The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users

[RedEarth]

In 1993, the dawn of the Internet age, the liberating anonymity of the online world was captured in a well-known New Yorker cartoon. One dog, sitting at a computer, tells another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Fifteen years later, that anonymity is gone.

It’s not paranoia: they really are spying on you.

Technology companies have long used “cookies,” little bits of tracking software slipped onto your computer, and other means, to record the Web sites you visit, the ads you click on, even the words you enter in search engines — information that some hold onto forever. They’re not telling you they’re doing it, and they’re not asking permission. Internet service providers are now getting into the act. Because they control your connection, they can keep track of everything you do online, and there have been reports that I.S.P.’s may have started to sell the information they collect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/opinion/05sat4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[TomInTib]

1. Try signing up for gmail...

They read the whole damned email to decide what ads to throw at you.

It is actually fascinating.

But, then again, I am easily entertained.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. I think Gmail is alright.

They use robots to read email for those targeted ads. It shows us what robots are capable of, how they can classify us, and makes it visible. Robots are constantly classifying us in ways that are invisible on the Internet, so in some ways its kind of a welcome change.

[TomInTib]

4. Well....

you oughta read what it picks up out of my emails.

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. hee hee. ;) nt

[TomInTib]

6. Yeah, well....

Ain't no laughing matter.

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

I tend to take shit pretty seriously.

Even when I don't.
Tom

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. Its cool.

I thought you were making a joke. Yes, privacy is serious stuff.

[TomInTib]

8. Well, it is kind of a joke.

The shit it picks up on is hilarious.

I come from the worlds of:

Music
Asian antiquities
Art
Food
World Dance
Sound
and various un mentionables

Carve your own

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. So I guess you're a musician?

I come from the worlds of
Freud
World physics
pranic healing
women in thongs
William blake

It depends on the email. "women in thongs" comes from a letter from a guy who can't spell worth a damn, and that was the only one. I just noticed a political letter for which it offered me my own "Obamasm" T-shirt. Disturbing.

[TomInTib]

10. "women in thongs" and "William Blake", good enough for me...

even tho I have no idea who Wm Blake is...

I just know that those are the first names of one of my favorite people.

[napoleon_in_rags]

3. The party had to end. It always does.

There used to be this great beach outside my town that was nude, it was really beautiful. But then so many masturbating perverts showed up with cameras that it all had to be shut down. This will basically be the story of the Internet, (where honesty and information sharing is analogous to nudity.)

[sce56]

11. If you want to keep it private do your messaging using Word then save the file with a password

add it as an attachment to the message it would be hard for someone to read the message now. Just make sure you let the recipient know of the password separately.