Mark Zuckerberg – GETTY IMAGES
Hello All –
This week an increasing amount of news has been focused upon Cambridge Analytica’s data collection, the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, and Facebook. The elephant in the room is clearly how these data breaches happened, but should we really be surprised? Social Networks can offer a wonderful experience to users where sharing of moments asynchronously with friends and family can be wonderful. But this type of information, along with a lot of other personal data, locations, interests, likes, networks, history, etc can be easily used to profile a wide demographic with significant detail to seemingly map a person’s traits and habits. The knee jerk reaction for many, especially within the media, is too lambast Facebook and the like, but are we really considering the underlying problem? I believe it to be a lack of common sense about what is shared online. Forget privacy, there is no such thing. We can talk about how to protect ourselves online, but should we really expect companies to protect our personal best interests?
Many apps offer free products and access, and to many that sounds like a great deal. Who does not want to share info, images, conversations with friends and family all across the world? Though what we are giving these companies for free is an overwhelming amount of personal information in exchange for using their products and services. We all know that we are profiled and presented with targeted advertising in order for us to buy into a vision, products, and advertising revenue. But what happens when this information is used against us collectively and individually? I do not have any answers or advice for others aside from the belief that nothing is free and protecting one’s own privacy is all the more important with each passing day. I am not advocating to leave all networks and abandon all technology, but more the belief to use technology before technology uses you.
Mo
1. How Trump Consultants Exploited The Facebook Data Of Millions
“So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html
2. Beware The Big Five
“The big Silicon Valley technology companies have long been viewed by much of the American public as astonishingly successful capitalist enterprises operated by maverick geniuses. The largest among them—Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google (the so-called Big Five)—were founded by youthful and charismatic male visionaries with signature casual wardrobes: the open-necked blue shirt, the black polo-neck, the marled gray T-shirt and hoodie. These founders have won immense public trust in their emergent technologies, from home computing to social media to the new frontier, artificial intelligence. Their companies have seemed to grow organically within the flourishing ecology of the open Internet.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/silicon-valley-beware-big-five/
3. Alex Stamos, Facebook Data Security Chief, To Leave Amid Outcry
As Facebook grapples with a backlash over its role in spreading disinformation, an internal dispute over how to handle the threat and the public outcry is resulting in the departure of a senior executive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-stamos.html
4. #deletefacebook
“Facebook is using us. It is actively giving away our information. It is creating an echo chamber in the name of connection. It surfaces the divisive and destroys the real reason we began using social media in the first place – human connection.”
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/deletefacebook/
5. Europe’s New Privacy Law Will Change The Web, And More
“Consumers have long wondered just what Google and Facebook know about them, and who else can access their personal data. But internet giants have little incentive to give straight answers — even to simple questions like, ‘Why am I being shown this ad?'”
https://www.wired.com/story/europes-new-privacy-law-will-change-the-web-and-more/
6. Showing Passwords On Log-In Screens
“In 2012 I outlined why we should let people see their password when logging in to an application -especially on mobile devices. Now two years later with many large scale implementations released, here’s a compendium of why and how to show passwords and what’s coming next.”
https://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1941
7. Make Password Textbox Value Visible After Each Character Input
“This snippet will automatically convert your password input field to text field and one hidden field with same name as your password field.”
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37186309/make-password-textbox-value-visible-after-each-character-input
8. Web Typography & Layout: Past, Present, And Future
“Can typography encourage long-form reading—not just scanning? What are the most exciting areas of cutting-edge experimentation in typographic technology and digital layout, and what new skills will we need to design tomorrow’s web content? Three experts—Mozilla’s Jen Simmons, publication design legend Roger Black, and ALA’s Jeffrey Zeldman—discuss typography and layout on today’s web: where we are now, and where we’re going.”
http://alistapart.com/event/web-typography-layout-past-present-future
9. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: How Empathy Sparks Innovation
On Feb. 3, 2014, all that confusion and lack of direction changed profoundly when Satya Nadella was named the third CEO in Microsoft’s storied history. How profoundly?
• On Jan. 7, 2014, in the waning days of Steve Ballmer’s wind-down and four weeks before Nadella was named as CEO, Microsoft’s market cap was $302.2 billion.
• On Jan. 8, 2018, after 47 months of Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft’s market cap stood at $681.6 billion. – cites Forbes.
CNN similarly referred to the pre-Nadella years as a “lost decade” and described his success in growing Microsoft’s profitable cloud-services business. Here in this Mr. Nadella talks about empathy ” In addition to confidence, a CEO must have empathy, Nadella said. This is a quality one doesn’t typically see on a list of top CEO character traits. But in Nadella’s view, empathy is, among other things, a key source of business innovation.”
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/microsofts-ceo-on-how-empathy-sparks-innovation/
10. SEO 101: Hyphens VS. Underscores In URLs
“In short, Google treats a hyphen as a space (or word separator). So, while you may not be able to add a traditional space, it still appears this way in the eyes of Google. An underscore, on the other hand, is considered a ‘word joiner.'”
https://www.seomechanic.com/seo-101-hyphens-underscores-_-urls/
11. How CEOs Without College Degrees Got To The Top
“Employers are continually upping the ante on academic credentials. Nearly a third of jobs that once required only a high-school diploma now demand a four-year college degree, while one in four jobs that used to require a bachelor’s degree now require a master’s degree. Meanwhile, 75% of Americans believe that higher education is unaffordable and out of reach.”
https://hbr.org/2018/02/how-ceos-without-college-degrees-got-to-the-top
12. Top Architecture Prize Goes To Low-Cost Housing Pioneer From India
“Mr. Doshi has been consumed with larger issues like social good and sustainability. And he bemoans a culture and profession that he sees as overly concerned with the bottom line. “One is all the time looking at financial returns — that is not only what life is,” he said. “I think wellness is missing.””
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/arts/design/pritzker-prize-balkrishna-doshi.html
13. Sir Roger Bannister, First Athlete To Break 4-Minute Mile, Dies At 88
“Bannister ran a mile in under four minutes — 3:59.4, to be exact — becoming the first man ever to do so, breaking through a mystical barrier and creating a seminal moment in sports history. Bannister received a number of honors for his achievements in sports and medicine.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/obituaries/roger-bannister-dead.html
14. When Winter Never Ends
“How five days in February reveal what Seattle’s signing of Ichiro cannot. The future Hall of Famer is haunted by the life he can’t escape.”
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/22624561/ichiro-suzuki-return-seattle-mariners-resolve-internal-battle
