Posts tagged as:

privacy

Steve Jobs Goes Into Surgery

by Jason Wilk on January 26, 2009

According to Gawker, ailing Apple CEO Steve Jobs checked into Stanford Hospital over the weekend and was scheduled for surgery this morning for liver cancer, yes liver cancer. Owen Thomas writes

At a party in Silicon Valley last night, a Stanford staffer who had just come from the hospital told friends, including our source, about the “extra special care” being afforded their famous patient. The operator at Stanford Hospital did not have a listing for a patient under Jobs’s name, but a spokesman for the hospital said that any patient can request not to be listed under federal privacy laws. Jobs did not attend Stanford, but he has long had ties to the institution; he gave a commencement address at the university in 2005 where he openly discussed his brush with mortality”

Update: More reports coming in that this is false. Nothing is confirmed.

by glu on December 17, 2008

Yahoo announced the shortening of its data anonymizing period from 13 months to 3. Let’s glance at the current anonymizing practices among the big three:
- Google – 9 months…as of september
- Microsoft – 6 months…as of last week
- Yahoo – 3 months…as of today
Based on these figures, it would seem that the time personal data is kept on file is directly proportional to the companies worth. Ha. Chuckle as we may, this an applause-worthy, albeit a golf clap level, direction for a company desperately in need of some successful directions. Earlier this week, we saw Mahalo Answers launch in direct competition to the popular, slick, but unfortunately neglected Yahoo Answers.
And now on to the Google, in whose shadow Yahoo has long lived. Google has opened some of its advertising floodgates lately but also taken some criticism for its privacy as well. We do not yet know the effect of these PR Privacy Bombs but as online privacy concerns rise in the public discussion, this early seed sowing may yield a fine crop.

by Jason Wilk on September 29, 2008

Go to IconDial.com and you will see a keypad that let’s you dial any number in the world and have a free 3 minute convo.
They support the service by playing a 3-5 second advertisement before your call takes place. They would like to expand the service to 15-20 minute calls.
What’s wrong here?
- This is like having a free public pay-phone on the Internet with complete anonymity.
- This is a privacy and telecom industry shutdown waiting to happen.
- It’s also a prank callers dream
Here’s what to do:
- Make this an emergency service that users can subscribe to for $2 a month is case they lose or are unable to access a phone and need to get a hold of people for free.
- Limit calls to 2-3 minutes and integrate a call ID if possible.
- Market it to today’s generation who doesn’t have a land line and would love to have this for quick home calls when they don’t have their mobile.
- Also works great for travelling. Jump into an internet cafe an make a 3 minute call.
- This way, you may score a couple hundred thousand users worldwide, producing solid subscription revenue, still make some money off the 3-5 second ads and privacy issues will be remedied.

A tiny rec from: TechCrunch

by glu on September 12, 2008

Edmodo is a private platform for teachers and students to connect outside the classroom.
Strong emphasis on microblogging for class updates and private messaging from teacher to student or vice-versa (student to student messaging restricted.
Target education levels are K-12. The platform is closed off in order to address the privacy concerns that many teachers have with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Does the educational sector need a platform that is segregated from the larger social networks?

by John Jorgensen on September 12, 2008

On Sept. 9th, Google announced they improved their privacy policy by anonymizing users’ IP addresses in their logs after 9 months versus their old policy of 18 months.
Recently, CNET’s Chris Soghoian asked Google to explain exactly how they make users anonymous.
The answer is discomforting: Google told Chris they remove “some bits” of your IP address after 9 months, and after 18 months they delete the last section of your IP. Oh, and there’s a unique cookie associated with the IP that is never deleted.
Crash course – IP addresses look like this: 192.102.155.788. The first 3 sections, or “octets,” tell servers (like Google) a ton about you — where you are geographically and what ISP you’re using to connect, for starters, while the last 3 numbers uniquely identify your specific computer.
Google is basically saying after 9 months, they change your IP to 192.102.155.7xx, and after 18 they change it to 192.102.155.xxx. By matching this IP, timestamps, the unique cookie and other easily accesible data, it would be very simple to pinpoint who you are.
Tiny commentary: What happened to “Don’t be evil”? Google better get serious about privacy instead of PR, and fast.

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Made tiny from: Mashable.com original post