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By Posted on Posted in Politics, Technology No Comments Tagged with ,

So the UK government seems to have launched a new public awareness campaign dubbed #cyberstreetwise  (evidenced by posters in the Tube I spotted this weekend). The campaign’s web site is : https://www.cyberstreetwise.com. Bonus points for a https URL. Negative points for choosing a “.com” domain instead of a more appropriate “.co.uk” or even “.uk” domain. So first of all, I was confused initially about who was supporting it. The logos at the bottom left panel include HM Government but also the more recognizable Facebook and Twitter logos (without explanation) which seems (to me) to mean “this is being sponsored by the government, Twitter and Facebook” or possibly “this is a government initiative with sponsorship provided by Twitter and Facebook.” In fact, reading the web site, it appears that neither Twitter nor Facebook have any formal role, so the presence of their logos is somewhat mystifying. I Suppose they just mean “we are on Twitter and Facebook” but honestly, these days who isn’t? [Side note: what is up with random Facebook and Twitter logos on things?  See my Twitter update on this topic that seemed to “go viral” earlier today.] But putting this to the side for a second, I really don’t know what to make of this campaign. On the one hand, it’s exactly the kind of public awareness campaign thatI feel is needed. People need to start getting more aware of the the web basics, especially around privacy, e-safety, scams. use of strong passwords, installation of updates and use of security software. So yes. Great. But the …

Mixed Feelings About the UK Government #Cyberstreetwise Campaign Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Technology, Web No Comments Tagged with , ,

According to The Verge, the “Anonabox” Kickstarter is Trying to be a One-Stop-Shop for Internet Privacy. So the hacker in me loves the idea of this, but actually I think it’s probably over-kill (and an over-promise) for most people’s web privacy needs. First of all, if you want to surf the Web through the Tor network you just have to download an install the Tor browser bundle (https://www.torproject.org/download/download – also see this Guardian article from last year: http://gu.com/p/3k569) . This application download actually pairs a heavily customized (with additional anonymity-enhancing features) Firefox browser with the Tor networking software. But even that is overkill for most casual “private browsing.” If you are just trying to search privately (for example, for medical-related topics that you don’t want showing up in your ads the next time you search the web) then the private browsing modes that now come as standard with modern browsers (Chrome calls it “incognito”) are perfectly fine. What these modes don’t protect you from is your network provider (ISP) snooping browsing. Tor does encrypt your network traffic (to the Tor service) but it comes with major downsides such as slowness. Because of the way Tor works, routing your traffic around the Internet until it finally pops out onto the public Net at an “exit node”, your traffic will also appear as if it’s coming from another country than the one you live in. So for example if you live in the UK you will find BBC iPlayer will not work through Tor. Also if you run …

“Anonabox”: One-Stop-Shop for Internet Privacy? Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Kids, Web No Comments Tagged with ,

This was originally posted to Facebook – now I am posting a summary post here, as it relates to a previous post I’ve made on this same issue on the G+ service (“Shared Endoresements”): As reported in the NYT over the weekend, it seems like Facebook is about to expand the use of personal “likes” and endorsements on ads it shows to other users. If you “like” something, your image could appear next to an advertiser’s message if one of your friends sees that ad – and now they are planning to extend this practice to ads placed on sites outside of the Facebook site itself. As far as I can tell, you can opt out of this by visiting your Facebook settings, clicking on “Ads” on the left-hand navigation bar and clicking “Edit” to set the setting to “no-one” for both “Third Party Sites” and “Ads and Friends.” Personally I have chosen to opt out as I am not comfortable with my image being displayed along side of an advertiser’s message just because I happen to have “liked” a company or product in the past. I’m also not happy with the lack of communication about this new service from Facebook to its users. Google have rolled this out as well on Google+ as “Shared Endorsements” and I’ve also opted out of that – but at least they offered some clear instructions on how to opt out. For this, I’ve got to read about it in The New York Times? (http://nyti.ms/1bKYAxB) The subtext here about teens being …

Facebook’s Price Hike (and How to Opt Out) Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Technology No Comments Tagged with , ,

So – The first thing I did this morning on reading this New York Times article on Google’s new plan to use users’ data (+1s, etc…) on their own ads  was hunt around for how to opt out, which I have now done. To do the same visit your Google+ settings and change the setting for “Shared Endorsements” (nu-speak for “paste my face all over your ads on the web and don’t pay me anything for it.”). Since posting this, a some good discussion has been going on in the google+ comment trail.

By Posted on Posted in Web 4 Comments Tagged with , , , , ,

Photo credit: Rob Pongsajapan. Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Lift conference and helping to run a workshop on user privacy. This was a workshop with a difference. My colleague Franco Papeschi came up with the idea of a privacy “game” (“Denopticon“) which would help participants explore the issues around privacy, personal information and data sharing. The game started with participants filling out an ID card with personal information about themselves. Participants earned points for finding out and recording personal information from others and additional points for fulfilling various secret missions. It was enormously fun and I hope to help run it again at other events. But besides being fun, it helped the participants, and the moderators, think about the key issues around user privacy. This was against the backdrop of enormous upheaval in the area of user privacy on the Web. I remember when privacy on the Web used to boil down to “turning off cookies.” Now-a-days if you turn off cookies, you might as well use your computer as a doorstop, and anyway the privacy conversation has so moved on. In a world where more and more of our communication is happening through social networks and socially connected applications, the whole concept of privacy is being turned on its head, to the extent that some (such as Christian Heller) are claiming that we are now living in a “post-privacy” world. And, of course, Google’s Eric Schmidt is on record saying “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, …

Can I Have a Word in Private? Read more »