Kathleen Kalk
Thieves follow Twitter too
If you’re leaving your home for the weekend and are thinking about tweeting it you might want to reconsider that it is not only your friends who are savvy on your unprotected castle. There is a website out there, PleaseRobMe.com, that greets visitors with the following: “listing all those empty homes out there.” [linebreak] It […]
Five year-olds given Internet training
I wanted to write about another Google row, (this time between the search engine and Iran), but as I surfed the BBC’s technology website I encountered the following headline: “Online safety push for five-year-olds.” Sure there were other stories about government surveillance, web hacking, hi-tech gadgets, and third world countries laying broadband track – but […]
Startpage – the new privacy engine pits speed versus need
Web users looking for greater privacy in their web browsing have a new search engine to choose from, Startpage. Operating as an Internet middleman, the engine keeps no records of searchers and filters queries through its own scrambler, so-to-speak, before passing the information to the anonymous user. The media frenzy surrounding China’s state surveillance of […]
The future is here
If you have been watching late night news in the past few days, you no doubt will have encountered some type of coverage of Apple’s latest device, the iPad. Naming problems aside (I am reminded here of Mad TV’s skit involving an iRaq, a shelf, and an iRan, a shoe) the question is will this […]
Hacking Row Continues – Yahoo joins the gallery
As this row enters its second week, I wonder when, or if, the teeth of Google will ever show and their words turn to action. Everyone from Yahoo to the US government has denounced the overuse of China’s spy ware on American based search engines, but little has been done in terms of censuring the […]
Google Tax: France considers promoting culture by taxing search engines outside of France
Video killed the radio star and the Internet killed print news. But not necessarily. The French may have an answer to Canada’s print media’s revenue woes. While CRTC regulations about ownership in Canada continue to be challenged by media conglomerates alleging they cannot compete, the government of France is proposing a new tax, a public […]
Google threatens to leave China over hacking
No one likes having someone read over his or her shoulder. While it most often amounts to little more than an annoyance and a sour ‘excuse me’, when that reading involves personal information or the information of people at risk, there is need for concern. This past week the BBC revealed that several web addresses […]
Protect Yourself from Data Mining
Are you aware that details of your personal life and habits are being collected through your use of the Internet? “Is data mining by corporate firms and institutions going too far, or is it your responsibility, as an Internet participant, to protect your data?” In this article, Shirley Frazier also reminds us that Archive.org’s WayBack […]
Stanford University Brings Office Hours to Facebook
This story is not “hot off the press” but worth a mention nonetheless since it demonstrates an innovative and (from my standpoint as a participator) effective practice. More about this story. More about Open Access Learning
New Tool to Calculate Your Digital Footprint
Most of us are at least aware that we have a digital footprint, but did you know the size of your footprint also includes your “digital shadow”? Digital shadows include all of the digital traces that you don’t see and didn’t have a hand in creating – things like include surveillance camera images, bank records, […]
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