The title of this article is “Meetings and the Limits of Government Transparency.” No, I’m not writing about NSA, Snowden, or national security. I’m writing about some government staff meetings and how open they should be to the public.
All in Privacy
The bottom line: in a post-smartphone era, the more we know where our data are and how they are used the better off we are. Network companies — or governments — that resist making such data more accessible will be disadvantaged in the marketplace. Users of networks that ignore the interests of their customers will likewise be disadvantaged.
Perspectives on the NSA and PRISM: What Dyson Missed
In NSA: The Decision Problem George Dyson lays out a credible historical view on why he thinks what Snowden revealed about the NSA and PRISM was inevitable. While it’s certainly a pleasure to read a discussion of these issues that is so thoughtful, I think he misses one major theme that helps us understand our current predicament over what to do about Snowden.
Should your child's vaccination history be a matter of public record?
This is a tough one. Should a child’s vaccination history be a matter of public record?
Has Google Lost Control of Glass?
What drives me crazy about the debates around Google Glass is the groups of people who keep on saying, “Society will adjust. People will get used to it. It’s no different than what we have now with omnipresent security cameras and smartphones in every pocket.”
Am I being overly sensitive since I gave up using Facebook myself and don’t recommend it to others? Or should the fact that so many people use Facebook be the real deciding factor?
Oh, I know you are supposed to be able to fine-tune all the all this via Facebook settings. But I have more important things to do than to constantly rejigger confusing Facebook notification and privacy settings.
In some ways, you might say that Google is just as secretive as Apple when it comes to customer data.
I’m not a website designer. But I do have some opinions about what I like to see when I go to a web page.
Robo-Tweets and the Internet of Things: A Survey
I always thought when seeing the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind that the musical conversation between the alien Mothership and the humans was cut short when the aliens realized they were no longer playing with a human but with a computer program.
An MIT Course on How Writing and Media "Reports from the Front" Have Changed
Recently while checking my blog’s log of referring web sites I discovered that several of my old blog posts on privacy and data ownership have been listed as resources for this MIT OpenCourseWare Course:
I’ve come to believe that making it easier to share “friend” information across sites really provides more benefits to marketers and advertisers than to individual professionals such as myself. Here’s why.
Honest, I’m not against location based services!
How Many Dead People Are On Your Online "Friends" Lists?
Here are some data on U.S. deaths by age group based on deaths per 100,000 of population:
Facebook and Dueling "Cost Benefit" Privacy Calculations
Bruce Nussbaum’s Facebook’s Culture Problem May Be Fatal is one of the crisper analyses I’ve read of the current problems Facebook s faces regarding conflicts between its emerging business model and the “privacy” of its members.
Using Facebook Should Not Be a Gamble
I’m a consultant. Early on I realized a basic truth: “Where There Is Confusion There Are Consultants.”
Managing Online Social Network Data Access is Like Living In a House Built on Sand
I’ve been trying to follow Facebook’s changing privacy rules and its introduction of the “like” concept on Facebook and elsewhere.
Can Online Public Dialogs Succeed With Anonymous Participants?
I used to think that if you want to be taken seriously online, and if you want to actually participate in an ongoing dialog with a sponsor or other participants, you need to post using your own name and identity so that others know who you are.
