Feedback

Simfin

online safety and digital citizenship specialist

News & Comment

30 July 2014

Most Australian youngsters believe their parents are oblivious to their web activities, while some admit to making fake social media profiles and fudging browser histories to deceive tech-savvy ones, a new report shows.

Seventy per cent of children aged between 8 and 17 said their parents did not know about all their internet activities, a survey involving 1000 tweens and teens by cyber security firm McAfee shows.

Read the article here.

21 July 2014

'.In a discussion of zero-knowledge systems whose operators can't spy on you even if they want to, Snowden reminds us that Dropbox is an NSA surveillance target cited in the original Prism leaks, and that the company has since added Condoleeza Rice, "probably the most anti-privacy official we can imagine," to its Board of Directors.'

Read the article here.

04 July 2014

On BBC Radio 4's Today programme (4 July 14) there was an interesting interview with Google's Peter Barron, who explained how Peston's blog has not been removed from all searches but some specific searches.

Here's an account of why Peston was concerned when he received an email from Google stating; 'Notice of removal from Google Search: we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google'.

Here's the blog in question.

Peter Barron, Google's head of communications for UK and europe, explained on the Today programme that the 'right to be forgotten' request had not been made by the company or the individual who were the subject of the blog but an individual who had left a comment. This individual (who Google can't name) no longer wishes the comment to appear in Google searches for their name.

What this means is; if you search for the blog, it will appear, if you search for the individuals in the blog, it will appear and if you search for the person who wrote the comment, the blog won't appear in that search.

This all raises an interesting point; do we really have the right have our previous comments, made voluntarily, on other people's blogs, to be 'forgotten'?

 

 

12 June 2014

 Facebook is planning to start using app and website information from users' browsing habits to target them with more relevant ads. The change will allow advertisers to glean more information on Facebook users to the extent where browsing websites for a new TV may lead to TV deals being displayed within Facebook. It's an interest-based form of advertising that's used widely on the web, but Facebook has previously only ever used the tracking data for security reasons.

05 June 2014

Unmanned aircraft, or 'drones' have attracted controversy for their military use, but they are now taking off everywhere. The mass adoption of this new technology is gathering pace – and it raises big questions around their use, potential misuse, privacy, and the safety of our skies and streets.

Read the full article here.