Dumpling in a Hanky

On the 21st of this month, I received an email from a company*, advertising their upcoming online seminar, and various other online courses they ran, including ones on the Data Protection Act, and information security. Since I wasn't interested in their courses, and didn't remember signing up to receive any marketing materials from this company,  I clicked on the unsubscribe link. However, when the unsubscribe page opened, the name and email fields were already completed...and none of the information was mine. In fact, the email address was for a Junior School in Portsmouth (edited version below). This is not great, in terms of information security...you know, that thing they're running online courses on? So, I replied to them within an hour, pointing out that the information in those fields was not mine, and they might want to do something about that. To date, I've not received an acknowledgement of my email, or any form of response. I was also not alone in r...

Yes, I'm the type of gal who likes to mess about and try new tools and sites. So, nine months ago, Formspring seemed like an amusing timewasting tool - people can ask you questions, either putting their name to them (usually a Twitter name), or anonymously. You then can answer them, and post the responses in your Formspring stream, either for the world to see, or only to your followers (I'm not sure if this was originally an option). You can also follow other people, and ask them questions too, so it can be quite interactive. Yes, I know it was and still is attracting bad publicity for the fact that school kids use it to bully each other, but school kids can and will use anything to bully each other, from verbal abuse, notes written and passed around, text messages, or messages on various popular sites that over time have moved from MySpace, to Bebo, to Facebook and Twitter. Just because some people misuse it, doesn't mean a tool is inherently bad. And as an adult, if I di...

So, I'm following some of the "New Professionals Conference 2010" online and one of the tools referred to was Personas , to see what your online presence is like. Or, how references by to and about you online appear visually. I used my normal online username (it's more distinctive than my "proper" name), and was pretty amused by the results. It seems that the thing that I'm least of all, is "professional", closely followed by "committees". Whoops! Mainly, I'm either aggressive, or I provoke aggression, and sports and fashion feature highly. Hmmmm, I'm thinking that there's maybe something REALLY ODD about this. Wanna fight about it? Huh? DO YA?!?! ;) Edited to add: OK, so it does a different thing every time then?!? This is what I got when I redid it again, for the same single word username (so it's not getting confused by two words, misspellings etc). Perhaps this is the truer one? More online, and social, MUCH less a...

So, I bought a can of Coke. It had a code under the ring pull, that advised you to either text (for a cost), or visit the Coke Zone website, to see if you'd won a prize. So, I toddled off to the website, entered the code, and hit return. Oh. I got a pop-up, telling me to log in if I was a member, or register if I was a new user. It wouldn't tell me if I'd won anything without me being a member. Which is annoying - I don't mind giving my details in exchange for certain things, but in order to find out if I'd maybe won a prize? No ta. So I decided to look at the Coke Zone privacy policy (which you must agree to in order to register with the site). I ran into a problem here - when I clicked on the link, I got nothing. Well, I got a page, with a big expanse of white where the content should be. I was using Chrome, so I decided to try Internet Explorer....yay! The content was all there! So I wondered if it was just me and Chrome that had issues viewing the content...nop...

So, last week I did a firewalk for charity, at Edinburgh Zoo. Due to the 'delightful' roadworks going on in Edinburgh for, ohhh, eternity, I arrived at the event at 7pm just as the briefing started, instead of the planned 6.30pm for registration. Apparently, in the few minutes before the briefing officially started, it was announced that a daily news show crew were there to film us, and if anyone objected to being filmed, could they make themselves known. It seems like nobody did, because we were all filmed by the crew at various points, usually in the background to the presenter. I have absolutely no desire to be on TV, particularly during a stressful event, so I was not best chuffed to find out by questioning other firewalkers that what I thought was perhaps going to be a promotional clip for the company organising the firewalk, or for the Zoo itself was actually going to end up on national telly. Added to this was the fact that I had not been asked about my agreement to the...

After some checks by someone who's much more technical than me, it appears the invite for the survey was for a BT telephone directory. Glad of that - the less I have to do with Phorm the better (although as a Virgin Media customer, I wonder if that decision's always going to be mine to make)

I participate in various online surveys, getting pennies, or prize draw entries in return. Last night, I got sent the following invite - hands up who thinks it's in some way linked to BTs Phorm experiment? Hi Jennie, We have a new survey available for you to take. You will also be asked if you would like to take part in an ongoing program run by BT in which you will be asked to take part in online activities. You will need to provide your e-mail address and register on the website so that you can be sent the details of how to take part. In exchange for taking part you will be entered into weekly prize draws. If you complete the survey but do not register to take part in the rest of the online program you will be rewarded 25p if you register to take part in BT's online activities you will receive £1.00. You will also be redirected straight to a BT site at the end of the survey. Please be assured that your e-mail address will only be used to contact you about this study. Or maybe...

From Neatorama , a report from a reader of the blog about a Google StreetView car getting pulled over by the police for using the buses / cycles / taxis only lane in Bradford....with amusing photos... Wonder if the close-up views of the car park of the old police station will be turning up on StreetView? :-)

I've been getting these emails occasionally from FaceBook over the past few months, and been deleting them, but...I think the whole concept of this email is wrong (and misspelled - gossips?!?!): Do you know any gossips about your friends? Your other friends may want to hear it. (Gossip is always anonymous, never appears in notifications, feeds or anywhere else where the author could be identified.)  *list of friends names* To check out gossip about you, or other friends not listed here, click here What the Social Profile application wants you to do is post anonymous, possibly untrue information about friends and acquaintances, and allow others to see that. Surely there's some issues here with libel? If anyone can 'publish' unsubstantiated information about others, under the guarantee that it'll never be traced back to them, which Facebook will then distribute around its system? Hell, maybe I'll start posting anonymously about affairs friends have had...

So, last week, there I was, slumped in a bus seat with a vacant look (as usual), when I spotted something odd coming out of a side street. A wee black car...with a huge pole on top, covered with cameras. Now, it's coming up for Festival season in Edinburgh, when all sorts of strangeness occurs on a regular basis, and therefore such randomness would blend right in, but this was a tad too early. Aha - it turned a corner, and I clocked the discrete little Google StreetView logo on its side. Since then, I know it's been into the cul-de-sac where I live (but not got my flat as it's on the wrong side to be seen from the street), and continues to travel through Edinburgh. Now, I know there's debate over privacy issues (which, to be honest, I think are hugely overblown by the paranoid), but I personally think it's kinda cool! The usefulness of a walk-through map of a city, with actual images of the physical, 'real' landmarks and what they look like far outwei...

So, as I continue to get pop-ups on Kongregate asking if it's ok to publish what games I'm playing in my Facebook feed, I decided to try and find out how to turn off Beacon...which I didn't even know was turned on. It seems to only be doing this because Kongregate is an American partner site. It's in there, in the Privacy settings. If you want to do this too, go to: Privacy > News Feed and Mini Feeds > Actions on External Websites > Tick box marked "Don't allow any websites to send stories to my profile." Save changes.

So, I was sent a link to a fun game, Chronotron. I was playing away, getting past versions of myself to work out puzzles, when a little pop-up appeared on the bottom right of my screen, saying that Beacon was telling my friends I was playing Chronotron on Kongregate, before sliding back into obscurity. So I went over to Facebook, and sure enough, that information had appeared in my profile! This is my first encounter with Beacon, and needless to say, I don't think my friends want to know when I'm playing a game on a totally separate website, so I disabled it immediately. But I didn't know that Beacon was activated, or affected UK users? Maybe I need to find out more about it, as who knows what else it'll be informing my friends I'm doing on other websites!

JK Rowling has won her appeal against the use by a newspaper of a photograph of her young son, taken while he was being pushed by her in a buggy on a street in Edinburgh in 2004. And frankly, I don't blame her. Regardless of what she does or doesn't do in her professional life, that should not have any effect on her personal life. If she's at a professional event, she knows she's going to get photographed, and she prepares herself for that. She shouldn't have to worry about photos being taken of her and her family while they are enjoying private, family time together, or even, as in this case, just going down the street. And her children shouldn't have to grow up worrying about being pursued by photographers, when their personal life has nothing to do with their mothers job.

If it appeared to come from Facebook, and just asked you to confirm your name, date of birth and email address? Or would you give an old school friend your eBay password? Apparently, those details were enough for scammers to steal money from individuals who'd been perhaps a little too forthcoming with personal information on social networking sites. It does seem that they were perhaps using some of their personal information that they also publicly shared as passwords, but still, how much do you trust Facebook and similar sites? Would you be as wary about clicking links in an email that appeared to come from them or giving personal info as you would if it came from a stranger? Do we now trust these sites more than banks, to the extent that an email from them must be authentic and reliable?

Well, they've responded quickly , as usual...do you think their motto's a variation of Googles? "Do only the evil you can get away with, but if anybody's upset, fix it"? Not really so snappy, but they do seem to be quite quick with their responses to issues...even if it was an odd concept in the first place. I'd go nuts if a site decide to share what items I was buying, and where, with a loosely connected network of friends, colleagues, and people-I-went-to-school-with, who-don't-understand-that-there-are-good-reasons-we-lost-touch....

I knew it was a bad idea signing up to that thing! :-) I did know about not being able to delete your account , but it's one of those things, you only want to be able to do it in concept, you want the option, but might well never use it. I know I wouldn't actually bother deleting my MySpace, Bebo or Facebook accounts, mainly because I occasionally get contact from people through them, there's nothing on them that's 'dodgy', and they're an amusing way to while away some time sometimes (but would people puhlease stop trying to turn me into a vampire on Facebook?!!?). But what about those people who signed up with their 'proper' name, then reconsidered their membership later? I know of people who've adopted a child, and don't want the childs 'interesting' family to be able to find them after...how do they get themselves off it? Or the people who've unfortunately become the object of some over-attentive online friends obsession? I as...

I don’t think I’ll be opting-in when these people call me up in the future. My mobile number is only given out to friends, or if essential, businesses that may need to contact me for something like a delivery time / date alteration. My home number’s on TPS, I LIKE my privacy. But…I can see the usefulness of a directory… Then again, I don’t like my life being intruded into by a phone that I carry around with me, at least the landline is in a fixed location and I can walk away from it / ignore it, if you don’t answer your mobile people immediately assume you’re dead …hmmmm, dilemma. Is it bad to want other people to join in, but not play myself? Info originally in CILIP Weekly Information World 13 - 19 July 2007

As posted on OUT-LAW yesterday , the Article 29 Working Party is expanding the scope of its investigation of search engine privacy practices beyond Google to ALL search engine companies, and their data retention practices. Will be interesting to see what the other, smaller (and less media-targeted) companies policies are…

I just worry about my online privacy and security, hence why this information makes me glad not to be a FaceBooker… admittedly, they’ve now updated the settings to prevent those searches from working now, but seriously, why was it ever possible in the first place?

Honestly, I'm not obsessive, really, they just seem to be pretty active just now! Google have opened up their internal blog on their public policies , to allow users to see what their views are on various important areas such as privacy, content regulation etc. Which is pretty interesting, but I've got to say, I'm not sure I entirely trust any organisation when they say 'look how honest and open we're being'...probably cos I know there are very, very few of them who will be! But it's a pretty good attempt to make more transparent the internal workings of a section of a massive corporation.