Eikonal Blog

2013.02.26

Facebook sinking even deeper

Filed under: FaceBook, opression, privacy, propaganda, surveillance, tracking — Tags: , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 09:27
  • “Why I’m quitting Facebook” by Douglas Rushkoff (CNN; 2013.02.25) – http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/25/opinion/rushkoff-why-im-quitting-facebook/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
    • I have always argued for engaging with technology as conscious human beings and dispensing with technologies that take that agency away.

      Facebook is just such a technology. It does things on our behalf when we’re not even there. It actively misrepresents us to our friends, and worse misrepresents those who have befriended us to still others. To enable this dysfunctional situation — I call it “digiphrenia” — would be at the very least hypocritical.

    • Facebook does not exist to help us make friends, but to turn our network of connections, brand preferences and activities over time — our “social graphs” — into money for others.
    • The true end users of Facebook are the marketers who want to reach and influence us. They are Facebook’s paying customers; we are the product. And we are its workers. The countless hours that we — and the young, particularly — spend on our profiles are the unpaid labor on which Facebook justifies its stock valuation.
  • “Facebook Is Recycling Your Likes To Promote Stories You’ve Never Seen To All Your Friends” by Anthony Wing Kosner (Forbes; 2013.01.21) – http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/facebook-is-recycling-your-likes-to-promote-stories-youve-never-seen-to-all-your-friends/
  • “Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook?” by Bernard Meisler (ReadWrite > Social; 2012.12.11) – http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-liking-stuff-on-facebook

2012.06.27

This is getting tiresome: Facebook never stop monkeying with its users

Filed under: business, FaceBook, it, opression, propaganda, tracking — Tags: , , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 08:25

2012.05.16

Law-vs-technology

Filed under: it, law, opression, society — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 09:52

Sites

Related here: Information disclosure sites – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/information-disclosure-sites/ | WikiLeaks – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/wikileaks-2010/ | ACTA – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/acta/

2011.11.29

Oh well

Filed under: censorship, opression, propaganda, surveillance — Tags: — sandokan65 @ 14:11

2011.11.15

New Facebook machinations

Filed under: FaceBook, privacy — Tags: , , , — sandokan65 @ 13:12
  • Facebook Privacy section at EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) – http://epic.org/privacy/facebook/
  • “Facebook to alter privacy practices following FTC ruling” by Greg Masters (SC Magazine; 2011.11.29) – http://www.scmagazineus.com/facebook-to-alter-privacy-practices-following-ftc-ruling/article/217775/
    • Users were deceived by Facebook, and now the social media giant is paying the price.
    • “Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users,” Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC, said in a statement. “Facebook’s innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy.”
    • The FTC charges chronicle a number of misleading or untrue assertions about privacy that Facebook made, but did not keep, including: not warning users when a change to its “Friend List” allowed private information to be exposed; stating that third-party apps would not access personal information beyond what they needed to operate; claiming that the “Verified Apps” program certified the security of participating apps; promising users it would not share personal data with advertisers; and insisting that it complied with the U.S.-European Union Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the United States and certain European nations.
  • “Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers By Failing To Keep Privacy Promises” (FTC; 2011.11.29) – http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/privacysettlement.shtm
    • In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn’t warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.
    • Facebook represented that third-party apps that users’ installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users’ personal data – data the apps didn’t need.
    • Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with “Friends Only.” In fact, selecting “Friends Only” did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.
    • Facebook had a “Verified Apps” program & claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn’t.
    • Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.
    • Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.
    • Facebook claimed that it complied with the U.S.- EU Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the U.S. and the European Union. It didn’t.
  • “24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook” by Kim Cameron (Identity Weblog; 2011.10.13) – http://www.identityblog.com/?p=1201/li>
  • Europe vs Facebook – http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html
  • “Facebook Ireland accused of creating ‘shadow profiles’ on users, nonusers” by Laura Locke (CNet; 2011.10.21) – http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20123919-93/facebook-ireland-accused-of-creating-shadow-profiles-on-users-nonusers/
  • “Facebook Patent to Track Users Even When They are Not Logged In to Facebook” by Bruce Scheier (2011.10.24)- http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/10/facebook_patent.html
Related here: Facebook privacy? What Facebook privacy? – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/facebook-privacy-what-facebook-privacy/ | Facebook foolies – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/facebook-foolies/ | Unending stream of Facebook privacy news – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/unending-stream-of-facebook-privacy-news/ | More Facebook news – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/more-facebook-news/ | Facebook monkeying again with user trust model – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/facebook-monkeying-again-with-user-trust-model/ | Scan for your Facebook privacy – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/i-want-you-to-scan-for-facebook-privacy/ | Facebook leaks users IDs to advertisers – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/facebook-leaks-user-ids-to-advertisers/ | Facebook mulls U-turn on privacy – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/facebook-mulls-u-turn-on-privacy/ | Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday present: Facebook in crisis – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/mark-zuckerbergs-birthday-present-facebook-in-crisis/ | Temptest in a teapot – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/1202/

2011.05.22

Millennialism and other religious catastrophisms

Filed under: opression, religion, superstitions — Tags: , , , — sandokan65 @ 15:42

General

2011.05.21 – Rapture that was not

Related: Religious opression – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/religious-opression/

2011.05.20

Reputation management

Filed under: FaceBook, infosec, opression, privacy, surveillance, tracking — Tags: , , , — sandokan65 @ 14:32

2011.05.12

Facebook foolies

Filed under: business, FaceBook, it, propaganda — Tags: , , — sandokan65 @ 15:46

2011.04.21

Geotracking and surveillance

Filed under: opression, surveillance, tracking — Tags: , , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 12:58

And everyone else (and his dog) is on the game, too …

Androids, too …

iPhone doing surveilance, on whose behalf?

Old and unrelated (or, is it?):

  • The Snitch in Your Pocket (Law enforcement is tracking Americans’ cell phones in real time—without the benefit of a warrant), by Michael Isikoff (NEWSWEEK; Feb 19, 2010.02.19; from the magazine issue dated 2010.03.01): http://www.newsweek.com/id/233916
Related: Geolocation – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/geolocation/

2011.04.08

Anti-scientism

Filed under: opression, propaganda, religion — Tags: , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 15:02

USA: Anti-Evolution

USA: Anti – Climate Change

Geolocation

Filed under: infosec, opression, privacy, surveillance, web security — Tags: , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 14:42
  • “SimpleGeo Makes Location Data Free, Complicates Smartphone Tracking Worries” by Kit Eaton (Fast Company; 2011.04.22) – http://www.fastcompany.com/1749262/simplegeo-makes-location-data-free-complicates-smartphone-tracking-worries
  • “Involuntary Geolocation To Within One Kilometer” 9SlashDot; 2011.04.08) – http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/04/08/1245244/Involuntary-Geolocation-To-Within-One-Kilometer
      Schneier’s blog tips an article about research into geolocation that can track down a computer’s location from its IP address to within 690 meters on average without voluntary disclosure from the target. Quoting: “The first stage measures the time it takes to send a data packet to the target and converts it into a distance – a common geolocation technique that narrows the target’s possible location to a radius of around 200 kilometers. Wang and colleagues then send data packets to the known Google Maps landmark servers in this large area to find which routers they pass through. When a landmark machine and the target computer have shared a router, the researchers can compare how long a packet takes to reach each machine from the router; converted into an estimate of distance, this time difference narrows the search down further. ‘We shrink the size of the area where the target potentially is,’ explains Wang. Finally, they repeat the landmark search at this more fine-grained level: comparing delay times once more, they establish which landmark server is closest to the target.”
  • “Internet probe can track you down to within 690 metres” by Jacob Aron(NewScientist; 2011.04.05) – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20336-internet-probe-can-track-you-down-to-within-690-metres.html
      Online adverts could soon start stalking you. A new way of working out where you are by looking at your internet connection could pin down your current location to within a few hundred metres.
  • “Pinpointing a Computer to Within 690 Meters” by Bruce Schneier (2011.04.08) – http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/pinpointing_a_c.html
Related here:

2011.03.29

Broken patents system

Filed under: it, opression, patents — Tags: , , — sandokan65 @ 13:50
Related here: One more example of reactive social role of patent system – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/one-more-example-of-reactive-social-role-of-patent-system/ | Lawsuits in mobile space – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/lawsuits-in-mobile-space/

2011.03.09

Privacy articles

Filed under: censorship, information disclosure, infosec, opression, privacy, propaganda, surveillance — Tags: , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 13:08
  • Report: “Dispelling the Myths Surrounding De-identification” (Anonymization can still work) by Lauren Weinstein (Lauren Buzz; 2011.06.16) – http://bit.ly/lbH5PE by Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada [PDF]
      “Recently, the value of de-identification of personal information as a tool to protect privacy has come into question. Repeated claims have been made regarding the ease of re-identification. We consider this to be most unfortunate because it leaves the mistaken impression that there is no point in attempting to de-identify personal information, especially in cases where de-identified information would be sufficient for subsequent use, as in the case of health research. The goal of this paper is to dispel this myth – the fear of re-identification is greatly overblown. As long as proper de-identification techniques, combined with re-identification risk measurement procedures, are used, de-identification remains a crucial tool in the protection of privacy.”
  • AOL search data scandal (WikiPedia) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_scandal
  • “What the know” series of articles (The Wall Street Journal) – http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html
  • “The privacy covenant is an illusion: How to regain control” by Chad Perrin (Tech Republic; 2011.04.18) – http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/the-privacy-covenant-is-an-illusion-how-to-regain-control/5351?tag=nl.e036
Related pages here: Privacy and digital liberties – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/privacy-and-digital-liberties/|Personal computer security – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/personal-computer-security/ | Online privacy tools – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/online-privacy-tools/ | Unending stream of Facebook privacy news – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/unending-stream-of-facebook-privacy-news/ | TSA folies – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/tsa-folies/

Taboo

Filed under: censorship, opression, propaganda, society — Tags: , , , — sandokan65 @ 12:26
  • “What You Can’t Say” by Paul Graham (2004.01) – http://paulgraham.com/say.html
  • “The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)” (in Reformation of the Arts and Music) – http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html
  • “What You Can’t Say Will Hurt You” By Geoffrey R. Stone (NYT; 2005.08.15) – http://www.archub.org/stone.txt
  • “A Civic Duty to Annoy” by Wendy Kaminer (1997.09) – http://www.archub.org/civicduty.txt
  • “Stanley Milgram: The Perils of Obedience” (at Paul Graham’s web site) – http://paulgraham.com/perils.html
  • “Mark Twain: Corn-pone Opinions” (at Paul Graham’s web site) – http://paulgraham.com/cornpone.html
  • “A New Blacklist for “Excuse Makers” ” (FAIR; 2005.07.27) – http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2598
      New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has urged the U.S. government to create blacklists of condemned political speech–not only by those who advocate violence, but also by those who believe that U.S. government actions may encourage violent reprisals. The latter group, which Friedman called “just one notch less despicable than the terrorists,” includes a majority of Americans, according to recent polls.
      Those who think Iraq War sparks terror are “despicable,” says Friedman
  • book “The Ten Things You Can’t Say In America, Revised Edition” by Larry Elder (Amazon) – http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312284659/
  • “Stratagem XXXII” from “The Art Of Controversy” by Arthur Schopenhauer – http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/erist32.htm
      If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by putting it into some odious category; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose character. You can say, for instance, “That is Manichaeism” or “It is Arianism,” or “Pelagianism,” or “Idealism,” or “Spinozism,” or “Pantheism,” or “Brownianism,” or “Naturalism,” or “Atheism,” or “Rationalism,” “Spiritualism,” “Mysticism,” and so on. In making an objection of this kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited – that is to say, you cry out, “Oh, I have heard that before”; and (2) that the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain a word of truth.

2011.02.26

People killed to harvest their organs

Filed under: history, opression, past — sandokan65 @ 12:41

2011.02.08

Scientology

Filed under: anthropology, censorship, propaganda, religion, superstitions — Tags: , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 17:14

2011.02.01

Art of rulling

Filed under: opression, propaganda, society — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 15:23

Overthrowing non-compliant weak states = making future vassals

  • “Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution” by Sheryk Gat Stolberg (The New York Times; 2011.02.16) – http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17sharp.html
    • Gene Sharp’s ideas were used by series of movements used to overthrow governments of Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, Tunisia and Egypt.
    • “When Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around “crazy ideas” about bringing down the government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian movement Otpor, which he had influenced.“
  • “From Dictatorship to Democracy” by Gene Sharp – http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf [PDF]
  • “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” by Gene Sharp – http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations103a.html
    • These methods were compiled by Dr. Gene Sharp and first published in his 1973 book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action. (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973). The book outlines each method and gives information about its historical use.
    • Source: Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973) – http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations3e7d.html
  • Lessons for the Future of Civic Resistance: Georgia and Ukraine” (United States Institute for Peace) – http://www.usip.org/publications/lessons-future-civic-resistance-georgia-and-ukraine

Movers

Client/instrumented movements

Otpor Kmara Pora

Arab winter 2011

April 6th Youth Movement (Algeria)

  • Tunisia
  • Egypt
  • Lybia
  • Algeria
  • Jemen
  • Bahrain

More:

Ruling vassals

  • From: “Tunisians Drive Leader from Power in Mass Uprising” (Cryptogon.com; 2011.01.15) – http://cryptogon.com/?p=19903| also in “Egypt Protests: America’s Secret Backing for Rebel Leaders Behind Uprising?” (Cryptogon.com; 2011.01.29) – http://cryptogon.com/?p=20232.
      Excerpt: At times like this, it’s generally a good idea to keep a copy of The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski handy:

      • As the imitation of American ways gradually pervades the world, it creates a more congenial setting for the exercise of the indirect and seemingly consensual American hegemony. And as in the case of the domestic American system, that hegemony involves a complex structure of interlocking institutions and procedures, designed to generate consensus and obscure asymmetries in power and influence. American global supremacy is thus buttressed by an elaborate system of alliances and coalitions that literally span the globe. …
      • American supremacy has thus produced a new international order that not only replicates but institutionalizes abroad many of the features of the American system itself.

      He writes that two steps are required for the, “Formulation of American geostrategy for the long-term management of America’s Eurasian geopolitical interests.”

      • First, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them; and to pinpoint the geopolitically critical Eurasian states whose location and/or existence have catalytic effects either on the more active geostrategic players or on regional conditions;
      • Second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above, so as to preserve and promote vital U.S. interests, and to conceptualize a more comprehensive geostrategy that establishes on a global scale the interconnection between the more specific U.S. policies.
      • In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are
        1. to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals,
        2. to keep tributaries pliant and protected,
        3. and to keep the barbarians from coming together.

  • The Grand Chessboard

2011.01.13

Declawing Cookies

Filed under: antispyware, infosec, privacy, security hardening, surveillance, web security — Tags: , , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 16:18

Disabling Flash cookies (LSOs)

2011.01.06

Propaganda

Filed under: opression, propaganda, society — Tags: , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 19:52

2010.12.29

WikiLeaks 2010

Filed under: censorship, information disclosure, opression, privacy, propaganda, surveillance — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — sandokan65 @ 11:36
  • CableSearch – http://cablesearch.org/ – an attempt for an user friendly search engine of already published documents from Wikileaks.

On the leaks

Contents of leaks

Related here: Information disclosure sites – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/information-disclosure-sites/ | ACTA – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/acta/ | Law vs Technology – http://eikonal.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/law-vs-technology/

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