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Weiye Loh

IPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4694004576020083703574602.html

Mobile Privacy

shared by Weiye Loh on 19 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off.
  • An examination of 101 popular smartphone "apps"—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.
  • The findings reveal the intrusive effort by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • iPhone apps transmitted more data than the apps on phones using Google Inc.'s Android operating system. Because of the test's size, it's not known if the pattern holds among the hundreds of thousands of apps available.
  • TextPlus 4, a popular iPhone app for text messaging. It sent the phone's unique ID number to eight ad companies and the phone's zip code, along with the user's age and gender, to two of them.
  • Pandora, a popular music app, sent age, gender, location and phone identifiers to various ad networks. iPhone and Android versions of a game called Paper Toss—players try to throw paper wads into a trash can—each sent the phone's ID number to at least five ad companies. Grindr, an iPhone app for meeting gay men, sent gender, location and phone ID to three ad companies.
  • iPhone maker Apple Inc. says it reviews each app before offering it to users. Both Apple and Google say they protect users by requiring apps to obtain permission before revealing certain kinds of information, such as location.
  • The Journal found that these rules can be skirted. One iPhone app, Pumpkin Maker (a pumpkin-carving game), transmits location to an ad network without asking permission. Apple declines to comment on whether the app violated its rules.
  • With few exceptions, app users can't "opt out" of phone tracking, as is possible, in limited form, on regular computers. On computers it is also possible to block or delete "cookies," which are tiny tracking files. These techniques generally don't work on cellphone apps.
  • makers of TextPlus 4, Pandora and Grindr say the data they pass on to outside firms isn't linked to an individual's name. Personal details such as age and gender are volunteered by users, they say. The maker of Pumpkin Maker says he didn't know Apple required apps to seek user approval before transmitting location. The maker of Paper Toss didn't respond to requests for comment.
  • Many apps don't offer even a basic form of consumer protection: written privacy policies. Forty-five of the 101 apps didn't provide privacy policies on their websites or inside the apps at the time of testing. Neither Apple nor Google requires app privacy policies.
  • the most widely shared detail was the unique ID number assigned to every phone.
  • On iPhones, this number is the "UDID," or Unique Device Identifier. Android IDs go by other names. These IDs are set by phone makers, carriers or makers of the operating system, and typically can't be blocked or deleted. "The great thing about mobile is you can't clear a UDID like you can a cookie," says Meghan O'Holleran of Traffic Marketplace, an Internet ad network that is expanding into mobile apps. "That's how we track everything."
  • O'Holleran says Traffic Marketplace, a unit of Epic Media Group, monitors smartphone users whenever it can. "We watch what apps you download, how frequently you use them, how much time you spend on them, how deep into the app you go," she says. She says the data is aggregated and not linked to an individual.
  • Apple and Google ad networks let advertisers target groups of users. Both companies say they don't track individuals based on the way they use apps.
  • Apple limits what can be installed on an iPhone by requiring iPhone apps to be offered exclusively through its App Store. Apple reviews those apps for function, offensiveness and other criteria.
  • Apple says iPhone apps "cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user's prior permission and providing the user with access to information about how and where the data will be used." Many apps tested by the Journal appeared to violate that rule, by sending a user's location to ad networks, without informing users. Apple declines to discuss how it interprets or enforces the policy.
  • Google doesn't review the apps, which can be downloaded from many vendors. Google says app makers "bear the responsibility for how they handle user information." Google requires Android apps to notify users, before they download the app, of the data sources the app intends to access. Possible sources include the phone's camera, memory, contact list, and more than 100 others. If users don't like what a particular app wants to access, they can choose not to install the app, Google says.
  • Neither Apple nor Google requires apps to ask permission to access some forms of the device ID, or to send it to outsiders. When smartphone users let an app see their location, apps generally don't disclose if they will pass the location to ad companies.
  • Lack of standard practices means different companies treat the same information differently. For example, Apple says that, internally, it treats the iPhone's UDID as "personally identifiable information." That's because, Apple says, it can be combined with other personal details about people—such as names or email addresses—that Apple has via the App Store or its iTunes music services. By contrast, Google and most app makers don't consider device IDs to be identifying information.
  • A growing industry is assembling this data into profiles of cellphone users. Mobclix, the ad exchange, matches more than 25 ad networks with some 15,000 apps seeking advertisers. The Palo Alto, Calif., company collects phone IDs, encodes them (to obscure the number), and assigns them to interest categories based on what apps people download and how much time they spend using an app, among other factors. By tracking a phone's location, Mobclix also makes a "best guess" of where a person lives, says Mr. Gurbuxani, the Mobclix executive. Mobclix then matches that location with spending and demographic data from Nielsen Co.
  • Mobclix can place a user in one of 150 "segments" it offers to advertisers, from "green enthusiasts" to "soccer moms." For example, "die hard gamers" are 15-to-25-year-old males with more than 20 apps on their phones who use an app for more than 20 minutes at a time. Mobclix says its system is powerful, but that its categories are broad enough to not identify individuals. "It's about how you track people better," Mr. Gurbuxani says.
  • four app makers posted privacy policies after being contacted by the Journal, including Rovio Mobile Ltd., the Finnish company behind the popular game Angry Birds (in which birds battle egg-snatching pigs). A spokesman says Rovio had been working on the policy, and the Journal inquiry made it a good time to unveil it.
  • Free and paid versions of Angry Birds were tested on an iPhone. The apps sent the phone's UDID and location to the Chillingo unit of Electronic Arts Inc., which markets the games. Chillingo says it doesn't use the information for advertising and doesn't share it with outsiders.
  • Some developers feel pressure to release more data about people. Max Binshtok, creator of the DailyHoroscope Android app, says ad-network executives encouraged him to transmit users' locations. Mr. Binshtok says he declined because of privacy concerns. But ads targeted by location bring in two to five times as much money as untargeted ads, Mr. Binshtok says. "We are losing a lot of revenue."
  • Apple targets ads to phone users based largely on what it knows about them through its App Store and iTunes music service. The targeting criteria can include the types of songs, videos and apps a person downloads, according to an Apple ad presentation reviewed by the Journal. The presentation named 103 targeting categories, including: karaoke, Christian/gospel music, anime, business news, health apps, games and horror movies. People familiar with iAd say Apple doesn't track what users do inside apps and offers advertisers broad categories of people, not specific individuals. Apple has signaled that it has ideas for targeting people more closely. In a patent application filed this past May, Apple outlined a system for placing and pricing ads based on a person's "web history or search history" and "the contents of a media library." For example, home-improvement advertisers might pay more to reach a person who downloaded do-it-yourself TV shows, the document says.
  • The patent application also lists another possible way to target people with ads: the contents of a friend's media library. How would Apple learn who a cellphone user's friends are, and what kinds of media they prefer? The patent says Apple could tap "known connections on one or more social-networking websites" or "publicly available information or private databases describing purchasing decisions, brand preferences," and other data. In September, Apple introduced a social-networking service within iTunes, called Ping, that lets users share music preferences with friends. Apple declined to comment.
Weiye Loh

Twitter unmasks anonymous British user in landmark legal battle | Technology | The Guar... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...er-anonymous-user-legal-battle

Twitter Injunction Law Privacy Censorship

shared by Weiye Loh on 29 May 11 - No Cached
  • Giggs brought the lawsuit at the high court in London and the move to use California courts is likely to be seen as a landmark moment in the internet privacy battle.Ahmed Khan, the south Tyneside councillor accused of being the author of the pseudonymous Twitter accounts, described the council's move as "Orwellian". Khan received an email from Twitter earlier this month informing him that the site had handed over his personal information. He denies being the author of the allegedly defamatory material.
  • Khan said the information Twitter handed over was "just a great long list of numbers". The subpeona ordered Twitter to hand over 30 pieces of information relating to several Twitter accounts, including @fatcouncillor and @ahmedkhan01."I don't fully understand it but it all relates to my Twitter account and it not only breaches my human rights, but it potentially breaches the human rights of anyone who has ever sent me a message on Twitter.
  • He added: "I was never even told they were taking this case to court in California. The first I heard was when Twitter contacted me. I had just 14 days to defend the case and I was expected to fly 6,000 miles and hire my own lawyer – all at my expense."Even if they unmask this blogger, what does the council hope to achieve ? The person or persons concerned is simply likely to declare bankruptcy and the council won't recover any money it has spent."
Meenatchi

Top Internet Threats: Censorship to Warrantless Surveillance - 4 views

Article Summary: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/wireds-top-inte/ The article talks about several Internet threats comprising government surveillance and the loss of users' privacy throu...

Surveillance privacy DPI behavioral advertising

started by Meenatchi on 08 Sep 09 no follow-up yet
Chen Guo Lim

Anti plagiarism is (un)ethical - 20 views

I think there is a need to investigate the motivation behind using these softwares. Suppose a writer has recently come across an article that seemingly have plagiarised, thus using the software to ...

Turnitin plagiarism

started by Weiye Loh on 21 Aug 09 4 follow-ups, last by Chen Guo Lim on 26 Aug 09
Weiye Loh

American Airlines worker fired for replying to web user complaint - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...ing-to-web-user-complaint.html

Privacy Anonymity

shared by Weiye Loh on 27 Nov 09 - Cached
  • American Airlines has been caught in a row over customer engagement after it fired a contract worker for responding to a complaint about their website.
  • Mr Curtis, an American web designer, was unimpressed by his experience using the the AA.com website, and made that clear in a lengthy open letter to the company on his blog, complete with a suggested redesign of the homepage (see the gallery above), saying he would be “ashamed” of the site. He also suggested that they fire their design team.
  • Mr X, a web designer, responded to the letter, saying in a long email that Mr Curtis was "so very right" about the problems of the website, but that it was less to do with staff incompetence and more to do with the internal culture of the airline. Mr X also told Mr Curtis that they were improving the website, but that it was a slow process. By speaking to Mr Curtis, however, Mr X was in breach of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he had signed with AA, barring him from revealing sensitive information.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • after bosses at American Airlines became aware of Mr X's response, they searched through their email database, found his identity and fired him for a breach of the NDA. Mr Curtis says he is "horrified" at Mr X's treatment. He said on his blog: "AA fired Mr X because he cared. They fired him because he cared enough to reach out to a dissatisfied customer and help clear the company's name in the best way he could."
Weiye Loh

Too Much Information - Gareth Evans - Project Syndicate - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...English

Wikileaks Government Law

shared by Weiye Loh on 28 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • But some lines do have to be drawn if good government is to be possible, just as a zone of privacy in our personal and family lives is crucial to sustaining the relationships that matter most to us.
  • Some of WikiLeaks’ releases of sensitive material have been perfectly defensible on classic freedom-of-information grounds, exposing abuses that might otherwise have remained concealed. The helicopter gunship killings in Iraq, the corruption of former Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s family, and the paucity of progress in Afghanistan are, by this standard, fair game. None of this makes Julian Assange a Daniel Ellsberg (who 40 years ago leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US-government thinking on Vietnam). Nor does it put him in the same league with Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading journalist who was murdered after refusing to stop investigating Russian human rights abuses. His stated motives seem too anarchic for that. Sometimes, however, whistles do need to be blown.
  • But some leaks are indefensible, and at least the sources must expect some punitive reckoning. This category includes leaks that put intelligence sources or other individuals at physical risk (as did some of WikiLeaks’ early releases on Afghanistan and Zimbabwe). It also includes leaks that genuinely prejudice intelligence methods and military operational effectiveness; expose exploratory positions in peace negotiations (invariably helping only spoilers); or disclose bottom lines in trade talks. What is clear in all of these cases is that the stakes are so high that it simply cannot be left to the judgment of WikiLeaks and media outlets to make the necessary calls without consulting relevant officials. Sensibly, US officials facilitated such consultations, on a “without prejudice” basis, in some of the early WikiLeaks cases.
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  • The trickiest cases are in a third category: private conversations whose disclosure is bound to cause offense, embarrassment, or tension, but has no obvious redeeming public-policy justification. The problem is not that negative things are said behind closed doors – as one leader famously responded to an apologizing Hillary Clinton, “You should hear what we say about you” – but that they become public knowledge. Particularly in Asia, loss of face means much more than most Westerners will ever understand.
  • these kinds of leaks should not be naively applauded as somehow contributing to better government. They don’t, and won’t, because they will strongly influence at least what is written down and circulated, thereby inhibiting the free exchange of information within government. Leaks of this kind will reinforce the bureaucratic barriers that must be removed if policymaking and implementation are to be effective in all areas that require input, coordination, and common information and analysis across departments and agencies.
  • Weiye Loh on 28 Jun 11
     
    In government, any leak is, by definition, embarrassing to someone, somewhere in the system. Most leaks are likely to involve some breach of law by the original source, if not by the publisher. But that doesn't mean that all leaks should be condemned. One of the hardest lessons for senior government officials to learn -­ including for me, when I was Australian Attorney General and Foreign Minister - is the futility, in all but a tiny minority of cases, of trying to prosecute and punish those responsible for leaks. It doesn't undo the original damage, and usually compounds it with further publicity. The media are never more enthusiastic about free speech than when they see it reddening the faces, with rage or humiliation, of those in power. Prosecution usually boosts leakers' stature, making it useless as a deterrent.
Weiye Loh

Rod Beckstrom proposes ways to reclaim control over our online selves. - Project Syndicate - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...control-over-our-online-selves

Digital Data Man

shared by Weiye Loh on 14 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • As the virtual world expands, so, too, do breaches of trust and misuse of personal data. Surveillance has increased public unease – and even paranoia – about state agencies. Private companies that trade in personal data have incited the launch of a “reclaim privacy” movement. As one delegate at a recent World Economic Forum debate, noted: “The more connected we have become, the more privacy we have given up.”
  • Now that our personal data have become such a valuable asset, companies are coming under increasing pressure to develop online business models that protect rather than exploit users’ private information. In particular, Internet users want to stop companies befuddling their customers with convoluted and legalistic service agreements in order to extract and sell their data.
  • Hyper-connectivity not only creates new commercial opportunities; it also changes the way ordinary people think about their lives. The so-called FoMo (fear of missing out) syndrome reflects the anxieties of a younger generation whose members feel compelled to capture instantly everything they do and see.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphIronically, this hyper-connectivity has increased our insularity, as we increasingly live through our electronic devices. Neuroscientists believe that this may even have altered how we now relate to one another in the real world.
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  • At the heart of this debate is the need to ensure that in a world where many, if not all, of the important details of our lives – including our relationships – exist in cyber-perpetuity, people retain, or reclaim, some level of control over their online selves. While the world of forgetting may have vanished, we can reshape the new one in a way that benefits rather than overwhelms us. Our overriding task is to construct a digital way of life that reinforces our existing sense of ethics and values, with security, trust, and fairness at its heart.
  • Weiye Loh on 14 Dec 13
     
    "We must answer profound questions about the way we live. Should everyone be permanently connected to everything? Who owns which data, and how should information be made public? Can and should data use be regulated, and, if so, how? And what role should government, business, and ordinary Internet users play in addressing these issues?"
juliet huang

Google applying double standards? - 6 views

We all know that Google revealed the blogger who called model Liskula Cohen a skank, and everyone in the web community was up in arms because it seems that Google has breached its duty to protect i...

started by juliet huang on 09 Sep 09 no follow-up yet
Weiye Loh

Court rules that newspaper does not have to identify commenters | Law | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ue-commenters-libel-daily-mail

Social Media Online Internet Freedom of Speech Libel Defamation

shared by Weiye Loh on 08 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Mrs Justice Sharp said that the posters' rights to privacy were more important than the woman's right to take legal action about comments that were little more than "pub talk".
Weiye Loh

Google Chrome OS: Ditch Your Hard Drives, the Future Is the Web | Gadget Lab | Wired.com - 2 views

www.wired.com/...d-drives-the-future-is-the-web

Google Privacy

shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Nov 09 - Cached
  • With a strong focus on speed, the Chrome OS promises nearly instant boot times of about 7 seconds for users to login to their computers.
  • t will not be available as a download to run and install. Instead, Chrome OS is only shipping on specific hardware from manufacturers Google has partnered with. That means if you want Chrome OS, you’ll have to purchase a Chrome OS device.
  • Chrome OS netbooks will not have traditional hard disk drives — they will rely on non-volatile flash memory and internet-based storage for saving all of your data.
    • Weiye Loh
      Weiye Loh on 20 Nov 09
       
      So who's going to own my data? me? or Google? is it going to be secure? what happens when there's a breach of privacy? Do i have to sign a disclaimer before  I use it? hmm. 
    • Jun Jie Tan
      Jun Jie Tan on 23 Nov 09
       
      on the internet, google owns you
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • All the applications will be web-based, meaning users won’t have to install apps, manage updates or even backup their data. All data will be stored in the cloud, and users won’t even have to bother with anti-virus software: Google claims it will monitor code to prevent malicious activity in Chrome OS web apps.
  • Weiye Loh on 20 Nov 09
     
    Chrome OS netbooks will not have traditional hard disk drives - they will rely on non-volatile flash memory and internet-based storage for saving all of your data.
qiyi liao

Amazon targeted in class action over vanishing e-books - 0 views

www.ecommercetimes.com/...67742.html

privacy breach rights disclosure misinformation

shared by qiyi liao on 19 Aug 09 - Cached
  • qiyi liao on 19 Aug 09
     
    Issue in contention: Amazon deleted legally purchased e-books from Kindle users without prior notice, after learning that these e-books were pirated versions. This ability of Amazon's to "remotely delete digital content purchased through the Kindle store" was never disclosed to its paying customers. In fact, its license terms seem to offer Kindle users permanent access to the files they purchase (see #). Sure, Amazon admits mishandling the issue and promises never to remove content in such circumstances again. However, ultimately, they still own that power to remove, edit content etc. What effects would that have on our society then? Consider Orwell's notion of Big Brother in "1984" (Creepily, one of the books that was removed in this mini-scandal). Also, who is/should Amazon be more accountable to? Its customers? Shareholders? Third-party publishers? (At the end of the day, it's still a profit-seeking corporation.) NB. Kindle is a platform developed by Amazon for reading e-books and other digital media. #Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use.
Weiye Loh

Freakonomics » The U.K.'s 'Under-Aged' Socially Networked Children - 0 views

www.freakonomics.com/...ed-socially-networked-children

Social Media Facebook Age Privacy

shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • The study’s authors argue that removing age restrictions from sites like Facebook might actually be the best way of improving child safety online.
  • Elisabeth Staksrud, from the University of Oslo and one of the report’s authors comments that: “since children often lie about their age to join ‘forbidden’ sites it would be more practical to identify younger users and to target them with protective measures.”
  • This flies in the face of what many see as a critical security wall  protecting children from cyber-crime on social networking sites. A report released in January by Internet security firm PandaLabs identified Facebook and Twitter as the sites which are most prone to security breaches. The danger is particularly accute when young children enter their real personal information on their profile. Though, as the new research indicates, children are already lying about their age to sign up for a profile. So from a safety standpoint, the most important measure for children to take is to refrain from entering real information such as their address or where they go to school.
  • Weiye Loh on 20 Apr 11
     
    The study's authors argue that removing age restrictions from sites like Facebook might actually be the best way of improving child safety online. Elisabeth Staksrud, from the University of Oslo and one of the report's authors comments that: "since children often lie about their age to join 'forbidden' sites it would be more practical to identify younger users and to target them with protective measures."
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