The Past Meets the Present

Pre-course: “I own a myTouch (Android phone), sony vaio netbook, sony vaio laptop, 19 inch tv, ipod, ipod radio dock and GPS. I use both my laptops everyday. The netbook I take the class and the laptop I use in my apartment. Usually, I don't make phone calls using my myTouch. I text/gChat all day and occasionally call my parents. I also use my phone to tweet or play games to avoid falling asleep in class. At the beginning of the year,my resolution was to write in my blog everyday...but that soon fell apart towards the middle of spring semester. Perhaps I'll try again next year.

As a computer science major, I would never strictly say that technology could be a foe in the future. After all, too much of any good thing can be bad. I feel that technology does make some things simpler but as more and more people use technology, there is the risk of abuse. I do not think there is too much technology. For my sake (and future career), I hope that there is more technology used at school, work and play.

I feel somewhat informed about newer technologies. My summer research lab constantly send out news about emerging technologies in usable privacy and security But I am more than comfortable with learning more about it.“

Post-course: I would have to say that I am still the same person described in my introduction post. Over the past 3 months, I have been exposed to a lot of information about the various uses of technology. While this blog on privacy may make it seem as though I consider technology a foe of the future, it has proved to me that there is risk of using technology in a negative way.

Based on my experience this semester, there are many positive aspects of digital information. Digital information makes things more easily accessible. Mobile applications such as ELMS allow us, as students, to manage our grades and assignments. Many news sources also have mobile versions of their newspapers and publications allowing subscribers to access the most recent news anywhere they go. Digital information makes things accessible faster. Twitter feeds of different users enable others to find out about breaking news in the matter of seconds. For example, I found out about the Haiti earthquakes through Twitter. Digital information can make information more secure. Also, the new release of Google Instant makes searching for digital information faster than before. Now with fingerprint scanners, iris scanners and more advanced forms of authentication, information is better protected.

However, there are also some negative aspects of digital information. Because information is available faster, negative and incriminating information is made available faster. This can have horrible consequences such in the case of WikiLeaks. The owner of WikiLeaks may have thought that allowing people to access such secret information would be beneficial to the public, but now he is hiding for his life. Also, the use of digital information needs to constantly be managed so that it is more secure.

I think that this class, although not the main focus, helped me learn some new photography skills. Hopefully in the future I can develop these skills into a hobby. In addition, I learned about new uses of technology and how they apply to other areas such as public relations and public health. Lastly, it helped me learn about technologies such as 3G versus 4G connection speeds and Bluetooth.

For my peers who did not take this class, I would advise them not to be afraid of technology but to embrace it. However, embrace it in a healthy way so that it is not controlling your life. If people are told that only technology can be used to solve problems, in the future we may have people like the woman and man in the following video:

Also, beware that not everything is more efficient just because you use technology to get it done. Some technologies are just created for entertainment and not for productivity-sake. After taking this class, I can safely say that now I appreciate the consolidation of devices because using the iPod touch along with my Android phone and regular iPod confirmed that sometimes technology can be too much.

Privacy and Security: Expert Edition

Security and privacy online has attracted great attention in recent years. A recent survey revealed that 67% people are either somewhat concerned or very concerned regarding the privacy of their personal medical records. What’s more is that 80% of people surveyed said they are very concerned about identity theft or fraud.

Currently, medical professional are having trouble keeping health information secure. Even companies such as Google and Microsoft now have personal health record services where users can track medical history online. Earlier this semester Google came to campus and gave a technical talk about Google Health (health.google.com). It wasn't long before students in the audience raised their hand asking how secure would this site be and how would Google prevent the information from being leaked.

Speaking of leaks, the WikiLeaks documents revealed that U.S. officials have been asked to start collecting "fingerprints, facial images, DNA and iris scans" of foreigners and other persons of interest.

Interesting fact: The state of California has been storing DNA data of newborns for the past 30 years without parental knowledge.

The rise of DNA identification is not the only new form of spying. U.S. federal agents are now being encouraged to connect to others using social networks in order to spy on them. We must begin to create rules on the sharing of DNA, the ethics of using DNA sequences and the ethics of using information on social networking sites.

Another highly relevant privacy issue revolves around the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) body scanners. People are outraged that TSA officials are being hired to scan naked body images of passengers going through security. They feel that these scanners reveal to much information. However, TSA is taking the gradually-adapting approach of having technologies replace humans. They think this will eliminate the privacy issues being raised. While this is a good start, there are still many kinks that must be worked out. The algorithms behind such software, many times won’t know what they’re looking for if they’ve never seen it. Also, many dangerous items can be disguised to look like harmless objects. Therefore, it has been suggested that this algorithm be used with existing technologies such as hazardous chemical detection.

Some people admit that we just have to “say goodbye to privacy”, if we haven’t done so already. With mobile applications that share location (such as GroupOn, Foursquare and Facebook), they must make the user believe that the value received from using the service outweighs any perceived risks from updating and sharing their location.

A computer science professor and expert in security at the University of Maryland, interviewed HERE, thinks that people should not express anger over their "private" information being leaked over the web because they check a box agreeing to the terms of the website. Therefore the website can do what they want with the information from this point forward. He also feels that privacy is a loosely defined term. Even he feels that we don't have enough privacy as we think we do. But to "function in society, we really don't have any choice". I think that this is the case because if you want to be an active citizen engaging in new technologies, you're eventually going to have to sign up for a social networking account. Or, you might have to buy something online, thus risking your credit information. Or, it may be more convenient to pay bills online, also risking credit information. Just a basic search for information online allows companies to track your every move and advertise to you based on your "private" searches.

Even the president and leaders of the United States have unofficially declared our times as a cyber security era. Millions of people will soon be hired to oversee the protection of our computer systems, especially our government and military systems. Ever since this new initiative was launched, millions of dollars have been invested into cyber security research and training. The University of Maryland is aggressively hiring for this field and will announce its new cyber security center, MC² on Thursday, December 9^th.

Cyber security is not only a prevalent field in the United States. Even the U.K. is training people for positions in this field. Moreover, credit card companies around the world such as in Africa are investing in protecting their customers’ online identities. It’s all one big snowball effect as the problem becomes larger and larger. Without a high level of security, credit card fraud occurs and decreases customer trust in the company. This, in turn, affects usage rates and these usage rates affect profit. If all credit card companies adopted high levels of privacy and security for their customers, it could potentially help the global economy.

Therefore, as the use of technology increases daily, so our actual privacy decreases, although our perceived privacy may increase. Expert opinions, actions of our nation's leader and concerns of every day citizens lead me to believe so. What do you think?

TwitterNation: A Twitter App Review

PAUSE! This is a break from you regularly scheduled programming of online privacy. While my following post about Twitter apps may relate, I am not specifically referring to privacy below.

Twitter applications are usually considered in terms of mobile phones. However, there are apps for the computer and for the browsers on these

computers. The following will include a discussion of apps for iPhones, Android phones and other devices. Also, each of these apps require users to have a twitter account or to create one to use the app.

iPhone Apps (to be downloaded from the iTunes store):

Tweetie 2 (shown on right) is an application only available for iPod touches or iPhones. It allows one to explore all online features of Twitter, but from a phone. It shortens URLs and allows one to preview the URL when posting links to followers. It allows for the integration of multiple accounts and can filter the timeline. The app also incorporates twitLonger, providing a tool to post tweets of longer than 140 characters, hashtag definitions, for those who may be new to Twitter or those who may not know what a hashtag means, and offline mode. This application won an Apple design award in 2009.

Twittelator is solely for Apple devices. This app has a Pro and a Lite version. The Pro version comes with the feature to copy pictures to other tweets, use Song.ly to embed MP3 links, and much more. With this app, you can receive stock tweets by searching for a specific stock symbol. From these searches, users can build portfolios to keep track of recent mentions.

Birdhouse is an app for Apple devices whose sole purpose is to give users more control over writing for Twitter. It’s more of a tweet drafing app allowing someone to save tweet drafts which is beneficial for capturing ideas offline, even in airplane mode. Users can integrate and publish these drafts from multiple twitter accounts. If an error occurs, this app allows the user to back everything up by e-mail.

Android apps (to be downloaded from the Android market):

Touiter is an Android app which has a free and premium version. The premium version allows users to integrate multiple accounts and filtering. It also provides 3 different widgets to be used on the home screen. I personally have used this app and with that the free version came with at least one home widget. The premium version also shortens URLs and in the feature will include TwitLonger, the same feature in the Tweetie 2 app above.

Twicca is an Android-specific app where you can receive notifications an post statuses like the other Twitter apps. Similar to the others, geotagging, widgets, image previews, and URL shortening are also included. The difference is that you can download plug-ins with this app to upload bookmarks to twitter and configure with twitpic.

Twidroyd, (shown on right) of course by its name, is an Android-only app which includes custom

alert ringtones (“tweet tweet”), gelocation support, different widgets, auto-completion of hashtags and usernames and a live preview of media. In addition, it suggests a list of other interesting people to follow, similar to the user suggestions feature on the actual twitter website. The only difference, stated on the website, betweetn the $3.99 premium app and the free app is that the free app doesn’t have a dark pro application icon. If this is the only difference, I’d gladly take the free version anyday!

Other apps:

Lastly, there are other apps such as UnTweeps which is a web app that can be accessed by any device that has the internet. It uses twitter’s login system (API) to authenticate users and allows people to unfollow people who haven’t updated their profiles in a certain number of days. There is also a whitelist feature where you can still follow people who don’t tweet often but don’t list them on your followers list. Untweep Pro is a paid version of Untweep and it’s for people who may want to use the app more than 3 times a month or unfollow people who haven’t tweeted within the last frequent days. The user could buy an account for $1.37 for 3 days or pay a subscription of $5 per month.

Mixero is another application that is compatible with the iPhone, and several computer operating systems (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux). Mixero provides support for Facebook and Twitter.

Regarding Twitter, users can filter groups and autogenerate usernames. It allows one to preview images or watch YouTube videos within their timeline. On all versions, there is an avatars mode which lets you see your friends photos and how many of their tweets you have not read.

Seesmic (shown above) is another app that incorporates multiple platforms – Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows phones, macs, and PCs. What makes this app intriguing is that it can be used within different internet browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Each of these has its own specific features but they all allow you to simultaneously update statuses on multiple sites – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Buzz.

Pervasive Computing on the Go

With the application-accessible mobile phones and devices of today, there are many location-based applications. These geolocation applications report your location to others and associate locations to your location. However there can be privacy consequences associated with such applications. While some of the consequences such as when someone reports an emergency from a cell phone, the location of the mobile caller is reported to the dispatcher, imagine if this information was compromised. A negative example persists when a rental car was tracked and found speeding on 3 occasions and the driver was fined $450 by the rental company. Also the website PleaseRobMe.com (similar to one mentioned in class) takes tweets with location data attached and can be used by thieves t track when you are at home or not and rob you while you are away.

There are many applications available that play on these location-based features. Gowalla is like the popular Foursquare allowing check-ins but its partnerships with companies enable one to exchange virtual items for their real-life counterpart for free. Another, Loopt, offers freebies for things going on near your phone’s location. While there are risks, most geolocation apps allow you to set how much information is to be shared. At times, you may have to surrender privacy for the features of cool apps.

One cool app that enhances privacy protection has been made by Lookout Mobile Security. This app, Privacy Advisor, helps to ease concerns about mobile privacy by scanning each app that a person is about to download on their phones. They app then tells the owner of the mobile device what part of their private information the app can access. It is better to be safe than sorry because although it is very rare to get a virus on your smartphone or other mobile device, it can be lost or stolen, causing private data to be compromised.

Research has shown that users have an average of 31 applications on their mobile devices which can access their information. Further 19 of these apps can access their location. Surprisingly 91% of consumers are concerned about phone privacy but only 7%S are very confident that they understand what private information is being accessed by third party services on their phone.

The rise of anonymous apps has concerned researchers. With these apps, the identity of the user need not be known. For example, when walking past a coffee shop, your phone can be alerted of specials currently taking place within the shop. This is different from walking into a coffee shop and using your cell phone to pay for your food instead of paying with cash. In this sense, record of who you are and your credit card information must be kept. This anonymity is called hitchhiking because the location itself is of primary interest.

Another study took place where a group of researchers went to a location to see if there was any identity or tracking violations using an application called Bustle. The purpose of this study was to see if sensitive data could be collected in location-based applications. In the case of the app, Bustle, it collected information that could not be connected to the user so there were no tracking or identity violations. However, other research has shown that users’ levels of intrusiveness and privacy concerns are much higher for location-tracking apps than for apps that are just aware of one’s position.

People have to be aware of the risks associated with geolocation apps but I don't think they should be afraid of them because in the end, how much you share is up to you.

Photo source: The Atlantic Wire

Other sources: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/bits-pics-video-calls-from-the-top-of-the-world/?partner=rss&emc=rss

http://mmlab.snu.ac.kr/courses/2005_advanced_internet/handout/paper/40.Wireless%20location%20privacy%20protection.pdf

http://www.pcworld.com/article/192803-2/geolocation_101_how_it_works_the_apps_and_your_privacy.html

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZHV1XG4HBIKA5QE1GHPSKH4ATMY32JVN?articleID=228100048&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=

Privacy Photo Phun

The photo to the left depicts privacy in general to the average viewer. But to those who know a thing or two about technology, it also depicts computer privacy because the UPS room is a room full of servers that connect people to the internet.



For this photo, I decided to take advantage of the rule of thirds, keeping the important part of the photo on the side and not in the center while the door, which leads you into what the sign is talking about, is on the other third of the picture.





The photo on the right shows a student hard at work using the internet to complete his homework. Although this photo doesn't use the rule of thirds, I made sure to have good light quality so that you can see each thing taking place in this scene.

Honestly, these 2 photos were not as good as my first photos taken because I was using my camera phone and didn't use any special effects. Also, it was difficult to find pictures of online privacy because most people do not like others taking photos of them doing privacy-sensitive activities.

A Photograph Investigation

The descriptions indirectly answer the question - what makes a good photograph?

The image on the right is a good example because, although the terminology may be unfamiliar, the point is made. Industry standard tools and applications are not as secure as administration, hence this is why the administration part of the digram has a secure lock on it, and the industry standard tools and applications do not not. (EXPLANATORY/GENERIC)

The diagram on the left is a

good example because it tells what the information is representing - the availability of your personal

data on Facebook. Therefore, a viewer can easily see how private their Facebook profile was in April

2010. (EXPLANATORY)

The photo below is not a good example. It poses that there is some issue with Facebook and privacy but doesn't say what it is. (GENERIC)

The screenshot on the right is a good example because it alerts the viewer that this issue

of Time would tell how to protect online privacy

and persuades the reader to click the link and read the magazine. (EXPLANATORY)

The photo below is not a good example. When searching on Google for the

word "privacy", this image appeared. But, this image looks more like something is a secret or that the person wants quietness. It doesn't reveal anything about computer privacy.(GENERIC)

Cell Phone Privacy

The following post is a summary of the information that was found as part of a research project for a journalism class. More information on other research projects in this class can be found on the course site HERE.

For this project, my partner and I designed a survey whose goal was to observe the difference, if any, between adults and college students on their opinions of cell phone privacy. We conducted the survey using Google Survey and collected 56 responses. Of these response, 21 were adults and 35 for college students.

In general we didn't find much difference between adults and teens. Out of the 21 adults surveyed, more than half (52%) owned a smartphone and 60% of college students owned one which is showing that the participating gap with these new devices is decreasing.

When asked how concerned they were that people can track their information when using a cell phone, neither groups were very concerned.

An interesting difference is that out of the 56 people surveyed, only 3 of them got into legal trouble over something that was said on their cell phone. More interestingly, all 3 of the participants were college students.

While most people were familiar with cell phone privacy features, it is important to note that more adults take advantage of registering their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call registry. However the majority between both groups were on some mass text message alert system. In addition,many people knew that when buying or selling a used cell phone that personal information is not automatically deleted from the device. But, most people in both age groups did not have knowledge of the E911 feature. which automatically tells law enforcement you address when you call for help.

Overall, the study performed shows that there isn't a significant difference of cell phone privacy issues with the 2 populations and the many of them understand some of the special features that are currently available on cell phones to aid in efficiency and privacy.

Fighting For Lack of Privacy?

Surprisingly, finalists of a contest are competing to lose their privacy for 1 month. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is looking for someone to live in their museum for exactly 1 month and blog about their experiences. During this time, the public is free to stare at this person's life-in-a-cube. Although the living space looks pretty sweet, would you allow strangers to stare at your actions for an entire month?

Believe it or not, people reveal private information for the public to see everyday, but usually not intentionally. In fact, President Obama is encouraging companies to redesign their communications systems to make surveillance easier. While this may seem extreme to us, some governments have threatened to ban Blackberry devices unless the company made it easier for the government to spy on its users. But won't this increase the incentive more than ever before for hackers to infiltrate government systems? Also, many times rules are exactly followed. The article I found states that for phone call and e-mails in the U.S. after 9/11,

Although procedural rules stated that only non-Americans and international phone calls were to be listened to, actual practice didn't always match those rules. NSA analysts collected more data than they were authorized to and used the system to spy on wives, girlfriends and famous people like former President Bill Clinton

But the government and law enforcement officials aren't trying to put on the facade that all of your information will be private. In fact, the Obama Administration specifically stated that "Americans should expect no privacy while in public". With GPS devices, one's location can be instantly tracked. In class, we found that there were over 300 cameras on our University of Maryland campus, alone. Can you think of any other examples of how our privacy is violated off the internet?

Meanwhile, take a look at the following video, paying close attention to the segment at 1:35.

What happens in Vegas no longer stays on Vegas. It can permanently stay on several social networking sites, even without your consent. Someone else can post photos or videos of your vacation without you even knowing. After all, most people have cell phones these days and most phones and cameras. Therefore, you must be careful what you post!

International Internet: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Regarding the internet's privacy and speed, there are many sources of media but these many sources have both reliable and unreliable forms of information.

For example, according to The Onion, Sierra Leone has the safest internet in the world. The Onion has a reputation for being an unreliable source. However, if one didn't know that, other signs could lead them to this conclusion. First off, the "article" is only one sentence, stating:

"A survey of computer viruses and malware attacks found Sierra Leone was the safest place in the world to surf the web. What do you think?"

The lack of further statistics leads one to question the claim being stated. Secondly, below the "article" are 3 different people and quotes from each of the 3 people. However, the quotes don't even relate to the article. Both the lack of statistics and users opinions make one further doubt the credibility of the claim.

Not only did this article raise suspicions but other articles on The Onion's website did the same. One article entitled "Neighbor's Wi-Fi Password Must Be Something Good". Usually, articles about someone trying to hack into a neighbor's internet signal isn't published on credible news sources because it is thought to be illegal and unethical. To be seen as more credible, the article could have discussed the frequency of how common passwords are being increasingly used for online accounts since people have more accounts than ever before. This would involve more statistics and data rather than just describing the actions of someone's neighbor.

For a more credible source, one could look towards news articles on sites such as CNN. The peer-review process and the good reputation of being a credible and unbiased source make CNN an example of good information. For example, a recent article published names Chattanooga, Tennessee as having the fastest internet. The rate of speed, quotes from the mayor, and pricing quotes for the internet services are included in this article.

Sites such as CNN.com are reliable because they provide the objective story with no biasing because it presents facts and opinions of both sides of the issue. This semester I am enrolled in another journalism class, Media Literacy. Media literacy is "the ability to sift through and analyze messages that inform, entertain and sell to us daily". The ability to sift through information is difficult today when the truth and lies intertwine together in media. Last class we discussed convergence media where you combine information from different technological sources. For example, when my friend got a text that Michael Jackson had died a year and a half ago, I had to turn the TV to CNN to see if it were true. I think that today, people have to get information from many difference sources to be sure they have the correct information.

Illusion of Control

Article Title: Privacy as information access and illusory control: The case of the Facebook News Feed privacy outcry
http://bit.ly/cUMbAf
This paper discusses an experiment of 172 current college Facebook users. It exploits the privacy concerns of Facebook users. Surveys asked the participants about how they used social networking sites and how they shared information online. Due to the addition of the News Feed and Mini Feed features, people think they have less control over what is being shared because its easier to access the information.

But when you think about it, the amount of control is ideally the same as before News and Mini Feeds. The ability to control who saw things on your profile had always been there, maybe not as robust, but it was still there. The visibility of postings is all that changed and it makes me wonder if Facebook removed these features, would people think their information was more private.

Battle for the Soul of Internet

In response to a Time article from 2005:

I semi-agree with the author that the danger of using the internet is that it's too public. I think that the downfall of the internet is that people do not have to act under their true identities.

I'm not sure if I agree with the statement that the web was not ready to conduct business in 2005. While I was not making purchases online at this time due to my lack of a credit card, I know people who were. eBay was widely popular at the time and although there may have been scams, there are still scams online today so if that's the basis of saying the public is or isn't ready for business on the web, then we are still not ready today.

Evolution 3.0

This concern/idea of privacy has been around for years. Below shows the results that Google has containing the word privacy dating back to 1900. The term has been gaining an enormous amount of popularity since the 1990s.

Starting with the fourth amendment which protects one from searches and seizures.

Along with this, the first amendment which grants freedom of speech complicates matters of privacy. Privacy can also be thought of as surveillance. This idea of surveillance was originally someone watching you in your own home but more recently people can observe from a distance by planting bugs, detecting sounds from windows and reading electronic submissions. Protecting a user from electronic surveillance has become more prevalent in the last 2 years as people place personal information on social networking sites. A balance between sharing personal, identifying information and protecting that information must be found.

You may wonder, who thought of Youtube or Twitter or other social networking services? These obviously did not come about overnight. There was great thinking involved in the creation of such sites. It all started with Usenets in 1979 which allowed users to post articles to groups called "newsgroups". Next came Bulletin Board Systems in the late 70s which allowed users to log on to a system and contact others. Online and chatting services came next allowing users to play games and shop online. But these advances did not come until nearly 2 decades later in the 90s. Dating and blogging sites furthered the advancement of social networking sites until Friendster came about in 2002 as the world's first modern social network. (I'm pretty sure I've signed up for a Friendster account but know of no one who actually uses the site.)

The graph below shows the growth of Myspace, whose user population peaked in 2007, and Facebook, whose user population is steadily rising.

Friendster was originally developed to allow a safer place for people to meet friends online. Hi5 allowed users to set their profiles public or private. Sites like LinkedIn and Myspace allow

contact through private messages as well as publicly on profile "walls". What are 2 things that all of these social networking sites have in common? All of them have gradually added features of the years to accommodate the interest changes of their users AND they all are concerned about the privacy of their user population.

It seems like the only way you can have web privacy these days is by following the example of the person to the right.

You may think that I am biased towards social networking privacy, more specifically Facebook privacy. But, when I perform a simple Google search with the word "privacy" specifically looking at results from 2010, 5 out of 10 of the 1st page of results deals with Facebook privacy. Therefore, the public is growing more wary of this particular service and it's a huge concern, especially considering that it is the largest social networking site out there with over 500 million users. In the future though, I promise I will discuss a wider diversity of issues. Just you wait and see...

A Ticking Timeline

Apple Ping vs. Facebook

What is Ping?

Ping is a new music-focused social networking service being introduced by Apple which lets someone follow their favorite artists and even so what music their friends are listening to.

Why is it better than Facebook?

3 words - it is simple. Facebook with all of its applications and games and photo tagging features is becoming too complicated for the typical user to handle. That's why I think more people are moving towards Twitter. Apple is advertising that their privacy settings are "super simple to set up". The simplicity alone may be enough to sell Ping to the public.

Facebook + Ping = "frenemies"

Since Ping allows you to see what your Facebook friends are listening to, Facebook is a stakeholder in this venture. However, as of last Thursday, Facebook has blocked Apple's Ping from gaining access to their services saying "Ping had the potential to send so much traffic Facebook's way and cause site stability and infrastructure problems".

I wonder if Apple and Facebook can work out their "frenemy" (friend-enemy) situation soon so that Ping can be released.

Intro

The topic I chose to blog about is web privacy. This broad topic includes password privacy, privacy on social networking sites, and location-sharing applications.

My inspiration for this topic came from my summer research at Carnegie Mellon University where I worked in the Usable Privacy and Security Lab. Here, I researched Facebook privacy settings and controls. Facebook constantly changes its privacy settings and recently the changes have attracted a lot of attention in the media.

As of 2010, the new privacy settings on Facebook had 5,830 words - more words than the U.S. Constitution! The information visualization below shows the evolution of Facebook privacy and how more settings have become public by default over the years. (click the picture to be taken to the animated version)

At the research lab, we ran empirical studies and found that many people do not know how to use the privacy controls and features that Facebook already has in place. This finding sparked me to learn about privacy issues on other websites as well.

Therefore, this semester I plan to delve into the privacy settings and features of Twitter, LinkedIn and other SNS. In addition, I would like to look at password privacy for secure sites like online banking vs. other sites such as e-mail or Youtube. It would also be interesting to include information about Foursquare, Facebook Places and other location sharing services. Also, I plan to include information on other privacy and usability issues related to websites (not just the ones listed above) and maybe even privacy with technology not strictly on the web.

Hopefully this blog can help to clear the cloud of mystery surrounding technology and privacy.