p2pnet view – P2P | Freedom | Security | Advertising

HTTPS Everywhere was first released as a beta test version in June of 2010. Today’s 1.0 version includes support for hundreds of additional websites, using carefully crafted rules to switch from HTTP to HTTPS. HTTPS protects against numerous Internet security and privacy problems, including the search hijacking on U.S. networks that was revealed by an article published today in New Scientist magazine.

The article, entitled “US internet providers hijacking users’ search queries,” documents how a company called Paxfire has been intercepting and altering search traffic on a number of ISPs’ networks. HTTPS can prevent such attacks.

“HTTPS secures web browsing by encrypting both requests from your browser to websites and the resulting pages that are displayed,” says EFF senior staff technologist Peter Eckersley. “Without HTTPS, your online reading habits and activities are vulnerable to eavesdropping, and your accounts are vulnerable to hijacking. Today’s Paxfire revelations are a grand example of how things can go wrong. EFF created HTTPS Everywhere to make it easier for people to keep their user names, passwords, and browsing histories secure and private. With the revelation that companies like Paxfire are out there, intercepting millions of people’s searches without their permission, this kind of protection is indispensable.”

HTTPS Everywhere 1.0 encrypts connections to Google Image Search, Flickr, Netflix, Apple, and news sites like NPR and the Economist, as well as dozens of banks. HTTPS Everywhere also includes support for Google Search, Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Wikipedia, the New York Times, and hundreds of other popular websites.

However, many websites have not implemented HTTPS at all. On sites that are HTTP-only, users still have to live with lower levels of privacy and security.

“More websites should implement HTTPS to help protect their users from identity theft, viruses, and other security threats,” said Senior Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. “Our Firefox extension is able to protect people using Google, DuckDuckGo or StartingPage for their searches. But we currently can’t protect Bing and Yahoo users, because those search engines do not support HTTPS.”

HTTPS Everywhere has been downloaded millions of times since last year’s initial beta release.

To download HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox:
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

p2pnet view

It’s as if some people come in looking desperately for something to “flame”.  No matter how clearly you think you’ve explained something, you always get a few acting as if you’re trying to hide something, or you’re just straight-out lying.

CASE IN POINT: “p2pnet runs NO trackers!”

This is not an opinion, an assumption, or some “foregone conclusion”.  I don’t need to “investigate” anything, or even be the site admin, to make this statement, because it is a FACT!

But, what keeps this fact from being accepted as just that?  The same thing that has all our backs up in the first place – all that F$%N’ CORPORATE INTERFERENCE we’re always talking about!

Before I ultimately get into the tracking thing again, let’s take a trip down Memory Lane, shall we?…

A HISTORY OF SELFISH, UNASHAMED INTRUSION

Ever since the inception of e-mail, the Great Marketing Machine saw it as another advertising tool, and a “cool new resource” for furthering its never-happy agenda.  We got direct spam.  First, server admins reacted by trying to inform everyone (very clearly, I might add) that their networks did not exist to promote “unsolicited business” of any kind, that e-mail was for personal use, and they needed the recipients’ consent to send anything to them.  Thus, spam was stigmatized early in the game as a very unacceptable activity.

Strangely enough, there was no actual need to stigmatize spam – it was clearly outlined in most of the very first Terms of Service agreements that were signed (and, at that point in time, they actually DID sign them!) by all early users of the Internet, private and corporate alike.  It was all included in the broader term “network abuse”, and people DID lose their accounts for violating their TOS on those grounds.

Well, spam may have been labelled “unacceptable”, but that obviously never mattered to the corporate mindset.  Spam increased quickly, and without a single hickup, despite network admins even threatening to cut their accounts and/or blacklisting other IPs and even full networks from accessing their networks.  We countered it with filters, then we got “spoofed” senders.  We countered with blocklists, and the corporates decided to do something that was nothing short of waging war on all e-mail users… we got viruses!

Sure, we were often lead to believe viruses were written by “rebels” (usually “living in a basement”) who were somehow only looking for some “misplaced recognition” that they could “sabotage” someone else’s computer in some way.  But, the fact is, that’s only a small part of the story.  You need only ask yourself, what would really make it *profitable* to do such a thing?

Virus writers were greeted with open arms, as they were commissioned by the determined corporate marketers, to help them fool the user into unwittingly allowing a number of things to happen to himself, such as direct pop-up ads served by their own browsers, or Windows Messenger service.  Some attempted to rewrite system files, in order to screw with the users’ ability to stop their future intended intrusions (such as reenabling messenger, should it be turned off).  The selfish, deceitful and malicious nature of a psychopathic agenda took on a very blatant form, and it should have been quite obvious (to anyone who was paying attention) that corporate interests were already the biggest threat to the health of the Internet, and the computers that were forming it in exponentially-increasing numbers.

Many of you know this story, but for the sake of others, I’ll continue a little more…

So, thanks to the determination of the corporate marketing community to prevent you from enjoying your computer without their interference, antivirus software became a necessity.  The corporates countered with socially-engineered virus delivery and malware, and exploiting alternate network ports (which were wide open and abundant at that point), to either do an end-run around your AV, or take down your defense entirely!  The new viruses began installing their own software, containing everything from independent network connection to e-mail and FTP capabilities, in order to ”phone home” without your immediate knowledge, download more stuff intended to “rewire” your configuration itself.  Soon, system setups and administrative controls were being altered, and people really were losing control of their computers to unknowns from remote locations.

Then came firewalls, as there was now the necessity to control not only who was connecting TO you, but also who YOUR machine was trying to reach (and by whose instigation).  We got things like web exploits, poisoned torrent files, and DNS hijackings as an answer to that.  Fast forward to the present day, and the whole thing has yet to stop.  We now play with peerblockers to cut down on the “bad peers” who would deliver us a virus or track us with intent to sue.  We’re running script blockers to stop malicious code from executing on our machines.

Code that was planted by the Great Marketing Machine, on some of our favourite websites, thanks to the cooperation of clueless hosts, who are in a position to allow it, and were paid to do so.

TRACKING ISSUE – QUANTSERVE

I’m still getting comments about Google and Quantserve injecting malicious code via WP.  And, in the case of Quantserve, at least, that’s correct!  In the case of including Google in the same complaint, however, there’s a problem.  You can’t have BOTH Quantserve and Google tracking operating through the same site.

The funny thing is, I NEVER DENIED the existence of EITHER of these scripts. What I denied, and still deny, was the accusation that *p2pnet* is the one serving either of them. Thus the persistent statement, “p2pnet runs NO trackers!”  Now that I have more of the facts, which I already promised to deliver once I had them, I can elaborate…

It is quite obvious that WordPress has acted against the very wishes of the “open community”, and very quietly tweaked a common plug-in used by many WP sites (WP-Stats), thus allowing Quantcast 3rd-party tracking of those sites.  This is totally UNACCEPTABLE for many sites… *especially* this one!

If anyone bothered to actually read what I’ve said, someone would’ve absorbed the part where I said the fact alone that a tracker was embedded in WP was enough for me to strongly recommend BLOCKING Quantcast and Quantserve AT THE FIREWALL LEVEL. Perhaps nobody understood the term “embedded in WP”??

The one thing I did get schooled on was that WP-Stats is no longer a “benign” thing.  But, I don’t feel guilty with that wrong assumption.  I was SUPPOSED to trust it!  Lots of people experienced with WordPress (of which I am not) were taken by the surprise, as it wasn’t just “unethical”, but a complete change in the way WP had been doing business up to this point.

Not only is the plug-in poisoned for WP users, but it also causes performance problems for many.

I wrote another thing people need to come to grips with that many seem to have failed to read: I’M NOT THE SITE ADMIN! I’m just handling the site’s comments and trying to keep it active while the owner is recovering from heart surgery and all its complications. I don’t have access to p2pnet’s server, and cannot effect network control changes. Even if I could, I’m not about to arbitrarily act on things like that without Jon’s input, or at least the involvement of the site’s administrator.

Naturally, I’m in the process of getting the proper approval (from someone who may not need this right now, I remind you), and intend to take that and get the proper assistance from the one who can address it at the server level, if required. I’m not going to take it upon myself to disable a plug-in, or install any counter-scripts, without his blessing, and have to consider what other factors may come into play, should I do such a thing.

Another piece of browbeating I’m getting says that “WP explains it in detail on their website. Full code and information is available on numerous websites about both.”

WordPress appears to be doing no such thing!
There’s no mention of Quantcast or the injection of the Quantserve script in any of their pages about WP-Stats. And, it looks like their admins are being very evasive on other forums that are asking about it. They’re simply downplaying what it does, and spinning it with talks of supposed “cool features” everyone’s going to get out of it, while the site admins are livid and ready to throw in the towel on WP over it.

If anyone has a link that shows WordPress itself detailing the Quantserve script (and I mean in an honest, unsuppressed way), please post it!

There has been a counter-script (another plug-in) released that is designed to block the 3rd party access, while keeping the user-pertinent functionality in it. Looks good, too, except that it’s still an alpha release. The author, a well-known coder who has written lots for WP, is stating that there may still be a bug in it.

Again, I don’t own or administer this site, nor do I have stake in it (other than deep personal interest, of course).  I’ve put this matter to the right people, and that’s all I *can* do.

TRACKING ISSUE - GOOGLE ANALYTICS

The jury’s still out on why the Google Analytics script even shows up in connection with p2pnet.

None of p2pnet’s plug-ins enable this, Jon doesn’t run any Google Ads or Google anything, and Quantserve is already present, thanks to WP-Stats.  (Remember, I said the 2 trackings can’t be run from the same site at the same time.)

At the moment I can only theorize 2 possibilities:

1. Analytics is getting permission to be injected DIRECTLY by WordPress.
2. Google is playing a mean game with cookies, and exploiting individual machines at the user level.

If WordPress is cooperating, Jon’s gonna freak when gets back into the game.

In the meantime, for those who still think p2pnet is some willing party to any of this tracking, have a look at these:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpresscom-stats-and-quantserve

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpresscom-stats-quantserve-code-in-stats-javascript

http://wordpress.org/search/quantserve?forums=1

Devil’s Advocate – p2pnet

Follow Jon on Twitter.

More

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

p2pnet view

Evidence of the offending activity seems to be based solely from reports acquired from the Firefox plug-in, NoScript, involving Quantcast and Google trackers.

Here’s the bald-faced truth on the subject, whether anyone chooses to accept it or not…

Quantserve

Quantserve is definitely a tracking service, run by Quantcast (3rd party), that doesn’t just measure “raw traffic statistics”, as I was lead to believe.  Quantserve measures and graphs the whole “demographics” thing, much like Google Analytics and a lot of others.  Cookies are installed to the visitor machines, and javascript is embedded at the WordPress level.

Before I go any further, I cannot comment on whether or not Jon is aware of this activity, or whether or not it’s even an actual threat.  For all we know, Jon has full knowledge and has disabled the service’s ability to ultimately claim the results, which would be a perfectly acceptable remedy in my eyes.

It would seem Quantserve may be a “compulsory” feature when using WordPress to host your site.  Can the site owner choose to disallow it, without any “repercussions”?  I don’t know the answer to that (yet).  Is it something I want to bother Jon about at this point in time, while he’s struggling with his recovery?  Certainly not!

The best recommendation I can make at this time would be for the users to simply block Quantserve and Quantcast from their machines.  The fact that they feel the need to embed it in WordPress itself seems to warrant that thinking.

NOTE: If you have quantcast.com and quantserve.com blocked by NoScript, the cookies still get planted on your computer, if you haven’t already instructed your browser to block them as well.  If you haven’t already done this, and you wish to shut out Quantserve, I would recommend you refer to the appropriate instructions for your browser.

Google Analytics

While dataminers like Quantcast are certainly a great concern, they certainly don’t compare to Google.  Google is, without a doubt, becoming the biggest threat to worldwide network security, and the privacy of every concerned internet user.

They have created a barrage of “services” (most of them “free”) that definitely have a lot of positive potential, yet have demonstrated over and over again how psychopathic they are with our personal information.  Google repeately claims to have no evil intentions, yet they’re never very clear with what info they’re gathering, what need there would be for it, and often deny they’re even gathering it at all.  They never directly offer you a way to control or consent to any of this from your end.

Google has no interest in what anyone but Google wants.  When confronted with privacy concerns, they claim to be a ”do no evil” company, and that “your privacy is very important” to them, everything worded in true Corporate Speak.  Google arbitrarily decides what we supposedly should be okay with, and arbitrarily shuns any other arguments as “inapplicable” or “misinformed”, or simply “nonsense”.  Those qualities are true psychopathic qualities.

Google has often been referred to as an “octopus” on steroids.  Its tentacles seem to reach every crevice of the World Wide Web in its quest to stay locked on to everyone’s online activities.  Despite thousands of major requests from individuals, groups, and companies to respect private networks (and street properties alike), they continue to plant cookies that keep reporting back directly from the subject computers, and logging the whole thing.

There’s a shitload of Google activites I could go into great detail with, but it’s time to give you the point to all that preamble…

When a user’s computer has any of these cookies installed, it doesn’t matter if a website participates in Google Analytics or if it even has any Google Ads, the tracking script kicks in, and that computer’s activities are logged.  Without the site’s blessing and without user consent.

This also can create an illusion that the site in question is doing the tracking for Google.  That would seem to be the biggest conundrum reflected in the discussion on this subject.

I’ll now repeat what I said in a few comments:  p2pnet does not employ a Google tracker, does not facilitate Google Analytics (google-analytics.com), and does not subscribe to Google Ads.  One look at any p2pnet page should tell you that.  The same handful of static advertisers has always been all you’ve ever seen.  If a Google Analytics tracker is trying to connect with you, it’s because you already have at least one cookie on your machine that’s trying to phone home.

You also have to remember that these cookies are often dished out in multiple formats, some of which are designed with backup mechanisms that rewrite them upon deletion, and even rewrite the others as well.  (Do no evil, eh?! )

As you should know, I don’t have any stake in this site.  I’m just a reader and contributor to p2pnet myself, and I also have to connect the same way everyone does.  When it comes to this particular issue, what may set me apart from some of you could simply be that I barred Google from my computer, in multiple ways, ages ago.

Surfer made a really constructive statement in “Ensuring Online Privacy“:

“If you do nothing more than just put www.google-analytics.com in your firewall, you are doing yourself a great service. This particular domain name keeps track of what sites you visit so that google ads can be more precisely targeted. Many domains out there use APIs from Google that are intrusive and violate your privacy by not only tracking hits to a particular website, but sends additional data back to Google themselves for their own nefarious uses.”

I can attest to that.

I not only banned Analytics a long time ago, but I also don’t accept AdSense or Buzz, and don’t use Google DNS or any other “services” that would give Google any excuse for “implied consent”.

When the issues of Quantserve and Analytics came up, I fired up 3 different browsers (Firefox with NoScript was, of course, one of them), and brought up my firewall monitor, my peerblocker, and a few other utilities, while going to a few sites, and calling up p2pnet.  First I tried it without clearing any caches, and then repeating the whole thing after clearing different ones, eventually all of them.  I also tried going to p2pnet only, after clearing caches, and looking at the results.  The results were the same every time, with one exception, which I’ll talk about after the results…

Google Analytics, as well as Quantserve and Quantcast, only showed up at the firewall level, and were unsuccessful, as their packets were tossed away.  There were also no cookies installed by any of them, and p2pnet’s cookie remained unaltered, containing only the login info it’s supposed to.  And here’s the clincher:  p2pnet’s IP address was only attached to Quantserve, along with another WordPress IP.  The IP addresses reported for Analytics had no relation to p2pnet or WordPress.

As I said, there was one exceptional result I promised to relate.  When I cleared all caches and went straight to p2pnet, there were no Google entries at all.  Not even at the firewall.  That’s because Analytics doesn’t emanate from p2pnet, and because I didn’t pick up the cookies from anywhere else that Google needs me to have to track me TO p2pnet. 

Rilly? Yep.

It seems the former has decided to try to emulate the latter in a move designed to “drive awareness for the the company’s brand”, says Fast Company.

Of course, the former hotly denies its decision to launch Plantville has anything to do with Zynga or its various ‘villes’.

“It’s coincidental, at best,” the story has Tom Varney, who helped design the game for Siemens, stating, going on >>>

“PlantVille is based on real-world experience.” But at least one rep for the company explicitly acknowledged that the game was trying to capitalize on the popularity of social games like FarmVille and even made the mistake of saying Siemens invented FarmVille–though the rep immediately caught the slip. PlantVille. Siemens invented PlantVille.

Regardless of where the inspiration originated from, Siemens is promoting PlantVille as an innovative gaming platform designed to showcase Siemens’ technologies and brand. When players first join the service (Siemens’ has a unique registration process–you can’t login using Facebook), they’ll gain access to three key components of PlantVille: the PlantVille game, an online simulator allowing users to manage a bottling, vitamin, or manufacturing plant; the PlantVille Café, where Siemens can engages with players to discuss game solutions; and the PlantVille Puzzler, where users can test their knowledge with brain teasers.

It also quotes Siemens Industry boss Daryl Dulaney as saying, “We think this will be a fun way for people to learn about what it means to operate a manufacturing plant, and at the same time, learn about what Siemens does here in the US.”

When was the last time you wondered what it means to operate a Siemens manufacturing plant, or what it does in the US?

You’re much more likely to be asking what it was doing selling surveillance technology to Iran, or about its involvement in Stuxnet, the “first discovered worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit”.

Meanwhile, on PlantVille “Throughout the game, players will be able to interact with Pete the Plant Manager, whose plant has just won the ‘Plant of the Year’ award”, says Siemens, adding:

“Pete shares his best practices throughout the game to help players achieve outstanding results in plant performance.”

Will we soon see Zynga suing Siemens for copyright violations, one wonders?

Follow me on Twitter.

Fast Company – Siemens Taps Into Zynga’s Popularity, Launches PlantVille, March 24, 2011
to Iran – Nokia Siemens Networks sued: Iran ’spy’ case, August 24, 2010
involvement in Stuxnet – Stuxnet, Siemens and Iran nuclear centrifuges, January 17, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Then there’s the other kind — funny, clever, created to engage rather than repel.

Which describes this perfume-for-men video featuring Lynx Excite Angels.

From the look of it, everyone had a good time — angels, mortals, the production team. Certainly, people at Victoria Station in London, England, loved it.

Did it boost sales?

Probably.

Will it recoup the £8.32 million ($13,277,419 Canadian) it cost to put together?

Probably.

Will it do more for the advertiser than your typical Gargle ad.

Definitely.

Putting it together

Follow me on Twitter.

March, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

It’s restricted access to its YouTube.

“You will no longer be able to sign in to YouTube without a Google account”, it says.

“If you do not want to link this YouTube account, you can sign out here.”

Why?

“Improved security. Better security reduces the chance of account theft.”

Oh. OK, then.

Stay tuned.

(Cheers, Em)

Follow me on Twitter.

March, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Barak Obama has already stuffed the federal attorney general’s department full of ex- and actual RIAA people, with the team of vice president Joe ‘Mr Entertainment’ Biden and anti-P2P hard-liner Victoria Espinel also advising him.

Now it looks as though Eric Schmidt, the man who, until next month, runs the world’s biggest online advertising and data mining agency, could replace Gary Locke, another fervent entertainment cartel supporter, as commerce secretary.

And why not? Schmidt is already an Obama confidant who reportedly gave the at-the-time new UK prime minister a few Schmidtly words of advice on how to run Great Britain.

But commerce secretary? Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest of some kind? Not that it really matters at federal Corporate America government level.

Now, says Bloomberg News, “President Barack Obama may look to the business community for his next secretary of Commerce with former Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler and Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt among potential candidates, according to a person familiar with the process.”

Apparently,  Locke might be named US ambassador to China, says the story, adding >>>

Schmidt gave $25,000 to Obama’s inaugural committee, and he has regularly consulted with the president on economic matters. That includes a December meeting with 20 executives in Washington and a smaller dinner with a dozen leaders of the technology industry last month at the California home of venture capitalist John Doerr.

The mind doesn’t boggle.

Follow me on Twitter.

ex- and actual RIAA people – RIAA says No! to Jammie Thomas-Rasset, February 2, 2011
advising him – Obama’s new copyright ‘advisory committees’, February 10, 2011
Schmidtly words of advice – Google coached new UK prime minister, Ocgtober 25, 2010
Bloomberg News – Obama Said to Consider Kindler, Schmidt for Commerce Secretary, March 10, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

That’s Robert X. Cringely in PC World, going on, “Facebook wants to manage the comments on your blog (and a million others).”

No surprises. Fa$ebook is all about mining data — your data — any way it can, often under the pretext of ‘improving your online experience’.

Cringely goes on >>>

Don’t look now, but Facebook is spreading its kudzulike tendrils into yet another part of the Web: the comments field. Last week, the Uber Social Network introduced a free plug-in that replaces the software a site uses to manage its comments with one built by Facebook.

The implications of this are larger than they may appear. If widely adopted, Facebook Comments could kick online trolls to the curb while pounding yet another nail into the coffin of Web anonymity.

The post also points to Steve Cheney’s Steve’s Blog, where he says >>>

People yearn to be individuals. They want to be authentic. They have numerous different groups of real-life friends. They stylize conversations. They are emotional and have an innate need to connect on different levels with different people. This is because humans are born with an instinctual desire to understand the broader context of their surroundings and build rapport, a social awareness often called emotional intelligence.

In the beginning, Facebook catered to this instinct we all have. But FB in its current form, a big graph of people who may or may not know anything about one another, does not.

And forcing people to comment – and more broadly speaking to log-on – with one identity puts a massive stranglehold on our very nature. I’m not too worried about FB Comments in isolation, but the writing is on the wall: all of this off-site encroachment of the Facebook graph portends where FB is really going in pushing one identity. And a uniform identity defies us.

Face it, authenticity goes way down when people know their 700 friends, grandma, and 5 ex-girlfriends are tuning in each time they post something on the web.

Don’t believe me? Go to TechCrunch and count the comments on last week’s posts. Better yet, go read the comments. They suck. They’re sterile and neutered.

The nature of commenting on the web needs to feel organic and fluid, just like it does in real life.  And even anonymous if necessary, though that’s not at the core of my argument.

My main contention is that the off-network spread of Facebook’s identity graph is parasitic for the web. Now – just to join the best technology community on the internet (TechCrunch) – we need to live inside Facebook walls.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t surprise me why this is happening. The carrot here for content sites is clear: even with a lower volume of comments, the potential viral effects and CTRs are something parent sites like AOL are surely extrapolating, based on their recent manifesto to boost reach, drive traffic, and maximize page views (though I’d argue they would perform much better on mainstream sites like HuffPo or TMZ than a niche vertical like TC, which your friends are less likely to be aware of).

There’s a pretty straightforward reason why FB is valued at an astonishing $75B, and it’s all about them forming a reciprocal feedback loop between Facebook.com and other sites so that you can be targeted.

But, states Alex Salkever on Daily Finance >>>

Anonymous memberships on review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor have made it far too easy to game those systems, which in turn casts doubt on the quality of their reviews (a subject I’ve written about for DailyFinance before). Anonymous reviews on Amazon (AMZN) have allowed companies to manipulate the product-ranking system by paying a pittance for people to write and post positive reviews.

And anonymous commenting sections on sites such as TechCrunch cater to the most base human instincts — after all, what kind of person posts flippant, insulting reviews while hiding behind a false identity? A person who would rather not have his mother read what he (or she) is writing on TechCrunch, most likely.

Fundamentally, anonymity makes it easy for people to ignore the principles of the Golden Rule, and in so doing, it breaks powerful unspoken social covenants that dictate appropriate behavior. That’s why I welcome the rise of log-in systems and commenting modules that force people to reveal their identities. People who want to keep their names secret but still have a voice can easily do so. Google’s (GOOG) Blogger service, for example, makes no effort to force people to reveal their actual names.

To be sure, Facebook commenting is far from perfect. Robert X. Cringely points out, correctly, that users who sign up for Facebook Comments risk posting all their comments to their own Facebook wall, and could display their friends’ pictures on other sites without realizing it. But this is largely besides the point, and it’s hardly, as Cringely suggests, the “Death of Online Anonymity.”

Meanwhile, contrary to popular belief, life does exist outside of Fa$ebook.

(Cheers, catflap)

Follow me on Twitter.

PC World – Facebook Comments: The Death of Online Anonymity, March 7, 2011
Steve’s Blog – How Facebook is Killing Your Authenticity, March 6, 2011
Daily Finance – Facebook Comments: Not the End of Anonymity, Just a Blow for Civility, March 8, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

wowee.

But also consider the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field, suggests Seth Weintraub in Fortune.

“Apple twisted facts and used an erroneous quotation to try to convince crowds that all other tablets had no shot at de-throning the iPad in 2011″, he says.

Examples?

Says the story >>>

As part of the opening iPad bullet points, Apple included this gem: “First dual core tablet to ship in volume.” That’s funny, I tested a Dell (DELL) Streak 7, which had a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 chip in January. They’ve been shipping ever since on T-Mobile.

In volume.

Of course, the Motorola (MMI) XOOM also has this same dual core processor and is certainly shipping in volume as well. In fact, I’ve been using an Android phone (the Atrix) with a dual core chip for weeks and it wasn’t the first to ship in volume.  As for Apple (AAPL), they haven’t shipped one iPad 2 yet — iPad 2’s hit shelves on March 11.

Perhaps this has to do with Jobs’ subjective view of ‘Volume’ which may start at whatever numbers iPads are currently selling?  And ’ship’? Well, I don’t know.

That was just the beginning.  He next pulled out a thoroughly debunked, mis-translated quote from a Samsung VP:

To wit, “As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive … Around 2 million. In terms of sell-out, we believe it was quite small.” Samsung VP Lee Young-hee. However, >>>

Some people only hear what they want to hear, but that quote should have ended with “quite smooth.”  That translation was officially corrected a long time ago … Shame on Apple Keynote fact-checkers, if such a role even exists.

And there’s lots more.

For those among you who aren’t familiar with the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field, here’s the first post on it, from Andy Hertzfeld on Folklore, dating back to 1981 »»»

I officially started on the Mac project on a Thursday afternoon, and Bud Tribble, my new manager and the only other software person on the project, was out of town. Bud was on leave of absence from an M.D.-Ph.D. program and he had to occasionally return to Seattle to keep up his standing in the program.

Bud usually didn’t come into work until after lunch, so I met with him for the first time the following Monday afternoon. We started talking about all the work that had to be done, which was pretty overwhelming. He showed me the official schedule for developing the software that had us shipping in about ten months, in early January 1982.

“Bud, that’s crazy!”, I told him. “We’ve hardly even started yet. There’s no way we can get it done by then.”

“I know,” he responded, in a low voice, almost a whisper.

“You know? If you know the schedule is off-base, why don’t you correct it?”

“Well, it’s Steve. Steve insists that we’re shipping in early 1982, and won’t accept answers to the contrary. The best way to describe the situation is a term from Star Trek. Steve has a reality distortion field.”

“A what?”

“A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he’s not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules. And there’s a couple of other things you should know about working with Steve.”

“What else?”

“Well, just because he tells you that something is awful or great, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll feel that way tomorrow. You have to low-pass filter his input. And then, he’s really funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he’ll usually tell you that he thinks it’s stupid. But then, if he actually likes it, exactly one week later, he’ll come back to you and propose your idea to you, as if he thought of it.”

I thought Bud was surely exaggerating, until I observed Steve in action over the next few weeks. The reality distortion field was a confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, an indomitable will, and an eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand. If one line of argument failed to persuade, he would deftly switch to another. Sometimes, he would throw you off balance by suddenly adopting your position as his own, without acknowledging that he ever thought differently.

Amazingly, the reality distortion field seemed to be effective even if you were acutely aware of it, although the effects would fade after Steve departed. We would often discuss potential techniques for grounding it (see Are You Gonna Do It?) , but after a while most of us gave up, accepting it as a force of nature.

Now you know

[Picture with apologies to Albert Watson. His original photo is on Business Pundit.]

Follow me on Twitter.

Fortune – Steve Jobs’ reality distortion takes its toll on truth, March 3, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

How’d he do it?

Easy. Money. Easy money.

“Enter internet startup Ad.ly, which says it brokered his account with Twitter. Ad.ly, which runs celebrity endorsements through Facebook and Twitter, represents a range of bold-faced names on social media, including Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton and — though there isn’t any deal in place yet — most likely Charlie Sheen eventually”, says Ad Age. “If advertisers will have him.”

The admag says it asked Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh, “When did this all start?”

Yesterday morning, “Charlie’s team reached out to me”, he responded. “This is not unusual, we do a lot of this for Hollywood celebrities.”

They “wanted to get on Twitter because he wants to have a direct conversation with his fans to tell his side of the story”, says Gullov-Singh, going on:

“So we got him the @charliesheen account, which was being squatted on.”

But “I thought Twitter doesn’t verify accounts any more”, says Ad Age, so, “How were you able to do that for Charlie Sheen?”

Answers Gullov-Singh >>>

You’re right — it is a little bit confusing. We know a bunch of people at Twitter, and we reached out to them and told them that probably the biggest name in media right now wants to be on your platform and, of course, they were all right with it. But you’re right that Twitter doesn’t verify, but they make exceptions. The thing about verification in general is that Twitter was getting overwhelmed with requests to be verified — they don’t have a team for this.

Same thing at Facebook.

Now you know.

Follow me on Twitter.

Ad Age – How Charlie Sheen Got His Twitter Account Verified So Fast, March 2, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Announcing the UK government review into IP and growth last November, prime minister David Cameron “explained that the review was a response to Google’s concerns”, says the story.

Could be.

After all, when Google, the net’s most powerful online advertising outfit, says ‘Jump’ governments — especially Obushma’s — hop right to it.

“The founders of Google have said they could never have started their company in Britain … they feel our copyright system is not as friendly to this sort of innovation as it is in the United States,” claimed Cameron, says the story, going on >>>

So not surprisingly, the review has earned itself the nickname the “Google Review”, and creative industries fear its recommendations will achieve Google policy goals at their expense.

It’s certainly a very odd claim. Is copyright law really the insurmountable obstacle to the creation of search engines and content aggregators in the UK? The UK has, and has had, many such startups. Today, their biggest competitive disadvantage is not IP laws, but Google itself. Among potential investors, the elephant in the room, and the biggest chilling factor, is the 800lb gorilla. Set against this brutal reality, the review looks like a misdirection.

All of which leaves the review’s head, Ian Hargreaves, in an unenviable position. Nobody wants to embarrass The Emperor. And judging by last night’s performance at the Royal Society for the Arts, which was the only public outing before the review reports next month, Hargreaves will deliver exactly what The Emperor wants to hear. Hargreaves was invited, in various ways, to offer a glimpse into his calculations. But he declined. Any tally of economic winners and losers from various changes to IP law would be an unbalanced list. It’s best not to make it at all.

The RSA panel “brought Hargreaves himself together with representatives of publishing, music, the British Library … and Google itself”, says the Register, continuing >>>

Sarah Hunter, the emissary from the Chocolate Factory, repeated the Cameron line.

“When Cameron launched the review, he said Google wouldn’t have set up in the UK. It’s true. Larry has said it publicly a number of times. Their view is that when you look at fair use it’s relatively straightforward to assess if something is going to be legal. The law is not clear in the UK,” said Hunter, Google’s UK head of public policy.

She suggested that if Google had been setting out in the UK, it would have changed its product.

UK Banks

But Association of Independent Music boss Alison Wenham saw it somewhat differently.

She questioned the purpose of the ongoing Independent Review of IP and Growth after arguing the UK’s banks rather than its copyright system “should be held responsible for stifling innovation and growth”, says Music Week.

She thought IP wasn’t the problem, says the story, quoting her as stating >>>

One of reasons you know why Google didn’t set up in this country has nothing to do with IP laws.

It was because they couldn’t get funding. We have a long history in this country of a criminal lack of funding for high risk ventures starting in a garage.

In the US they have a culture of high risk investment for high return.

Now you know.

No need to stay tuned.

Follow me on Twitter.

The Register – Google insists it couldn’t have been British. Excuse me?, March 3, 2011
Music Week – Wenham questions Hargreaves “tinkering”, March 3, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Without bothering to ask if that’s OK with you.

Now things could get even nastier.

‘Google Face Search to use Social Network Photos’, says a Daily Rotation headline, pointing to a HardCop item which goes >>>

Thanks to Google, you’ll never want your picture taken in public again. Just imagine what Google can find out about you using this technology, coupled with Street View! wink

The HardCop story in turn leads to a piece by Darlene Storm in Computerworld which kicks off >>>

If you are out in public, you are fair game, but how would you like it if a stranger took your picture and then ran a search to find out your name, online aliases and all the information about you via that image? We are very nearly there with automatic face-recognition technology and social media aggregation. Although several companies are exploring that realm, Google recently published a patent in Europe to use facial recognition and social networking combined to give visual search results.

“Other patent filings have recently become public, suggesting Google has been working all along to apply visual query technology to searching for faces”, she says, going on >>>

Dictators and governments are already identifying people based upon real names and photos posted in social media. CNN published an interview with examples of when the Internet might help a dictator such as Facebook requiring people to use their real name as opposed to pseudonyms. Another example was after the Iranian protests were over in 2009, the government went through Flickr and collected photos of protesters, published those pictures on government websites and then circled unknown faces in red ink.

Access Now is mostly concerned with Facebook’s policy requiring real, full names and has launched on online petition called, “Unfriend the Dictators.” Yet how much easier will it be to identify dissidents when facial recognition software allows a government to conduct face searches and compare photographed faces with their databases or even the millions of photos stored on Facebook or other social networking sites?

I’m not saying all facial recognition visual search technology is bad. It could be cool or it could be a stalkers dream come true. We all have good days and bad days, so the ability to utilize face search could be used accordingly. It could be used for something wonderful like love at first sight and helping track down that stranger first seen in a crowded public place. Or it could be used for some ill-tempered moment like snapping a pic to search and track down that jerk who cut you off in traffic.

“Or”, adds Storm in Computerworld, “In the case of dissidents, face searches could be a death a sentence.”

Follow me on Twitter.

HardCop – Google Face Search to Use Social Network Photos, February 24, 2011
Computerworld – Google face search to use social network photos, February 24, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Walt Disney has bought what’s described as a “kids-oriented social network”.

Called Togetherville, it “falls right in line with two of the priorities Disney set forward at its investors conference last week: dominate the market for websites targeting mothers and their children and maintain high visibility across social media”, says paidContent.

What’s it all about?

Nagging.

Kids surf all day, connecting with each other, sharing the joy of what they find, and then nagging their parents into buying it, seeing it, hearing it.

James Pitaro, “co-president of DIMG and overseer of its online, mobile and social initiatives, recently noted he was looking to make changes at what’s been called the Disney Mom and Family portfolio of sites, which include FamilyFun.com, Kaboose.com and BabyZone.com”, says the story, adding:

“Putting Togetherville.com in the mix could go a long way toward meeting what Pitaro described as huge demand from advertisers to target users across that range of sites. It will probably also work well in tandem with another Disney acquisition, Digisync, which has been a creative force in making Disney a strong player on Facebook. The firm has been credited with hatching 200 branded pages across Facebook that have netted the company 125 million fans.”

Give no quarter.

Follow me on Twitter.

paidContent – Why Disney Bought Togetherville, February 24, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

“Well actually, it is a joke. But not that kind of joke.”

And it’s still no joke as once again, Bluewater Productions dredges the bottom of the barrel for material, this time coming up with Fa$ebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, hero of many advertising and data mining (ad)ventures.

According to Jerome Maida, who wrote the copy, “the script doesn’t shy away from the harsh reputation Zuckerberg earned as a result of his business practices and aloof public persona, but tries to give context to a complex figure.”

Now “This take on Zuckerberg’s life and career prompted production company Hayden 5 Media to option the script and create an animated film based on the comic book”, says Bluewater, adding:

“This cross between real characters and animated surrounding was used in the movie A Scanner Darkly.”

We can hardly wait.

(Cheers, Filip)

Follow me on Twitter.

p2pnet – Carla Bruni-Sarkozy: comic book heroine, November 20, 2010

February, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

That’s Bob Bowden, director of The Cartel documentary, a “look at how a widespread national crisis manifests itself in the educational failures and frustrations of individual communities”.

Writing in the Huffington Post, “It turns out that the company sporting the motto ‘don’t be evil’ has been asking parents nationwide to disclose their children’s personal information, including Social Security Numbers, and recruiting schools to help them do it — all under the guise of an art contest”, he says.

Google’s kiddie data mining project is called Doodle-4-Google.

It’s a “competition where we invite K-12 students to use their artistic talents to think big and redesign Google’s homepage logo for millions to see”, says the world’s most (in)famous online advertising company.

“At Google, we believe that dreaming about future possibilities leads to tomorrow’s leaders and inventors, so this year we’re inviting U.S. kids to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, ‘What I’d like to do someday … ‘

“Whether students want to find a cure for cancer or take a trip to the moon, it all starts with art supplies and some 8.5″ x 11″ paper. And, one lucky student artist will take home a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 technology grant for their school, among many other prizes.”

Cool, huh? Gargle helping kids to be all they can be, and, “What could be wrong with filling out a few entry forms?” – wonders Bowden. “A national, commercial database of names and addresses of American children, especially one that includes their dates of birth and SSNs, would be worth many millions to marketing firms and retailers.”

But “Of course, data collection is not the reason Google gives for doing this competition”, he says.

Of course not.

In FAQ, it’s because “We love to encourage and celebrate the creativity of young people…” etc, the Huffington Post item points out, continuing >>>

If that’s so, then why on earth would the contest’s original Parent Consent Form ask for the child’s city of birth, date of birth and last four digits of the child’s SSN?  Along with complete contact info of the parents.

You see what Google knows and many parents don’t know is that a person’s city of birth and year of birth can be used to make a statistical guess about the first five digits of his/her social security number.  Then, if you can somehow obtain those last four SSN digits explicitly — voila, you’ve unlocked countless troves of personal information from someone who didn’t even understand that such a disclosure was happening.

This kind of data can be linked with other databases to target advertising. It’s worth many times more than what Google will spend on prizes (each State Finalist gets a T-shirt!).

Bowden goes on to cover his extremities by saying there’s no evidence Google will “use or sell this information for marketing purposes” and “to be absolutely clear, there’s no evidence Google has done anything with this information at all, nefarious or otherwise”.

But, he states, “Some of the people who tipped me off to it were wondering if the solicitation of children’s Social Security Numbers was even legal. And so they sent emails to the Federal Trade Commission, the website InsideGoogle.com and a couple of other places. That email went out on February 17.  Twenty-six hours later Google released an updated Parental Consent form without requiring the last four digits of the child’s SSN, although the form still inexplicably asks for the child’s city of birth.

“Meanwhile, the original PDF can still be found on lots of school websites, like this one. In other words, many schools are still distributing the original form, and many parents are no doubt still forking over their kids’ social security numbers to Google.”

The story quotes Google as stating >>>

This year we started accepting doodles from kids even if their school hadn’t registered for the contest. To help us keep entries distinct and remove duplicate entries from any particular student, we asked parents for limited information, including the last 4 digits of a student’s social security number. We later updated our forms when we recognized that we could sufficiently separate legitimate contest entries while requesting less information. To be clear, these last 4 digits were not entered into our records and will be safely discarded.

And >>>

The city of birth helps us identify whether contestants are eligible for the contest, as winners must be either U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents of the U.S. The information isn’t used for any other purpose.

“Couple things” Bowden adds:

“1.) I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist by disposition, but doesn’t “these last 4 digits were not entered into our records and will be safely discarded,” sound like a contradiction? (How can they delete something that is not in their records?) Even taking just the first part, we’re supposed to believe Google didn’t enter demographic data that it had been supplied? Isn’t this the same Google that promotes itself as the master of targeted marketing campaigns?

“2.) If they simply want to limit the contest to citizens and permanent legal residents, why not ask that question as a “yes/no”? Then, they could ask more specific questions of the winners, right? Instead, Google’s wants every child’s city of birth upfront? That’s really necessary?

“Maybe the kids should all just say, ‘Springfield’.”

Don’t bother to stay tuned.

Follow me on Twitter.

Huffington Post – Why Has Google Been Collecting Kids’ Social Security Numbers Under the Guise of an Art Contest?, February 22, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

But it’s also scarfed up Engadget and with that as background, ex-staffer Paul J. Miller announced last week that he’s hit the road.

Now another senior Engadgeteer had made the same decision.

After “just over 5½ years of dutifully serving a faceless readership of kind (and indeed, not so kind) voices, I’ve decided to leave Engadget and the AOL / Weblogs, Inc. network as a whole”, says ex-associate editor Ross Miller on his ohnoros blog.

Said Miller, Paul J >>>

I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the “AOL Way,” and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

Says Miller, R >>>

As for the reasons why, I won’t get too far into it. The AOL Way isn’t the sole reason, but it’s certainly a catalyst, a symptom of concerns I’ve had for a while. I worry about the long-term viability of what I foresee is the future business model. How our brand will be affected and how much control we’ll maintain over it. If we can continue to nurture the talent without burning them out. If we can get the needed resources to expand on our ideas. (Update: Just to be clear, Engadget is not currently subject to the AOL Way, and I’m not sure it ever will be. It’s not the driving reason behind why I left.)

Stay tuned.

Follow me on Twitter.

p2pnet – AOL swallows the Huffington Post, February 7, 2011
hit the road – Leaving AOL, February 18, 2011
ohnoros – Goodbye, Engadget, February 20, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

The investigators also want Google documents showing “‘manual overriding or altering of” search result rankings, according to Texas’s civil investigative demand”, says the story, going on >>>

State investigators also want Google documents on rivals Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and Yahoo! Inc. and complaints about purchasing and placing an ad on Google, the world’s most popular Internet search engine.

Mountain View, California-based Google said on Sept. 3 that Abbott is looking into whether the company’s business practices thwarted competition. The scope of the Texas investigation previously hasn’t been disclosed publicly.

Abbott’s demand “encompasses documents related to Google’s shopping websites Froogle, Google Product Search and Google Shopping”, says the story, continuing:

“The Texas probe is one of several antitrust investigations involving Google. The Justice Department is close to deciding whether to approve the company’s purchase of ITA Software Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that provides airline ticket information. On Feb. 9, Attorney General Chris Koster of Missouri offered to assist the Justice Department’s ITA probe.

European antitrust regulators have also “started probing Google in November for allegedly discriminating in its search results, requiring exclusivity obligations with advertising partners and abusing its dominant position by promoting its own services over those of rivals”, Bloomberg News adds.

Follow me on Twitter.

Bloomberg News – Texas Attorney General Seeks Google Ad Rate Formula, February 15, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Now, Privacy International says it’s identified what appears to be a fundamental design problem in Google’s newly launched Latitude phone tracking system “that could substantially endanger user privacy”.

As it stands, “Latitude could be a gift to stalkers, prying employers, jealous partners and obsessive friends”, says PI director Simon Davies.

“The dangers to a user’s privacy and security are as limitless as the imagination of those who would abuse this technology.”

PI says a study of the system documentation reveals “the Google system lacks adequate safeguards to protect users from covert opt-in to Latitude’s tracking technology”, going on >>>

While it is clear that Google has made at least some effort to embed privacy protections, Latitude appears to present an immediate privacy threat.

Latitude is based on a reciprocal opt-in system. That is, before a person can be tracked, a sharing arrangement must be agreed with a requesting party. After this process has been executed, location data is made available on a time-to-time or continuous basis. On the face of it, this arrangement might seem an adequate protection. However this safeguard is largely useless if Latitude could be enabled by a second party without a user’s knowledge or consent. Privacy International believes this risk is substantial and could in the future adversely affect millions of phone users.

In summary, the danger arises when a second party can gain physical access to a user’s phone and enables Latitude without the owner’s knowledge. At present we are unaware of a way this could be achieved remotely.

We have considered the following five scenarios:

• An employer provides staff with Latitude-enabled phones on which a reciprocal sharing agreement has been enabled, but does not inform staff of this action or that their movements will be tracked.
• A parent gifts a mobile phone to a child without disclosing that the phone has been Latitude-enabled.
• A partner, friend or other person gains access to an unattended phone (left on a bar on in the house) and enables Latitude without the other person’s knowledge.
• A Latitude-enabled phone is given as a gift.
• A phone left unattended, for example with security personnel or a repair shop, is covertly enabled.

Once the phone has been enabled, the second party will be able to mask his phone’s presence, thus ensuring that the victim is unaware that her phone is being tracked. According to Google’s FAQ:

“From the Google Latitude privacy menu, you can choose to either detect and share your location automatically, set your location manually, hide your location from all friends, or turn off Latitude altogether.”

The only means of minimizing this threat might be a regular message sent to a phone advising that it has been Latitude enabled.

However according to Google, this function is available only in certain circumstances. Again, quoting from the Google FAQ:

“After Google Maps for mobile with Latitude is installed and running on some (our emphasis) mobile devices, you may receive prompts on your device reminding you that you have enabled Latitude to share your location with selected friends.

These reminders allow you to continue or stop sharing your location with Latitude and will appear a limited number of times if you have enabled Latitude but have not used it recently” (our emphasis).

This means that only some users with certain unspecified phone types will receive a notification, but only in circumstances where Latitude has not been used for an unspecified period. If the tracked party is unaware that her phone has been enabled, the Latitude settings could indefinitely be set to continuous tracking, thus ensuring that the alert message is never sent from Google.

“Privacy International believes Google has created an unnecessary danger to the privacy and security of users”, says Davies, adding:

“Many people will see Latitude as a cool product, but the reality is that Google has yet again failed to deliver strong privacy and security. The company has a long way to go before it can capture the trust of phone users.”

(Cheers, Marc)

Follow me on Twitter.

Privacy International – Privacy international identifies major security flaw in Google’s global phone tracking system, February 5, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

Chrome impregnated notebooks, that is.

“We have a limited number of Chrome notebooks to distribute”, it says, going on, “if you live in the United States, are at least 18 years old, and would like to be considered for our small Pilot program, please fill this out.

“It should take about 15 minutes. We’ll review the requests that come in and contact you if you’ve been selected.”

If and when Chrome notebooks become popular, Google won’t have to worry so much about figuring out new ways to mine user data.

Talk about a captive audience …

Follow me on Twitter.

under new management – Larry Page replaces Eric Schmidt, January 21, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

That was VI Rob last week.

VI stands for Vancouver Island, BC, home of p2pnet. Liz, my wife, Emma,  my daughter, and I live here too.

I was on the BC mainland trying to develop new outlets for our Dad’s Westcoast Wildfire Awesome Sauce, the hot sauce my wife, Liz, and I created to help keep the wolf from our door, and p2pnet online.

To answer Rob, it went well, mate.

Like so many other sites, p2pnet was hit hard by the recession and I tried various ways to use the net to replace the advertising support I’d lost because of it, I said last year, going on:

“None of them worked and I decided try something completely different  — an off-line venture requiring no start-up capital (well, very little) no previous experience, and absolutely not reliant on the vagaries of the internet.

“It’s called Dad’s Westcoast Wildfire Awesome Sauce.”

Shameless p2pnet self-promotion

Until now, we’ve only been selling the sauce here on Vancouver Island which, because it’s an island, is obviously somewhat limited geographically.

However, as of yesterday, Dad’s Awesome Sauce, and our new Dad’s Westcoast Rainforest Awesome Sauce (mild, but not tame ) is being sold at Donald’s Market, 2342 East Hastings Street in the city of Vancouver on the mainland. And all things being equal, it’ll also be available in five other locations within a very short period of time.

SO – if you’re in Vancouver and you like a sauce that’s hot and tasty, but which won’t leave you on your knees, head over to Donald’s Market.

For fellow islanders, or if you’re visiting, it’s still available at:

• VICTORIA
  Pepper’s – 3829 Cadboro Bay Rd
  LifeStyle Market – 180-2950 Douglas St; AND, 9769 Fifth St, Sidney
  Island Meat & Seafood – 307 Cook St
  Market on Yates – 903 Yates St
  Market on Millstream – 125-2401C Millstream Rd
  Slater’s First Class Meats, 2577 Cadboro Bay Rd

• COBBLE HILL
  Country Grocer, 33-1400 Cowichan Bay Rd, RR 3

• DUNCAN
  Thrifty Foods
  Community Farm Store – Duncan Garage

• LAKE COWICHAN
  Hans’ Butcher Shop, 102 Cowichan Ave

• CHEMAINUS
  Chemainus Health Food Store, 9738 Willow St

• LADYSMITH
  Worldy Gourmet, 1st Ave
  Bouma Meats, 1st Ave

• NANAIMO
  Delicados, 358 Wesley St

• SALT SPRING ISLAND
  Country Grocer, 374 Lower Ganges Rd

Stay tuned …

NOTE: There’s a problem with the site which means it’s failing to display. But it’ll be back soon …

Cheers! And thanks. And all the best …
Liz, Emma and Jon

Follow me on Twitter.

February 9, 2011

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed