2009 14 September • 12.11pm
Let’s face it, the concept of privacy does not exist on the web. That’s already a given. Your friends knows that, your mom knows that, even our dog knows that. However, I don’t think people realize just how much they are giving away and for what. And this is where Facebook comes in: it’s the gleaming, shimmering example how much of a cesspool of privacy problems the web can be. To their credit, much has changed since then, but few issues still remains. The biggest of all is just how much of personal and private information third-party apps can collect about you. A seemingly innocent game of Facebook poker or scrabble might not seem innocent once they start scraping your personal data without you, or Facebook knowing. This might sound hypocritical since Google et al. essentially does the same, but you’d imagine that a sole web application that harbours that much personal information might be a little more considerate and upfront about what it does to the drunken pictures you post on your page.
Thus, while Facebook continually overhauls its policy, here are some tips on how to defend yourself against the seemingly losing battle for right of privacy. Thus, you shouldn’t be surprised the next time you login to Facebook and see a picture of yourself plastered in a dating advertisment. You’ve been warned. As for me, I’m still staying away from Facebook…but that’s probably because I’m just lazy.
Filed under: web , Facebook, nonexistent, privacy
2009 10 September • 9.49pm
…and here you’re thinking that it can’t happen in this day and age.
Moral Lesson? Don’t dismiss it too quickly the next time that script-kiddie wannabe CS freshman or that know-it-all coworker brags about finding a bug in GCC. There’s always hope for everyone.
Filed under: Uncategorized , Computer Science
Although smart people (read: not an idiot like me) would already know this from IMDB, there were things that I didn’t know about ‘Good Will Hunting’ ’til I saw it again this weekend:
- It was directed by Gus Van Sant (same guy who directed Elephant…no? ok, how about Milk? still nothing? seriously, you need to go watch something other than a Michael Bay movie)
- Casey Affleck was there. (did you know he was in the American Pie franchise as well?)
- Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier were co-producers of this film. Not surprising considering Kevin, Matt and Ben knew each other for quite a while now, but that the View Askew productions have this movie in their repertoire alongside Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob The Movie is mind-boggling.
- The in-classroom shot in the first 5 minutes in the movie was filmed in one of the classrooms in Maclennan Physical labs at University of Toronto, specifically the same room where I spent time dozing off to Physics 100 and CSC373. Apparently, most of the interior scenes of MIT and Harvard was shot at U of T as well.
Filed under: Uncategorized
As I’m nearing graduation (next Tuesday), I guess no time’s any better than right now to reassess what things I want to accomplish in the next year or so. I apologize if this is the most random list that you’ve ever seen:
- Get my G (and M) driver’s license
- Do volunteer work overseas
- Buy another guitar and amp
- Donate to Amnesty International
- Do the CN Tower climb
- Pay off my school debt
- Go back home
- Buy a house
- Gain 10 pounds (half-way there)
- Install OS X Leopard on a netbook
- Build my own PC
- Get your own host and domain
- Finish my personal projects
- Go to Las Vegas
- Visit (again) the new AGO and the not-so-new ROM
Let’s see how many I can cross off this list by the end of the year.
Filed under: "this is madness", life , graduation, list, todo
