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Fac(eboo)k off, Canadian Pornking!
Just like pop will eat itself, Facebook will one day self-destruct (2). Until then, it's getting an ever increasing mind-share and implicitly expanding media coverage. In the last salvo in this war for our brainspace, we learn that Facebook is taking a Canadian porn site to court over alleged attempts to steal private details of users(1).
The lawsuit names Istra Holdings Inc., the numbered company affiliated with SlickCash, and defendants Brian Fabian and Josh Raskin as either "residing or working" at the same Toronto address. The SlickCash website boasts that its partners have been "involved in every facet of the online adult industry" since 1999. The suit also names Ming Wu and six other defendants whose identities remain unknown. The amended complaint was filed last Wednesday after Facebook was granted court orders in Canada forcing Internet service providers Rogers Communications and Look Communications to divulge subscriber information.
Obviously, it's great to hear that the two ISPs, Look and Rogers have actually upheld the privacy of a user, no matter who they were or what they've done. After all, the allegations have yet to be proven in court. We can only hope that they do the same with all such requests and are not using this as a PR opportunity. As for PR, it is unlikely IMHO that Facebook will recover at least the money spent on trial from that numbered corporation even if they win, which if true, suggests that the trial itself is rather demonstrative - although clearly necessary and a step in the right direction. Almost since its inception, Facebook faced significant criticism regarding its privacy policies. The following video clip has been around for more than 1 year and is alleging a nefarious connection between Facebook and CIA / NSA.Facebook and Privacy
Facebook had its share of privacy woes, perhaps far more than any other Web 2.0 outfit. It started with persistent allegations of connections to CIA. This is not as outlandish as it may seem. CIA has an official policy, launched in the previous decade, of cooperation with private corporations and of active involvement in the private sector. It only makes sense that they do this, as that is the most efficient way of spending the taxpayer's dollars.
Some of the privacy issues the Facebook users identify are not always valid. Nonetheless, the Beacon system is a little too intrusive for anybody who delves into the details.Facebook vs. Myspace
It's hard to believe today that Myspace was once mightier than Facebook. Facebook has become cooler long time ago and has been growing much faster. It seems that Facebook users are more educated, usually university students and graduates, whereas Myspace addresses the lower end of the spectrum.Advertising on Facebook
With its increasing popularity, Facebook has become a great advertising medium.
Facebook is now a microuniverse on its own.Sources
Corrections
none so far!
Massive, unfixed security flaw at Passport Canada
We just learned about a very serious security flaw in the Passport Canada website accepting online applications. Other people's information can be easily accessed by simply applying for a passport and then altering characters in your browser's address bar. The flaw was discovered by Jamie Laning, an IT worker at Algonquin Automotive, in Huntsville, Ontario. The available data includes SINs, driver's licence numbers, mailing addresses, business and phone numbers, federal ID card numbers and even a firearms licence number. Says Carlisle Adams, professor at U of O:
This is exactly how identity theft happens. If you want to take out a mortgage, for example, this is the type of information the bank is going to ask for to make sure you're really the person you're claiming to be. Then all of a sudden there's a mortgage in someone else's name.Although Mr. Laning alerted Passport Canada of the problem last week and the site was suspended through yesterday, the problem has not been fixed, despite Passport Canada's claim to the contrary. While the security flaw in itself is not the most terrible thing, it is deeply unsettling to learn that Passport Canada was unable to fix it within one week, that it deceptively claimed it fixed it and that Canadian law does not even require disclosure of privacy breaches. This means that there may be many more security breaches that happen but we do not know about them, unless somebody makes a FOF request.
The security breach follows two significant events concerning personal information. On Nov. 21, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson introduced legislation making it an offence to obtain, possess or traffic in people's identity information for the purposes of committing a crime. Just two days earlier, Britain's tax and customs service announced it had lost disks containing banking and personal data of 25 million people."I think it's very clear that a strong, mandatory security-breach law is long overdue in this country and it's cases like these that highlight it," said Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.This is not the first negative media report to hit Passport Canada. Only a couple of months ago, Canadian Press issued the following:
Canadian law does not require organizations to disclose when they've suffered security breaches. In the United States the majority of states have enacted legislation requiring organizations to disclose security breaches within a specified period of time.
Passport Canada is reporting continued long delays in processing mailed-in passport applications, despite a streamlined renewal process and hundreds of new employees. And there is concern those delays will only get longer as the busy winter travel season approaches.It now takes a minimum of six weeks to get a passport through the mail; two weeks longer than the agency's benchmark of four weeks.The way our secretive, inept government works, we would not be surprised if Mr. Laning would be charged with terrorism. It is much easier to find a scapegoat than hiring a knowledgeable IT security firm and have the problem fixed.
And that doesn't include the time it takes to get applications and documents through Canada Post.
UPDATE: Brian Masse (NDP) raised this issue in Question Period and Minister Maxime Bernier was told by CEO Gérard Cossette that the website is now "among the most secure".
IT Business published an article citing concerns that the privacy breach will lead to ID theft.
Source: Passport applicant finds massive privacy breach, Globe and Mail Read More to See the Light...
US elections - the dream contenders
Why would ConsumedConsumer.org care about the US elections? Frankly, because we cannot afford not to. Most governments take their cues from US. If US talks freedoms, they talk freedom, and torture in secrecy. If US tortures, they kill even more and torture openly. If US encourages stealing and does not punish its high-level crooks, corruption spreads like wildfire in the world. If US endures a housing bubble, the rest of the world has no other choice. And the beat goes on...
Here are the most interesting pairings I would like to see in the upcoming presidential campaign.
1. The Most Likely Candidates: Giuliani vs Hillary. They are also the most annoying, but that seems to be a prerequisite lately. In this pairing, my personal favourite would be Hillary, as I dislike her, complete with that creepy laugh track, less than I dislike the President of 9/11. There is another Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart clip that is a great study of Giuliani's facade, but you have to be an American to be able to watch it (you can only access thedailyshow.com archives through a proxy with an American IP, otherwise they'll redirect you).
2. Possible, but unlikely candidates: Obama vs McCain. They are both down to earth and average, a bit naive, and as such, unlike the first two, they are likeable. Unless they get their act together, neither of them will get to run. I don't have my mind made up about who I'd like to win in such a race, it would be very tough. So far, Obama has been slightly better, since McCain gave a speech to the Christian right about how important it is to have a Christian president (rather silly, since all American presidents have been and probably always will be Christians).
3. The ideal pair: Kucinich vs Ron Paul. They are the most principled, the most honest, the least likely to compromise their ideals, the only ones to have voted consistently against the war in Iraq, the only ones to end it immediately upon nomination, and as such, the least likely to get to run for president. My all time favourite is clearly Ron Paul. Not only he's a Libertarian, like myself, but he's an all-around awesome, honest, amazing man. Read more about Ron Paul and you'll see why. If you haven't heard about them and don't know who they are, the following clips will likely give you an idea.
Kucinich & wife
Ron Paul Tea Party 07 (5:33)
Ron Paul Stop Dreaming (8:46)
Ron Paul Speaks the Truth (13:41)
Ron Paul @ Google (65min, but well worth it)
Finally, after so much pro Ron Paul stuff, here something apparently against him: Republicans and Democrats, Please Protect Us from Ron Paul! :)
OK, these clips were nice, but what if you really haven't followed the US race for president, don't know anything else and would like to get up to speed? Watch one of Jon Stewart's segments on "Clusterf@#k To The White House" (Clusterf@#k is a term used mostly in the military, meaning huge, messy, chaotic movement of a large group). I would normally link to YouTube, but the war that Viacom is waging upon everybody else means that you can no longer find clips from their properties on YouTube. The clip is available for download in two formats: Windows Media and QuickTime. The clips are provided courtesy of the Crooks and Liars blog, which seems to be the only place where you can still access TDS clips, irrespective where you are in the world. You see, Comedy Central's excellent collection of TDS clips is only accessible to Americans. If your IP belongs to another country, you'll be redirected elsewhere. Once again, thank the beloved Viacom and its decrepit CEO for this.
Monkeys for Nothing You Get Chimps for Free I
Money for nothin' was perhaps the first British MTV success. The channel had just launched and they needed some cool videos to go with their song, so they persuaded Knopfler to go with this idea. In the first days of the British MTV, this video was playing non-stop and although today the animation appears a bit crude, back then it was hailed as revolutionary. And so was the very concept of a video clip in the symbolic 1984. It was the start of a new era, the start of a new consumption channel, a channel that was going to fundamentally change the music business.
Blogging for money is also a relatively new business. Although it's been around for a few years, today it seems that everybody wants in. You can find articles about professional blogging (or "blogging for money" as everybody knows it) on Microsoft (How to make money from your blog: 5 tips), Washington Post (Make Money off Your Blog), CNN (Business 2.0: Blogging for Dollars), O'Reilly (Blogging for Dollars: Giving Rise to the Professional Blogger) and others. Tellingly, the New York Times compares this fad to an addiction (For Some, The Blogging Never Stops) :) Even the Economist has started blogs, which is a radical change for a publication that's not a daily. Apart from the attention of established new media outfits, there are clear signs that the blogging revolution is far from over. Although Technorati has been around forever, search engines, including Google, have recently launched "blogging search". The Internet market research clearinghouses (Alexa, Netcraft, Compete, ComScore, Hitwise, Nielsen//NetRatings, Netcraft, Ranking.com, and Quantcast) seem to also indicate blogs' increasing mind share.
Another very clear sign that blogging is a profession in its own right is the appearance of blogs dedicated to this very phenomenon. There are two major blogs dominating the landscape, and gathering the lion share of the traffic: Steve Pavlina's blog (SP) and ProBlogger (PB). While Steve Pavlina is dedicated to self-improving and as such is more general, PB has a bevy of articles about blogging for money. I've read a few from SP, and to me they seem mostly "inspirational" but short on substance or things that I did not already know. By contrast, PB is far more task and detail oriented. I suppose SP makes his readers feel good but without really offering anything visionary or mind-blowing, in much the same way a motivational speaker uplifts her audience. You could combine reading SP for inspiration and read PB for the technical perspective.
The one thing you learn well reading SP's blog is the fine art of keeping your readers' eyeballs glued to the screen without exploding them or burning them out. Unfortunatley, this is an art I am unlikely to ever master. I am too opinionated. Even though it may not seem that way, writing this kind of articles takes a lot of self-control and focus, and I'm not sure I have that in the required quantity. I spent a few hours reading some of their very many articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21), only to realise at the end that I haven't really learned anything new; this could very well be because I've been working in IT since the 90's, but a total newbie would probably find something new to learn in there. I don't think I could emulate SP's style, and even if I could, I would get no satisfaction, no matter how much money I'd be making (and that's unlikely anyway). So as a result, I've decided to remove columnar banner ads from my blogs.
Read More to See the Light...Echoes of the WGA strike
Now in its second week, the Writers' Guild of America strike is what has kept many TV viewers from their favourite shows. The bone of contention is now compensation for web content, with WGA making some rather audacious demands, such as a percentage of non-skippable ad revenue. Here's the YouTube clip Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer:
There's no way we can hide it: we love the writers and the work that they do. We fully support their struggle.
Web Investigative Journalism
Although it missed Paul Jay's Independent World News television (perhaps because it's not fully operational yet), SplashCast has an interesting listing of web-based investigative journalism outfits and how they make their money. Here's the short list:
- Democracy Now!, a work of historic proportions, daily 1h broadcast funded by donations and filmed in NYC
- Alive in Baghdad the streets of Baghdad - solicit donations
- Alive in Mexico made by Small World News, just like the Baghdad show
- Talking Points Memo TV liberal political blog paid for by Next New Networks, which raised 8 million in venture capital
- Collateral News low-budget production by "irksome" Philly based Woodshop Films, who also make commercial video production;
The rest are "honourable mentions"
- Journeyman Pictures self-described as "London’s leading independent distributor of topical news features"
- People of the Web from Kevin Sites of the Hote Zone series
- Hot Air with Michelle Malkin "offensive content" (?)
- LinkTV "don't understand it, but it looks good" :)
Some other sources not mentioned in the SplashCastMedia review (I haven't read them all, but I provide them here:
- AlterNet - http://www.alternet.org/
- Guerilla News Network - http://gnn.tv/
- Indymedia - http://www.indymedia.org/
- The Other News - http://www.theothernews.com/
- What Really Happened - http://whatreallyhappened.com/ (censored by PayPal in 2003)
- Independent News
- More links
Another good article connected to this subject is Wikipedia's article on Citizen Journalism.
A la prochaine! Read More to See the Light...
