Notes from the Electronic Cottage 11/16/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Cars with whizbang technology are much in the news these days, and while the tech is pretty amazing and getting lots of attention, what isn’t getting nearly as much attention is how these new digital cars are going to affect our relationship to them. It’s another case of tech outstripping law and culture. Here are some reasons why.

We also mentioned in passing how many photos from drivers licenses, as well as other unexpected sources, have found their way into a huge facial recognition database- “really huge,” as someone might say on Twiter. More info at www.perpetuallineup.org.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 10/26/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

In the wake of years of huge data breaches, there is increasing talk of replacing vulnerable and increasingly ineffective Social Security numbers as a means of identification both online and off. It’s a hard problem, and the underlying questions that a Committee of the National Research Council asked 15 years ago about national identity systems are questions that we should still all be asking today.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 10/19/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Identity theft has been in the news lately due to huge data breaches like the one at Equifax. But at the center of that concern is a number, a number that serves as a universal identifier and thus is the key to stealing an identity and causing innocent people a world of hurt. That number, of course, is a Social Security Number, a number that was never meant to serve as a universal personal identifier. Now many want to see it replaced as a way to prove identity. But proving identity online is no simple task. In fact, it is probably the biggest challenge facing the digital world today.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 10/5/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

The 18th Century philosopher Jeremy Bentham knew that people change their behavior if they think they are being watched. George Orwell in 1984 drew on the same realization but neither had any inkling of how watched some people feel on the web. There is recent data that they were both right, and how people might change their behavior is not always the way that either politicians or corporations like.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 9/21/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Though health care and the federal budget and so forth are getting the lion’s share of headlines these days, there are several bills working their way through Congress that could have major effects on the Web that many people use every day. One is the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act”, a proposed law with a laudable goal – and some potentially very bad unintended consequences for the Internet we all use. Here’s why.

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