Benlog

Category: privacy

  • The evolution of OpenID: you’re not a URL after all

    The US government has just announced a pilot program to integrate OpenID (and Information Cards) into public government web sites. This is very interesting news, as it will likely catalyze even greater OpenID deployment and use. [I’ve poo-poo’ed OpenID here and here, because of phishing and privacy concerns. I’m still very worried. I’ve suggested ways…

  • HealthEngage leaking email addresses?

    For more than 10 years now, I’ve used custom email addresses when I log in to a web site I don’t fully trust, e.g. ben-SITENAME at adida.net. Until recently, the only time I’ve actually been able to trace emails to their source is when I saw how Democrats reused some of their mailing lists during…

  • Engaging Data going, going….

    The Engaging Data Conference at MIT, which brings together a number of interesting folks around the management of personal electronic data, is happening in October. The deadline for papers is this week, so submit a paper now if you’ve got some good ideas to share.

  • Pot, Kettle, meet Zuckerberg

    Facebook is an impressive company, they’ve done and continue to do some very amazing things. And I admit I certainly didn’t see them coming 4 years ago. But okay, come on: “No one wants to live in a surveillance society,” Zuckerberg adds, “which, if you take that to its extreme, could be where Google is…

  • More on Google Wave Trust Model

    I wrote briefly about Google Wave, and Ben Laurie points out that my statement on the Google Wave trust model is misleading. He’s right. I said that the Google Wave trust model is the same as email (and thus I think Google Wave will succeed). What my words unfortunately and misleadingly implied is that it’s…

  • Google Wave – thoughts

    First impressions / predictions on Google Wave, Google’s new communication idea/product/protocol/service: because it’s open-source, federated, and follows the same trust patterns as email, it will be successful whatever authentication protocol Google Wave uses will be a significant (if not a crushing) player in the web authentication space, and that’s not a bad thing because it…

  • Engaging Data Forum @ MIT in October

    I’m on the Program Committee for a new conference being held at MIT in the Fall, the Engaging Data Forum. A number of fascinating topics around the issues of managing personal electronic information. Of course I’m focused on the security, privacy, and interoperability aspects, but there’s more, including geolocation, collection from portable devices, etc… Send…

  • Hotel Facebook and Tethered Data

    After writing yesterday about the Facebook Terms of Service fiasco — Facebook just reverted their Terms of Service due to user outcry — I remembered that Mark Zuckerberg has talked about data ownership before. So I did a little bit of Googling. Here’s what he said in March 2008: If you export your friends list,…

  • Facebook: “we’re keeping your data for your friends’ sake!”

    So Facebook changed their terms of service so they can keep and distribute your data forever, even if you delete your account. It seems that they will factor in your privacy preferences, but I’m not a lawyer and I’m not sure how ironclad that provision is. What seems to be clear is that they keep…

  • Privacy Advocacy Stunts

    Deborah Peel, a well-known patient privacy advocate, and EPIC have joined forces to ask Google some questions about Google Flu Trends. Google is analyzing its search logs to detect flu outbreaks by region, which is super nifty. Peel and EPIC ask: There are, however, privacy concerns surrounding this new tool. […] In the aggregate, the…

  • Genomic Records & Voting

    So part of my research is on voting. And another part is on the privacy of genomic medical records (which, admittedly, I haven’t spoken about much on this blog yet). It’s not often that I find an article that combines both. But I guess it was inevitable: In the coming era of personal genomics —…

  • Children vs. Anonymity

    I’m a member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force‘s Technical Advisory Board, at the Harvard Berkman Center. We’re writing a report on technologies that protect kids online. Today, at the open meeting, we’ve been hearing short presentations from 15 companies. I won’t comment much on the individual proposals, since the TAB has been jointly…

  • Helios Voting being used for real elections

    From my Helios Blog: The Information Card Foundation is using Helios for its board election. Perfect use case: 50 people who will likely never all meet in person, but who need to vote on some issues. Helios provides them with a feature they literally could not achieve otherwise today: a secret ballot combined with real…

  • Privacy violations can be so useful

    Have you noticed that, after you visit a web page, links to that web page change color, usually a lighter shade of blue? That’s one of the earliest User Interface wins of the web, a feature that dates all the way back to the first version of HTML. How convenient to be able to tell,…

  • Privacy vs. Omnipotence, Mashups and your browser.

    Facebook is in hot water again, this time for “Facebook Beacon” which posts your activity at various partner sites to your Facebook newsfeed. Buy a self-help book at Amazon? Your friends will know. Browse some recipes at Epicurious? Your girlfriend might get some idea of what you’re cooking for Valentine’s Day. The fuss is mostly…

  • Privacy Quote of the Day

    Facebook just launched a targeted advertising platform. Suddenly, all that data you entered about yourself will be used to target advertising to you. Were you expecting it? This is worse than Gmail, because when gmail launched, they told you upfront that they were using your mail content to target ads. You could make the conscious…

  • Web Cookies Explained

    The StopBadware Project and the Berkman Center (disclaimer: I’m affiliated with both) just announced the winner of the “Cookie Crumbles” video contest to help explain web cookies to the world: Clayton Miller. Here’s his video: It is 99% correct, and for a 1.5 minute film, that’s quite impressive. Good video to share with friends and…

  • Open(Social) Will Win ; and now Privacy?

    If you’re hooked into the social networking world, you know about Facebook and the Facebook platform, which lets developers create all sorts of applications that make use of your Facebook social network in interesting ways. Flixster, for example, lets you share and compare your movie tastes with your existing Facebook friends. No need to reconnect…

  • What Happens Before You Mail It?

    The No-Vote-By-Mail blog cites me again, and in so doing points me to a a note by King County in Washington about how they are ensuring that vote-by-mail preserves ballot secrecy. Okay, let’s say I believe everything they say. The ballot is double-enveloped, there are no traces of who the voter is on the ballot,…

  • Voting: Things are Not Always What They Seem

    It’s interesting how Voting often comes up in so many discussions, and how often folks believe that Voting is a well established, stable process that is usually fair, except for those pesky touchscreen voting machines that are corrupting a process that has long been well managed. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like unverified touchscreen…

  • Voting à la Française

    Nicolas Sarkozy just won the French Presidential Elections by a sizeable margin. In case my fellow US liberals are worried about a “Conservative” victory in Europe, it’s important to note that the US Republican Party and the French UMP are by no means the same. Sarkozy used his first speaking opportunity to declare France “a…

  • Workshop on Privacy in Electronic Society (WPES)

    The Call for Papers for the Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society 2007 is out: ACM Workshop on Privacy in Electronic Society (WPES’07) The need for privacy-aware policies, regulations, and techniques has been widely recognized. This workshop discusses the problems related to privacy in the global interconnected society and their possible solutions. The 2007…

  • Privacy Skills and DRM for healthcare

    My wife is about to start her medical residency, and as she was filling out a survey sent to all graduating medical students by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), she called me over with a chuckle. One question asked her to express her level of agreement with the following statement: I am confident…

  • Google, the Desktop, and Privacy

    Google just released Google Desktop for Mac, and that got me thinking again about the Google and Privacy issue I wrote about here and here. I said that Microsoft might have an interesting privacy advantage, because your data lives on your computer, and their software doesn’t need to send much info to the mothership. By…

  • Google & Privacy

    (Thanks to Joe for the pointer.) Google just announced a notable improvement in their privacy practices, which reinforces the opinion I expressed in a post a few days ago. Could it be that Google is starting to feel consumer demand for privacy? I think it’s happening, and the most promising aspect of Google’s move is…

  • Microsoft’s Competitive Advantage: Privacy

    Today, I attended a lunch at the Berkman Center with Microsoft’s Ira Rubinstein. Ira talked about privacy and how it is built into the Microsoft development model. He mentioned Microsoft’s new layered approach to privacy policies, where a simple front page gives you the highlights, and you can drill down on any point. A bit…

  • Privacy and Social Networks

    I worry a lot about privacy. The first half of this short video about the privacy policy of Facebook.com is great (the second half is a bit too much of a six-degrees-of-separation game to associate Facebook.com with the CIA). What’s particularly interesting is that, when Facebook.com is discussed in the press, there is rarely any…