How To Break Anything

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21 Nov 2010

Related ideas: praise and criticism for the passive capture of personal information
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The two articles below have an interesting relationship. The first praises the use of passively collected data, as a way to visualize common social habits:

The Top 3 Facebook Message Subject Lines

November 16, 2010

In Facebook’s announcement yesterday detailing their updated messaging system, the social network shares the three most frequently used subject lines in their messages (pictured in the screen grab above). The video overview on their blog cites these totally bland, and difficult to organize conversation headings as one of the many reasons it is looking to simplify communication with friends and family. Their new system, “Messages,” eschew subject lines in favor of a more instantaneous, chat-style response format.

Facebook

via psfk.com

The second article praises privacy over information related to personal messages:

It’s Like Spammers Took Over Technology

November 17, 2010

Dave Winer, a pioneer behind blogging, podcasting and RSS, writes that he is not too happy with how some of the social networking apps for the iPhone and Twitter — and in general, the technology industry, intrude on the personal information of its users. He writes about his recent experience with the new social network on iPhone, Path, and how the app searched his phone’s address book to suggest some friends for him, even when it never seemed to have taken his permission to do so.

Winer goes on to compare their action with someone reading his credit card number aloud in the public and dubs the tech industry as a virus.

It’s like spammers took over technology, like the pet food guys did in 1999. Everyone has a scam. This year the scam is to grab all the user’s data and resell it. It’s gotten to the point where it’s a risky proposition to try out a new iPhone product.

Another example. When I realized that any random Twitter app who you give your credentials to can download all your private direct messages, that was the end of me using Twitter apps that want credentials. Meanwhile the team at Twitter Corp has always had access to this info. Who’s to say their interpretation of one of their terms of service is that they get to analyze and mine every bit of text I enter into the system even text that’s only meant for one other person to read?

Scripting: “The tech industry is a virus”

via psfk.com

The same thing is happening in both; information is being captured directly from private messages. Reminds me of the idea that when it comes to privacy, technology isn't the problem - people are the problem [see: On the future of intelligent, user-recognizing technology and the threat of spam]. (and of course, the problems both create will always continue to exist)
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18 Aug 2010

IKEA’s Kitchen Of The Future: Design Challenges For Intelligent Homes
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IKEA has commissioned a report with The Future Laboratory to explore what the kitchen of the future could potentially look like. This reactive environment takes advantage of a number of sensor-based technologies designed to help users make more sustainable and healthy decisions around food, from EEG-based readers tuned to individual brainwaves to intelligent virtual chefs that deliver recipe recommendations. The Future Laboratory explains in a press release below:

In thirty years time, the kitchen will be so technologically advanced that it will almost be alive, responding actively to our needs like only a mother could. To reflect this IKEA has created an image of the future kitchen – INTUITIV. As you walk into the INTUITIV kitchen of the future, LED light projections adjust to your mood – it will know if you have a hangover via sensors that will read your brainwaves. Aromatherapy infused walls will be synced to your calendar, calming you before a big meeting or energising you before a gym session. The fridge will have selected some breakfast options, identifying the essential vitamins for your day via sensors. When you get home, a hologrammed chef will be on hand for recipe inspiration. This kitchen will be intelligent, predicting its inhabitants’ needs with smart technology. Synchronized appliances will make everything happen at the touch of a button, communicating through iPad style devices which will act as the brain of the kitchen, making our lives easier.

The concepts described extrapolate on technologies in development and emerging today – so while the above will all certainly possible on a technical level, we find it important to consider how technological developments actually unfold within technosocial and sociocultural realities. Designers working to develop systems like those that know whether you have a hangover based on your brainwaves have to consider to what extent the individual benefit of having that information (the kitchen serves you a bloody mary, perhaps?) outweighs the social implications of having that information collected (do I want my home to know I’ve been drinking so much, and potentially share that with my friends and family?).

Or consider the classic example of the refrigerator that knows when you’re low on milk, so it can order it from the supermarket and have it delivered. The technical aspect of these kinds of systems are relatively easy problems to solve; the difficult design questions are those of how to give people the level of control they need to feel they have over devices, that lets them determine when/why/how their fridge talks to the supermarket. These are questions that will continue to be raised, inspired by projects like INTUITIV that give them a focus point, as home environments continue to become interconnected with the rise of sensor-based technologies and the Internet of things.

[via Electripig]
[this post originally appeared on psfk.com]
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23 Apr 2010

A thought on what people are 'deciding' upon when choosing/not choosing to share (re: Open Graph, privacy, etc)
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And what about privacy?
Is this another nail in the coffin of the very concept of privacy? In the future will we really share everything? Ultimately people will be the ones to decide what they want to share and with whom. But now it will be not only what happens on Facebook.com, but everything happening outside it too.
via wearesocial.net

The above from We Are Social's longer synopsis of Facebook Open Graph.
What I'm interested in is the statement above on privacy. Particularly re: 'deciding.'
It illuminates the question: what is it exactly that you're 'deciding' upon when you "decide what to share and with whom"?
Rather, I should ask: what are the conditions within which you are deciding?
I'd imagine you'd be making a completely different decision between choosing to what to share within two different environments:
1) no one shares anything about themselves online (10 years pre-facebook)
2) everyone shares everything about themselves online (10 years post-facebook)
And ultimately that has little to do with the 'decision' itself, and much more to do with the conditions within which the decision is made.
Just something to consider as you decide ('decide'?) how this all makes you feel about 'privacy.'
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23 Mar 2010

Will humans ever strike sociocultural equality?
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John Horgan, author of Rational Mysticism and The End of Science has been asking people for the better part of a decade: "do you think humans will ever stop fighting wars?"

The answers are varied of course, and the question is deeply intriguing. Suffice to say that those of both camps could make valid arguments and find evidence that supports their reasoning.

I've been wanting to identify a question of my own of similar complexity, and I think I may have found it.

It's a question inspired by Danah Boyd, someone whose thinking I've followed and found fascinating for years. Her most recent talk has been about making sense of privacy and publicity in social interactions, and the dangers of assuming that privacy is not important.

She makes a lot of very well thought and well supported points about people whose lives are directly and deeply impacted by privacy concerns. Her thoughts in this case, as in most cases of hers, are directed within the context that she enjoys a relatively privileged life and it is an unfortunate reality that many others do not. In all her thinking, she makes it clear that at her core what she is most passionate about is sharing that privilege with others, particularly by doing all that she can to counteract the injustices faced by marginalized groups.

Those who know me know that I believe that the history of humanity has moved in only one direction, which is to deliver more rights to more people. I look at marginalized groups today and think about how ridiculous it will seem in the future that we ever even tried to argue against rights for homosexual couples.

Still I can't help but wonder: do you think humans will ever strike sociocultural equality?

And I can't help but feel like that world with equal rights and advantages for all is that same conflict-less world with no wars.

(quick edit: I should note that while I don't believe the above scenarios are ultimately possible, there's certainly a part of me that believes there's value in the work that goes into trying.)
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9 Mar 2010

"Public Access To Privacy"
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"As a public experiment, artist Julia Burns (alias: 'rose_burns') decided to blog on twitter in full view of the lunchtime crowd in Martin Place, Sydney, for one hour.
She sat on her living room couch, wearing ugg boots and a comfy sweater, next to her heater, favourite cup, and a box of chocolate mints as she posted tweets about her life in front of the Channel 7 building.
Burns is interested in the concepts of public access to the private sphere and the changing nature of privacy.
Do 'followers' read with the same zest in the real world as they do in cyberspace?
What is it like to follow a stranger's blog entries, while standing in front of them?
Why do individuals increasingly publicize their private lives?
Recognising the immense complexity and power of social networking and blogging sites, Burns does not wish to condemn these tools. Rather she wants to provoke, especially for the younger generation, debate on the integrity of some of their uses.
She is concerned by the increasing need for public acceptance and validation in the social networking scene."

via juliaburns.com

I don't know if I agree right away on the need for public acceptance and validation as 'increasing.'
What has increased is our the ease with which we can satisfy it.
And like most things (read: everything), we come to find that there's an optimal balance, a sort of moderation.
That is to say, it may be privacy/public validation today, but it will most certainly be something else tomorrow.
I wouldn't be too worried about it. (but then, I'm not too worried about most things...)
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2 Mar 2010

Why privacy will always be an issue (one reason of many)
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"Technology is scary! People will use all these status and twitter and facebook updates to find out when you're not home and come and steal all your DVDs! At least that was the ballyhoo last week when the site PleaseRobMe launched. Turns out, they were just reinventing the fear wheel. Andy Baio found an article from 1983 that warned consumers that burglars would know by your answering machine picking up that you weren't home, and one from 1977 that advised against posting funeral notices in the paper, lest robbers make off with the silver while you're burying grandpa. The more things change, the less they do."

via consumerist.com
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22 Feb 2010

Danah Boyd on ChatRoulette, and myself on exposure and intelligence
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I feel pretty depressed every time I watch people flip out about the dangers of talking to strangers. Strangers helped me become who I was. Strangers taught me about a different world than what I knew in my small town. Strangers allowed me to see from a different perspective. Strangers introduced me to academia, gender theory, Ivy League colleges, the politics of war, etc. So I hate how we vilify all strangers as inherently bad. Did I meet some sketchballs on the Internet when I was a teen? DEFINITELY. They were weird; I moved on.
via zephoria.org

Danah Boyd on ChatRoulette, above.
In addition to being about control of our identity, privacy is about protecting ourselves from strangers.
To which I have a similar reaction as Danah's here:
"I’m still not sure what to say except that I feel this weighted sense of Le Sigh. The same mix of depression and exhaustion I felt this morning when I was playing peek-a-boo with a smiley child in an airport and her parents whisked her away, glaring at me as though I was the devil incarnate. I realize that many parents think that they’re doing good by their kids when they choose to limit their exposure to the randomness of the world, but it just makes me deeply deeply sad."
I still vividly remember once upon a time when I was little, when I was watching Interview With A Vampire with my parents. There was a family friend there as well. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old. As I remember, there's a part where one of the female characters is nude for some reason (If I remember correctly it's part of some gruesome performance where she's devoured by vampires).
I don't remember the exact comments, but I remember the family friend making some objection about me being there (not because of the gruesome scene, but because of the nudity), and I remember my parents making some response about exposure and reality.
And I remember it because it so deeply reflects the world I grew up in, in which exposure to the world mattered above all, for all it's grittiness and for all it's conflicting, differing, and paradoxical views that constantly change the way I think about things.
At some point I'll explain the idea of defining intelligence as "efficient cross-domain optimization," as I ran into at this weekend's NYC Future Salon. But for now, suffice to say that this exposure has made all the difference to me in the cross-domain realm, in the same sense that Danah expresses above: were it not for exposure to weird and scary strangers, it's likely she'd never be the academic she is today.
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