Law in Contemporary Society

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FacebookIsDangerous 20 - 22 Jan 2013 - Main.IanSullivan
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 This post explores the risks of using Facebook, and the risks of your peers using Facebook even if you do not. Facebook transformed the way that the world interacts. For many, it has become the prime forum for social participation. Critics of Facebook point to the narcissistic exhibitionism which it promotes, but the internet site has also provided communities, groups, activists, and individuals with a virtual nexus.

This connectivity has not come without a cost. As we meander, linger, and troll through the internet, our choices transform into pieces of data which characterize our virtual counterparts. This data can then be used by companies attempting to sell us products, and in some cases, by law enforcement officials attempting to peer into our lives.


FacebookIsDangerous 19 - 19 Apr 2012 - Main.MinKyungLee
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This post explores the risks of using Facebook, and the risks of your peers using Facebook even if you do not. Facebook transformed the way that the world interacts. For many, it has become the prime forum for social participation. Critics of Facebook point to the narcissistic exhibitionism which it promotes, but the internet site has also provided communities, groups, activists, and individuals with a virtual nexus.
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-- HarryKhanna, SanjayMurti, AbiolaFasehun, SkylarPolansky, ElviraKras, RumbidzaiMaweni, KieranCoe, TomaLivshiz

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this is an interesting post. I hope I am not ruining the structure but I just wanted to add my thoughts. What I find most dangerous about Facebook is that it blurs the distinction between private and public. Under the facade that you are only communicating to your "friends" (as if you are engaging in 1:1 chatting,) you post your ideas,and express feelings in public. Also, people post on facebook voluntarily. They choose to open doors to their private lives on the internet. To some extent, this culture of communications through social media encourages people to voluntarily give up their privacy, and more importantly, create a culture that undervalues the notion of privacy.
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FacebookIsDangerous 18 - 19 Apr 2012 - Main.HarryKhanna
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In less than ten years, Facebook has transformed--for better or for worse--the way that the entire world interfaces with one another. For many, it has become the prime forum for social participation. Critics of Facebook point to the narcissistic exhibitionism which it promotes, but the internet site has also provided communities, groups, activists, and individuals with a virtual nexus.
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This post explores the risks of using Facebook, and the risks of your peers using Facebook even if you do not. Facebook transformed the way that the world interacts. For many, it has become the prime forum for social participation. Critics of Facebook point to the narcissistic exhibitionism which it promotes, but the internet site has also provided communities, groups, activists, and individuals with a virtual nexus.
 
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Increased connectivity, by way of Facebook, has not come without a cost. As we meander, linger, and troll through the internet, our choices transform into pieces of data which characterize our virtual counterparts. This data can then be used by companies attempting to sell us products, and in some cases, by law enforcement officials attempting to peer into our lives. This post, started by HarryKhanna, examines some of the risks of Facebook as it currently operates and discusses our own complicity with regards to those risks.
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This connectivity has not come without a cost. As we meander, linger, and troll through the internet, our choices transform into pieces of data which characterize our virtual counterparts. This data can then be used by companies attempting to sell us products, and in some cases, by law enforcement officials attempting to peer into our lives.
 

Facebook is Dangerous

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In an article for IT World Magazine, Eben describes Facebook as analagous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: facebook is not a technical hack, it is a social hack. We, as a society, are oblivious to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement
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Eben describes Facebook as analagous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: facebook is not a technical hack, it is a social hack. We are oblivious to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
 Every mainstream news website, most blogs, and virtually all shopping websites have Facebook "Like" buttons which can be used to track your activity on that site even if you don't touch the "Like" button. You can't go anywhere on the internet without accessing Facebook's servers, whether or not you even have a Facebook account. Some people believe that they can control the data gathered about there internet use, but instead they have more of an illusion of control. Just because it is possible to turn off what one 'shares' on your account doesn't mean that Facebook isn't collecting the data and turning it over to anyone who requests it without a warrant.
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Examples of the Disturbing Uses of Facebook

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Elvira pointed to an article which highlights the disturbing uses of facebook. She made the point that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.

Rumbi also highlighted another troubling use of Facebook: a geolocation app that allows users to map the presence of prospective paramours with publicly available facebook profiles.

Kieran noted an article that shows the ways in which Facebook provides data to police investigators. Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data.

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There is no shortage of examples that highlight the disturbing uses of Facebook.
 All of these articles illustrate the ways in which data collected through facebook can be used in ways that is not consistent with users' desires and not anticipated by them when they choose to sign up for Facebook.

The Dangers of Facebook Reflect Broader Internet Hazards

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The problem is that most of these privacy issues aren't relegated to Facebook. They permeate almost all of the web as we know it. To free ourselves of similar risks, we may need to change the way you interact with the Internet altogether. For one, the majority of us use free hosted email (Gmail, predominantly, I'd imagine). It is likely that more private, relevant data is exchanged through email than through Facebook, especially given that most people see Gmail as a completely private place and Facebook as at least a somewhat public place. That being said, the pervasive nature of internet spying supports an argument for greater public outcry and stronger attempts to limit companies' use of our online information, not less of either.
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These disturbing issues aren't relegated to Facebook. They're all over the internet. For example, the majority of us use free hosted email (Gmail, predominantly, I'd imagine). It is likely that more private, relevant data is exchanged through email than through Facebook, especially given that most people see Gmail as a completely private place and Facebook as at least a somewhat public place. That being said, the pervasive nature of internet spying supports an argument for greater public outcry and stronger attempts to limit companies' use of our online information, not less of either.
 

What Can Users Do?

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"Maybe you don't care if Facebook or law enforcement can track where you are at any given moment. But if the world someday becomes a place where you do care, by then it might be too late to do anything about it." Harry's ominous warning should not be ignored. To some degree, facebook users are not oblivious as to how their internet use is monitored. It is possible that a good amount of people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites can track where they've been and create formulas to ascertain suggestions on future internet use. But perhaps the danger occurs in the public's general lack of how the information can be used against them. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he discusses the flaws in the networks we use, but remarks that all is not lost, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." Moglen's speech served as a brief education on how information on the web is collected and can serve as a cautionary tale for educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. If the extent of the problem is so vast, when will we reach the point to where people demand more transparency? At what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?

It is necessary that we lift the veil on the ways that we use technology and how it can be used against us. Skylar noted that the recent SOPA debates helped to catalyze discussions around internet freedom. Lectures on these topics and other ones related to internet rights are good first steps towards understanding our online lives. If we educate ourselves, we can better advocate for ourselves. Harry also suggested that we can make attempts to use alternative corridors for information sharing. At the very least, we should remember that we have options.

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Maybe you don't care if Facebook or law enforcement can track where you are at any given moment.Maybe Facebook users are not oblivious as to how their internet use is monitored. It is possible that many people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites track and log their movements on the internet. But perhaps the danger occurs in the public's general lack of how the information can be used against them. In Eben's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he discusses the flaws in the networks we use, but remarks that all is not lost, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." Eben's speech served as a brief education on how information on the web is collected and can serve as a cautionary tale for educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. The problem is vast, and eventually will we reach the point where people demand more transparency.
 

-- HarryKhanna, SanjayMurti, AbiolaFasehun, SkylarPolansky, ElviraKras, RumbidzaiMaweni, KieranCoe, TomaLivshiz

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P.s. I tried to edit and consolidate this post as Eben has suggested that we do. If you feel that I have mischaracterized a point in a way that has upset you or consolidated the post in an ineffective manner, I apologize and please feel free to modify it!

This is a wonderful synthesis, Toma, thank you for doing it!


FacebookIsDangerous 17 - 16 Apr 2012 - Main.ElviraKras
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In less than ten years, Facebook has transformed--for better or for worse--the way that the entire world interfaces with one another. For many, it has become the prime forum for social participation. Critics of Facebook point to the narcissistic exhibitionism which it promotes, but the internet site has also provided communities, groups, activists, and individuals with a virtual nexus.
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 -- HarryKhanna, SanjayMurti, AbiolaFasehun, SkylarPolansky, ElviraKras, RumbidzaiMaweni, KieranCoe, TomaLivshiz

P.s. I tried to edit and consolidate this post as Eben has suggested that we do. If you feel that I have mischaracterized a point in a way that has upset you or consolidated the post in an ineffective manner, I apologize and please feel free to modify it!

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This is a wonderful synthesis, Toma, thank you for doing it!

FacebookIsDangerous 16 - 16 Apr 2012 - Main.TomaLivshiz
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Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.

At the end of the article, the author Dan Tynan challenges Eben's metaphor. I disagree with Tynan, and I want to quickly respond to his points.

Dan Tynan: A true MITM attack happens without either party knowing about it. When’s the last time you used Facebook without knowing about it, or been forced to use it against your will?
Every day. Every mainstream news website, most blogs, and virtually all shopping websites have Facebook "Like" buttons which can be used to track your activity on that site even if you don't touch the "Like" button. You can't go anywhere on the internet without accessing Facebook's servers, whether or not you even have a Facebook account.

Dan Tynan: You have no control over the data the MITM attacker collects. You have some controls over what Facebook collects.
No, you have the illusion of control. Just because you can turn off what you 'share' on your account doesn't mean that Facebook isn't collecting the data and turning it over to anyone who requests it without a warrant.

Action

I think Facebook is garbage. I didn't have an account for years because of the concern I had for my (and others') privacy. The problem is that our colleagues at the law school send out invitations to events only on Facebook. If you don't have a Facebook account, you miss out on invitations to sweet parties.

One way we can start to solve this problem is by refusing to use Facebook to send out event invitations. Can the Student Senate can create a policy that their events will not be publicized on Facebook? Are there Senators in this class that can make this happen? Let's take action to reduce the utility of Facebook on our campus and make it easier for people to deactivate their accounts.

If you think that you can just deactivate your own account and everything will be fine, you are wrong: the scariest part about what Facebook is becoming is their "Photo DNA" which identifies people by pictures that are uploaded of you even if you are not tagged and even if you don't have a Facebook account. That's why it's important to get everyone to deactivate their accounts or at the very least stop uploading pictures to Facebook.

Maybe you don't care if Facebook or law enforcement can track where you are at any given moment. But if the world someday becomes a place where you do care, by then it might be too late to do anything about it.

-- HarryKhanna - 07 Feb 2012

I may be in the minority on this, but I've always felt the Facebook coverage was a bit sensationalistic. If you have privacy concerns, yes, the best move is to get off Facebook, deactivate (and try to delete) your account, and convince everyone you know to stop using it. The problem is that most of these privacy issues aren't relegated to Facebook. They permeate almost all of the web as we know it. I will concede that Facebook does a particularly (and perhaps intentionally) poor job at offering clear, easy-to-use privacy settings.

First, this is in the realm of "truth vs. accuracy," but it feels relevant to note that Photo DNA (by Microsoft) is not the same as facial recognition (which Facebook also has). Photo DNA allows Facebook to track versions of the same photo, not people. As deployed now, it finds and tracks known images of child pornography when posted on Facebook. Obviously, Facebook does have facial recognition software that raises privacy concerns - you see it every time you tag a photo and it suggests your friends for you - but I'm not aware of any evidence that it is being used for a nefarious purpose (or to aid law enforcement). It may have been, I'm just not aware of it.

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In less than ten years, Facebook has transformed--for better or for worse--the way that the entire world interfaces with one another. For many, it has become the prime forum for social participation. Critics of Facebook point to the narcissistic exhibitionism which it promotes, but the internet site has also provided communities, groups, activists, and individuals with a virtual nexus.
 
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Second, Facebook is hardly the only data privacy problem on the web. To free yourself of similar risks, you'd pretty much need to change the way you interact with the Internet altogether. For one, the majority of us use free hosted email (Gmail, predominantly, I'd imagine). I'd venture to guess that more private, relevant data is exchanged through email than through Facebook, especially given that most people see Gmail as a completely private place and Facebook as at least a somewhat public place. Outside of running your own email server (which isn't feasible for a sizable segment of users), there's little way to prevent email providers from doing the same things with your data that Facebook could. Even if you did, you'd still likely be emailing people who have Gmail or Yahoo mail accounts, and your data would still end up on their servers.
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Increased connectivity, by way of Facebook, has not come without a cost. As we meander, linger, and troll through the internet, our choices transform into pieces of data which characterize our virtual counterparts. This data can then be used by companies attempting to sell us products, and in some cases, by law enforcement officials attempting to peer into our lives. This post, started by HarryKhanna, examines some of the risks of Facebook as it currently operates and discusses our own complicity with regards to those risks.
 
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I'm running a bit late for school today, so I'll stop here and try to finish this this afternoon, but the general point is that getting off Facebook doesn't seem to cure any real privacy issues. Is it better? Sure. Is it a solution? Not really.

I think this analysis is largely correct, though I think, for reasons I will be discussing in my other course in coming weeks, the Facebook coverage has been anemic and uninformative in the extreme, and your relative indifference to this among other privacy problems is misplaced. Your point, however, that Facebook is merely part of a larger failure in the Net to be robust against attacks on privacy and freedom is surely correct. Hence I agree with you that solving the Facebook problem is one necessary rather than the sufficient condition for remediation of the problem overall. For my diagnosis of the problem overall, and the beginning of my working through a possible solution, see my Freedom in the Cloud.

-- SanjayMurti - 08 Feb 2012

I am joining this conversation a little late, but one of the things that I find interesting in the Facebook debate, is the lack of credit that Facebook users are given. I realize that I am probably in the minority, but I feel that I am very conscious of the fact that really nothing I put on Facebook is ever really "private" in the traditional sense (and yes I too resisted a Facebook account for years). Sanjay makes an interesting point about how far this problem stretches, but in analyzing Facebook's user implications, I also think it is important to remember why people have Facebook accounts. I know this doesn't speak to necessarily everyone, but Facebook users want people to be able to find them, look at their pictures, their friends, and know about that fabulous job they just landed. People want to be able to connect with others for platonic and not so platonic reasons, as well as make announcements to the world about who they are. Perhaps due to lack of hindsight, people don't really want to be bothered by the details. I believe it is fair to say that a good amount of people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites can track where they've been and create formulas to ascertain suggestions on future internet use. Perhaps the danger occurs in the public's general lack of how the information can be used against them.

I do agree with Harry's point that America needs another option. But just as Facebook could be viewed as having taken over MySpace? , there will be another tech company that takes over Facebook, rendering Facebook obsolete and still leaving the public with one popular option. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he discusses the flaws in the networks we use, but remarks that all is not lost, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." Moglen's speech served as a brief education on how information on the web is collected and can serve as a cautionary tale for educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. If the extent of the problem is so vast, when will we reach the point to where people demand more transparency? At what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?

-- AbiolaFasehun - 28 Feb 2012

In response to your question Abiola - I don’t know what it will take for people to take to the streets and demand internet re-empowerment but I think the first step is certainly being vocal. I believe one benefit of the recent SOPA debate is that it moderately raised the public awareness of the fact that we are clients of the internet. I am not a technology whiz either, but after listening to Professor Moglen talk about SOPA and ACTA in class I have started to pay more attention. Yesterday I went to the lunchtime debate re: SOPA, Protect IP, and OPEN. I know it was basically listening to the equivalent of two live advertisements alternatively for or against anti-piracy laws, but attending an event re: current events, and actually taking an active role in obtaining knowledge about a technological current event is huge for me. I don’t understand most technology and mostly it scares me how pervasive it is.

I approach most technology with the idea that one day we will turn into a form of the world described by Gary Shteyngart’s in Super Sad True Love Story. If you’ve never read the book, Shteyngart depicts a futuristic dystopia where everybody has apparatii (essentially iphones) through which they conduct all activity (social interactions, shopping, reading, playing games, listening to music, etc.). Because all human activity is conducted via these electronic instruments, large companies collect and combine the data with their marketing expertise to subversively psychologically influence America.

What scares me most about our recent discussions in class is my participation in/passive acceptance of injustice and/or the terrifying things I see and hear about the world. Thus far my approach to my fear of technological dystopia I see us heading towards, is to remain as unaware of it as possible. Aside from gmail, facebook, and the occasional Wikipedia search, I legitimately do not use the internet, and pride myself on how little I understand it. But it’s happening without me and eventually it will effect me. Even though the result of the SOPA debate was moot, its prevalence in the news, combined with the fear elicited in me via our discussions in Law in Contemporary Society sparked me to start paying attention. Going to a debate in a law school classroom is far from going to the streets, but it’s at least a step.

-- SkylarPolansky - 29 Feb 2012

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Facebook is Dangerous

 
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Just read this article this morning and found it pretty disturbing: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10585353-govt-agencies-colleges-demand-applicants-facebook-passwords?fb_ref=.T1YiipFoURA.like&fb_source=home_oneline
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In an article for IT World Magazine, Eben describes Facebook as analagous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: facebook is not a technical hack, it is a social hack. We, as a society, are oblivious to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement
 
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I just never was particularly concerned about the possible ramifications of having a Facebook because I always felt as thoufgh A) everyone has a Facebook and what is on mine can't be that much worse than anyone else's and B) I wouldn't want to work at or go to school at a place that did not want me based on the content on my Facebook. To me it seems that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.
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Every mainstream news website, most blogs, and virtually all shopping websites have Facebook "Like" buttons which can be used to track your activity on that site even if you don't touch the "Like" button. You can't go anywhere on the internet without accessing Facebook's servers, whether or not you even have a Facebook account. Some people believe that they can control the data gathered about there internet use, but instead they have more of an illusion of control. Just because it is possible to turn off what one 'shares' on your account doesn't mean that Facebook isn't collecting the data and turning it over to anyone who requests it without a warrant.
 
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-- ElviraKras
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How Does Facebook Collection Differ From Other Internet Uses

 
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Skylar, I edited out the question you referred to in your post, but for those following along the question asked if people will ever take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we have a right to re-empowered as to how our information is used. I was interested in the idea of people taking action, in any form, to demand changes in the way their information is being used. I think that by attending the SOPA lunch time discussion you were taking a step in the right direction. I too have been inspired to attempt to better understand the way the internet works and will be taking a one day workshop on web development and coding during spring break.
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It's not about what you place on the internet. It's about where you go, what you look at, how long you look at it. What one intentionally places on the internet is trivial compared to information on the profiles that person has looked at, the photos someone has spent the most time on and the people that were tagged in them.
 
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Elvira, this article is shocking and went well beyond my knowledge of how future employers and schools can use Facebook to collect information. A lawyer quoted in the article, Bradley Shear, made an interesting analogy to the privacy infringement actions of future employers and schools, Shear said, "A good analogy for this [future employers and schools demanding access to Facebook accounts], in the offline world, would it be acceptable for schools to require athletes to bug their off-campus apartments? Does a school have a right to know who all your friends are?"
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Two major differences between the methods used by other internet platforms and Facebook: 1) the lack of ability for ISPs to inspect the content of transmissions on a large scale, and 2) your ability to protect yourself with SSL encryption.
 
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On the other hand, the article also noted that when Maryland's Department of Corrections forced applicants to surrender their user names and passwords during an interview, that out of 2,689 applicants, they identified 7 applicants whose social media applications had pictures of gang signs, and subsequently did not hire these individuals. Is there ever an appropriate time for agencies and schools to demand that individuals share their social media information, prior to being found in violation of any crime or policy? Forcing 2,689 individuals to surrender their privacy so that 7 alleged gang affiliates can be weeded out, seems a hefty price to pay.
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First, by default, your ISP only tracks and logs the address (location) of everyone's transmissions, not the content of those transmissions. It can track the content but it is difficult for an ISP to do that on a large scale since it involves processor-intensive packet-sniffing. If your ISP was targeting you specifically, I have no doubt they could discover the content of your transmissions, unless you encrypted them (discussed shortly). But it is simply not realistic for an ISP to eavesdrop on the content of everyone's internet usage simultaneously. Facebook does not have this limitation. It does not need to resort to packet sniffing since you are accessing it's domain and it can easily match the location of your transmission to the content. It knows that www.facebook.com/profile=1234420 is Kieran's profile since it designed the URL matching scheme. It knows how long you spent on Kieran's page since the asynchronous Javascript on the page is in constant communication with Facebook's servers. Your ISP does not have these shortcuts and must inspect the content of every packet you send to get a meaningful idea of what you're doing on the internet. It can do it, but it cannot do it for everyone at once. Therein lies the danger of Facebook: it can record all this information about everyone at once, and it does.
 
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-- AbiolaFasehun - 29 Feb 2012
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Second, when you access your bank or, say, Gmail, your communication is encrypted through something called SSL. That means it is mathematically very, very difficult for an ISP to snoop on your communication to discover what you are doing on that website. It knows roughly what domains you're accessing (e.g. bankofamerica.com) but it cannot decrypt the content that's been sent to your browser. It cannot discover your bank balance, since the information is garbled by encryption until reaches your web browser on your computer, outside the eyes of the ISP. Again, Facebook has no such limitation. It should be obvious why: it is not a third party relaying information like your ISP is, it is actually the server you're communicating with. It knows what it's sending you, even if it encrypts it before sending it.
 
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Examples of the Disturbing Uses of Facebook

 
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I just read an article about a fairly disturbing Facebook application, and thought I'd post it here: http://www.cultofmac.com/157641/this-creepy-app-isnt-just-stalking-women-without-their-knowledge-its-a-wake-up-call-about-facebook-privacy/
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Elvira pointed to an article which highlights the disturbing uses of facebook. She made the point that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.
 
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The author of the article encourages readers to see the application as instructive regarding internet privacy and protecting ourselves on social networking sites like Facebook.
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Rumbi also highlighted another troubling use of Facebook: a geolocation app that allows users to map the presence of prospective paramours with publicly available facebook profiles.
 
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I, too, like Skylar feel like I've been letting much of this discourse about privacy and the internet pass me by. As Moglen mentioned in class the other day, it very much has been this passive "If I'm not doing anything wrong, what does it matter," attitude on my part. But I also grow frustrated when I try to discuss this topic with people who are adamantly anti-Facebook and other forms of social-networking, because I often do feel that users of these platforms are not given enough credit. I also get the impression that these people assume that Facebook's only uses are for stalking friends and colleagues as entertainment, curing boredom, or for narcissistic, superficial over-sharing. There's little acknowledgement of what a powerful form of community-building it can be, or that our ideas of what imaginary communities we are a part of, and can be active in, has largely shifted as a consequence of these networks. I've long been interested in migration and diaspora communities, and social networking has drastically changed the way people in diaspora communities perceive themselves and their communities. It's not merely the ease of keeping in touch that's important- it is that act of sharing seemingly unimportant daily thoughts and experiences that is extremely powerful from the perspective of identity formation, remittances, empathy-building, and even planting the seeds of activism.
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Kieran noted an article that shows the ways in which Facebook provides data to police investigators. Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data.
 
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I realize whether Facebook and similar forms of social networking can be useful is a different question from whether or not Facebook is dangerous from a privacy perspective. I just wish those who frame the debate would more often acknowledge that there are real and immediate positive social interests at stake, beyond 20-somethings wanting to show off their party pictures, that contribute to the complacency some people feel regarding these potential long-term consequences. Maybe if those championing internet privacy gave more credit to those who really do want to find a way to balance behavior in the cyber-realm that contributes to certain positive ends with making a stand for internet re-empowerment, it would go a long way towards making people wake up.
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All of these articles illustrate the ways in which data collected through facebook can be used in ways that is not consistent with users' desires and not anticipated by them when they choose to sign up for Facebook.
 
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-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 01 Apr 2012
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The Dangers of Facebook Reflect Broader Internet Hazards

 
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I think that dialogue about this issue might be furthered if we had a tangible example of what the police or other government entities can access by subpoenaing facebook for information about you. As a technological novice, I often have trouble conceptualizing the scope of the information that users casually handover both intentionally or unintentionally. As Abiola and Sanjay point out, many of us know that nothing we place on the internet is truly private.
>
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The problem is that most of these privacy issues aren't relegated to Facebook. They permeate almost all of the web as we know it. To free ourselves of similar risks, we may need to change the way you interact with the Internet altogether. For one, the majority of us use free hosted email (Gmail, predominantly, I'd imagine). It is likely that more private, relevant data is exchanged through email than through Facebook, especially given that most people see Gmail as a completely private place and Facebook as at least a somewhat public place. That being said, the pervasive nature of internet spying supports an argument for greater public outcry and stronger attempts to limit companies' use of our online information, not less of either.
 
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People keep getting this wrong. It's not about what you place on the internet. It's about where you go, what you look at, how long you look at it. What you intentionally place on the internet is trivial compared to information on the profiles you looked at, the photos you spent the most time on and the people that were tagged in them.
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What Can Users Do?

 
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Obviously, I acknowledge the critical importance of metadata, but could you please help me understand how the metadata that social media sites collect is meaningfully different and potentially more pernicious than that which is already collected about people through other means? Hasn't my ISP (Columbia, Comcast, AOL, Compuserve, or even Prodigy) been able to track all of my online behavior since before my middle school friends were using their parent's dialup connection to download Metallica's greatest hits from Napster and potentially spending a few minutes considering whether to download Wierd Al's coolest jams on the side?
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"Maybe you don't care if Facebook or law enforcement can track where you are at any given moment. But if the world someday becomes a place where you do care, by then it might be too late to do anything about it." Harry's ominous warning should not be ignored. To some degree, facebook users are not oblivious as to how their internet use is monitored. It is possible that a good amount of people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites can track where they've been and create formulas to ascertain suggestions on future internet use. But perhaps the danger occurs in the public's general lack of how the information can be used against them. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he discusses the flaws in the networks we use, but remarks that all is not lost, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." Moglen's speech served as a brief education on how information on the web is collected and can serve as a cautionary tale for educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. If the extent of the problem is so vast, when will we reach the point to where people demand more transparency? At what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?
 
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Two major differences: 1) the lack of ability for ISPs to inspect the content of transmissions on a large scale, and 2) your ability to protect yourself with SSL encryption.
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It is necessary that we lift the veil on the ways that we use technology and how it can be used against us. Skylar noted that the recent SOPA debates helped to catalyze discussions around internet freedom. Lectures on these topics and other ones related to internet rights are good first steps towards understanding our online lives. If we educate ourselves, we can better advocate for ourselves. Harry also suggested that we can make attempts to use alternative corridors for information sharing. At the very least, we should remember that we have options.
 
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First, by default, your ISP only tracks and logs the address (location) of everyone's transmissions, not the content of those transmissions. It can track the content but it is difficult for an ISP to do that on a large scale since it involves processor-intensive packet-sniffing. If your ISP was targeting you specifically, I have no doubt they could discover the content of your transmissions, unless you encrypted them (discussed shortly). But it is simply not realistic for an ISP to eavesdrop on the content of everyone's internet usage simultaneously. Facebook does not have this limitation. It does not need to resort to packet sniffing since you are accessing it's domain and it can easily match the location of your transmission to the content. It knows that www.facebook.com/profile=1234420 is Kieran's profile since it designed the URL matching scheme. It knows how long you spent on Kieran's page since the asynchronous Javascript on the page is in constant communication with Facebook's servers. Your ISP does not have these shortcuts and must inspect the content of every packet you send to get a meaningful idea of what you're doing on the internet. It can do it, but it cannot do it for everyone at once. Therein lies the danger of Facebook: it can record all this information about everyone at once, and it does.
 
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Second, when you access your bank or, say, Gmail, your communication is encrypted through something called SSL. That means it is mathematically very, very difficult for an ISP to snoop on your communication to discover what you are doing on that website. It knows roughly what domains you're accessing (e.g. bankofamerica.com) but it cannot decrypt the content that's been sent to your browser. It cannot discover your bank balance, since the information is garbled by encryption until reaches your web browser on your computer, outside the eyes of the ISP. Again, Facebook has no such limitation. It should be obvious why: it is not a third party relaying information like your ISP is, it is actually the server you're communicating with. It knows what it's sending you, even if it encrypts it before sending it.
 
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Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data. Source: When the cops subpoena your Facebook information, here's what Facebook sends the cops
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-- HarryKhanna, SanjayMurti, AbiolaFasehun, SkylarPolansky, ElviraKras, RumbidzaiMaweni, KieranCoe, TomaLivshiz
 
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-- KieranCoe - 07 Apr 2012
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P.s. I tried to edit and consolidate this post as Eben has suggested that we do. If you feel that I have mischaracterized a point in a way that has upset you or consolidated the post in an ineffective manner, I apologize and please feel free to modify it!

FacebookIsDangerous 15 - 08 Apr 2012 - Main.HarryKhanna
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 80 to 80
 
People keep getting this wrong. It's not about what you place on the internet. It's about where you go, what you look at, how long you look at it. What you intentionally place on the internet is trivial compared to information on the profiles you looked at, the photos you spent the most time on and the people that were tagged in them.
Changed:
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Obviously, I acknowledge the critical importance of metadata, but could you please help me understand how the metadata that social media sites collect is meaningfully different and potentially more pernicious than that which is already collected about people through other means? Hasn't my ISP (Columbia, Comcast, AOL, Compuserve, or even Prodigy) been able to track all of my online behavior since before my middle school friends were using their parent's dialup connection to download Metallica's greatest hits from Napster and potentially spending a few minutes considering whether to download Wierd Al's coolest jams on the side?
>
>
Obviously, I acknowledge the critical importance of metadata, but could you please help me understand how the metadata that social media sites collect is meaningfully different and potentially more pernicious than that which is already collected about people through other means? Hasn't my ISP (Columbia, Comcast, AOL, Compuserve, or even Prodigy) been able to track all of my online behavior since before my middle school friends were using their parent's dialup connection to download Metallica's greatest hits from Napster and potentially spending a few minutes considering whether to download Wierd Al's coolest jams on the side?
 
Changed:
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That's the real interesting information that is being collected about you, not the fact that you listed Twilight as your favorite movie.
>
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Two major differences: 1) the lack of ability for ISPs to inspect the content of transmissions on a large scale, and 2) your ability to protect yourself with SSL encryption.

First, by default, your ISP only tracks and logs the address (location) of everyone's transmissions, not the content of those transmissions. It can track the content but it is difficult for an ISP to do that on a large scale since it involves processor-intensive packet-sniffing. If your ISP was targeting you specifically, I have no doubt they could discover the content of your transmissions, unless you encrypted them (discussed shortly). But it is simply not realistic for an ISP to eavesdrop on the content of everyone's internet usage simultaneously. Facebook does not have this limitation. It does not need to resort to packet sniffing since you are accessing it's domain and it can easily match the location of your transmission to the content. It knows that www.facebook.com/profile=1234420 is Kieran's profile since it designed the URL matching scheme. It knows how long you spent on Kieran's page since the asynchronous Javascript on the page is in constant communication with Facebook's servers. Your ISP does not have these shortcuts and must inspect the content of every packet you send to get a meaningful idea of what you're doing on the internet. It can do it, but it cannot do it for everyone at once. Therein lies the danger of Facebook: it can record all this information about everyone at once, and it does.

Second, when you access your bank or, say, Gmail, your communication is encrypted through something called SSL. That means it is mathematically very, very difficult for an ISP to snoop on your communication to discover what you are doing on that website. It knows roughly what domains you're accessing (e.g. bankofamerica.com) but it cannot decrypt the content that's been sent to your browser. It cannot discover your bank balance, since the information is garbled by encryption until reaches your web browser on your computer, outside the eyes of the ISP. Again, Facebook has no such limitation. It should be obvious why: it is not a third party relaying information like your ISP is, it is actually the server you're communicating with. It knows what it's sending you, even if it encrypts it before sending it.

 Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data. Source:

FacebookIsDangerous 14 - 08 Apr 2012 - Main.KieranCoe
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 78 to 78
 I think that dialogue about this issue might be furthered if we had a tangible example of what the police or other government entities can access by subpoenaing facebook for information about you. As a technological novice, I often have trouble conceptualizing the scope of the information that users casually handover both intentionally or unintentionally. As Abiola and Sanjay point out, many of us know that nothing we place on the internet is truly private.
Changed:
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People keep getting this wrong. It's not about what you place on the internet. It's about where you go, what you look at, how long you look at it. What you intentionally place on the internet is trivial compared to information on the profiles you looked at, the photos you spent the most time on and the people that were tagged in them. That's the real interesting information that is being collected about you, not the fact that you listed Twilight as your favorite movie.
>
>
People keep getting this wrong. It's not about what you place on the internet. It's about where you go, what you look at, how long you look at it. What you intentionally place on the internet is trivial compared to information on the profiles you looked at, the photos you spent the most time on and the people that were tagged in them.
 
Changed:
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Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data.
>
>
Obviously, I acknowledge the critical importance of metadata, but could you please help me understand how the metadata that social media sites collect is meaningfully different and potentially more pernicious than that which is already collected about people through other means? Hasn't my ISP (Columbia, Comcast, AOL, Compuserve, or even Prodigy) been able to track all of my online behavior since before my middle school friends were using their parent's dialup connection to download Metallica's greatest hits from Napster and potentially spending a few minutes considering whether to download Wierd Al's coolest jams on the side?

That's the real interesting information that is being collected about you, not the fact that you listed Twilight as your favorite movie.

Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data.

 Source: When the cops subpoena your Facebook information, here's what Facebook sends the cops

FacebookIsDangerous 13 - 08 Apr 2012 - Main.HarryKhanna
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 76 to 76
 -- RumbidzaiMaweni - 01 Apr 2012
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I think that dialogue about this issue might be furthered if we had a tangible example of what the police or other government entities can access by subpoenaing facebook for information about you. As a technological novice, I often have trouble conceptualizing the scope of the information that users casually handover both intentionally or unintentionally. As Abiola and Sanjay point out, many of us know that nothing we place on the internet is truly private. Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data.
>
>
I think that dialogue about this issue might be furthered if we had a tangible example of what the police or other government entities can access by subpoenaing facebook for information about you. As a technological novice, I often have trouble conceptualizing the scope of the information that users casually handover both intentionally or unintentionally. As Abiola and Sanjay point out, many of us know that nothing we place on the internet is truly private.

People keep getting this wrong. It's not about what you place on the internet. It's about where you go, what you look at, how long you look at it. What you intentionally place on the internet is trivial compared to information on the profiles you looked at, the photos you spent the most time on and the people that were tagged in them. That's the real interesting information that is being collected about you, not the fact that you listed Twilight as your favorite movie.

Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data.

 Source: When the cops subpoena your Facebook information, here's what Facebook sends the cops

FacebookIsDangerous 12 - 07 Apr 2012 - Main.KieranCoe
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 75 to 75
 I realize whether Facebook and similar forms of social networking can be useful is a different question from whether or not Facebook is dangerous from a privacy perspective. I just wish those who frame the debate would more often acknowledge that there are real and immediate positive social interests at stake, beyond 20-somethings wanting to show off their party pictures, that contribute to the complacency some people feel regarding these potential long-term consequences. Maybe if those championing internet privacy gave more credit to those who really do want to find a way to balance behavior in the cyber-realm that contributes to certain positive ends with making a stand for internet re-empowerment, it would go a long way towards making people wake up.

-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 01 Apr 2012 \ No newline at end of file

Added:
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I think that dialogue about this issue might be furthered if we had a tangible example of what the police or other government entities can access by subpoenaing facebook for information about you. As a technological novice, I often have trouble conceptualizing the scope of the information that users casually handover both intentionally or unintentionally. As Abiola and Sanjay point out, many of us know that nothing we place on the internet is truly private. Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vast scale of information provided in this social-media subpoena that the Boston Police Department delivered to Facebook in the course of their investigation of the "Craigslist Killer." Facebook handed over lists with lists of the suspect's friends, IP logins, photos, tags, and messages. Given that facebook won't acknowledge how many subpoenas they've responded too, we have no way of knowing how often domestic law enforcement or other less savory entities are pouring through our social data. Source: When the cops subpoena your Facebook information, here's what Facebook sends the cops

-- KieranCoe - 07 Apr 2012

 \ No newline at end of file

FacebookIsDangerous 11 - 02 Apr 2012 - Main.RumbidzaiMaweni
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 70 to 70
 The author of the article encourages readers to see the application as instructive regarding internet privacy and protecting ourselves on social networking sites like Facebook.
Changed:
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I, too, like Skylar feel like I've been letting much of this discourse about privacy and the internet pass me by. As Moglen mentioned in class the other day, it very much has been this passive "If I'm not doing anything wrong, what does it matter," attitude on my part. But I also grow frustrated when I try to discuss this topic with people who are adamantly anti-Facebook and other forms of social-networking, because I often do feel that users of these platforms are not given enough credit. I also get the impression that these people assume that Facebook's only uses are for stalking friends and colleagues as entertainment, curing boredom, or for narcissistic, superficial over-sharing. There's little acknowledgement of what a powerful form of community-building it can be, or that our ideas of what imaginary communities we are a part of, and can be active in, has largely shifted as a consequence of these networks. I've long been interested in migration and diaspora communities, and social networking has drastically changed the way people in diaspora communities perceive themselves and their communities. It's not merely the ease of keeping in touch that's important- it is that act of sharing daily thoughts and experiences that's extremely powerful from the perspective of identity formation, remittances, empathy-building, and even planting the seeds for activism.
>
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I, too, like Skylar feel like I've been letting much of this discourse about privacy and the internet pass me by. As Moglen mentioned in class the other day, it very much has been this passive "If I'm not doing anything wrong, what does it matter," attitude on my part. But I also grow frustrated when I try to discuss this topic with people who are adamantly anti-Facebook and other forms of social-networking, because I often do feel that users of these platforms are not given enough credit. I also get the impression that these people assume that Facebook's only uses are for stalking friends and colleagues as entertainment, curing boredom, or for narcissistic, superficial over-sharing. There's little acknowledgement of what a powerful form of community-building it can be, or that our ideas of what imaginary communities we are a part of, and can be active in, has largely shifted as a consequence of these networks. I've long been interested in migration and diaspora communities, and social networking has drastically changed the way people in diaspora communities perceive themselves and their communities. It's not merely the ease of keeping in touch that's important- it is that act of sharing seemingly unimportant daily thoughts and experiences that is extremely powerful from the perspective of identity formation, remittances, empathy-building, and even planting the seeds of activism.
 I realize whether Facebook and similar forms of social networking can be useful is a different question from whether or not Facebook is dangerous from a privacy perspective. I just wish those who frame the debate would more often acknowledge that there are real and immediate positive social interests at stake, beyond 20-somethings wanting to show off their party pictures, that contribute to the complacency some people feel regarding these potential long-term consequences. Maybe if those championing internet privacy gave more credit to those who really do want to find a way to balance behavior in the cyber-realm that contributes to certain positive ends with making a stand for internet re-empowerment, it would go a long way towards making people wake up.

FacebookIsDangerous 10 - 01 Apr 2012 - Main.RumbidzaiMaweni
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 62 to 62
 Elvira, this article is shocking and went well beyond my knowledge of how future employers and schools can use Facebook to collect information. A lawyer quoted in the article, Bradley Shear, made an interesting analogy to the privacy infringement actions of future employers and schools, Shear said, "A good analogy for this [future employers and schools demanding access to Facebook accounts], in the offline world, would it be acceptable for schools to require athletes to bug their off-campus apartments? Does a school have a right to know who all your friends are?"

On the other hand, the article also noted that when Maryland's Department of Corrections forced applicants to surrender their user names and passwords during an interview, that out of 2,689 applicants, they identified 7 applicants whose social media applications had pictures of gang signs, and subsequently did not hire these individuals. Is there ever an appropriate time for agencies and schools to demand that individuals share their social media information, prior to being found in violation of any crime or policy? Forcing 2,689 individuals to surrender their privacy so that 7 alleged gang affiliates can be weeded out, seems a hefty price to pay. \ No newline at end of file

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-- AbiolaFasehun - 29 Feb 2012

I just read an article about a fairly disturbing Facebook application, and thought I'd post it here: http://www.cultofmac.com/157641/this-creepy-app-isnt-just-stalking-women-without-their-knowledge-its-a-wake-up-call-about-facebook-privacy/

The author of the article encourages readers to see the application as instructive regarding internet privacy and protecting ourselves on social networking sites like Facebook.

I, too, like Skylar feel like I've been letting much of this discourse about privacy and the internet pass me by. As Moglen mentioned in class the other day, it very much has been this passive "If I'm not doing anything wrong, what does it matter," attitude on my part. But I also grow frustrated when I try to discuss this topic with people who are adamantly anti-Facebook and other forms of social-networking, because I often do feel that users of these platforms are not given enough credit. I also get the impression that these people assume that Facebook's only uses are for stalking friends and colleagues as entertainment, curing boredom, or for narcissistic, superficial over-sharing. There's little acknowledgement of what a powerful form of community-building it can be, or that our ideas of what imaginary communities we are a part of, and can be active in, has largely shifted as a consequence of these networks. I've long been interested in migration and diaspora communities, and social networking has drastically changed the way people in diaspora communities perceive themselves and their communities. It's not merely the ease of keeping in touch that's important- it is that act of sharing daily thoughts and experiences that's extremely powerful from the perspective of identity formation, remittances, empathy-building, and even planting the seeds for activism.

I realize whether Facebook and similar forms of social networking can be useful is a different question from whether or not Facebook is dangerous from a privacy perspective. I just wish those who frame the debate would more often acknowledge that there are real and immediate positive social interests at stake, beyond 20-somethings wanting to show off their party pictures, that contribute to the complacency some people feel regarding these potential long-term consequences. Maybe if those championing internet privacy gave more credit to those who really do want to find a way to balance behavior in the cyber-realm that contributes to certain positive ends with making a stand for internet re-empowerment, it would go a long way towards making people wake up.

-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 01 Apr 2012


FacebookIsDangerous 9 - 08 Mar 2012 - Main.AbiolaFasehun
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 55 to 55
 I just never was particularly concerned about the possible ramifications of having a Facebook because I always felt as thoufgh A) everyone has a Facebook and what is on mine can't be that much worse than anyone else's and B) I wouldn't want to work at or go to school at a place that did not want me based on the content on my Facebook. To me it seems that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.
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-- ElviraKras
 Skylar, I edited out the question you referred to in your post, but for those following along the question asked if people will ever take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we have a right to re-empowered as to how our information is used. I was interested in the idea of people taking action, in any form, to demand changes in the way their information is being used. I think that by attending the SOPA lunch time discussion you were taking a step in the right direction. I too have been inspired to attempt to better understand the way the internet works and will be taking a one day workshop on web development and coding during spring break.

Elvira, this article is shocking and went well beyond my knowledge of how future employers and schools can use Facebook to collect information. A lawyer quoted in the article, Bradley Shear, made an interesting analogy to the privacy infringement actions of future employers and schools, Shear said, "A good analogy for this [future employers and schools demanding access to Facebook accounts], in the offline world, would it be acceptable for schools to require athletes to bug their off-campus apartments? Does a school have a right to know who all your friends are?"


FacebookIsDangerous 8 - 08 Mar 2012 - Main.AbiolaFasehun
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 56 to 56
 I just never was particularly concerned about the possible ramifications of having a Facebook because I always felt as thoufgh A) everyone has a Facebook and what is on mine can't be that much worse than anyone else's and B) I wouldn't want to work at or go to school at a place that did not want me based on the content on my Facebook. To me it seems that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.


Changed:
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Skylar, I edited out the question you referred to in your post, but for those following along the question asked if people will ever take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we be re-empowered?
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Skylar, I edited out the question you referred to in your post, but for those following along the question asked if people will ever take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we have a right to re-empowered as to how our information is used. I was interested in the idea of people taking action, in any form, to demand changes in the way their information is being used. I think that by attending the SOPA lunch time discussion you were taking a step in the right direction. I too have been inspired to attempt to better understand the way the internet works and will be taking a one day workshop on web development and coding during spring break.
 
Changed:
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Essentially what I attempted to get at with my question is the idea of people taking action, in any form, to demand changes in the way their information is being used. I think that by attending the SOPA lunch time discussion you were taking a step in the right direction. I too have been inspired to attempt to better understand the internet's communication architecture and will be taking a one day workshop on coding and building a website during spring break.
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Elvira, this article is shocking and went well beyond my knowledge of how future employers and schools can use Facebook to collect information. A lawyer quoted in the article, Bradley Shear, made an interesting analogy to the privacy infringement actions of future employers and schools, Shear said, "A good analogy for this [future employers and schools demanding access to Facebook accounts], in the offline world, would it be acceptable for schools to require athletes to bug their off-campus apartments? Does a school have a right to know who all your friends are?"
 
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Elvira, this article is shocking and went well beyond my knowledge of how the government, employers, and schools can use Facebook. A lawyer quoted in the article, Bradley Shear, made a strong point in regards to the privacy infringement of the government, employers, and schools actions, Shear said, "A good analogy for this, in the offline world, would it be acceptable for schools to require athletes to bug their off-campus apartments? Does a school have a right to know who all your friends are?"

On the other hand, the article also noted that when Maryland's Department of Corrections forced applicants to surrender their user names and passwords during the interview, that out of 2,689 applicants, they identified 7 applicants whose social media applications had pictures of gang signs. Is there ever an appropriate time for agencies and schools to demand that individuals share their social media information, prior to being found in violation of any crime or policy? Surrendering the privacy of 2,689 individuals to find 7 alleged gang affiliates, seems a hefty price to pay.

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On the other hand, the article also noted that when Maryland's Department of Corrections forced applicants to surrender their user names and passwords during an interview, that out of 2,689 applicants, they identified 7 applicants whose social media applications had pictures of gang signs, and subsequently did not hire these individuals. Is there ever an appropriate time for agencies and schools to demand that individuals share their social media information, prior to being found in violation of any crime or policy? Forcing 2,689 individuals to surrender their privacy so that 7 alleged gang affiliates can be weeded out, seems a hefty price to pay.
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FacebookIsDangerous 7 - 07 Mar 2012 - Main.AbiolaFasehun
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
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 -- SanjayMurti - 08 Feb 2012
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I am joining this conversation a little late, but one of the things that I find interesting in the Facebook debate, is the lack of credit that Facebook users are given. I realize that I am probably in the minority, but I feel that I am very conscious of the fact that really nothing I put on Facebook is ever really "private" in the traditional sense (and yes I too resisted a Facebook account for years). Sanjay makes an interesting point about how far this problem stretches, but in analyzing Facebook's user implications, I also think it is important to remember why people have Facebook accounts. I know this doesn't speak to necessarily everyone, but I don't believe it would be a stretch to say that for the most part- man is a narcissist. Facebook users want people to be able to find them, look at their super cool pictures, their awesome friends, and know about that fabulous job they just landed. People want to be able to connect with others for platonic and not so platonic reasons, as well as make announcements to the world about who they are. Through lack of hindsight, they don't really want to be bothered by the details. I believe it is fair to say that a good amount of people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites can track where they've been and create formulas to ascertain suggestions on future internet use. I think if anything, the danger occurs in the public's general lack of understanding of how deep this tracking system extends and how the information can be used against them.
>
>
I am joining this conversation a little late, but one of the things that I find interesting in the Facebook debate, is the lack of credit that Facebook users are given. I realize that I am probably in the minority, but I feel that I am very conscious of the fact that really nothing I put on Facebook is ever really "private" in the traditional sense (and yes I too resisted a Facebook account for years). Sanjay makes an interesting point about how far this problem stretches, but in analyzing Facebook's user implications, I also think it is important to remember why people have Facebook accounts. I know this doesn't speak to necessarily everyone, but Facebook users want people to be able to find them, look at their pictures, their friends, and know about that fabulous job they just landed. People want to be able to connect with others for platonic and not so platonic reasons, as well as make announcements to the world about who they are. Perhaps due to lack of hindsight, people don't really want to be bothered by the details. I believe it is fair to say that a good amount of people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites can track where they've been and create formulas to ascertain suggestions on future internet use. Perhaps the danger occurs in the public's general lack of how the information can be used against them.
 
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I do agree with Harry's point that the world needs another option. But I think more likely what will happen is that just as some may say that Facebook took over MySpace? , there will be another tech company that takes over Facebook, rendering Facebook obsolete and still leaving us with one popular option. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he said, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." I believe this quote sheds light on the importance of properly educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. But at what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and at least putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?

I am not a tech wiz, and from reading Moglen's speech I was assured of how naive my understanding of the web is. Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech gave me an abbreviated history of how technology has gotten to the point where it is now. But more importantly, Moglen's speech left me wondering, if the extent of the problem is so vast, when will people demand more transparency? Beyond protesting against wars and violent crimes, when will people take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we be re-empowered?

>
>
I do agree with Harry's point that America needs another option. But just as Facebook could be viewed as having taken over MySpace? , there will be another tech company that takes over Facebook, rendering Facebook obsolete and still leaving the public with one popular option. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he discusses the flaws in the networks we use, but remarks that all is not lost, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." Moglen's speech served as a brief education on how information on the web is collected and can serve as a cautionary tale for educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. If the extent of the problem is so vast, when will we reach the point to where people demand more transparency? At what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?
 -- AbiolaFasehun - 28 Feb 2012
Line: 55 to 53
 Just read this article this morning and found it pretty disturbing: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10585353-govt-agencies-colleges-demand-applicants-facebook-passwords?fb_ref=.T1YiipFoURA.like&fb_source=home_oneline
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I just never was particularly concerned about the possible ramifications of having a Facebook because I always felt as though A) everyone has a Facebook and what is on mine can't be that much worse than anyone else's and B) I wouldn't want to work at or go to school at a place that did not want me based on the content on my Facebook. To me it seems that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.
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I just never was particularly concerned about the possible ramifications of having a Facebook because I always felt as thoufgh A) everyone has a Facebook and what is on mine can't be that much worse than anyone else's and B) I wouldn't want to work at or go to school at a place that did not want me based on the content on my Facebook. To me it seems that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.


Skylar, I edited out the question you referred to in your post, but for those following along the question asked if people will ever take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we be re-empowered?

Essentially what I attempted to get at with my question is the idea of people taking action, in any form, to demand changes in the way their information is being used. I think that by attending the SOPA lunch time discussion you were taking a step in the right direction. I too have been inspired to attempt to better understand the internet's communication architecture and will be taking a one day workshop on coding and building a website during spring break.

Elvira, this article is shocking and went well beyond my knowledge of how the government, employers, and schools can use Facebook. A lawyer quoted in the article, Bradley Shear, made a strong point in regards to the privacy infringement of the government, employers, and schools actions, Shear said, "A good analogy for this, in the offline world, would it be acceptable for schools to require athletes to bug their off-campus apartments? Does a school have a right to know who all your friends are?"

On the other hand, the article also noted that when Maryland's Department of Corrections forced applicants to surrender their user names and passwords during the interview, that out of 2,689 applicants, they identified 7 applicants whose social media applications had pictures of gang signs. Is there ever an appropriate time for agencies and schools to demand that individuals share their social media information, prior to being found in violation of any crime or policy? Surrendering the privacy of 2,689 individuals to find 7 alleged gang affiliates, seems a hefty price to pay.

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FacebookIsDangerous 6 - 06 Mar 2012 - Main.ElviraKras
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
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 What scares me most about our recent discussions in class is my participation in/passive acceptance of injustice and/or the terrifying things I see and hear about the world. Thus far my approach to my fear of technological dystopia I see us heading towards, is to remain as unaware of it as possible. Aside from gmail, facebook, and the occasional Wikipedia search, I legitimately do not use the internet, and pride myself on how little I understand it. But it’s happening without me and eventually it will effect me. Even though the result of the SOPA debate was moot, its prevalence in the news, combined with the fear elicited in me via our discussions in Law in Contemporary Society sparked me to start paying attention. Going to a debate in a law school classroom is far from going to the streets, but it’s at least a step.

-- SkylarPolansky - 29 Feb 2012 \ No newline at end of file

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>
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Just read this article this morning and found it pretty disturbing: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10585353-govt-agencies-colleges-demand-applicants-facebook-passwords?fb_ref=.T1YiipFoURA.like&fb_source=home_oneline

I just never was particularly concerned about the possible ramifications of having a Facebook because I always felt as though A) everyone has a Facebook and what is on mine can't be that much worse than anyone else's and B) I wouldn't want to work at or go to school at a place that did not want me based on the content on my Facebook. To me it seems that employers and schools that are demanding usernames and passwords are engaging in a very particular form of voyeurism rather than in any useful applicant vetting process.

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FacebookIsDangerous 5 - 29 Feb 2012 - Main.SkylarPolansky
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
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 I do agree with Harry's point that the world needs another option. But I think more likely what will happen is that just as some may say that Facebook took over MySpace? , there will be another tech company that takes over Facebook, rendering Facebook obsolete and still leaving us with one popular option. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he said, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." I believe this quote sheds light on the importance of properly educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. But at what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and at least putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?

I am not a tech wiz, and from reading Moglen's speech I was assured of how naive my understanding of the web is. Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech gave me an abbreviated history of how technology has gotten to the point where it is now. But more importantly, Moglen's speech left me wondering, if the extent of the problem is so vast, when will people demand more transparency? Beyond protesting against wars and violent crimes, when will people take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we be re-empowered? \ No newline at end of file

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-- AbiolaFasehun - 28 Feb 2012

In response to your question Abiola - I don’t know what it will take for people to take to the streets and demand internet re-empowerment but I think the first step is certainly being vocal. I believe one benefit of the recent SOPA debate is that it moderately raised the public awareness of the fact that we are clients of the internet. I am not a technology whiz either, but after listening to Professor Moglen talk about SOPA and ACTA in class I have started to pay more attention. Yesterday I went to the lunchtime debate re: SOPA, Protect IP, and OPEN. I know it was basically listening to the equivalent of two live advertisements alternatively for or against anti-piracy laws, but attending an event re: current events, and actually taking an active role in obtaining knowledge about a technological current event is huge for me. I don’t understand most technology and mostly it scares me how pervasive it is.

I approach most technology with the idea that one day we will turn into a form of the world described by Gary Shteyngart’s in Super Sad True Love Story. If you’ve never read the book, Shteyngart depicts a futuristic dystopia where everybody has apparatii (essentially iphones) through which they conduct all activity (social interactions, shopping, reading, playing games, listening to music, etc.). Because all human activity is conducted via these electronic instruments, large companies collect and combine the data with their marketing expertise to subversively psychologically influence America.

What scares me most about our recent discussions in class is my participation in/passive acceptance of injustice and/or the terrifying things I see and hear about the world. Thus far my approach to my fear of technological dystopia I see us heading towards, is to remain as unaware of it as possible. Aside from gmail, facebook, and the occasional Wikipedia search, I legitimately do not use the internet, and pride myself on how little I understand it. But it’s happening without me and eventually it will effect me. Even though the result of the SOPA debate was moot, its prevalence in the news, combined with the fear elicited in me via our discussions in Law in Contemporary Society sparked me to start paying attention. Going to a debate in a law school classroom is far from going to the streets, but it’s at least a step.

-- SkylarPolansky - 29 Feb 2012

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FacebookIsDangerous 4 - 28 Feb 2012 - Main.AbiolaFasehun
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
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I think this analysis is largely correct, though I think, for reasons I will be discussing in my other course in coming weeks, the Facebook coverage has been anemic and uninformative in the extreme, and your relative indifference to this among other privacy problems is misplaced. Your point, however, that Facebook is merely part of a larger failure in the Net to be robust against attacks on privacy and freedom is surely correct. Hence I agree with you that solving the Facebook problem is one necessary rather than the sufficient condition for remediation of the problem overall. For my diagnosis of the problem overall, and the beginning of my working through a possible solution, see my Freedom in the Cloud.

-- SanjayMurti - 08 Feb 2012 \ No newline at end of file

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I am joining this conversation a little late, but one of the things that I find interesting in the Facebook debate, is the lack of credit that Facebook users are given. I realize that I am probably in the minority, but I feel that I am very conscious of the fact that really nothing I put on Facebook is ever really "private" in the traditional sense (and yes I too resisted a Facebook account for years). Sanjay makes an interesting point about how far this problem stretches, but in analyzing Facebook's user implications, I also think it is important to remember why people have Facebook accounts. I know this doesn't speak to necessarily everyone, but I don't believe it would be a stretch to say that for the most part- man is a narcissist. Facebook users want people to be able to find them, look at their super cool pictures, their awesome friends, and know about that fabulous job they just landed. People want to be able to connect with others for platonic and not so platonic reasons, as well as make announcements to the world about who they are. Through lack of hindsight, they don't really want to be bothered by the details. I believe it is fair to say that a good amount of people do not mind "Facebook exposure" and are not naive to the fact that through Facebook other websites can track where they've been and create formulas to ascertain suggestions on future internet use. I think if anything, the danger occurs in the public's general lack of understanding of how deep this tracking system extends and how the information can be used against them.

I do agree with Harry's point that the world needs another option. But I think more likely what will happen is that just as some may say that Facebook took over MySpace? , there will be another tech company that takes over Facebook, rendering Facebook obsolete and still leaving us with one popular option. In Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech, he said, "It's not a pretty story...We haven't lost. We've just really bamboozled ourselves. And we're going to have to unbamboozle ourselves really quickly or we're going to bamboozle a bunch of innocent people who didn't know we were throwing away their privacy for them forever." I believe this quote sheds light on the importance of properly educating individuals about the extent to which their collected information is used. But at what point should we hold users accountable for performing due diligence, and at least putting in some effort to find out how their information is used?

I am not a tech wiz, and from reading Moglen's speech I was assured of how naive my understanding of the web is. Moglen's Freedom in the Cloud speech gave me an abbreviated history of how technology has gotten to the point where it is now. But more importantly, Moglen's speech left me wondering, if the extent of the problem is so vast, when will people demand more transparency? Beyond protesting against wars and violent crimes, when will people take to the streets to demand that as internet "clients" we be re-empowered?

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FacebookIsDangerous 3 - 07 Feb 2012 - Main.EbenMoglen
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 32 to 32
 I'm running a bit late for school today, so I'll stop here and try to finish this this afternoon, but the general point is that getting off Facebook doesn't seem to cure any real privacy issues. Is it better? Sure. Is it a solution? Not really.
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I think this analysis is largely correct, though I think, for reasons I will be discussing in my other course in coming weeks, the Facebook coverage has been anemic and uninformative in the extreme, and your relative indifference to this among other privacy problems is misplaced. Your point, however, that Facebook is merely part of a larger failure in the Net to be robust against attacks on privacy and freedom is surely correct. Hence I agree with you that solving the Facebook problem is one necessary rather than the sufficient condition for remediation of the problem overall. For my diagnosis of the problem overall, and the beginning of my working through a possible solution, see my Freedom in the Cloud.
 -- SanjayMurti - 08 Feb 2012 \ No newline at end of file

FacebookIsDangerous 2 - 07 Feb 2012 - Main.SanjayMurti
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.
Line: 21 to 21
 Maybe you don't care if Facebook or law enforcement can track where you are at any given moment. But if the world someday becomes a place where you do care, by then it might be too late to do anything about it.

-- HarryKhanna - 07 Feb 2012

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>

I may be in the minority on this, but I've always felt the Facebook coverage was a bit sensationalistic. If you have privacy concerns, yes, the best move is to get off Facebook, deactivate (and try to delete) your account, and convince everyone you know to stop using it. The problem is that most of these privacy issues aren't relegated to Facebook. They permeate almost all of the web as we know it. I will concede that Facebook does a particularly (and perhaps intentionally) poor job at offering clear, easy-to-use privacy settings.

First, this is in the realm of "truth vs. accuracy," but it feels relevant to note that Photo DNA (by Microsoft) is not the same as facial recognition (which Facebook also has). Photo DNA allows Facebook to track versions of the same photo, not people. As deployed now, it finds and tracks known images of child pornography when posted on Facebook. Obviously, Facebook does have facial recognition software that raises privacy concerns - you see it every time you tag a photo and it suggests your friends for you - but I'm not aware of any evidence that it is being used for a nefarious purpose (or to aid law enforcement). It may have been, I'm just not aware of it.

Second, Facebook is hardly the only data privacy problem on the web. To free yourself of similar risks, you'd pretty much need to change the way you interact with the Internet altogether. For one, the majority of us use free hosted email (Gmail, predominantly, I'd imagine). I'd venture to guess that more private, relevant data is exchanged through email than through Facebook, especially given that most people see Gmail as a completely private place and Facebook as at least a somewhat public place. Outside of running your own email server (which isn't feasible for a sizable segment of users), there's little way to prevent email providers from doing the same things with your data that Facebook could. Even if you did, you'd still likely be emailing people who have Gmail or Yahoo mail accounts, and your data would still end up on their servers.

I'm running a bit late for school today, so I'll stop here and try to finish this this afternoon, but the general point is that getting off Facebook doesn't seem to cure any real privacy issues. Is it better? Sure. Is it a solution? Not really.

-- SanjayMurti - 08 Feb 2012

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FacebookIsDangerous 1 - 07 Feb 2012 - Main.HarryKhanna
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META TOPICPARENT name="LawContempSoc"

Facebook is Dangerous

I ran into this article where Eben describes Facebook as analgous to a "man in the middle" attack that a hacker might employ to intercept apparently private communication for nefarious purposes. I think Eben's analogy is spot on: this isn't a technical hack, this is a social hack, and it amazes me how oblivious we are to the increasing damage Facebook is inflicting on our privacy and the danger it can pose to people who are deemed "criminals" wanted by law enforcement.

At the end of the article, the author Dan Tynan challenges Eben's metaphor. I disagree with Tynan, and I want to quickly respond to his points.

Dan Tynan: A true MITM attack happens without either party knowing about it. When’s the last time you used Facebook without knowing about it, or been forced to use it against your will?
Every day. Every mainstream news website, most blogs, and virtually all shopping websites have Facebook "Like" buttons which can be used to track your activity on that site even if you don't touch the "Like" button. You can't go anywhere on the internet without accessing Facebook's servers, whether or not you even have a Facebook account.

Dan Tynan: You have no control over the data the MITM attacker collects. You have some controls over what Facebook collects.
No, you have the illusion of control. Just because you can turn off what you 'share' on your account doesn't mean that Facebook isn't collecting the data and turning it over to anyone who requests it without a warrant.

Action

I think Facebook is garbage. I didn't have an account for years because of the concern I had for my (and others') privacy. The problem is that our colleagues at the law school send out invitations to events only on Facebook. If you don't have a Facebook account, you miss out on invitations to sweet parties.

One way we can start to solve this problem is by refusing to use Facebook to send out event invitations. Can the Student Senate can create a policy that their events will not be publicized on Facebook? Are there Senators in this class that can make this happen? Let's take action to reduce the utility of Facebook on our campus and make it easier for people to deactivate their accounts.

If you think that you can just deactivate your own account and everything will be fine, you are wrong: the scariest part about what Facebook is becoming is their "Photo DNA" which identifies people by pictures that are uploaded of you even if you are not tagged and even if you don't have a Facebook account. That's why it's important to get everyone to deactivate their accounts or at the very least stop uploading pictures to Facebook.

Maybe you don't care if Facebook or law enforcement can track where you are at any given moment. But if the world someday becomes a place where you do care, by then it might be too late to do anything about it.

-- HarryKhanna - 07 Feb 2012


Revision 20r20 - 22 Jan 2013 - 18:10:01 - IanSullivan
Revision 19r19 - 19 Apr 2012 - 15:32:48 - MinKyungLee
Revision 18r18 - 19 Apr 2012 - 15:21:55 - HarryKhanna
Revision 17r17 - 16 Apr 2012 - 18:17:01 - ElviraKras
Revision 16r16 - 16 Apr 2012 - 17:42:58 - TomaLivshiz
Revision 15r15 - 08 Apr 2012 - 21:22:00 - HarryKhanna
Revision 14r14 - 08 Apr 2012 - 20:43:02 - KieranCoe
Revision 13r13 - 08 Apr 2012 - 00:10:05 - HarryKhanna
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