IS52026 Social Computing Week 3: social networks the dark side dan mcquillan

if the product is free, you are the product http://fuchs.uti.at/699/ What is Facebooks New Privacy Policy All About? Facebook still makes use of all user data, user communication data, user browsing behaviour, and even data collected from other websites in order to sell these data as commodity to advertising clients that serve targeted ads to users. Facebook thereby makes profit, the users create value, are not paid for this work and their data becomes a commodity.

by YankeeInCanada (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

LOCK-IN one problem is that platforms lock in your social graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_graph The social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related" Concern has focused on the fact that Facebook's social graph is owned by the company and is not shared with other services, giving it a major advantage over other services and disallowing its users to take their graph with them to other services if they wish to do so, such as when a user is dissatisfied with Facebook http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/why-facebook-is-buildinga-second-internet-1028812?src=rss&attr=all How do you get your stuff back out again if you decide you don't want to keep it on Facebook? Where will you take your stuff if Facebook's cornered the market for photo sharing, video sharing and whatever-else sharing, driving rivals out of business? What are you going to do about your Timeline if you get divorced? What happens if Facebook cocks up and deletes your account?

fbFaces

PRIVACY show http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-08/18/fbfaces/viewgallery#!image-number=1 http://www.creativeapplications.net/processing/fbface s-processing-scripts/

show video: 1:31 to 5:09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZKW0ArCmmk

show http://www.face-to-facebook.net/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/facebookteaches-users-how-to-opt-out-of-photo-recognition/ The recent deployment of Tag Suggestions on Facebook has been a hot topic of discussion for activists seeking more privacy controls. The Facebook feature is currently turned on for all users and uses facial recognition patterns to help users tag friends in photos. The software compares newly uploaded photos to previously tagged photos to search for a facial match. Users can easily opt out of allowing their face to by tagged in friend photos, but only a small portion of users are likely aware of the automatic tagging function.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/germanys-warfacebook/40771/ Germany's War on Facebook Facebook's facial recognition feature that helps users tag photos. After joining in the chorus of European nations that objected to the feature launch in June, German authorities are now the first to declare the feature illegal. Last July, Caspar launched a similar case against Facebook for saving data of people who hadn't even signed up for the social network. Like they're now doing more aggressively with their facial recognition feature, Facebook collected data about nonFacebook users through the Friend Finder feature and then stored it without permission. Germany has among some of the strictest data protection and privacy laws in the European Union, largely created in the wake of informational abuses perpetrated by the Nazis and the Stasi, the East German secret police. One of the foundational concepts of German data protection law is that no data can be collected without the express consent of the user.

STALKING the new model for internet advertising, called behavioral targeting quote from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487039 40904575395073512989404.html The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets

by Space & Light (CC BY-SA 2.0)

by toodlepip (CC BY-NC 2.0)

TRACKING http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20006532-38.html Even if someone is not a Facebook user or is not logged in, Facebook's social plug-ins collect the address of the Web page being visited and the Internet address of the visitor as soon as the page is loaded--clicking on the Like button is not required. If enough sites participate, that permits Facebook to assemble a vast amount of data about Internet users' browsing habits. How it works: Facebook wants publishers to insert an iframe or JavaScript in the HTML for their Web pages. As soon as the page is loaded, the code invokes a PHP script at Facebook.com that records information including the URL for the Web page, your IP address, and your Facebook ID (if you're authenticated). If a publisher uses Facebook's Javascript API, the simpler option, here's what the embedded Like button for CNET.com would look like: <fb:like href="cnet.com" font="tahoma"></fb:like>

a recent Facebook patent application details specific methods for tracking its users while they're using other websites. Michael Arrington pointed out over the weekend that this follows explicit statements from Facebook employees that the social networking giant has "no interest in tracking people." http://uncrunched.com/2011/10/01/brutal-dishonesty/ Facebook does not track users across the web, A Facebook spokesperson on September 25, 2011 and Generally, unlike other major Internet companies, we have no interest in tracking people. Facebook employee on September 25, 2011 v. A method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain. Facebook Patent application dated September 22, 2011

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http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/03/1825234/Facebook-Files-For-aPatent-To-Track-Its-Users-On-Other-Sites"In one embodiment, a method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain. The method includes maintaining a profile for each of one or more users of the social networking system, each profile identifying a connection to one or more other users of the social networking system and including information about the user. The method additionally includes receiving one or more communications from a third-party website having a different domain than the social network system, each message communicating an action taken by a user of the social networking system on the third-party website. The method additionally includes logging the actions taken on the third-party website in the social networking system, each logged action including information about the action." CHECK-INS? New FB privacy policy: http://fuchs.uti.at/699/ We may put together your current city with GPS and other location information we have about you to, for example, tell you and your friends about people or events nearby, or offer deals to you that you might be interested in. We may also put together data about you to serve you ads that might be more relevant to you. When we get your GPS location, we put it together with other location information we have about you (like your current city). But we only keep it until it is no longer useful to provide you services.

by opensourceway on Flickr Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

1. Pokes are kept even after the user removes them. 2. Facebook is collecting data about people without their knowledge. This information is used to substitute existing profiles and to create profiles of non-users. 3. Tags are used without the specific consent of the user. Users have to untag themselves (opt-out). Note: Facebook has announced changes for this. 4. Facebook is gathering personal data e.g. via its iPhone-App or the friend finder. This data is used by Facebook without the consent of the data subjects. 5. Postings that have been deleted showed up in the set of data that was received from Facebook. 6. Users cannot see the settings under which content is distributed that they post on others pages. 7. Messages (incl. Chat-Messages) are stored by Facebook even after the user deleted them. This means that all direct communication on Facebook can never be deleted. 8. The privacy policy is vague, unclear and contradictory. If European and Irish standards are applied, the consent to the privacy policy is not valid. Facebook tried improving it earlier this year. 9. The new face recognition feature is an disproportionate violation of the users right to privacy. Proper information and an unambiguous consent of the users is missing. 10. Access Requests have not been answered fully. Many categories of information are missing. 11. Tags that were removed by the user, are only deactivated but saved by Facebook. 12. In its terms, Facebook says that it does not guarantee any level of data security. 13. Applications of friends can access data of the user. There is no guarantee that these applications are following European privacy standards. 14. All removed friends are stored by Facebook. This was reconfirmed recently. 15. Facebook is hosting enormous amounts of personal data and it is processing all data for its own purposes. It seems Facebook is a prime example of illegal excessive processing. 16. Facebook is running an opt-out system instead of an opt-in system, which is required by European law. 17. The Like Button is creating extended user data that can be used to track users all over the internet. There is no legitimate purpose for the creation of the data. Users have not consented to the use. 18. Facebook has certain obligations as a provider of a cloud service (e.g. not using third party data for its own purposes or only processing data when instructed to do so by the user). 19. The privacy settings only regulate who can see the link to a picture. The picture itself is public on the internet. This makes it easy to circumvent the settings. 20. Facebook is only deleting the link to pictures. The pictures are still public on the internet for a certain period of time (more than 32 hours). 21. Users can be added to groups without their consent. Users may end up in groups that lead other to false impressions about a person. 22. The policies are changed very frequently, users do not get properly informed, they are not asked to consent to new policies.

DATA http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-releasing-yourpersonal-data-reveals-our-trade-secrets/4552 Facebook says it is not required to give you a copy of some of your personal data as it could adversely affect the companys trade secrets and intellectual property. On its website, Europe versus Facebook shows how to request a copy of your personal data on the social network. It explains that because of Irelands 1988 Data Protection Act (DPA), Facebook has to send you your data on a CD within 40 days of a request. The organization managed to accidentally get Reddit involved, whose users recently overwhelmed Facebook with data requests by following a slightly altered version of the instructions http://fuchs.uti.at/699/ Europe vs. Facebook This topic is addressed in the complaint under point 15: After using facebook.com for 3 years, Facebook Ireland gathered more than 1.200 pages of personal information about me (in fact Facebook Ireland might hold a much bigger amount of data, see Complaint 10), even though I have deleted just about everything I could (e.g. all my posts, all messages, and many friends)

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SUMMARY Remember the adage: if you can't see what product a site is selling, the product is you. That's definitely the case with Facebook, whose entire business depends on mining the details of your life to better target ads for pointless crap you don't need. quote fromhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/27/fa cebook-open-graph-web-underclass Why Facebook's new Open Graph makes us all part of the web underclass

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PLAY EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE The lyrics are the words of a sinister, controlling character, who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make". Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it's about the obsession with a lost lover, the jealousy and surveillance that follows. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"[5] When asked why he appears angry in the music video Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle, little love song."[6]

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NOT ONLY FACEBOOK twitter / logged in / tracking economist: http://www.economist.com/node/16910031 MOBILE PHONE NETWORKS: TELECOMS operators naturally prize mobile-phone subscribers who spend a lot, but some thriftier customers, it turns out, are actually more valuable. Known as influencers, these subscribers frequently persuade their friends, family and colleagues to follow them when they switch to a rival operator. The trick, then, is to identify such trendsetting subscribers and keep them on board with special discounts and promotions. People at the top of the office or social pecking order often receive quick callbacks, do not worry about calling other people late at night and tend to get more calls at times when social events are most often organised, such as Friday afternoons. Influential customers also reveal their clout by making long calls, while the calls they receive are generally short. Companies can spot these influencers, and work out all sorts of other things about their customers, by crunching vast quantities of calling data with sophisticated network analysis software. Instead of looking at the call records of a single customer at a time, it looks at customers within the context of their social network.

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GOOGLE+ http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2105755/Real-NamesGoogle-Government-The-Identity-Ecosystem Just two years ago in 2009, in the name of Internet freedom, Google refused to go along with South Koreas Real ID/Real Name policy. So why did Google make a 180-degree turn from Internet freedom to Internet accountability? Why did Google in 2009 refuse to honor South Koreas real name system and now insist on one for Google users? We get more clues to the possible true nature of the G+ Project when we read Carvins full transcript of the interview with Eric Schmidt. And the notion of strong identity was never invented in the Internet. Many people worked on it - I worked on it as a scientist 20 years ago, and its a hard problem. So if we knew that it was a real person, then we could sort of hold them accountable, we could check them, we could give them things, we could you know bill them, you know we could have credit cards and so forth and so on, there are all sorts of reasons.

hurriyetdailynews.com

REPRESSION http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/02/06/bo oks/review/Siegel.html Evgeny Morozov - Net Delusion, (belarus). china, vietnam, sudan: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/06/111637/suda ns-government-crushed-protests.html

ANONYMITY http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliationand their ideas from suppressionat the hand of an intolerant society. -1995 Supreme Court ruling, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission list from here: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html http://jilliancyork.com/2011/07/29/a-case-for-pseudonyms/ There are myriad reasons why an individual may feel safer identifying under a name other than their birth name. Teenagers who identify as members of the LGBT community, for example, are regularly harassed online and may prefer to identify online using a pseudonym. Individuals whose spouses or partners work for the government or are well known often wish to conceal aspects of their own lifestyle and may feel more comfortable operating under a different name online. Survivors of domestic abuse who need not to be found by their abusers may wish to alter their name in whole or in part. ...While these arguments are not entirely without merit, they misframe the problem. It is not incumbent upon strict real-name policy advocates to show that policies insisting on the use of real names have an upside. It is incumbent upon them to demonstrate that these benefits outweigh some very serious drawbacks.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/09/03/0115241/Heises-Two-Clicks-For-More-Privacy-vs-Facebook

Heise's 'Two Clicks For More Privacy' vs. Facebook http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/09/03/0115241/Heises -Two-Clicks-For-More-Privacy-vs-Facebook Friday September 02 "Yesterday, German technology news site Heise changed their social 'like' buttons to a two-click format (Original in German). This will effectively disable unintentional automatic tracking of all page visits by third-party social sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Less than 24 hours later over 500 websites have asked about the technology. Facebook is now threatening to blacklist Heise (Original in German)."

crysp.uwaterloo.ca/software/facecloak/

http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/software/facecloak/ . FaceCloak is a Firefox extension that replaces your personal information with fake information before sending it to a social networking site. Your actual personal information is encrypted and stored securely somewhere else. Only friends who were explicitly authorized by you have access to this information, and FaceCloak transparently replaces the fake information while your friends are viewing your profile.

David Goldman for The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html How angry is the world at Facebook for devouring every morsel of personal information we are willing to feed it? A few months back, four geeky college students, living on pizza in a computer lab downtown on Mercer Street, decided to build a social network that wouldnt force people to surrender their privacy to a big business. It would take three or four months to write the code, and they would need a few thousand dollars each to live on. They gave themselves 39 days to raise $10,000, using an online site, Kickstarter, that helps creative people find support. It turned out that just about all they had to do was whisper their plans. We were shocked, said one of the four, Dan Grippi, 21. For some strange reason, everyone just agreed with this whole privacy thing. They announced their project on April 24. They reached their $10,000 goal in 12 days, and the money continues to come in: as of Tuesday afternoon, they had raised $23,676 from 739 backers. https://joindiaspora.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28software %29 The group was inspired to create Diaspora by a February 5, 2010 speech from Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen to the Internet Society's New York Chapter, "Freedom in the Cloud", in which Moglen described centralized social networks as "spying for free."[5][6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28software %29 Diaspora works by letting users set up their own server (or "pod") to host content; pods can then interact to share status updates, photographs, and other social data.[8] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9186498/Dia spora_A_first_peek_at_Facebook_s_challenger

FOUCAULT Panopticon See also lectures 19 & 20.

by duncan (CC BY-NC 2.0)

In the lab today....

In the lab... ghostery business model anonymity