[smc-discuss] Facebook and Google spy on you

Mon Nov 17 08:44:30 PST 2014

*WHAT IF *your research could help solve a looming national problem, but
government officials thought publishing it would be tantamount to treason?
A Stanford professor and his graduate students found themselves in that
situation 37 years ago, when their visionary work on computer privacy
issues ran afoul of the National Security Agency. At the time, knowledge of
how to encrypt and decrypt information was the domain of government; the
NSA feared that making the secrets of cryptography public would severely
hamper intelligence operations. But as the researchers saw it, society’s
growing dependence on computers meant that the private sector would also
need effective measures to safeguard information. Both sides’ concerns
proved prescient; their conflict foreshadowed what would become a universal
tug-of-war between privacy-conscious technologists and security-conscious
government officials.

https://medium.com/stanford-select/keeping-secrets-84a7697bf89f

On 15 November 2014 11:59, Pirate Praveen <praveen at onenetbeyond.org> wrote:

> Teenagers like Jamie who understands Freedoms and privacy are an
> inspiration. He can articulate it well too. He is just 14 but he is
> ardent promoter of diaspora, privacy and Free Software. Follow him if
> you are on diaspora.
>
> https://poddery.com/posts/1456406
>
> Making a Good Start on Diaspora
>
> This post is especially for people who are #newhere. I'm writing it
> because it seems like a lot of people create accounts, send out a nice
> Hi I'm new post (hopefully “Public” and not “All Aspects”), and then
> quietly disappear because it seems like there's nobody home because
> there's very little in their Stream (like a “news feed”) that interests
> them. #Diaspora gets off to a slow start, and it's probably easy to
> mistake the leanness of your Stream for “nobody's home.”
>
> I hope to explain why it seems so quiet in here at first, why that is a
> good thing, and then suggest some ways to get off to a good start and
> bring you lots of great stuff to read, share, and talk about with new
> friends.
> Hello? Is Anybody Hommmmmme?
>
> You're new and ready to explore, but your Stream is almost empty and
> some of the posts on the subjects you #tagged in your #profile are
> months or years old! Your first thought: “Oh my, there's nobody else
> around that shares my interests!”
>
> If you came here from #Facebook or some other social network that is
> #centralized, it's probably easy to think so, because the information
> from every account on those other networks is stored on one big giant
> central hub, so everyone has access to everyone else, instantly. While
> that probably makes connecting with friends and people with shared
> interests really fast, it also offers no privacy and publishes whatever
> you say to everyone in the whole universe. I'm not going to repeat all
> the reasons why Diaspora is better than Facebook. You already know that,
> and that's why you're here! But if you were accustomed to a centralized
> network, this #federated network might feel disappointing at first.
> Diaspora is not centralized, so we don't have instant access to every
> other person and group on Diaspora. Whatever shows up at first in our
> Stream is only what is stored on your #pod. Newer pods have to “become
> aware” of content on other pods, and #tags are not federated except in
> your profile.
> How Your Profile Matters
>
> By adding tags to your #profile, other pods “become aware” of your
> interest in them, and then include that stuff in what it shares with
> your pod. Right now you can only use five tags in your profile. But
> after some of that content arrives you can follow those tags and then
> put new tags in your profile to bring in even more stuff. The only
> problem with that, is that changing your profile just to bring more
> content to your pod changes what people see when they look at your
> profile. I like my profile the way it is, and I don't necessarily want
> to make every subject that interests me made public. When you look me
> up, I may not want everyone to know that I'm interested in
> #flying-elephants. Maybe that's not something I want directly in my
> profile. So how do I bring flying elephant stuff to my Stream since
> putting #flying-elephants in the Search field brings up nothing? I've
> discovered that it's better to add Aspects than to just follow tags.
> Follow people instead of topics. You can even create a “group” of sorts
> just for people who share one particular interest, by making a new
> Aspect category. For example if there's something I want to share only
> with other #teenagers, I have a category called “teenz” and have put my
> teenaged aspects in that category, and I can direct a post only to “teenz.”
> Follow People, not Tags
>
> Some #podmins have created “dummy accounts” on their pods that exist
> only to bring content to their pods. And users who write a lot about
> “general topics” have offered their Diaspora addresses publicly on the
> diaspora forum so people can “follow” them and find their stuff in their
> Stream. There are folks who you can add if you want more content about
> #privacy, and I offer mine to help us #teens and #tweens find one
> another. For example, before I added Aspects, a search of #comics in the
> Search field turned up nothing. But a week or so after following some
> people my age, that same search brought in a whole page full of posts
> about comics! That's the secret!
> A Slow Start is Better
>
> Because we don't get “targeted advertising” from people who pay Mister
> Zuckerburg for the right to intrude upon our news feed, we Diaspora
> users have to search for content that interests us instead of having
> some money-motivated jerk buy his way into our news feed, or “suggest”
> stuff that we might be interested in. It's actually better that way,
> even though it takes a bit longer. Think of it this way: You choose
> everything you see, on your own instead of having it handed to you by
> people who are either in it for advertizing money or people who “collect
> friends” like trophies instead of friends. We're all about #freedom
> here. Freedom carries responsibility with it. When I take responsibility
> for my own content, I am truly free. And like anything really worth
> having, it takes a little time and effort on my part. But it's better
> than giving up my freedom by handing over my content choices to a bunch
> of strangers. Enjoy the freedom! Welcome to Diaspora!
>
>
>
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-- 
---
Regards,
Hrishi | Stultus
http://stultus.in
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