Centennial Man

Friday, October 24, 2014

An update on the “Facebook is evil” company.

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/10/23/ello-raises-5-5-m-for-social-network-promises-no-ads-or-selling-user-data/

Ello Raises $5.5 M for Social Network, Promises No Ads or Selling User Data

Ello Pbc., an ad-free social network that pledged to never sell user data, has made its philosophy binding and secured funding from investors who agree with its approach to make money other ways.

Ello filed to be a public benefit corporation, a designation that bakes specific operating principles and guidelines into the company’s legal charter. In the startup world–where companies often change core parts of their operations every month or so–the move to cement the promise is an unusual one, but not without precedent.

… Founded in March and launched in August, Ello captured significant attention and early buzz from people concerned about their privacy and the amount of advertising on Facebook, Tmblr and other social networks. Ello said it grew from having 90 users when it launched to a current pace of receiving between 20,000 to 45,000 requests per hour from people wanting to join the network.

For my Computer Security students.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-40-americans-experience-regular-fraud-attacks-73-take-steps-protect-their-phones?google_editors_picks=true

Microsoft: 40% of Americans experience regular fraud attacks, 73% take steps to protect their phones

A Microsoft survey has revealed that 40% of Americans experience weekly or daily fraudulent attempts to access their personal computers and valuable data. Let that sink in.

Breaking that statistic further reveals that by device, 40% of Americans reporting online attacks on their PCs, 18% via their phone, 28% via landline telephones, and 22% via tablets. These attacks are weekly, or up to daily.

… If you want to read the full details of the survey, including the major types of scams, which ones most people are worried about, which type of scams are getting more popular, and how to start protecting yourself from identity theft, go here.

[The Powerpoint slides: new Microsoft survey

Eye catching, but not really surprising.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/there-are-now-more-phones-people-and-each-checked-1500week?google_editors_picks=true

There are now more phones than people, and each is checked 1,500/week

… GSMA intelligence reports that there are more mobile devices than there are people in the world -- and the world population is 7.125 billion as of 2013.

[Look at their home page: https://gsmaintelligence.com/

Tecmark Survey Finds Average User Picks up their Smartphone 221 Times a Day!

… We polled 2,000 smartphone users in the UK (55.2% female and 44.8% male). We asked them 22 different questions about their smartphone usage.

Download the raw data (which includes gender and regional breakdowns as well).