Privacy – Page 6 – Stilgherrian

12 August 2014

Talking Facebook app privacy on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

“Facebook Messenger app has permission to spy on your phone,” screeched a headline on 9 News today. “The new Facebook Messenger app has permission to take pictures and videos without your confirmation and to call numbers without intervention, causing unexpected charges.”

This story caught the attention of 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide afternoon presenter Will Goodings. As you’ll hear, I talked him out of some of the scarier ideas, but did mention the issues of granularity in smartphone app permissions that I’ve written about before.

Here’s the full interview, plus a little end note about what we might do with Adelaide’s Festival Plaza. I present a modest proposal, as does a listener.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:08 — 6.7MB)

12 August 2014

Talking data retention on ABC Radio’s “Life Matters”

ABC logo One of the reasons there hasn’t been so many posts here lately is that I’ve been doing quite a few media spots. I’m about to start catching up — starting with yesterday’s appearance on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters to talk about the Australian government’s plans for mandatory data retention of so-called “metadata”.

To protect against home-grown terrorism and other criminal threats, the government wants telecommunications companies to retain details of your phone and internet use for two years. So should we trade off privacy for security or is this surveillance by the state a threat to civil liberties?

Joining me is Dr Suelette Dreyfus, research fellow in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. The presenter is Natasha Mitchell.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:50 — 8.7MB)

13 June 2014

Talking Google-Facebook links on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

Interesting news today that Facebook will start using Google’s browsing history data to better target their advertising. It triggered an equally interesting conversation just now on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide.

According to the USA Today report run on Fairfax mastheads, Facebook is looking to ramp up revenue as it competes with Google for advertising dollars.

“Let’s say that you’re thinking about buying a new TV, and you start researching TVs on the web and in mobile apps. We may show you ads for deals on a TV to help you get the best price or other brands to consider. And because we think you’re interested in electronics, we may show you ads for other electronics in the future, like speakers or a game console to go with your new TV,” the company said.

Afternoon presenter Will Goodings wanted to chat about the privacy implications. But then I showed him the recent Bloomberg report which described how researchers could use smart meters — the electricity kind — to figure out what TV programs you were watching by analysing the TV’s power consumption patterns.

Here’s the full interview, plus the subsequent conversation with lawyer Paul Gordon from Finlayson’s Lawyers, who called in while we were chatting.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:43 — 12.2MB)

04 June 2014

Talking Google and forgetting on ABC 666 Canberra

ABC logo Following a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Google has instituted a system to enable “the right to be forgotten” — and they’ve been flooded with requests.

More than 12,000 requests for certain pages to be removed from Google’s search results were received in the first 24 hours — that’s an average of seven per second — and it’s still unclear how they’ll all be dealt with.

In any event, it won’t work.

I discussed some of the issues with Genevieve Jacobs on ABC 666 Canberra this morning, including the case of Michael Trkulja, the Melbourne man who successfully sued both Google and Yahoo! for a total of around $500,000 — but who has yet to pay his lawyer — and the wonders of the Streisand Effect.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:30 — 5.4MB)

31 May 2014

Talking internet security on ABC Radio Overnights

ABC logo There’s a reason I’m firing off all these blog posts so early. I’ve been up since 0300 this morning, because at 0400 I was doing a radio spot on ABC Radio Overnights.

Presenter Sally Knight and I spoke about all manner of security and safety issues, including questions that came in from the listeners — which is always interesting on this program, because it goes to air across Australia on every ABC Local Radio transmitter, city and country. You get to hear the real concerns.

This is the full 47-minute block of conversation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:52 — 34.7MB)

31 May 2014

Talking Facebook audio snooping on The Project

Given that Facebook is the biggest social network on the planet, and therefore the biggest data miner of them all, there was naturally plenty of media interest in the privacy implications of their latest feature: audio matching.

As explained in these stories at ZDNet and The Independent, and in Facebook’s own blog post, the new Facebook app can use your smart device’s microphone to identify the music you’re listening to or the TV program you’re watching.

On Thursday I spoke about this on Channel TEN’s The Project. “Look I wouldn’t trust Facebook, personally, as far as I could spit a cow,” I said.

Over the fold you’ll find the video of the entire four-minute segment — starting off with a “package”, as they’re called, featuring Angus Kidman, editor of Lifehacker.com.au, followed by the panel interviewing me. The presenters are Carrie Bickmore, Ray Martin (yes, that Ray Martin), Jo Stanley and Lemo.

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