'Secretly implemented' snooping
FCC pressured to probe Facebook
for tracking users after they log offElectronic Privacy and Information Center
EPIC has joined the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumer Action, the American Library Association and the Center for Digital Democracy and other activist groups to press the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's implementation of "persistent identifiers," which track Facebook users even after they have logged off the site.
The groups' letter asks the commission to investigate whether Facebook's secretly implemented technology constitutes unfair and deceptive business practices.
The coalition's letter points out that Facebook's practices violate
the terms of the site's own Privacy Policy. Although Facebook claims
to have fixed the problem, according to the letter, "the company still
places persistent identifiers on users' browsers that collect post-
log-out data and could be used to identify users."
The Sept. 29 letter also requests an investigation into new Facebook
applications, such as Timeline, which aggregates a Facebook user's data
and entire posting history, and Open Graph, which documents a user's
interaction with other web sites. Security experts have warned that
Timeline's aggregation of user data provides a tempting target for
computer criminals. The new applications also profoundly change the way
information is shared: "Under the frictionless sharing model, content
sharing is a passive experience in which a social app prompts the user
once, at the outset, to decide the level of privacy for the app . . .
then proceeds to share every bit of information obtained thereafter."
The coalition's letter also discusses Facebook's history of "failing to
protect consumer privacy." The Federal Trade Commission is currently
investigating Facebook's secret use of facial recognition technology to
build a biometric database from users' photos. Facebook's use of facial
recognition technology also violated the company's Privacy Policy, as
well as public assurances made by Facebook to users.
EPIC: Letter to Federal Trade Commission (Sept. 29, 2011)
https://epic.org/privacy/
EPIC: Facebook Facial Recognition Complaint
http://epic.org/redirect/
EPIC: Facebook Privacy
http://epic.org/privacy/
Fair use commentary
Carl Sagan: a diagnosis of paranoia
doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
'In paranoid thinking a person believes he has detected a conspiracy -- that is, a hidden (and malevolent) pattern of behavior of friends, associates or governments -- where in fact no such pattern exists. If there is such a conspiracy, the subject may be profoundly anxious, but his thinking is not necessarily paranoid. A famous case involves James Forrestal, the first U.S. Secretary of Defense. At the end of World War II, Forrestal was convinced that Israeli secret agents were following him everywhere. His physicians, equally convinced of the absurdity of this ide'e fixe, diagnosed him as paranoid and confined him to the upper story of Walter Reed Army Hospital, from which he plunged to his death [sic?], partly because of inadequate supervision by hospital personnel, overly deferential to one of his exalted rank. Later it was discovered that Forrestal was indeed being followed by Israeli agents who were worried that he might reach a secret understanding with representatives of Arab nations. Forrestal had other problems, but having his valid perception labeled paranoid did not help his condition. '*******
' An acquaintance of mine says, "In America today, if you're not a little paranoid you're out of your mind." '
From The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the evolution of human intelligence, Random House 1977, page 181 (hard cover)
Sagan was writing in the seventies, when the public wasn't even able to absorb the extent and depth of conspiracies carried out under President Richard M. Nixon. Yet the illustrious scientist's analysis held for 1949 and holds today.
Sagan was making a point about non-paranoid "paranoia," but some of his statements are slightly out of sync with the facts as reported on 2011 web sites. For example, Forrestal seems to have fallen to his death, a sash tightly wrapped around his neck, at Bethesda Naval Hospital, not Walter Reed. Aside from concerns about Israeli operatives, Forrestal was also worried that the Soviet NKVD was shadowing him everywhere. During this period the American public was learning of Soviet spy rings that had honeycombed Washington -- and the NKVD was certainly something to worry about.
Was Forrestal tailed by Israeli operatives? Although there may not be absolute confirmation, it should be recalled that Menahem Begin's terrorist gang tried to assassinate Britain's Ernest Bevin over his anti-Zionist position. And Forrestal was likewise known for his anti-Zionist stance.
This site gives some useful background, but the reader is urged to check further:
http://www.dcdave.com/article5/060409.htm
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