Pornhub announcement comes at an auspicious time. Congress this week affirmed the power of cable providers to sell user data, while as of a few weeks ago more than half the web had officially embraced HTTPS. Encryption doesn’t solve your ISP woes altogether—they’ll still know that you were on Pornhub—but it does make it much harder to know what exactly you’re looking at while you’re there.

    Wired: The World’s Biggest Porn Site Goes All-In on Encryption »

  • Your privacy, for sale – part 2

    Putting the interests of Internet providers over Internet users, Congress today voted to erase landmark broadband privacy protections. If the bill is signed into law, companies like Cox, Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon will have free rein to hijack your searches, sell your data, and hammer you with unwanted advertisements. Worst yet, consumers will now have to pay a privacy tax by relying on VPNs to safeguard their information. That is a poor substitute for legal protections.

    EFF: Repealing Broadband Privacy Rules, Congress Sides with the Cable and Telephone Industry »

  • Your privacy, for sale

    The bill passed the U.S. Senate: it looks like your ISP will be allowed to just sell your browsing history. While the bill still needs to pass the House (the lower legislature in the U.S.) and the President’s signature, it seems increasingly likely to unfortunately do so. This doesn’t just mean that your privacy is commercialized – it also means that search-and-seizure is: the Police will be able to just buy your browsing history from your ISP, bypassing any privacy protections completely.

    Falkvinge: With looming changes to U.S. broadband privacy, police can bypass warrants entirely and just BUY your browser history from your ISP »

  • The EU ePrivacy regulation

    The latest dossier on our watch list is the EU ePrivacy regulation. (Aiming to replace the ePrivacy directive from 2002.)

    EDRi explains…

    This new regulation complements the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adding more clarity and legal certainty for individuals and businesses – helping to protect our personal data by providing specific rules related to our freedoms in the online environment.

    EDRi also list some comments…

    • extending the scope of application of the new rules is a welcome improvement;
    • the principle of “privacy by default” should not be partly replaced by the proposed “privacy by option”;
    • the way in which consent will be required needs further clarifications;
    • we need to secure citizens from ubiquitous tracking and ban sites from blocking visitors who do not accept cookies;
    • the proposal to allow offline tracking of users needs to be amended to bring it into line with the rest of the proposal;
    • collective redress mechanisms need to be explicitly mentioned.

    Read more at EDRi:
    • New e-Privacy rules need improvements to help build trust »
    • e-Privacy Directive: Frequently Asked Questions »
    • EDRis quick guide on the e-Privacy Regulation (PDF) »

  • Big Brothers little helpers

    “It’s like this perfect test case,” says Andrew Ferguson, a professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia. “Alexa is only one of the smart devices in that guy’s house. I don’t know if all of them were on or recording, but if you were going to set up a hypothetical situation to decide if the internet of things could be used as an investigative tool, you’ve got this mysterious hot tub murder.”

    Techcrunch: Can your smart home be used against you in court? »

  • Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the web

    TBL:s three points of interest:

    • We’ve lost control of our personal data
    • It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web
    • Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding

    The Guardian » Tim Berners-Lee: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it »

  • Zuckerbergs thoughts on how Facebook might rule the world

    Ten days ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a very long policy letter, that has been nagging my mind ever since. (Link»)

    The ambition is – of course – to make Facebook even bigger and more important in our lives. This also means making the totally dominant social media player even bigger and more important in our lives. I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with that.

    Facebook is a very special sort of social engineering, an invisible force guiding us trough social relations, news, politics, community activities, business, and culture. And here I get the impression that Facebook would like to become the curator of our lives.

    Going forward, we will measure Facebook’s progress with groups based on meaningful groups, not groups overall. This will require not only helping people connect with existing meaningful groups, but also enabling community leaders to create more meaningful groups for people to connect with.

    So, some Facebook groups are to be more important than others? One factor to define a »meningful group« seems to be »real« off-line events. For me, who am a small player in an international network promoting a free and open internet along with civil rights and liberty, this is a disheartening approach. Almost all our work is done online, with the occasional international conference. Nevertheless, together we make a difference – and our work is often the only way to make a real impact when it comes to politics and law making in these fields. Should we matter less?

     

    And what about this:

    The guiding principles are that the Community Standards should reflect the cultural norms of our community, that each person should see as little objectionable content as possible, and each person should be able to share what they want while being told they cannot share something as little as possible. The approach is to combine creating a large-scale democratic process to determine standards with AI to help enforce them.

    For those who don’t make a decision, the default will be whatever the majority of people in your region selected, like a referendum. Ofcourse you will always be free to update your personal settings anytime.

    I see the point. But wouldn’t this be creating new »filter bubbles« based on geography and cultural traditions? Will this not hamper human intellectual evolution? Will this not contribute to conformity? Isn’t the beauty of the Internet that it is truly global? Ars Technica dubs the approach outlined by Zuckerberg being »gerrymandering the Internet«.

    I would also say that this would be a way to subordinate the individual to majority rule by default settings. Thus, reducing freedom and moving power away from the private person to a faceless collective. And – are we really comfortable with AI handling such delicate matters?

    Wouldn’t this be a dream for totalitarian regimes – to be able to single out the ones who have changed their settings in ways that are no longer in line with most other people?

     

    Ars Technica makes another valid point:

    Zuckerberg adds that he’s thinking of creating “worldwide voting system” for Facebook users which could then be used as a template for how “collective decision-making may work in other aspects of the global community.” That’s a vague formulation. But coming on the heels of his comments about politicians with Facebook engagement, he sounds like he’s floating the idea of turning Facebook into the infrastructure for managing elections.

    Putting our democratic system in the hands of Facebook? Really? I don’t think so.

     

    And don’t forget to put the Zuckerberg manifesto in context. This is a company who has the creator of a very powerful tool for mass surveillance analysis (used by e.g. the FBI, CIA, NSA and GCHQ) – who also happens to be an advisor to the illustrious US President – on its’ board of directors.

     

    I fully understand that running an operation like Facebook is a highly complicated and delicate task. Maybe even impossible.

    But the real answer must be competition. Not that many years ago Facebook didn’t even exist. And in an unknown number of years ahead there will be something else – or, I hope, a multitude of alternatives. That is hopeful. But it doesn’t exclude Facebook from scrutiny right now, right here.

    We simply do not want the Skynet experience.

    / HAX

    • The Zuckerberg manifesto »
    • Ars Technica (Op-ed): Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto is a political trainwreck »