Profile Pics Put Your Privacy At Risk

From Discovery News

Data mining techniques applied to massive amounts of publicly available data make it easier than you would imagine to cyberstalk.

Image source: neonfudge.com

"In one experiment, Acquisti and his team uniquely identified 4,900 out of 5,800 anonymous dating site members."

"In arguably the most disturbing experiment, Acquisti used students who had their date of birth and hometown publicly posted on their social network profile to predict their Social Security numbers (SSNs). By using techniques from a previous study showing that SSNs can be somewhat accurately guessed using public information, Acquisti correctly identified the first five digits of SSNs in 16 percent of the students. After four attempts, the accuracy rate jumped to 27 percent."

Open Book Alliance to oppose Google Book deal

Relevant Results - CNET News Industry group fights Google's attempt to digitize copyrighted materials: "With less than two weeks remaining until a key deadline in the Google Books settlement, Google's opposition is circling the wagons.

The Open Book Alliance, a consortium that includes nonprofit author groups, library institutions, and Google rivals Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo, launched Wednesday to 'insist that any mass book digitization and distribution effort be open and competitive.' As reported last week by the Wall Street Journal, the group will be led by Peter Brantley of Internet Archive and veteran antitrust lawyer Gary Reback of Carr & Ferrell.

Google's proposed settlement with book rights holders last October gave it the sole legal authority to scan and distribute digital books that are still in copyright but out of print, and library groups and privacy activists have been up in arms ever since."

Open Source Approach to DNA Privacy

American Friends of Tel Aviv University: Open Source DNA: "In the chilling science fiction movie Gattaca, Ethan Hawke stars as a man with 'inferior genes' who assumes another's genetic identity to escape a dead-end future. The 1997 film illustrates the very real fear swirling around today's genome research — fear that private genetic information could be used negatively against us."

"Working with colleagues at the University of California in Berkeley, Dr. Halperin devised a mathematical formula that can be used to protect genetic privacy while giving researchers much of the raw data they need to do pioneering medical research. Reported in this month's issue of Nature Genetics, the tool could keep millions of research dollars-worth of DNA information available to scientists."

How RFID Tags Could Be Used to Track Unsuspecting People

Scientific American. Radio-frequency identi­fication (RFID) tags are embedded in a growing number of personal items and identity documents.Because the tags were designed to be powerful tracking devices and they typically incorporate little security, people wearing or carrying them are vulnerable to surreptitious surveillance and profiling..."

"If you live in a state bordering Canada or Mexico, you may soon be given an opportunity to carry a very high tech item: a remotely readable driver’s license. Designed to identify U.S. citizens as they approach the nation’s borders, the cards are being promoted by the Department of Homeland Security as a way to save time and simplify border crossings. But if you care about your safety and privacy as much as convenience, you might want to think twice before signing up."

RFID--A Key to Automating Everything: Scientific American

"Thirteen years ago, in an article for Scientific American, the late Mark Weiser, then my colleague at Xerox PARC, outlined his bold vision of “ubiquitous computing”: small computers would be embedded in everyday objects all around us and, using wireless connections, would respond to our presence, desires and needs without being actively manipulated. This network of mobile and fixed devices would do things for us automatically and so invisibly that we would notice only their effects. Weiser called such systems “calm technology,” because they would make it easier for us to focus on our work and other activities, instead of demanding that we interact with and control them, as the typical PC does today.

"Today systems based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology are helping to move Weiser’s vision closer to reality. These systems consist of tags (small silicon chips that contain identifying data and sometimes other information) and of readers that automatically receive and decode that data.