Social networks as Big Brother

Have you noticed those "Like" and "Tweet" buttons that are popping up all over? A new study suggests they are being used by Facebook and Twitter to track your browsing, even when you don't click them!. It may be time to consider logging off of Social Networks, as these companies are going overboard in their efforts to know everything about their users.

The widgets, which were created to make it easy to share content with friends and to help websites attract visitors, are a potentially powerful way to track Internet users. They could link users' browsing habits to their social-networking profile, which often contains their name...

For this to work, a person only needs to have logged into Facebook or Twitter once in the past month. The sites will continue to collect browsing data, even if the person closes their browser or turns off their computers, until that person explicitly logs out of their Facebook or Twitter accounts, the study found.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and other widget-makers say they don't use browsing data generated by the widgets to track users; Facebook says it only uses the data for advertising purposes when a user clicks on a widget to share content with friends.

I don't want to be one of those paranoid people who assumes the worst of every company. But these days, the Social Networks are giving us every reason to be suspicious.

Your iPhone/iPad is watching you!

In scary Big Brother style, it turns out your iOS cellular enabled iPhone or iPad is tracking your every movement. The database found keeps data from the moment iOS 4 is installed, and appears to track even times when GPS location is not turned on (likely using cell tower triangulation).

Skeptical? I used this sample app to pull the data from my own iPhone. The image below. Note it's careful documentation of my trips to Bath and Houghton, NY, Lancaster, PA, Cherry Hill and Wildwood, NJ, and Delaware. Of course, my own privacy is not breeched because I had already posted photos from each of those trips here to Mod-Blog or to my twitter feed.

Please note, getting this info requires access to your device OR to any computer (Mac or PC) which your iOS device has synced with.

The Amazon Kindle & Big Brother

On Friday, some strange news broke: all copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm were being remotely deleted by Amazon from customer's Kindles. This seemed like a huge invasion of privacy - revoking already-completed sales just because they could due to the digital existence of eBooks. And it was made even more troubling by the choice of books being revoked - classic books about abuse of power and control of thought.

In the meantime, CNET has put up an explanation of the situation that is more balanced. Essentially, the books were being sold thru Amazon illegally. The publisher was claiming the books were in the public domain, when they were not. Thus, when the legitimate publisher found out, they objected and demanded all existing copies be repossessed.

While I agree with CNET that this puts Amazon in a slightly better light, it still leaves open the question, "Who is protecting the customer?" A more customer-sensitive decision would have been for Amazon to compensate the true publisher, punish the fraudsters, and allow customers to keep what they paid for.

Amazon has pledged to do better in the future. Here's hoping they do. Otherwise the Kindle may very well go from trailblazer to footnote.

An Expose of Sweeden's "Successful" National Recycling Program

In the debate over government-run Health Care, the question is often asked "What has the government ever run that worked, besides the military?" The first answer is usually "The Post Office" until people realize how often things get lost in the mail. The second answer is often the Sweedish recycling program, which is trumpeted as a profitable enterprise. At least one Swede strongly disagrees. And if this is the model for government-run Health Care, God help us all if it is ever enacted.

The authorities have established trash collection centers in most neighborhoods where you get to throw away your trash. These "centers" offer numerous containers where you can throw away your trash — there is one container dedicated for each and every kind of trash and they are all neatly color-coded to help you find the right one. But this means you better have separated your aluminum from your other metals and your newspapers from your soft and hard papers before you get here. You wouldn't want to throw away dirty milk cartons or unsorted paper, would you?

But it seems people do just that: they cheat if they believe they are better off doing so. So the authorities have responded by making it more difficult to cheat. Their first measure was to redesign all containers so that it is more difficult throwing the "wrong" trash in them. For instance, containers for glass have only small, round holes where you put your bottles, and containers for hard paper and carton materials have only letter-slit shaped holes (you need to flatten all boxes before recycling — that's the law).

Well, that didn't do the trick. People kept on cheating. And the more difficult the authorities made it to cheat, the more difficult it was to get rid of the trash even if you intended to put it in the right place. So people went to these centers and simply put everything next to the containers instead — why bother? The authorities responded by appointing salaried "trash collection center spies" (!) to document who was cheating so that they could be brought to justice. (There have actually been a few court cases where people have been tried for not following recycling laws.)

Are we really ready to face these kinds of central planning issues when we go to our doctors? I'd say no, but I will admit I have friends who would claim they already do in dealing with their health insurance provider.

Big Brother at the Beach?

About a decade ago, we went over to Ocean City, NJ instead of our usual staple of Wildwood, because it was a bit closer to home. The ambiance is different, and the crowds are a little more transitory (i.e. you don't get families there for the whole week, for the most part). And there was a charge to get off of the boardwalk and onto their beaches. The place was nice enough, but we quickly decided we'd rather drive the extra hour for Wildwood. Since then, the place has gone downhill quickly, losing both vacationers and businesses to its crumbling infrastructure.

Well, now they are planning to do an overhaul that will make Ocean City the "model for the 21st century beach resort". They are planning ubiquitous WiFi (i.e. the ability to get onto the wireless web from anywhere in the city) and to use RFID chips in wristbands to monitor the tourists in town. This comes with the good - a mother will be able to monitor where her children are via the RFID chips - and the bad - it will be far easier to enforce the beach policy and harrass those who attempt to violate it, even innocently.

It is an interesting idea. But the way it is being proposed, I could easily see it being abused very quickly.

Could we prevent another Virginia Tech or Columbine with technology?

One tech writer thinks so. Cringely is normally focussed on predicting the next emerging technology, but this week he ponders the case of the Virginia Tech shooter, and compares it with his own experience with an unstable personality in his life. I also have known some people who were clearly unstable and needed care (and largely recieved it), but whom I worry about to this day. It is an interesting question to wonder if it would be possible to create a system to scan the blogs and twitter posts and etc. that people freely post in an attempt to predict when individuals enter dangerous states. Then again, it would also be a dangerous system, like the Pre-Crime of Philip K. Dick's Minority Report, because it would tempt society to act before any crime has been committed. And really, is it possible to have such a system which can act early enough to extend a helping hand, while the disturbed individual is still capable of accepting it?