[Herts] Twitter info? :: we are all doomed

[local.linux]

hi Mike,

You give me too much credit but, I did have a few strongly worded, choice 
anecdotes regarding the reasons I was not going to be using twitter any time 
soon.

This subject really gets my blood boiling.
 
Although I agree in an ideal world it would be great to have every piece of 
information link to all others in meaningful semantic terms and in the same 
way people. The problem occurs in this slightly less perfect world and the 
concept of digital archiving.

So there are all the dangers I mentioned in my 
http://www.jumpstation.co.uk/flog/Jun2009.html#010620091607
anti-twitter talk but, there is a much MUCH bigger danger from the future.

Every time I interact with the web something is left behind and whereas my 
http://www.jumpstation.co.uk/flog/flog.html contains almost no personal 
information e.g. I never use my name. Links that I post may be to a source 
code file with my name in the header.

Now someone with malicious intentions could manually paw through all these 
links and related materials and obtain far more information than I would ever 
be comfortable giving out. But my flog is eight years old, even a basic 
automated spider could get a lot from trawling it. If I keep using it what 
will the monetary value be of my data in another tens years?
I am not afraid of a dedicated malicious individual, I am worried about 
bots/spiders that will collate information about me and make decisions based 
on that.
First it maybe the industrious spammers just flooding me with personally 
target spam, but then it will be the government and maybe not ours.
Hmmm that sounds a bit alarmist but, the bots, spiders and algorithms will 
pigeon hole you and if they get it wrong ...

Using twitter is paramount to giving a personal and detailed (fully 
searchable/indexable) diary that can easily be cross referenced to millions of 
others.
Maybe its worth less than the work required to monetise today but, as more 
people join, the veins of information get richer, then its only a matter of 
economics before it all becomes profitable.

And to continue on my rather negative theme;
For those of you who hide from the digital world by avoiding things like 
twitter and using your real name, what about the people sitting next to you ?
Are they blogging/twittering notes about your location/health/etc and who 
needs humans, facial recognition is becoming more and more common on mobile 
phones, laptops and security systems.

Add in a couple of data breaches, each containing a couple of million records 
of ... well anything digital stored. Of course a couple of data breaches does 
not seem very much but they are happening will all too much regularity.
http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=breach

This is not a question of personal freedom, social interaction or fear of 
hackers, this is economics. How long before the data is mined and will they 
tap your vein.

Rob




On Thursday 25 February 2010, Mike Roberts wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> I dont think it was you. It was more of a talk about the inherent
> insecurity of the the twitter api's and how easy it was (at that point
> in time) to extract significant quantities of personal information on
> twitterers by using automated queries of the system. The person giving
> the talk, as I remember said something along the lines of they wouldnt
> touch twitter as a result and recommended identi.ca as it as more
> secure. They had blogged on their findings and had also, I think, tried
> to point this out to twitter. I am trying to find a ref to their blog
> where they outlined the issues. It is one of the regular guys and I am
> so sorry I cant remember their name.
> 
> Mike 8-{>
> 
> Steve Clark wrote:
> > On Thursday 25 Feb 2010 08:42:30 Lance Haig wrote:
> >> The OSS version of twitter is at http://identi.ca
> >
> > Was that me? I'm still tweeting/denting and having fun with it. A post
> > today on the uses of higher speed broadband generated some interesting
> > discussion from all over the world.
> >
> > I don't know what site Mike means. The whole microblogging phenomenon has
> > been extensively discussed all over the place.
> >
> > I'm currently trying to rationalise my social networking. I follow people
> > on lots of services and this leads to some duplicated that I'm trying to
> > reduce. I plan to blog about it when I work out what I want to do.
> >
> > You can find links to most of my on-line personas at
> >
> > http://bagofspoons.net/
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >> On 24/02/2010 22:34, Mike Roberts wrote:
> >>> Hi Guys,
> >>>
> >>> Hope the last meeting went well? Sorry I couldnt make it.
> >>>
> >>> A while back someone, and apologies for not remembering your name, gave
> >>> a really interesting talk about twitter and some of the "features" he
> >>> felt it had. Is there any chance of a link to the website where this
> >>> was covered please?
> >>>
> >>> Cheers Mike 8-{>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
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