The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Asian Law Caucus are suing the Department of Homeland Security over aggressive searches and seizures of travelers' property and information at U.S. borders.
As reported on BoingBoing:
ALC, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, received more than 20 complaints from Northern California residents last year who said they were grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad. In addition, customs agents examined travelers' books, business cards collected from friends and colleagues, handwritten notes, personal photos, laptop computer files, and cell phone directories, and sometimes made copies of this information. When individuals complained, they were told, "This is the border, and you have no rights."
"When the government searches your books, peers into your computer, and demands to know your political views, it sends the message that free expression and privacy disappear at our nation's doorstep," said Shirin Sinnar, staff attorney at ALC. "The fact that so many people face these searches and questioning every time they return to the United States, not knowing why and unable to clear their names, violates basic notions of fairness and due process."
NPR's Morning Edition broadcast a segment on this story this morning. The Department of Homeland Security is vigorously defending its right to search and seize at the border, and is supported by legal precedent. The segment suggested that travelers' best option was to bring only essential information along on international trips.
I feel like ordinary American citizens are having to become like Jason Bourne, buying the cell phone, making a call and then throwing it away. A more practical suggestion may be that if you are upgrading a laptop, you may want to keep the old one in stripped-down form for travel. But it would be ironic and sad to leave the light, little MacBook Air at home on the desk while you carry a clunkier model with you.
It will be interesting to see if sensible consumer solutions to this problem spring up, and how they can be marketed without sounding "unpatriotic." Let's face it: just because we have nothing to hide doesn't mean we want to have our lives uploaded to government servers. There must be a way to create a "travel" profile on one's laptop or PDA that doesn't unnecessarily expose all of your contact information to surveillance. Some version of backing up the information before you leave, stripping the laptop to bare bones, and then restoring it after you return home.
The New York Times recently reported a heartwarming story about a lost digital camera being returned after a kindhearted stranger analyzed the photos on the camera to find the owner.
The camera was left in the backseat of a New York taxi, and contained sightseeing photos of Manhattan, as well as Florida snapshots including people wearing name tags. Leads took the hunt to Ireland, back to New York, and finally to Syndey, Australia, where the rightful owner lives. He was "over the moon" with gratitude to get his camera back.
This story has a happy ending, and perhaps most of us would be glad to get our camera back in that situation, but it also made me uneasy to realize how much personally identifiable information was stored on one camera card. I would rather have a locked camera than could not be accessed if it was found, than have a stranger be able to peer into my photos.
The situation is even more crucial when it involves smartphones. ... Read more
What's more worrisome than a public MySpace page? A page that the user only thinks is private. I was just alerted to several stories by Kevin Poulsen of Wired News that publicize recent security breaches on MySpace.
Poulsen reported on January 17 about a MySpace Bug that leaks "private" teen photos to voyeurs. He wrote, "A backdoor in MySpace's architecture allows anyone who's interested to see the photographs of some users with private profiles--including those under 16--despite assurances from MySpace that those pictures can only be seen by people on a user's friends list. Info about the backdoor has been circulating on message boards for months."
These message boards include self-described groups of "pedos" who hacked into underage-girls' private MySpace profiles. According to Poulsen, one poster reported successfully pilfering photos from a randomly chosen 14-year-old girl, "It worked and I was shown her pictures. Now lets see some naked sluts."
On January 18, Poulsen updated the story to say that the next day, MySpace quietly fixed that back-door bug, without publicly acknowledging the problem, even though users' profiles had been vulnerable for months.
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From the "Webkinz Mom" blog
I've been writing (parent.thesis) for about six months now, and the New Year seems like a good time to reflect on the themes that have developed. I love technology, and at the same time, I am cautious when it comes to kids and tech. Here are the three issues that are really bugging me right now:
• Disconnect between product design and online safety
• Commercialization of kids online
• Information control, privacy, and data mining
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I know that being a parent has got to be the uncoolest perspective in Silicon Valley. After all, it's much more cutting edge to be libertarian, 23 years old, working 24/7 and sleeping on a futon in your cube.
But no one stays that way forever (thank goodness), and I'd like to think that those of us who have moved down the road a few years have a lot to add to technology design. With Facebook's Beacon plans blowing up this week, you can really see what happens when new "features" are added by twentysomethings who are coding and rolling out products as fast as they can.
I'm proposing a new job title to add to Facebook's Executive Team: VP of Adult Supervision.
My suggestion is only half-joking. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was called out for ageism earlier this year after he stressed the importance of "only [hiring] young people with technical expertise."
The problem is that Facebook's users aren't only people like their mind-blowingly young executives and programmers. A large proportion of their users are over 35. We don't appreciate having our privacy stomped on, and just because we want to participate in social networks, we don't necessarily want to live our lives in an exhibitionist fishbowl. Product design suffers when a grown-up perspective is not taken into account.
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Today on the Facebook Blog, Mark Zuckerberg apologizes for the mistakes Facebook made in rolling out Beacon, and announces that the company is "releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely."
This is a clear victory for consumer backlash and protests. MoveOn.org spokesman Adam Green responds to today's development:
"Sites like Facebook are revolutionizing how we communicate with each other and organize around issues together in a 21st century democracy. The big question is: Will corporate advertisers get to write the rules of the Internet or will these new social networks protect our basic rights, like privacy? Facebook's policy change is a big step in the right direction, and we hope it begins an industry-wide trend that puts the basic rights of Internet users ahead of the wish lists of corporate advertisers."
The Center for Digital Democracy, which has filed an FTC complaint against Facebook, is still concerned that Facebook's reaction has not solved their potential privacy problem. Executive Director Jeff Chester reacts to Facebook's news:
"Today's announcement that Facebook users will be able to turn off Beacon, following last week's opt-in changes, is a step in the right direction. But Mr. Zuckerberg isn't truly candid with Facebook users. Beacon is just one aspect of a massive data collection and targeting system put in place by Facebook. It's not really about the company's desire 'to build a simple product?lightweight' that would, as he writes, 'let people share information across sites with their friends.' Mr. Zuckerberg's goal, as he explained on November 6, 2007, was to transform Facebook into 'a completely new way of advertising online.' Facebook has rewired its social network to better serve the data collection interests of marketers who, promised Mr. Zuckerberg, are now 'going to be a part of the conversation'.
"Mr. Zuckerberg can't simply now do a digital "mea culpa" and hope that Facebook's disapproving members, privacy advocates, and government regulators will disappear. Nor should Facebook's brand advertisers permit this statement to diminish the real privacy and security concerns embodied by Facebook's new targeted ad system. CDD will continue to press U.S. and EU regulators to address Facebook's significant privacy problem."
From my perspective, while I applaud this development, Facebook still has many more steps to take before they earn user trust. I for one am still not ready to sign up yet.
The bad news about Facebook's Beacon program, user tracking, and privacy concerns just keeps piling up. Now Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are under fire from consumers, journalists, activist and advocacy groups, and even its own advertising partners.
Today's biggest revelation, reported by PC World, is that "Facebook has confirmed findings of a CA security researcher [Stefan Berteau] that the social-networking site's Beacon ad service is more intrusive and stealthy than previously acknowledged, an admission that contradicts statements made previously by Facebook executives and representatives," including email correspondence between Berteau and Facebook's privacy department, as well as statements made by Facebook vice president Chamath Palihapitiya to The New York Times.
Facebook confirmed Stefan Berteau's specific allegation that Beacon tracks the off-Facebook activties of members even when they are logged out of the social-networking site.
... Read moreI was casually cruising the news sites yesterday when I came across a story about porting "ineligible" numbers to AT&T and iPhone. I clicked on the story because I know some of the people who lobbied for and won the rights to treat phone numbers more like personal property you own than corporate property you rent. I was right with the author until he said (without comment or outrage):
On that screen, enter your name, Social Security number, and your current billing information and home telephone.
Say WHAT!?
Apple and AT&T are demanding customers reveal SSNs to activate their iPhones. That should be the lead of every technology and business article written this week. If you don't believe me, read on.
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