Context & Continuity

WSJ: Breaking News: Your Privacy is an Illusion, Big Time.

For reasons only people far smarter about journalism will be able to fathon, the Wall Street Journal broke a Big Time story on Friday afternoon.  I'm counting a total -- so far -- of seven stories that are described as the first in a series that all about how your online life is an open book that's bought, sold, resold, parsed and aggregated.  Dear, we aren't talking just about cookies and milk.  The WSJ's crack team has found beacons and trackers, bits of code that are recording and broadcasting what you type and click.  --Brother, Sister, we are toast.

By the way, the WSJ opened a unique, easily consumable URL for the series: http://online.wsj.com/wtk

Broad overview:  WSJ studied fifty websites that draw about forty percent of all the page views on the internet.  Those fifty sites dropped 1,380 tracking files on the test computer.  The worst offender?  Dictionary.com.  The purest site:  Wikipedia which dropped zero files. 

The journal didn't find any trackers that identified, by name, a computer user, but, honstly, the name is all but inconsequential when put into the perspective of what is being collected.  Here's how the story opens: 

Hidden inside Ashley Hayes-Beaty's computer, a tiny file helps gather personal details about her, all to be put up for sale for a tenth of a penny.

The file consists of a single code— 4c812db292272995e5416a323e79bd37—that secretly identifies her as a 26-year-old female in Nashville, Tenn.

The code knows that her favorite movies include "The Princess Bride," "50 First Dates" and "10 Things I Hate About You." It knows she enjoys the "Sex and the City" series. It knows she browses entertainment news and likes to take quizzes.

"Well, I like to think I have some mystery left to me, but apparently not!" Ms. Hayes-Beaty said when told what that snippet of code reveals about her. "The profile is eerily correct."

Ms. Hayes-Beaty is being monitored by Lotame Solutions Inc., a New York company that uses sophisticated software called a "beacon" to capture what people are typing on a website—their comments on movies, say, or their interest in parenting and pregnancy. Lotame packages that data into profiles about individuals, without determining a person's name, and sells the profiles to companies seeking customers. Ms. Hayes-Beaty's tastes can be sold wholesale (a batch of movie lovers is $1 per thousand) or customized (26-year-old Southern fans of "50 First Dates").

"We can segment it all the way down to one person," says Eric Porres, Lotame's chief marketing officer.

Mr. Porres isn't making a confession.  He's bragging.  A lot. 

I've written before that I completely understand, and in a very sick way, sympathize with the businesses that are on the cutting edge of this sort of practice.  I can even walk over to the opinion that, if sponsors / advertisers have a very precise understanding of what turns me on, then I'm going to see less random stuff and more stuff that hits the sweet spot of my interest.   And I'm OK with that. 

What I believe the real problem is comes down to two points:

1.  I don't remember anyone ever asking me is it's OK for them to monitor me so closely.  And that's not really OK.

2.  Furthermore, I don't remember anyone asking me if its OK to drop executables onto my hard drive.  I paid good money for my disk.  I am constantly protecting and grooming my disks to protect them from the vandels and to ensure they are working as well as possible.  I also pay good money to Comcast for the bandwidth I consume. 

So, what it comes down to is the must vaunted issue:  Transparency.  Frankly, I lead my online life based on the assumption that anything I post is exposed to the worldwide online public (as if anyone really cared).  In return, I'm being stalked by a bunch of companies (motives and means of executive aside) that are in the business of sneaking into my house, installing a secret camera, and following my every move.  --That's not cool. 

Danah Boyd on Facebook, Youth and Privacy: Attention, Please.

I don't think I've mentioned First Monday in these parts ever before which is a huge oversight on my part as First Monday is one of the most thoughtful pieces of media on the net about the net that you'll ever find no matter how high or low you look.  Really.

Case in point is an article from First Monday's upcoming August issue.  The peer-reviewed piece by Ms. Eszter Hargittal and the omnipresent Ms. Danah Boyd, pictured to the left and not wearing one of her infamous hats.  These two have teamed up to research and write an article about how 18- and 19-year-olds feel about Facebook's privacy settings / options. 

Thesis:  This cohort doesn't feel very strongly about privacy issues and doesn't think too much about their privacy on Facebook.  Finding:  Wrong. 

It's important to note here that this study was conducted over a year and surveyed how attitudes might have evolved.  It's also important to note that the research was funded, in part, by the MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft and Harvard's Berkman Center.  Ms. Boyd works for Microsoft (which always struck me as rather incongruous until I considered what I might do if Microsoft offered me enough money).  

Of course I knew this all along because I have a 17-year-old who has probably contributed terabytes of data to Facebook only I only have a vague reckoning of this as she's my friend but understands how to manage her privacy controls so that I can only see when she's online and that's about it.  Good for her? 

As Esther Dyson forecasted decades ago, online privacy is going to be a huge business if it isn't already what with companies such as Reputation Defender popping up here and there.  Soon enough, we will be working with brokers who will auction off slivers of our privacy to the highest bidder.  For example, I can easily envision a future whereby Mr. Bezos will call me up to make me an offer:  He will give me a deep discount on future purchases over a period of time if he's allowed to sell my purchase history to the highest bidder, including my email address and telephone number.  Gentle reader, you might want to start figuring out what your price will be because it's coming sooner than we think. 

Google to Launch Facebook Rival: I'd Like to Buy a Vowel, Please

As I am so much the egoist, I consider myself able to understand most things I read in the newspaper.  Yesterday and today, however, I've failed that test when applied to the WSJ story, Google Develops a Facebook Rival. 

As I completely agree with Mr. Dewey that a problem well defined is a problem half solved, let me dissect my issue so you have a leg up on helping me solve it. 

Yesterday, and again today, I've received alerts from the WSJ to the effect that Google is launching a Facebook rival.  Okay.  I can understand that idea and have been in this technology business too long to be surprised by this headline.  Afterall, Facebook came out of nowhere an now has a population of netizens outnumbering many countries.  Facebook has accomplished this by accumulating a critical mass of people and information about people.  And, it hosts some sort of entertainments (Farmville, Mob Wars, etc.) that, frankly, I just don't understand.  I use Facebook and pretty much enjoy it as it's connected me to people I like a lot. 

Google, which for argument's sake, has infinite resources, and, beyond question, has a ton of information about all of us, well, Google can pretty much get whatever it wants.  Agreed?

So, here's the part I don't understand:  What evidence does the WSJ article cite?  Well, Google has been in discussions with several companies that build some of these aforementioned online games.  Specifically these companies include Playdom, Playfish and Zynga.  And, by the way, Disney acquired Playdom this week for a mere $763 million and that, dear friend, is a whole lot of money.  Electronic Arts acquired Playfish in November for a mere $300 million.  According to some estimates, Zynga is valued at ~$5 billion. Wow. 

So, the rumors that have resulted from Google's chats are that these online games will be part of Google's social networking offering.  So let's step back for a second and take a look:  the WSJ is reporting rumors that Google is in discussions with online gaming companies that have significant presence on social networking sites.  And from this we extrapolate that Google is going to enter the social networking business.

What I hear here is a reporter and editor that can feel a story can't quite report it.  What do you think? 

Speaking of Dytopia: Recent Computer Security News from t/ WSJ.

Perhaps you've noticed the same thing I did:  Two recent stories about computer insecurity that involve some Very Important Companies:  Siemens and Citibank. 

It was in Thursday's paper last week that the WSJ carried a story about a virus attack on Siemens' equipment.  Now, we aren't talking about personal computer equipment.  This gear from Siemens is very large scale computer equipment that's used to monitor automated plants.  These are plants that purify water, generate power and, plain old ordinary manufacturing facilities.  This is very bad news as it realizes some of our worst fears, fears articulated by Richard Clarke in his book Cyber War. 

Then, in today's paper, comes news that Citibank's iPhone app stores information about accounts and recent transactions on the iPhone which, theoretically, could lead to weakened security position.  Think of it this way, it's almost like leaving your bank statement in your car on the passenger seat.  It's probably safe, but you know it isn't a best practice. 

Our hunger for the benefits and convenience of technology far outstrip our ability to safely satisfy our appetite.  Furthermore, we're becoming inured to some of these threats and mere weaknesses.  For example, it just occurred to me that loading my Tivo with music and movies from my computer.  Of course, all the music and movies I've transferred have been legitimately acquired, but what if they weren't.  Tivo collects viewing data from my machine.  Etc.

Frankly, I'm much more concerned about the threat to our serious infrastructure than my own privacy as my life is blameless, of course.  I just don't ant to be under the Bay on BART when the lights go out.  Agreed? 

Happy Birthday, Brazil: @ t/ Intersection of Interest

I expect I'm like many others who are fascinated with a dystopian imagining of the future because we believe dystopia is far more believable because it's far more likely than utopia.  So, when the theme of dystopia intersects with Terry Gilliam and Tom Stoppard, well, I'm all in. Someone brought it to my attention that this is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Brazil, so this is an excellent excuse to notice it here.  

First Terry Gilliam shares an interesting quality with Orson Welles:  Sometimes there creative imagination greatly outstrips the commercial resources necessary to realize their vision.  And in this vein Gilliam and Wells share the distinction of trying, and spectacularly failing to make a movie from Don Quixote.  Mr. Gilliam's movies are always visually spectacular, and, in an of itself, this is good enough reason to see them over and over again. 

Regarding Mr. Stoppard's contribution, who knows.  He shares the writing credit with Mr. Gilliam and Charles McKeown, who also helped Mr. Gilliam with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and shares a writing credit for Ripley's Game. 

Finally, regarding dystopia:  watching Brazil is much like a ride on a fantastical roller coaster, twisting and turning and zipping in and out of tunnels along the way.  However, this is a roller coaster that, instead of safely coasting to stop back at the platform, it jumps off the track and smashes straight into a cement block wall.  (That's a spoiler, isn't it.  Sorry.)  When I watched it the first time, it felt as if I had been struck in the chest, and, honestly, I couldn't watch it again for several years.  Even today, I have difficulty sitting through it.  But in spite of, or because of, this, I think it's a work of art and wish it all the best over the many more years to come.