Instapaper’s (anti-)social network Ben Brooks noticed and blogged about how Instapaper’s social features, introduced earlier this year, are minimal: There’s just a list of articles that people you chose to follow decided that they liked. All without knowing who, or if, anybody will ever see that they liked that article. That was exactly the idea, and I’m very happy to see it perceived that way. Social features are tricky. Social networks also need to address difficult issues with identity, privacy, harassment, spam, and information overload. These systems require a lot of time and money to develop, maintain, and support. With Instapaper’s following system, I wanted to deal with as little of the difficult baggage as possible, even if it meant omitting some of the “sticky” social dynamics that can significantly boost user counts and engagement. There are no public usernames, avatars, or profile pages. There are no notifications whatsoever for following and unfollowing.
Download Tor Tor Browser Version 4.5.2 - Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP Everything you need to safely browse the Internet. Learn more » Expert Bundle Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000, 2003 Server, ME, and Windows 98SE Contains just Tor and nothing else. Version 4.5.2 - OS X Intel Everything you need to safely browse the Internet. Version 4.5.2 - Linux, BSD, and Unix Tor (standalone) Install the Tor components yourself, run a relay, create custom configurations. Source Tarball Configure with: . The current stable version of Tor is 0.2.6.9. The current unstable/alpha version of Tor is 0.2.7.1-alpha. Want Tor to really work? You need to change some of your habits, as some things won't work exactly as you are used to. Use the Tor Browser Tor does not protect all of your computer's Internet traffic when you run it. Be smart and learn more.
A Case for Pseudonyms pseu·do·nym [sood-n-im] –noun a fictitious name used by an author to conceal his or her identity; pen name. There are myriad reasons why individuals may wish to use a name other than the one they were born with. They may be concerned about threats to their lives or livelihoods, or they may risk political or economic retribution. They may wish to prevent discrimination or they may use a name that’s easier to pronounce or spell in a given culture. Online, the reasons multiply. Pseudonymous speech has played a critical role throughout history as well. A new debate around pseudonymity on online platforms has arisen as a result of the identification policy of Google+, which requires users to identify by "the name your friends, family, or co-workers usually call you". While these arguments are not entirely without merit, they misframe the problem. There are myriad reasons why an individual may feel safer identifying under a name other than their birth name.
Sexual Activity Tracked By Fitbit Shows Up In Google Search Results Yikes. Users of fitness and calorie tracker Fitbit may need to be more careful when creating a profile on the site. The sexual activity of many of the users of the company’s tracker and online platform can be found in Google Search results, meaning that these users’ profiles are public and searchable. You can click here to access these results. As you may know, the Fitbit Tracker is an compact wearable device that clips onto clothing or slips into a pocket and captures, through accelerometer technology, information about daily health activities, such as steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, exercise intensity levels and sleep quality. So why are Fitbit users’ profiles able to be searchable in Google? So these users may be unwittingly sharing their most intimate details (i.e. kissing, hugging and more) when recording their sexual activity to calculate how many calories they have burned in a given period of time. Thanks to Andy Baio for the tip.
TigerText Disposes Of ‘Sender’s Remorse’ With New Privacy And Control Features For SMS TigerText, a company that adds a bevy of privacy settings and controls to SMS, is today launching a new app for iOS that aims to preserve the social nature of group messaging while giving the sender complete control over their messages both in group and one-to-one conversations. A prized feature of TigerText’s service has been the fact that it allows a sender to recall a message they’ve sent at any time. Bad for TextsFromLastNight. Other features of its new app include allowing the user to determine who receives the message, augmented privacy by using a TigerText specific user name (not based on a phone number), as well as confirmation of message delivery. TigerText’s core belief is that social sharing should be possible without sacrificing privacy, and that individual control should be key to the text messaging experience. The new TigerText iOS app is compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPad and iPod Touch and is available free on the app store and at TigerText.com.
Policy Announcement: Strengthen... by Marc Bodnick - Quora We are publishing today a revised and simplified policy on individuals that strengthens the policy's protections. The new policy reaffirms the two core protections that Quora has offered individuals since we published the original policy in June 2010: Questions about people that are clearly hurtful or mean-spirited, or are likely to make the person uncomfortable, aren't allowed.For all Quora users, if there is a question about you on the site, then you have control over that question. This means that with regard to that question, you can privately ask Quora moderation to delete the question or individual answers or comments that you don't like. And you can have final say over the contents of the answer summary wiki.Our revised policy makes it clear that these protections apply to all Quora users, regardless of whether or not they are public figures. This policy change means that Quora moderation will no longer have to make distinctions about who is and who isn't a "public figure."
Why you can't really anonymize your data One of the joys of the last few years has been the flood of real-world datasets being released by all sorts of organizations. These usually involve some record of individuals’ activities, so to assuage privacy fears, the distributors will claim that any personally-identifying information (PII) has been stripped. The idea is that this makes it impossible to match any record with the person it’s recording. Something that my friend Arvind Narayanan has taught me, both with theoretical papers and repeated practical demonstrations, is that this anonymization process is an illusion. All the known examples of this type of identification are from the research world — no commercial or malicious uses have yet come to light — but they prove that anonymization is not an absolute protection. So, what should we do? Keep the anonymization Just because it’s not totally reliable, don’t stop stripping out PII. Acknowledge there’s a risk of de-anonymization Limit the detail Learn from the experts Related:
IBM worries iPhone's Siri has loose lips IBM bans Siri on its network, according to Technology ReviewThe technology company worries Apple may store voice requestsMessages are "sent to Apple in order to convert what you say into text" (WIRED) -- If you work for IBM, you can bring your iPhone to work, but forget about using the phone's voice-activated digital assistant. Siri isn't welcome on Big Blue's networks. The reason? Siri ships everything you say to her to a big data center in Maiden, North Carolina. And the story of what really happens to all of your Siri-launched searches, e-mail messages and inappropriate jokes is a bit of a black box. IBM CIO Jeanette Horan told MIT's Technology Review this week that her company has banned Siri outright because, according to the magazine, "The company worries that the spoken queries might be stored somewhere." Apple's new 'spaceship' campus: What will the neighbors say? It turns out that Horan is right to worry. Tips for using Siri Siri: Apple's new voice recognition