Who decides what to disclose?
Jam Kotenko reports:
When Facebook
came clean about a recent security bug that caused the exposure
of 6 million users’ personal information to their contacts, they
softened the blow by saying that the effect of the bug was probably
minimal, since the people who likely received their
friends’ data could have already had access to the contact info in
the first place. Facebook
users were outraged nonetheless, and it turns out they had reason
to be: According to Sophos,
the Facebook info leak is actually much worse than we were told and
that the researchers who initially discovered the existence
of shadow profiles are saying that the numbers don’t match up.
Read more on Digital
Trends.
[From the article:
In one case, they stated 1
additional email address was disclosed, though 4 pieces of data were
actually disclosed. For another individual, they only told him about
3 out of 7 pieces of data disclosed. It would seem clear that they
did not enumerate through the datasets to get an accurate total of
the disclosure.
Facebook claimed that information
went unreported because they could not confirm it belonged to a given
user. Facebook used its own discretion when notifying users of
what data was disclosed, but there was apparently no discretion used
by the ‘bug’ when it compiled your data. It does not appear that
they will take any extra steps at this point to explain the real
magnitude of the exposure and we suspect the numbers are much higher.
More articles, but less shocking.
Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman
disclose more from files leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden:
The Obama
administration for more than two years permitted the National
Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records
detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to
secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
The documents
indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal
judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court
would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata ”every
90 days”. A senior administration official confirmed the program,
stating that it ended in 2011.
The collection of
these records began under the Bush administration’s wide-ranging
warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA
codename Stellar Wind.
Read more on The
Guardian.
And see their other report, “How
the NSA is still harvesting your online data.”
[Interesting language
in the order:
"communications with at least one
communicant outside the United
States or for which no communicant was known to
be a citizen of the United States".
[I would take that to
mean that if I couldn't see (didn't have a copy of) their birth
certificate, it was okay to listen in... Bob]
Well, it's a start.
Casey Seller reports:
The state Court of
Appeals has decided that the attachment of a GPS device on the
personal vehicle of Michael Cunningham, a Department of Labor
employee suspected of padding his time reports, was “unreasonable”
in its scope. The use of the GPS device in the state Inspector
General’s probe, the court concludes, crossed a
line when it extended beyond the workday, when Cunningham
used his car for official business.
While the decision
to reverse a lower court’s action was unanimous, the judges split
4-3 on the question of whether the state could use such a device to
track an employee during work hours.
Read more on Capitol
Confidential.
Update: Orin Kerr
comments on the decision on The
Volokh Conspiracy.
Sound bites. Fluff. This is
addressing the collected data rather than the collection (or
collectors) of data. See the article on PII below.
Commissioner Julie Brill’s keynote
speech at CFP yesterday is well worth reading. Here’s a small
part of it where she addresses ideas apart from legislation:
I would suggest we
need a comprehensive initiative – one I am calling “Reclaim Your
Name.” Reclaim Your Name would give consumers the knowledge and the
technological tools to reassert some control over their personal data
– to be the ones to decide how much to share, with whom, and for
what purpose – to reclaim their names.
Reclaim Your Name
would empower the consumer to find out how brokers are collecting and
using data; give her access to information that data brokers have
amassed about her; allow her to opt-out if she learns
a data broker is selling her information for marketing purposes;
[Probably not possible unless this “opt-out” turns off all of the
“opt-in” switches, Internet wide. Bob] and provide
her the opportunity to correct errors in information used for
substantive decisions – like credit, insurance, employment, and
other benefits.
(Related) ...and mostly in her mind?
Kate Kaye writes that marketers were
caught off-guard by FTC Commissioner Julie Brill’s “Reclaim Your
Name” initiative, described in her keynote address as CFP this
week:
The Direct
Marketing Association was caught off guard by Commissioner Brill’s
announcement. “DMA has been in discussion with Commissioner Brill
regarding ways to increase transparency in the ‘data broker’
industry, but was surprised to see her announcement of this new
initiative,” said Rachel Thomas, VP of government affairs at DMA.
“The FTC’s Section 6B inquiry into ‘data brokers’ is still
ongoing, and the Commission has yet to articulate a specific problem
that would justify a call for congressional action in this area,”
she continued in an emailed statement.
Ms. Brill
indicated that the FTC believes mobile device IDs are
personally-identifiable. Many of the companies using device
IDs to track in-store shopping behavior and other location-based
interactions hold that they are not. “Information linked to
specific devices is, for all intents and purposes, linked to
individuals,” she said.
Read more on Ad
Age.
Again, collections vs collecting.
Daniel Solove and Paul Schwartz write:
We recently
released a draft of our new essay, Reconciling
Personal Information in the European Union and the United States,
and we want to highlight some of its main points here.
The privacy law of
the United States (US) and European Union (EU) differs in many
fundamental ways, greatly complicating commerce between the US and
EU. At the broadest level, US privacy law focuses on redressing
consumer harm and balancing privacy with efficient commercial
transactions. In the EU, privacy is hailed as a fundamental right
that trumps other interests. The result is that EU
privacy protections are much more restrictive on the use and transfer
of personal data than US privacy law.
Numerous attempts
have been made to bridge the gap between US and EU privacy law, but a
very large initial hurdle stands in the way. The two bodies of law
can’t even agree on the scope of protection let alone the substance
of the protections. The scope of protection of privacy laws turns on
the definition of “personally identifiable information” (PII).
If there is PII, privacy laws apply. If PII is absent, privacy laws
do not apply.
Read more on LinkedIn.
[Interesting choice of forum Bob]
I note that the Privacy Foundation is
not listed. That's a pretty significant omission.
New
on LLRX – Privacy Resources and Sites on the Internet 2013
Via LLRX.com
- Privacy
Resources and Sites on the Internet 2013 - - Marcus
P. Zilman’s guide is a comprehensive, timely and actionable
resource inclusive of a wide range of privacy resources for
individuals as well as organizations. His guide includes references
to associations, indexes, search engines as and topical websites and
sources that provide current applications, information and resources
on the salient topic of privacy and how it relates to your use of the
internet and social media.
It must be Audio week at MakeUseOF...
Audacity can be a fantastic audio
recording and editing tool, especially because of its cross platform
and open source nature. For example, you can make your own home
music recordings with Audacity or use Audacity in ten
other creative uses that you may not have thought of.
… here are four recommended tools
you can use that are free and completely compatible with each other.
And even if these three don’t meet
your needs somehow, there are still plenty of others available such
as these 6
suggested Audacity alternatives, especially if you use a Mac.
(Related)
Format
Factory promises to convert anything at all to any other format.
Not only does it work, but it’s free.
The world of IT is changing...
IT
in the Cloud Era
An interview with Aaron Levie,
cofounder and CEO of Box. Follow him on Twitter at @levie.
There are markets and there are black
markets... The Internet enables them all.
… Atlantis, which is accessible
through the anonymity-enabling Tor network, lists among its product
categories Drug, Forgeries, Money, and Lab Supplies.
For my students
CRS
– Financial Aid for Students: Online Resources
Financial
Aid for Students: Online Resources, Laura L. Monagle, Information
Research Specialist, June 17, 2013
This report
identifies various online sources for planning and acquiring funds
for postsecondary education. Students themselves are often in the
best position to determine which aid programs they may qualify for
and which best meet their needs. This list includes both general and
comprehensive sources, as well as those targeted toward specific
types of aid and circumstances (e.g., non-need-based scholarships;
female and minority students; students studying abroad; or veterans,
military personnel, and their dependents). The selection of a
resource for inclusion in this report is based upon a multitude of
criteria, including long-standing history in publishing print guides
on financial aid and other college information guides (e.g., College
Board, Peterson’s, Princeton Review, Reference Service Press) and
information on selected topics (e.g., specialized educational
disciplines or students). The references in this report are
examples, not an all-inclusive list, of resources to consult.”
For my students who complain my tests
are “too hard.” This is similar to what I saw in Japan.
The
IIT Entrance Exam
The admissions test for the Indian
Institutes of Technology, known as the Joint Entrance Examination or
JEE, may be the most competitive test in the world. In 2012, half a
million Indian high school students sat for the JEE. Over six
grueling hours of chemistry, physics, and math questions, the
students competed for one of ten thousand spots at India’s most
prestigious engineering universities.
When the students finish the exam, it
is the end of a two plus year process. Nearly every student has
spent four hours a day studying advanced science topics not taught at
school, often waking up earlier than four in the morning to attend
coaching classes before school starts.
… Government subsidies make it
possible for any admitted student to attend IIT. [Would
be nice if the US did the same. Bob]
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