Group items tagged

This is a PDF file of a chapter taken from a book that contains essays on many issues that arise from "big data." This chapter specifically pertains to our privacy versus security debate because it provides reasons as to why bulk data collection does not work as well as alternative options to mass surveillance.

With the shutdown of the silk road, the NSA has proven that it is monitoring even the most anonymous parts of the web. This raises some serious questions. Is anything that we do online really "private?"

It's a little depressing, isn't it? One solution would be stronger oversight for the NSA. We could assume they can see everything, but have stronger assurances that they're using that power responsibly.

A breakdown of the bill of rights and how much each amendment has been given up to the government. Pretty terrifying.

This website discusses procedure and purpose of encrypting sensitive data over the internet. SSL is a protocol which "determines variables of the encryption" being used to protect information from first names to credit card numbers. This website also tells you how to determine whether or not a website is secure or if your information is vulnerable. In addition, there is another page that delves into the mathematics and actual cryptography procedures behind online encryption like RSA and ECC.

Discusses some of the points we brought up in class and provides statistics, but data is from 2013 and could potentially show the effects of events in the past two years when combined with Abbey's post

This article goes over America's security and privacy trade-off, especially after 9/11. The author argues that we have done an excellent job keeping a balance between these two approaches and, while actions such as the Paris attack may make us question if we should add more security, there is no reason to take away the privacy we have as since 9/11 we have been doing a good job of valuing both of these aspects.

Today's New York Times features a debate of sorts over the value of increased surveillance after the Paris attacks. Click through for five different views on this complex issue.

"Richard, 10, has made this Bombe machine out of Lego, complete with wires on the back."

And here's the collection of tweets from me, @maddagaska, and Cory Doctor about the choice of terms "security" and "surveillance."

This blog is all about privacy, as the title suggests. The majority of the blog posts use actual examples, such as the Ashley Madison hack, in order to reveal important cybersecurity lessons. One particular blog post explains how Passages, a secure virtual browser, is a lot like hand sanitizer for the web. I thought that this blog was particularly interesting because it had a lot of relevant, unique examples about privacy and cryptography in the modern world.

Blackberry to stop operating in Pakistan because of government requests to monitor customer data. https://t.co/8kBg6QCEAF #fywscrypto - Derek Bruff (@derekbruff) December 1, 2015

Basic list of school security measures taken from NCES government website

Study discussing the function and practicality of gait recognition software. The results seem to follow what Doctorow states about the function of the software in his novel

This article discusses the use of RFIDs to track students, and the benefits of this practice, especially with small children.

Interesting how this article talks about the gait analysis being used for catching terrorists, while in Little Brother, it was used to keep track of the high school students. The technology is not quite ready to be used, but seems to be much more reliable than the gait trackers in the book.

Georgia Tech Research Institute is making gait recognition technology a reality. "The ultimate goal is to detect, classify and identify humans at distances up to 500 feet away under day or night, all-weather conditions. Such capabilities will enhance the protection of U.S. forces and facilities from terrorist attacks."

Super useful!! Talks about the expansion of state power over cyber surveillance with the Patriot Act.

Any sensitive information that could be accessed by hackers should be encrypted, especially when communicating over wireless networks. Make sure to keep your private key confidential.

This article, combined with the guide to staying completely anonymous on the internet linked at the end of it, suggest that one of the easiest ways to be anonymous online is to use a private browser like Ghostery, or a private search engine like DuckDuckGo. These services don't track your information the same way that Google does, making your online browsing experience more private and secure.