Posts Tagged ‘privacy’
Seriously folks, try using the DuckDuckGo search engine instead of Google
At the risk of sounding like a gushing fanboy, I want to encourage you to at least give a trial to the DuckDuckGo search engine. It’s here: https://duckduckgo.com I blogged about it last year here: (Default search engines, privacy … and trying alternatives to Google) and all that’s happened is that it’s gotten better and […]
Privacy? Can you dig it?
This statement from Apple is no doubt prompted by the worldwide furore over revelations of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance. Read the full statement at Apple: Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy but here’s the important part (for me): Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain […]
Dystopia and unease about the Surveillance State
How topical. New Zealand’s National government is currently pushing through (under urgency) law changes to expand the powers of our state eavesdroppers and spies (including the Government Communications Security Bureau, GCSB). NSA Whistle-blower Edward Snowden this week highlighted the ongoing operation by the US and its allies (including New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Canada, ‘Five eyes’) […]
Oh {expletive-deleted}! It’s true. The internet is ‘a TV that watches you.’
Damn. This is what the PRISM whistle blower Ed Snowden told a Washington Post reporter, related here: Code name ‘Verax’: Snowden, in exchanges with Post reporter, made clear he knew risks “The internet is on principle a system that you reveal yourself to in order to fully enjoy, which differentiates it from, say, a music […]
Unmissable video of NSA Whistleblower Ed Snowden. Seriously, WATCH THIS.
Here’s Glenn Greenwald’s NSA whistle-blower source. Watch this very impressive, courageous man explain his motives. Must see. Really. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things’ – VIDEO The Guardian Boy! Guts combined with a relentlessly rational laying out of the issues that confront democracy and […]
Google denies PRISM direct access or back doors
What the…? Dear Google users— You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts. First, we have not joined […]
This hoovering up of ‘meta data’ is getting downright creepy
Remember this map from my 2011 post?: Despite that, your honour, I wasn’t ACTUALLY there. Read this and tell me it doesn’t make you just a little antsy … The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top […]
Who is better at snooping? GCSB or Google?
Microsoft ‘internal’ video. Read the background at The Verge: Leaked Scroogled video sees Microsoft parody Google’s Chrome ad – P
What a strange coincidence [Updated]
Let’s just put a pin in this and come back to it later … Ms Boag, as well as all recipients of the email – including Ms Collins, ACC chief executive Ralph Stewart and Mr Judge – have denied leaking the email. But Ms Collins told the Herald last night that the email from Ms […]
Preventing cyberstalking and breaches of privacy
We’ve been discussing cyberstalking and the abuse of private information on the web at an individual level. (hint: You want private? Don’t put it on the web!) But there’s more to it than unguarded Facebook comments and anonymous trolling. I remember I first made Jacqueline’s acquaintance here at The Paepae after I commented on the […]
There goes the whole appeal of Facebook for some personality types … well, not really
In the same way that locks are only really designed to keep out honest people, this ‘dramatic’ change to how Facebook operates will, in reality, be of minimal effect. We’ve discussed the (lack of) privacy of material posted on the world’s largest social network before. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, some people gotta SNOOP. […]
Speaking up for Madeleine Flannagan
The following is an anonymous comment in support of Madeleine Flannagan, who features in my recent post, ‘Implications of recent internet gagging attempt‘. UPDATE: The comment is now in the comment stream of the relevant post.
Implications of recent internet gagging attempt
UPDATE June 2013 — There have been developments on this. See this post: Is this what we want? Internet ‘take down’ and indefinite gagging orders? The decision in a recent court case involving allegations of harassment by blog post is instructive on all sorts of levels for what it tell us about the state of […]
Default search engines, privacy … and trying alternatives to Google
As I’ve indicated, I’ve been steadily making my web browsing footprint lighter and checking out alternatives to Google search — which, as well as trailing us all, spectacularly broke trust with users by circumnavigating (read: disobeying) explicit instructions in preferences to ‘block third party cookies’ by ‘unfair and deceptive‘ means (see Another Google privacy FAIL […]
