WORKERSEDGE
Tech shorts for September 22, 2015: Internet freedom imperiled, targeted ads ineffective, and selfie safety
Centralized control is destroying the 'free' Internet
In 1993, computer scientist and Internet activist John Gilmore said, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
Not anymore. Over the past 20 years, the Internet has done a 180 – evolving from a decentralized system that no single entity could control, to a centralized one in the hands of a few governments and large corporations (Google, Facebook, Amazon, and a handful of others). The result is the death of freedom on the Internet, according to Jennifer Granick, Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.
In an August 5, 2015, article, TechCrunch's Jon Evans reports on Granick's keynote address at the recent Black Hat security conference. According to Granick, the act of patching software to maintain security creates a central authority and a single "choke point."
Granick adds that "[p]eople want to use convenient, secure, and widely available online services… but this centralizes control even further." These services are able to enforce their own "moral standards," such as banning photographs of breast-feeding mothers.
These problems pale in comparison to what Granick identifies as the real culprit imperiling Internet freedom: secret law, which she calls "an abomination in the face of democracy." In essence, the Internet has evolved from an open system that values freedom and privacy to a closed system predicated on security and surveillance. Granick's solution? "[S]mash it apart and make something new and better."
Okay, but who owns all the sledgehammers?
Why targeted advertising is doomed
It seemed like a good idea at the time: Show people coming to web sites ads that are tailored to their interests, based on information you collect about their Internet activities. If you spend a lot of time reading about patio furniture, maybe you're looking to buy some, so serve up ads for Adirondack chairs and umbrella tables.
There's only two problems with these targeted ads:
People hate them.
In a dissertation-length article, Don Marti of zgp.org explains that the true value of advertising is to present the vendor and its products as trustworthy. In essence, the advertiser is saying, "I believe this product is going to sell so well I'm willing to spend all this money on advertising in the belief that I'll recoup it all, and more on top of that as profit."
That's why print advertising is perceived as more effective than online ads despite people spending far less time viewing print ads. A polished, flashy ad in New Yorker magazine tells potential buyers that this is a classy product for classy people. It's not so much the content of the ad itself as it is the context of the ad.
Marti encourages online advertisers to embrace Do Not Track technologies and turn their energies and ad budgets toward applying technology to catch customers' attention and communicate a context that gives their products prestige. Consumers will respond better to generic ads they see at the right time and in the right place. An ad that is obviously targeted specifically at them just gives them the creeps.
In the meantime, Marti recommends that consumers block third-party cookies in their browsers and apply other anti-tracking methods. (In the September 8, 2015, Weekly, I described how to block third-party cookies in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome.)
Caution: Selfies can be hazardous to your health
A Japanese tourist taking a selfie at the Taj Mahal falls down the steps and dies. A teenager in Romania is taking a selfie on top of a railroad car, touches a high-voltage wire, and is electrocuted. Two Russians are taking a selfie with a hand grenade, and guess what happens? Yep, kaboom! Hand grenade 2, Russian selfie-takers, 0.
According to the Huffington Post's Hilary Hanson in a September 23, 2015, article, you're more likely to kill yourself while taking a selfie than you are to be killed in an unprovoked shark attack. Aside from questions about what constitutes an "unprovoked" shark attack, the comparison rests on some shaky statistical grounds. In fact, the experts claim that selfie-induced deaths are under-reported. A Russian government official is quoted as saying there have been dozens of selfie-related deaths in that country alone.
A good friend of mine had the perfect solution to problems related to vacation photography: Leave the camera at home and buy postcards. Okay, so not many people are likely to follow his example, but the next time you strike a pose, consider letting someone else work the shutter.
post/song
I read one blog post $0.01 USD I listend to one mandolin song $0.01 USD I went nuts $1.00 USD
​Copyright 2014-2019 by workersedge -- all rights reserved
Privacy Weeklies
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Part 2: Money and political power, August 11, 2014
Part 3: A contrived distinction between 'venal' and 'systematic' corruption, August 11, 2014
Part 4: Fear of political corruption trumps government economic regulation, August 11, 2014
Part 5: Investment-oriented political contributions boost the bottom line, August 11, 2014
Part 6: Case study: Corporate political corruption, 19th-century style, August 11, 2014
Corporate ownership of the U.S. political process, August 11, 2014 >
Part 2: Party perpetuation trumps service to the constituency, August 11, 2014
Part 3: Party loyalty trumps independent thought, August 11, 2014
Part 4: The roots of corporate 'personhood,' August 11, 2014
Part 5: Is political corruption actually on the rise? Who knows?, August 11, 2014
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Privacy Manifesto
Privacy Tips >
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PayPal Data Sharing
Data Collection Guidelines for Businesses
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The five-minute Facebook security checkup, June 2, 2015
We're sitting on a big-data gold mine, May 5, 2015
Never pay for software again (almost), July 14, 2014 >
Best free alternatives to top-selling software, July 11, 2011
The pros and cons of cloud computing, July 14, 2014 >
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Batten down the hatches in Firefox, June 24, 2014
Enable Internet Explorer's privacy and security features, June 24, 2014
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Software Intellectual Property Protections, August 16, 2014 >
Introduction: It's a Software World
1. Trademark >
a. Registration
b. Trademark requirements
c. Lanham Act: 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051-1053 and 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) (a.k.a. § 43(a)) >
1. Distinguish from patent protection
2. Distinguish from copyright protection
3. Trademark-infringement elements >
A. Confusion
B. Designation of origin
C. Famous and distinctive
d. Infringement criteria
2. Trade Secrets >
a. Uniform Trade Secrets Act
b. Software protected by trade secrets
c. Limitations on trade-secret protections >
1. Secret and valuable
2. Described with particularity
3. Software trade secrets and patents: Conflicting or complementary?
3. Copyright >
a. History of software copyright statute
b. Assembling the pieces of the software-copyright jigsaw puzzle >
1. Two types of source code: Declaring and implementing
2. Originality requirement
3. Merger doctrine
4. Abstraction-filtration-comparison test
5. Short phrases
6. Scenes a faire doctrine
7. Structure, sequence, and organization of the Java APIs
8. Interoperability as it relates to copyrightability
9. Fair use
10. Copyright protections vs. patent protections for software
4. Patent >
a. U.S. Constitution Article 1 § 8 >
1. In terms of patent law, software is special
2. Software innovations are clearly patentable
b. 35 U.S. Code § 101 >
1. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International: Procedural history
2. Test for patentability of abstract ideas: Implicit exception to exclusion
c. 35 U.S. Code § 102 - Conditions for patentability; novelty, prior art >
1. Section 102(a)'s "known or used" determination (prior art)
2. Section 102(b)'s "on sale" and "disclosure" determinations
3. Section 102(g)'s "abandoned, suppressed, or concealed" determination
d. 35 U.S. Code § 103 Conditions for patentability: non-obvious subject matter
e. 35 U.S. Code § 112: Specification >
1. Claim construction
2. Doctrine of equivalents and rule of prosecution history estoppel
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Mastering the art of container management
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How zero-trust security makes VMs more efficient
Ultimate virtualization: The end of infrastructure
21 best orchestration tools for MSPs
Cloud governance: The key to effectively scaling your cloud
Update or rewrite? A cloud-application perspective
New views into cloud application performance
Multicloud vs. hybrid cloud
The Stories So Far....
O'Jitterys Catch a Movie, October 27, 2015