The Ethics of Reader Privacy
This isn’t just a business issue, it is an ethical issue about how we relate to the communities we serve. And for readers, it’s much more than just an issue of agreeing to view ads, knowing that ads allow them to view free content. Libert and Pickard agree, writing that publishers have to “consider the ethics of tracking users and their outsize role in widely reviled annoyances such as increasing page load times, invading privacy, sucking up data on limited plans and imposing distracting animations and sounds on the viewer.”
Privacy
Know Your Online Privacy
The what and why of this report should be quite clear: we are leaving massive footprints on the internet and have little knowledge of how it’s used. Ranking Digital Rights has made the full data available for download, including researchers’ comments and responses from the corporations where available. We were pleased to partner with Ranking Digital Rights and Beekeeper Group to develop a set of web tools to communicate and explore the data.
The Guardian have put together some extensive coverage of the report. It’s worth a read. Also worth a shout-out is the Mapbox privacy statement, which we think should be a model.
The Privacy And Security Questions Raised By Connected Toys
It’s important to remember that the introduction of Hello Barbie is just one part of a new interactive landscape in which nearly everything kids do is recorded and uploaded somewhere. Some parents have balked at such networked omnipresence, refusing to post any photos or otherwise identifying information of their kids online.
Eventually, every child is going to grow up to have a digital footprint, if they don’t already. For parents, deciding whether to limit that cache of identifying data—be it Facebook photos or voice data collected by Hello Barbie—is a personal choice, one that they shouldn’t be taking lightly.
We Say We Want Privacy Online, But Our Actions Say Otherwise
As consumers spend an increasing amount of their time in cyberspace, companies are developing techniques to maximize the marketing capabilities afforded by cookies and other online surveillance tools. Yet companies first need to understand how consumers think about their privacy online, which isn’t entirely rationally. In an upcoming chapter of the Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology, I draw on insights from behavioral psychology and the social sciences to explain the prevalence of the privacy paradox; I have summarized the reasons for consumers’ inconsistent views about privacy below
From We Say We Want Privacy Online, But Our Actions Say Otherwise
Virtual Privacy Lab | San José Public Library
Learn about privacy topics and generate a custom privacy toolkit geared towards your online needs. Toolkits include links, tips, and resources that empower you to customize your online identity. Email or print your privacy toolkit for future use.
ECPA reform: The 1986 email privacy law might finally get updated.
federal law protects some of your email from government snooping without a warrant. But it doesn’t protect your email if it’s been left on a server for too long, and, worse, it doesn’t protect your metadata—information that can get you arrested and prosecuted, that can reveal intimate secrets about you, and that would expose the entire network of people you talk to. On Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to address the first problem, but reform efforts in both houses of Congress have largely passed over the second issue. In dodging the problem of metadata, legislators have missed the forest for the twigs.
From ECPA reform: The 1986 email privacy law might finally get updated.
Ashley Madison, Organizational Doxing, and the End of Online Privacy
Most of us get to be thoroughly relieved that our emails weren’t in the Ashley Madison database. But don’t get too comfortable. Whatever secrets you have, even the ones you don’t think of as secret, are more likely than you think to get dumped on the Internet. It’s not your fault, and there’s largely nothing you can do about it.
Welcome to the age of organizational doxing.
From Ashley Madison, Organizational Doxing, and the End of Online Privacy – The Atlantic
NH library at center of internet privacy debate in shutting off its Tor server
A public library in Lebanon finds itself at the center of a complicated debate over internet privacy and safety, after questions from the Department of Homeland Security led the library to think twice about participating in the global anonymous web-surfing network known as Tor.
“I was surprised at the reaction,” said Sean Fleming, director of the Lebanon Public Libraries, who turned off a Tor server last month until the library’s board of trustees can decided whether to proceed with the project.
How To Secure Your Library’s Social Media Presence
The ALA lost control of its Facebook page over the weekend so this seems like a pretty good time to review IT Security! Any size small or midsized organization is difficult, if not impossible to secure. It’s very easy to overlook things and leave ourselves vulnerable to things like this.
Who/Why: That person that did it, it’s probably their job. They’re most likely professionals, either they get paid by others, or this is the life they’ve carved out for themselves. If you’re lucky enough to have a considerable numbers of followers/friends, you’ll be a target eventually. Chances are good it’s not personal, it’s just business. These people are probably just trying to make money. It may also be you’re just a small step in a much larger campaign.
How: Mostly likely one of three ways. One of the people with the login credentials gave it away. Either they had their email account compromised, or maybe one of their devices was hacked. It could be someone used an infected public network and gave it away without knowing it. It could be someone was “spear fished” and replied to an email that looked like it came from someone else. Maybe someone lost a password in another compromise and that same password was reused.
Review Your Settings: Take a look at all the security and privacy settings. Now. And again every few months. Facebook has an especially wide range of settings you can change. Those controls are all there for you to limit risk, control who can see what on your profiles, and make things better for you. There are settings in there to help you recover from a comprimied account as well.
Passwords: Make them LONG, at least 20 characters. Make sure you know who has access and how they are storing those passwords. Every single accounts needs a long, strong, unique, rare password. Better yet, a different email account for every account as well. Change that password monthly. Checkout all the different password managers out there, I use LastPass, but there are many more.
Be suspicious: Funny looking emails or links in social media are DANGEROUS. If you’re not 100% sure of the source, either ask or just hit delete.
Stay in control: Know who in the library has access to what. Your library needs to have control over who is posting what. The more people that have logins, the less secure things become. Try HootSuite or other managers and you can give access without giving away the credentials.
Who and what else has access: Check those 3rd party apps that have been authorized and make sure you know what they can do and why. Get rid of everything you don’t need.
Know what to do if your account is compromised: Both Twitter (https://support.twitter.com/articles/31796) And Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/hacked) have pages devoted to this.
A few good tips to follow in general…
1. Keep EVERYTHING on your ALL devices updated.
2. Keep your web browsers ALL updated.
3. Run some security and privacy plugins on your browsers.
4. Train. Have someone like Alison Macrina (https://libraryfreedomproject.org/contact/) or Me come in and spend a few hours with your staff.
5. Turn on second factor authentication.
6. Keep things backed up!
The Library Digital Privacy Pledge of 2015
The Pledge for Libraries:
1. We will make every effort to ensure that web services and information resources under direct control of our library will use HTTPS within six months. [ dated______ ]
2. Starting in 2016, our library will assure that any new or renewed contracts for web services or information resources will require support for HTTPS by the end of 2016.
From The Library Digital Privacy Pledge of 2015 – Google Docs
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