I see the point you're trying to make, but it's either irrelevant, or the judge doesn't understand technology (probably the latter).
If he's in a situation where he's talking to people involved with crime online - an appeal to let him use social networking sites but NOT letting him use Encryption is completely ass-backwards.
Well then you're missing the actual issue - it's not that Facebook has the data. We get that, it's that they've essentially gotten around the hassle of having to keep the data private. I have a confidentiality agreement with my bank that they can't sell information regarding my purchases. People have an agreement with their Shrinks not to disclose the information discussed in their meetings.
Facebook - at first, claimed that the data gathered would not be distributed in any way shape or form. The problem came up that Facebook pages could be searched through something like Google, to get information.
That's what caused the whole situation to blow wide open, upon investigation, it appears as though Facebook collects and stores data it doesn't really need to, and while the evidence is sketchy, it appears as though it's being sold to advertising firms. And everyone has started taking notice that it's not just Mark Zuckerberg with this ability, if you create an Application, and someone uses your app, you get access to all that users information as well.
So thats why it's getting so many attacks on it - there's a LOT of holes in the system and its not just "You gave it to Facebook" - it's a sort of "You gave me a check box that said ONLY people on my friends list could see it. Now an App developer has that information and is selling it. WTF"
If it costs X amount of dollars to build a road, and that money has to come from the collective pool of taxes, and the system is designed so that a good portion of that money is taken from corporations making massive profits, and the rest is evenly distributed amongst the rest of the people - but the corporation doesn't pay its share, that means 1 of 2 things will happen. More of the people's tax money has to go into the road, or the road doesn't get built.
Essentially, corporations not paying their taxes are either stopping the production of services normally provided by the government, or pushing the costs onto other taxpayers. Thing is, a lot of services we can't simply "Go Without" - many people take advantage of the Garbage pickup in their neighbourhood. In Canada we sure do like the roads cleared of snow. Things like that.
If your idea is "Why should Google have to pay those taxes to cover those services?" - it's because the elected representatives created those laws and thats the cost of doing business in that country. If you want to Operate in America, where you have a lot of consumers that have a lot of money to spend, the laws dicatate you have to support that system.
I know its not just Google working these kinds of loopholes - but the fact of the matter is that all these corporations are ripping off the system. I just read your sig now that says Taxation is legalized theft, well - it really wouldn't be so bad if everyone did their part. I understand where you're coming from, why should you have to pay for a service you may not use? There are plenty of countries out there where you can escape paying taxes if you want, see if you enjoy the quality of life provided by a country that doesn't provide those basic services.
Even the private messages that go between you and someone else on Facebook are still technically posted "To Facebook" so it is "Facebooks Data" and within "Facebooks Data collection" and permissable for them to sell or do whatever they want to.
But that's not really the thing. Your name IS private. When there are only two parties involved, yourself and someone else, and they ask you your name, you can choose not to disclose that information. This is where aliases online became popular to help anonymize people. Facebook discourages anonymizing and wants to identify people, makes it easier to aggregate their data.
When I log onto facebook and when my girlfriend log onto facebook, we'll see different advertisements. Why is that? Clearly they've collected enough information on me to know that I like video games and she likes Jewelry. Simple enough matter - perhaps thats just gender profiling? Well when I log on compared to my brother, I see ads for MMO's, he sees advertisements for sports and poker.
The point is that basically all the stuff about you, even stuff you don't generally make public - ends up getting grouped together into a profile that gets sold to advertisers so you are constantly bombarded by the stuff you are most likely to buy. Just by creating that profile, and then clicking on certain links - that info gets put to work profiling you. Hey, you like Mafia Wars? This kid probably likes the idea of Gangs and guns. Lets grab some related clothing and see if he clicks on the ad that says SALE!
Then, when someone messages you "Hey, whats your Phone #?" Facebook gets that info. When someone asks "Hey where's your house again?" They get your address. "Whats your email?" - yada yada yada.
The big fear everyone has is that this will go much farther reaching than advertising. Oh hey, you were looking up medical conditions, you have a self diagnosis app on facebook... Health Insurance company buys the info... Oh look your premiums are going to go up, they suspect you might have something. You came down with something? Well theres some searches you made 5 years ago that suggests it might have been present before buying the insurance, so no payout.
I find myself re-iterating this fact to my family members every month.
See, yesterday or the day before the Wall Street Journal published an article, I guess they sent someone in and investigated the whole Facebook Application scheme, and found that 10 out of the top 10 developers are selling the information they gather and that it's not unusual for LOTS of Facebook apps to do so. This is technically a breach in the "privacy policy" set forth by facebook, but no one has ever done anything about it, ever, so its still rampant.
Of course, my mother works downtown in a nice tall skyscraper and she catches a glimpse of this, catching the words like "Facebook - Privacy - Security - Breach - Applications - Farmville" so she went and formed her own little news snippet in her head completely different from whats actually going on. She sends an email to the entire family along the lines of "Facebook announced that some popular apps like Farmville have been hacked, so double check your personal/financial info to make sure none of your banking credentials were stolen!"
My first reaction was a double take with a massive head jerk thinking that the makers of Farmville (Zynga? w/e) had managed to make their application place tracking cookies or other devices in the browser that could do simple keylogging and report back to their server. I immediately pull up my browser and start searching for anything regarding the subject matter - only to find nothing but that Wall Street Journal Article.
So I had politely drafted up an email to everyone in that email explaining the whole privacy issue with Facebook right now - making careful to note that their computer hasn't been hacked by accessing a facebook app - but any information they've put on Facebook is essentially on there, has probably been sold to advertising companies, and can't be removed.
Double posting to answer my own question. Those 4 things are:
Put in place a governance model to ensure that privacy is protected when new products are launched; enhance privacy training to foster compliance amongst all employees; designate an individual responsible for privacy issues; and delete the Canadian data
I don't understand why they can't use some Open Source Single Purpose Hardware - All it's supposed to do is tally votes!
That way - any tampering would mean someone literally has to attach something on the board to alter the results. And would be obvious upon investigation.
The whole "Connects to the internet" or "Antivirus" or "Pac-Man Simulation" things really bother me.
Is everyone too silly to realize that these things basically operate like a glorified turnstile?
All connections should permit all legal connections...
Who's in charge of legal connections? By your argument, ISPs should be able to deny you access to organizations that do not comply with the Government's PATRIOT laws. With such a distinction, you cannot have free speech.
If it falls into the realm of the Government's laws dictating what organizations get access, doesn't that allow you to argue for things under the first ammendment, so you don't have to deal with the "Internet is a service provided by a private company who can do what they want with it" kind of stuff?
I'd rather have a government entity that can be influenced by elected representatives in control of the internet as opposed to the people who are only in it to seperate as much money from the customer as possible.
Then the solution is that there needs to be some form of ammendment or additional legislation that prohibits anyone from limiting free expression on the internet along those 4 guidelines by the FCC*.
Much in the same way I as a person or private company cannot park my vehicle in an intersection to filter or deter traffic through a certain point - neither should any Internet Service Provider have the ability to discriminate against their traffic if the people are paying for the service. Or if they want that ability, they should need to have a 3 month advanced notification system, much like how landlords can't just evict tenants on short notice (at least thats how it is in most provinces in Canada).
The problem with "Shopping around" is that it's either publicly owned lines or owned by the bigger guys, even the smaller ISPs have to rent the bandwidth off the big guys and they'll get their traffic filtered just as much as a customer I'm sure. There's no real way around it. When you sign up for internet service, there's no contract you have to sign, and they don't even ask you to read the terms of services on the website, its just "How much money do you want to pay? Okay whats your credit card number?" over the phone.
Right now the system is horribly stacked to favour the ISP's over the customers, we appear to have no rights on the internet, the internet seems to be simply a subscription based service which can be disabled at their discretion any time they like, even if you've PAID THEM for the service. Is my car dealer allowed to program an auto-shutdown feature in my car if I drive it on roads they don't like?
There's a reasonable amount of control that all companies have when running their business: they all have the right to refuse service, but not after taking the money, or without refunding it. Simply put: if they are going to cut someone off, they should have to give last month's bill back.
If you're going to treat the Internet as a service provided by a company, at least hold that company to the same standards that the rest of the world has. If you're going to treat the Internet as some sort of public international right, then you need to constantly check on those in control of the system, and punish the offenses.
I don't really care which way we go, but seriously, no more of this cake eating and having for ISPs. They run around like they're untouchable because they're providing what is considered a basic need in todays society.
*1. access any lawful content 2. use any applications or services 3. connect any devices that do not harm the network 4. benefit from competition among network providers
The problem isn't with Google though - if you have an open platform it's bound to become fragmented. I've got 3 versions of Python installed on my PC because different Apps need different versions of it. Do I blame Python for this mess? Absolutely not, I blame the developers because of it.
"Android is very fragmented. Many Android [manufacturers], including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user's left to figure it out. Compare this to iPhone, where every handset works the same."
Well exactly, Jobs, the problem is with HTC and Motorola all wanting their own interface to seperate them from the Android experience (meaning, forcing the fragmentation to happen) instead of just going with the latest Android version. If Developers targetted the latest Android, and the cell phone companies went with the latest Android, you'd get the same kind of experience on a droid as the integrated experience on an iPhone, and you'd have the open-ness with it too.
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I see the point you're trying to make, but it's either irrelevant, or the judge doesn't understand technology (probably the latter).
If he's in a situation where he's talking to people involved with crime online - an appeal to let him use social networking sites but NOT letting him use Encryption is completely ass-backwards.
Well then you're missing the actual issue - it's not that Facebook has the data. We get that, it's that they've essentially gotten around the hassle of having to keep the data private. I have a confidentiality agreement with my bank that they can't sell information regarding my purchases. People have an agreement with their Shrinks not to disclose the information discussed in their meetings.
Facebook - at first, claimed that the data gathered would not be distributed in any way shape or form. The problem came up that Facebook pages could be searched through something like Google, to get information.
That's what caused the whole situation to blow wide open, upon investigation, it appears as though Facebook collects and stores data it doesn't really need to, and while the evidence is sketchy, it appears as though it's being sold to advertising firms. And everyone has started taking notice that it's not just Mark Zuckerberg with this ability, if you create an Application, and someone uses your app, you get access to all that users information as well.
So thats why it's getting so many attacks on it - there's a LOT of holes in the system and its not just "You gave it to Facebook" - it's a sort of "You gave me a check box that said ONLY people on my friends list could see it. Now an App developer has that information and is selling it. WTF"
You need to connect the dots a little better.
If it costs X amount of dollars to build a road, and that money has to come from the collective pool of taxes, and the system is designed so that a good portion of that money is taken from corporations making massive profits, and the rest is evenly distributed amongst the rest of the people - but the corporation doesn't pay its share, that means 1 of 2 things will happen. More of the people's tax money has to go into the road, or the road doesn't get built.
Essentially, corporations not paying their taxes are either stopping the production of services normally provided by the government, or pushing the costs onto other taxpayers. Thing is, a lot of services we can't simply "Go Without" - many people take advantage of the Garbage pickup in their neighbourhood. In Canada we sure do like the roads cleared of snow. Things like that.
If your idea is "Why should Google have to pay those taxes to cover those services?" - it's because the elected representatives created those laws and thats the cost of doing business in that country. If you want to Operate in America, where you have a lot of consumers that have a lot of money to spend, the laws dicatate you have to support that system.
I know its not just Google working these kinds of loopholes - but the fact of the matter is that all these corporations are ripping off the system. I just read your sig now that says Taxation is legalized theft, well - it really wouldn't be so bad if everyone did their part. I understand where you're coming from, why should you have to pay for a service you may not use? There are plenty of countries out there where you can escape paying taxes if you want, see if you enjoy the quality of life provided by a country that doesn't provide those basic services.
That deserves a -1 funny somehow.
Even the private messages that go between you and someone else on Facebook are still technically posted "To Facebook" so it is "Facebooks Data" and within "Facebooks Data collection" and permissable for them to sell or do whatever they want to.
But that's not really the thing. Your name IS private. When there are only two parties involved, yourself and someone else, and they ask you your name, you can choose not to disclose that information. This is where aliases online became popular to help anonymize people. Facebook discourages anonymizing and wants to identify people, makes it easier to aggregate their data.
When I log onto facebook and when my girlfriend log onto facebook, we'll see different advertisements. Why is that? Clearly they've collected enough information on me to know that I like video games and she likes Jewelry. Simple enough matter - perhaps thats just gender profiling? Well when I log on compared to my brother, I see ads for MMO's, he sees advertisements for sports and poker.
The point is that basically all the stuff about you, even stuff you don't generally make public - ends up getting grouped together into a profile that gets sold to advertisers so you are constantly bombarded by the stuff you are most likely to buy. Just by creating that profile, and then clicking on certain links - that info gets put to work profiling you. Hey, you like Mafia Wars? This kid probably likes the idea of Gangs and guns. Lets grab some related clothing and see if he clicks on the ad that says SALE!
Then, when someone messages you "Hey, whats your Phone #?" Facebook gets that info. When someone asks "Hey where's your house again?" They get your address. "Whats your email?" - yada yada yada.
The big fear everyone has is that this will go much farther reaching than advertising. Oh hey, you were looking up medical conditions, you have a self diagnosis app on facebook... Health Insurance company buys the info... Oh look your premiums are going to go up, they suspect you might have something. You came down with something? Well theres some searches you made 5 years ago that suggests it might have been present before buying the insurance, so no payout.
Things like that.
I find myself re-iterating this fact to my family members every month.
See, yesterday or the day before the Wall Street Journal published an article, I guess they sent someone in and investigated the whole Facebook Application scheme, and found that 10 out of the top 10 developers are selling the information they gather and that it's not unusual for LOTS of Facebook apps to do so. This is technically a breach in the "privacy policy" set forth by facebook, but no one has ever done anything about it, ever, so its still rampant.
Of course, my mother works downtown in a nice tall skyscraper and she catches a glimpse of this, catching the words like "Facebook - Privacy - Security - Breach - Applications - Farmville" so she went and formed her own little news snippet in her head completely different from whats actually going on. She sends an email to the entire family along the lines of "Facebook announced that some popular apps like Farmville have been hacked, so double check your personal/financial info to make sure none of your banking credentials were stolen!"
My first reaction was a double take with a massive head jerk thinking that the makers of Farmville (Zynga? w/e) had managed to make their application place tracking cookies or other devices in the browser that could do simple keylogging and report back to their server. I immediately pull up my browser and start searching for anything regarding the subject matter - only to find nothing but that Wall Street Journal Article.
So I had politely drafted up an email to everyone in that email explaining the whole privacy issue with Facebook right now - making careful to note that their computer hasn't been hacked by accessing a facebook app - but any information they've put on Facebook is essentially on there, has probably been sold to advertising companies, and can't be removed.
I can't seem to get it to stick...
You assumed I was married before you assumed I could be a bad cook?
I'd say they're more like Corsairs.
Yeah.
Launching a torrent site into space is about as secure as sailing your boat near the international waters surrounding Somalia.
This idea is about as half baked as my dinner last night.
Sounds like you just need to set up a view to filter the articles you see.
Except the DIY routers, we're all the way up to DIY Internet.
We've got a bunch of crazy laws.
In the states, if you get caught downloading music, you get sued by Sony BMG...
In Canada, we basically assume you payed your blank media tax.
Double posting to answer my own question. Those 4 things are:
Put in place a governance model to ensure that privacy is protected when new products are launched;
enhance privacy training to foster compliance amongst all employees;
designate an individual responsible for privacy issues;
and delete the Canadian data
Google has been asked to do four things before the Canadian Government would consider the matter resolved
You're going to end the summary there? What a damn cliffhanger!
Idle's been like that for a year.
If IE took that version numbering manipulation from the start... Meaning a new IE version with every Windows Update... What would we be on? IE4000?
No ones going to download it if it isn't a "new" version.
Agreed. At first I Thought "Well the only sources appear to be blogs" so I understood the idea of putting it under idle.
BUT, it's on the NCBI Medical Publication website, here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18926410
So I don't know why they didn't just link that and put this under... I dunno... Is there a Bio or medicine section? Science if nothing else.
I don't understand why they can't use some Open Source Single Purpose Hardware - All it's supposed to do is tally votes!
That way - any tampering would mean someone literally has to attach something on the board to alter the results. And would be obvious upon investigation.
The whole "Connects to the internet" or "Antivirus" or "Pac-Man Simulation" things really bother me.
Is everyone too silly to realize that these things basically operate like a glorified turnstile?
All connections should permit all legal connections...
Who's in charge of legal connections? By your argument, ISPs should be able to deny you access to organizations that do not comply with the Government's PATRIOT laws. With such a distinction, you cannot have free speech.
If it falls into the realm of the Government's laws dictating what organizations get access, doesn't that allow you to argue for things under the first ammendment, so you don't have to deal with the "Internet is a service provided by a private company who can do what they want with it" kind of stuff?
I'd rather have a government entity that can be influenced by elected representatives in control of the internet as opposed to the people who are only in it to seperate as much money from the customer as possible.
It's working just fine the way it is, so why change it?
So you like the way Comcast and other ISP's have the ability to filter traffic with impunity? Because that is basically whats happening.
Did you Grandad also take their money THEN refuse them service?
Because thats what ISP's are doing.
Then the solution is that there needs to be some form of ammendment or additional legislation that prohibits anyone from limiting free expression on the internet along those 4 guidelines by the FCC*.
Much in the same way I as a person or private company cannot park my vehicle in an intersection to filter or deter traffic through a certain point - neither should any Internet Service Provider have the ability to discriminate against their traffic if the people are paying for the service. Or if they want that ability, they should need to have a 3 month advanced notification system, much like how landlords can't just evict tenants on short notice (at least thats how it is in most provinces in Canada).
The problem with "Shopping around" is that it's either publicly owned lines or owned by the bigger guys, even the smaller ISPs have to rent the bandwidth off the big guys and they'll get their traffic filtered just as much as a customer I'm sure. There's no real way around it. When you sign up for internet service, there's no contract you have to sign, and they don't even ask you to read the terms of services on the website, its just "How much money do you want to pay? Okay whats your credit card number?" over the phone.
Right now the system is horribly stacked to favour the ISP's over the customers, we appear to have no rights on the internet, the internet seems to be simply a subscription based service which can be disabled at their discretion any time they like, even if you've PAID THEM for the service. Is my car dealer allowed to program an auto-shutdown feature in my car if I drive it on roads they don't like?
There's a reasonable amount of control that all companies have when running their business: they all have the right to refuse service, but not after taking the money, or without refunding it. Simply put: if they are going to cut someone off, they should have to give last month's bill back.
If you're going to treat the Internet as a service provided by a company, at least hold that company to the same standards that the rest of the world has. If you're going to treat the Internet as some sort of public international right, then you need to constantly check on those in control of the system, and punish the offenses.
I don't really care which way we go, but seriously, no more of this cake eating and having for ISPs. They run around like they're untouchable because they're providing what is considered a basic need in todays society.
*1. access any lawful content
2. use any applications or services
3. connect any devices that do not harm the network
4. benefit from competition among network providers
You silly goose, Adobe and Apple will be on opposite ends of the Earth no matter who owns them, we'll have to nuke at least 2 sites.
The problem isn't with Google though - if you have an open platform it's bound to become fragmented. I've got 3 versions of Python installed on my PC because different Apps need different versions of it. Do I blame Python for this mess? Absolutely not, I blame the developers because of it.
"Android is very fragmented. Many Android [manufacturers], including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user's left to figure it out. Compare this to iPhone, where every handset works the same."
Well exactly, Jobs, the problem is with HTC and Motorola all wanting their own interface to seperate them from the Android experience (meaning, forcing the fragmentation to happen) instead of just going with the latest Android version. If Developers targetted the latest Android, and the cell phone companies went with the latest Android, you'd get the same kind of experience on a droid as the integrated experience on an iPhone, and you'd have the open-ness with it too.