Bits & Pieces

A school district in Pennsylvania handed out laptops to students. So far so good. But now the district is accused of remotely activating the built-in cameras to watch students and their families in their homes. Who ever could have approved such behavior? The idea of a school district, a governmental unit, remotely spying into the homes of students without even the decency of providing notice is anathema to the fourth amendment.  Perhaps the bureaucrats who implemented this scheme should be sent home with the same computers.

Update: The school district denies the allegations, and claims that the only technology they used was to track stolen or lost computers.

Update 2: Now the FBI is investigating, after the district apparently admitted that they used the laptop cameras 42 times.

Facebook is the most popular “social media” site on the interwebs. I think it has serious issues, and I have deleted my account.

The New York Review of Books currently contains a thoughtful history of the site, its reasons for growth and its weaknesses. It si written by Charles Peterson of n+1 and is well worth a full read.

The first sign that Facebook might cause trouble came, for many, when a few unexpected members showed up—those who didn’t attend your college, or at least one of the same caliber. Especially for students who had graduated from a public high school and then gone on to an elite private college, the addition of state universities marked a turning point, as former classmates joined the site and started asking to be “friends.” A major attraction of the early Facebook, it was suddenly apparent, came from its snob appeal—the fact that some had been kept out, and only a highly selective few let in.

The mechanics of these “friend requests” are worth describing in some detail. Within a single college, in the early days of the site, everyone could see everything. You “friended” a fellow student not to see her page but to add her name and picture, like a trophy, to your list of friends; this “friend list” then appeared not far from your lists of favorite books and favorite music, more evidence of your discriminating tastes, or proof of your popularity. If a college acquaintance wanted to look at your page, she could simply type in your name—just as she might glance your way on the quad, or eavesdrop on your conversation in the dining hall.

Zuckerberg, however, cordoned off each college from all others. The “friend request” then took on a new function, becoming the means of authorizing people at other schools to see your page. The only way someone at a state university, for instance, could access the page of a student at a private college was by asking to become “friends.” But unlike when a student at a private college might run into an old acquaintance on winter break, it was impossible to politely respond to such a request while giving little away. You had to say yes or no.

Bourdieu, it now appeared, might have been right. When Facebook had been limited to a few elite schools, listing Beethoven among one’s “favorite music” could easily stand as a statement of aesthetic discovery. This was due to that other salutary fiction of an elite meritocratic education: that class distinctions disappear, to be replaced by pure judgment and analytic reason. But beneath the gaze of one’s former classmates, such a claim might well come off as a pose. It was no longer possible to treat the site as an extension of an elite college—the private haunt of one’s “most cultivated” contemporaries.

Here is another depressing story, from the Washington Post, highlighting the misuse of emergency terrorism legislation to wrongfully request telephone records from 2002 to 2006.

The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.

* * *

A Justice Department inspector general’s report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests, bureau officials confirmed.

When people argue that such powers do not bother them because they do nothing wrong, they have to understand that when governments are given the power to breach privacy rights without judicial review, wrongdoing almost always occurs. This behavior is inherent in governments and it is why our Constitution requires judicial approval of search warrants..

Facebook allows everyday people to share the minutia of their daily lives with trusted friends and family, to easily distribute photos and videos – if you use it regularly you know how it has made a very real impact on families and social groups that used to communicate very infrequently. Accessible social networking technology changes communication between people in a way similar to if not as intensely as the introduction of the telephone and the printing press. It changes the fabric of peoples’ lives together. 350 million people signed up for Facebook under the belief their information could be shared just between trusted friends. Now the company says that’s old news, that people are changing. I don’t believe it.

I think Facebook is just saying that because that’s what it wants to be true.

–Marshall Kirkpatrick, Read Write Web, as reproduced in the New York Times, agreeing that what Facebook has done knocking down it privacy settings was done out of self-interest and not for the good of the 350 million Facebook members.

What’s up with Facebook now? Well, today the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a cyber-privacy civil rights group, has filed a formal complaint against the recent Facebook changes to their privacy settings and policy. Here is EPIC’s press release and here is their complaint.

My advice: Drop Facebook like a bad habit unless you post to Facebook only information that you generally post the Web and seriously do not care if everyone sees. Keep in mind that none of Facebook’s changes were put in place to help users. The financial reason for the changes was to open all users’ information in order for Facebook to more effectively compete against Twitter for searchable information. The more information that you post that gets indexed by the search engines, the more traffic there is to Facebook and the more advertisements they can sell. They are selling you and everything you say and post, even though you signed up to share information only with your friends. Is this the way to build a legitimate business? Is this a business that exhibits the kind of customer protection you want to share your private information with?

Did you know that under the new settings a listing of your Facebook friends is shared with the entire Internet unless you take special action?

Check out this article from MSNBC highlighting the fact that even Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, could not correctly apply the new settings.

If Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg can’t figure out his social networking site’s privacy settings after they were ripped open earlier this month, what hope is there for the rest of us?

For a brief window of time, the whole world had an opening to check out (and get screen grabs) of Zuckerberg’s previously private Facebook photos, in which the young CEO is seen, as Valleywag describes, “shirtless, romantic, clutching a teddy bear, and looking plastered.”

Do you want someone to be able to search for you and get your picture, your location and a list of your online friends and their pictures and names? Do your friends want you to to do this? At a minimum, do what is recommended in the MSNBC article linked above.

Still don’t believe me? Well, your Facebook profile will show friends faces and names to a user not on Facebook (i.e., Google) if your settings otherwise are at the highest privacy settings allowed with Facebook “search results” set to “only friends” but “public search” approved.

I am willing to wager to virtually all Facebook users are now sharing friends names and pictures with the universe. Is this what you think you agreed to? When you turn off this behavior, this is the ominous “warning” you are shown by Facebook:

If you have a Facebook account, you recently were offered the “opportunity” to change your privacy settings. Sounds good.

But what isn’t good is that Facebook pointed you to a “privacy” page where the default settings opened all your data to the world. This is a profound change for a service was created and operated on the underlying assumption that you would share your information only with those you chose. In other words, the default security was privacy and you were given the option of sharing with a broader group than your friends.

As the EFF says:

… the Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently.

The basic problem is that Facebook is now pushing folks toward total openess for Facebook’s own economic reasons. Facebook is doing this in a way that is misleading.  They have aligned themselves against their users.

Dan Gillmor summarizes the situation very clearly:

Why don’t I feel safe and sound in their benevolent hands? Because although some of the changes they’ve made in their privacy settings are actually helpful, they are suggesting that users share much more of their data and other information, much more widely than ever. Facebook’s extremely smart leaders know perfectly well that the majority of users are likely to accept these suggestions, because most people say yes to whatever the default settings are in any application.

And I wonder whether the Facebook user community will remain loyal as they discover what is going on?

Update: More news via TechCrunch.

Update 2: Jason Calacanis has posted one of the best essays on Facebook’s shameful behavior.

Eric Schmidt is the CEO of Google. Google is evil.

Exhibit A:

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

– Eric Schmidt, in answer to the following question asked of him on CNBC: “People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they?”

This sort of argument is the lamest that could be imagined to justify spying and invasion of personal privacy. This position would justify installing surveillance cameras in everyone’s home. This kind of arguement is made by totalitarian regimes every day.

Oh, and if you want to learn a little about the personal life of said Eric Schmidt, feel free to look here and see how he reacted back in 2005 when his private information was widely disseminated. At that link, you can also watch this d-bag make the case that can make him rich: trust Google and quit your nasty behaviors.

This kind of argument is bullshit.

And don’t get me started on Yahoo and their simple instructions to the government regarding how to ask for and get user information from Yahoo.  For a fee.

Q: How many times did Sprint provide its customers’ GPS location information to law enforcement in one year?

A: 8 million times for a company with 50 million customers.

A clear example of the erosion of basic privacy rights in this country. Inexcusable. Such sweeps indicate that it might be sensible to turn your mobile GPS-enabled devices off when not in use.

Did you know that the major countries around the world are in the process of negotiating a treaty to govern copyright law around the world? The treaty is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).  No surprise if you didn’t know, because the treaty is being negotiated in secret, based on claims of national security.

Despite the lack of transparency, provisions are leaking out. Those particularly that relate to the Internet are outrageous and over-reaching to a degree unprecedented. Take a look.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation is working the issue and deserves your support if you care about unfettered access to the Internet.

The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations. The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.

I don’t know why I never thought of this before.  The phone number appears real as I just tried it.

Here is a very interesting post about the nature and reality of Google Street View as a strange new category of photography, including a number of images. Street View is both amazing and sometimes disturbing, as shown in the Street View photo below.

Eagle Point Dr, Sherwood, Pulaski, Arkansas

Courtesy of The Onion:

An angry group of residents in Sarnia, Ontario (just across the boarder from Port Huron, Michigan) have a creative plan for a protest. The object of the protest is a surveillance camera operated by US Border Patrol and held aloft by a large balloon. It is said to be observing a large swath of the Sarnia river front facing the US.

So what is the protest. Dozens of Canadian citizens will “moon the balloon.” This is an excellent way to protest privacy attacks.

City police said Thursday they plan to turn a blind eye to the cheeky protest in Centennial Park, but Sarnia’s mayor has asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get involved in what he calls an assault on Canadian privacy.

In a letter to the PM Thursday, Mike Bradley said the camera hovering over Port Huron, Mich. is scanning Sarnia’s waterfront, which includes many homes, private businesses and government offices.

More here and here. (h/t BoingBoing)

Forget all the talk about race. The real issue in the Henry Louis Gates matter is not race. The real issue is the abuse of police power to enforce nothing more or less than good manners in dealing with the police. It is not, and should not be, a crime to be rude to a police officer that is speaking to you inside your own home.  Whether the homeowner or the policeman is black or white is a matter of no difference.  This article from Reason has it right.

By any account of what happened—Gates’, Crowleys’, or some version in between—Gates should never have been arrested. “Contempt of cop,” as it’s sometimes called, isn’t a crime. Or at least it shouldn’t be. It may be impolite, but mouthing off to police is protected speech, all the more so if your anger and insults are related to a perceived violation of your rights. The “disorderly conduct” charge for which Gates was arrested was intended to prevent riots, not to prevent cops from enduring insults. Crowley is owed an apology for being portrayed as a racist, but he ought to be disciplined for making a wrongful arrest.