Notes from the Electronic Cottage 8/13/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

It’s August which means blueberries here in Maine, and means hacker conferences out in Las Vegas. The Internet of Things was center stage out there, and, sure enough, there is a serious security flaw in how all those “smart” devices in our homes and on our bodies communicate with one another which could result in some pretty unpleasant consequences around the house.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 8/6/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

As more and more things that we use every day, from cars to health bracelets, get connected to the Internet, and as personal information gets aggregated and stored in large centralized databases, the odds keep going up and up that one of these days, our personal information is going to get hacked. Here are some recent indications.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/16/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Ensuring the privacy of Americans’ communications and information is a real challenge on the web these days, as recent breaches of federal offices have shown. Some companies are beginning to make encrypted messages between people possible. Law enforcement says a way is needed to break that encryption. Security experts say that’s a very bad idea. It’s a big issue – here’s a look at what’s at stake.

The url for the “Imagine” video mentioned is www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyPbgqggqo

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/9/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Humans are very good at identifying human faces. These days, computers are just as good, or even better, even when the person isn’t facing a camera. Most of us have a photo of ourselves somewhere on the web, even if we didn’t put it there ourselves. Facial recognition software can compare a picture taken in a store or gas station or even on the street with photos taken from the web and all the sudden our online and offline lives come together for retailers, marketers, and government agencies. For over a year, trade associations and privacy advocates have been meeting to try to come up with a voluntary set of guidelines for using facial recognition technology. Recently all nine privacy advocate organizations walked out of those meetings. Here’s why.

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