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baileydog

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Posts posted by baileydog

  2. Posted

    [I][B]it seems there is more and more disturbing news about how data that we would like to have remain confidential is being used without our permission or knowledge...[/B][/I]

    ...from Maclean's

    A Hot Docs film details how Google and Facebook serve up reams of private data to the CIA, FBI and others

    Leigh Bryan, a 26-year-old bar manager from Coventry, England, had booked a hotel on Hollywood Boulevard and was looking forward to some wild times in California. Instead, after showing his passport at the L.A. airport, he was taken to a holding room, questioned for five hours, then handcuffed, jailed overnight and flown home the next morning. U.S. authorities had red-flagged Bryan because of tweets heâ??d sent to a friend in Britain three weeks earlier. One read: â??Free this week for a gossip/prep before I go destroy America? X.â? Another message, referencing TVâ??s Family Guy, said heâ??d be â??on Hollywood Blvd and digginâ?? Marilyn Monroe up!â? At the airport, Bryan tried to explain that â??destroyâ? was English slang for drunken partying, and that he had no intention of disinterrring a screen legend, but U.S. officials didnâ??t buy it.

    Bryan is not alone. In Terms and Conditions May Apply, a documentary feature showing next week at Torontoâ??s Hot Docs festival, his case is one of several absurd stories about innocents targeted by police or government agencies trolling personal Internet accounts. This witty yet chilling film presents a dire portrait of how, with just a few keystrokes, we surrender our privacy to a brave new world of state surveillance beyond anything George Orwell ever dreamed of.

    We all do it routinely. You download an app, upgrade some software, register on a website and up comes that mass of fine print called the â??terms of serviceâ? contract. Without reading it, you scroll to the bottom and click on â??I agree.â?

    The documentary, directed by Cullen Hoback, a 31-year-old American, presents an alarming view of how much ground such contracts cover. As a prank, a site called Gamestation put a clause in its user agreement for one day only: â??By placing an order via this website, you agree to grant us a no-transferable option to claim, now and forever more, your immortal soul.â? That day, the site raked in 7,000 immortal souls.

    By now, many people are aware that data mining is a growth industry, and that all kinds of companies tap online activity to track and target consumer-buying habits. But Terms and Conditions addresses a more sinister trend: Google and Facebook are serving up reams of private data to police and intelligence agencies such as the CIA, NSA and FBI, under terms of service that strip users of any right to privacy. â??Twitter is one of the only companies that has stood up for usersâ?? rights,â? Hoback told Macleanâ??s, calling Facebook one of the worst violators. â??I think weâ??ll see a social-media tool in the future that will have privacy at the forefront. But Facebook is a virtual public utility.â?

    In North America, Facebook is not obliged to give users their own data. European law, however, is stricter. Austriaâ??s Max Schrems sued the company to obtain three years of his Facebook data, and it amounted to some 1,000 pages, even though he was just a once-a-week user. Schrems says that even after users delete their data, Facebook can access it, and so can the government. Google is another open-pit data mine. In the film, U.S. screenwriter Jerome Schwartz says that a heavily armed police SWAT team invaded his home after heâ??d done a few Google searches for â??how to kill your wife.â? He had been researching a script for the TV drama Cold Case.

    Freedom fighting in cyberspace has changed in the past decade. Two other Hot Docs filmsâ??Downloaded and TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboardâ??show how anarchist geeks pioneered social media with file-sharing sites like Napster that envisioned a utopia of universally free information. Under pressure from the music business, authorities shut them down. Now the authorities, allied with the geeksâ?? corporate successors, are engaged in their own form of piracyâ??hoarding a vast booty of personal data.

    But surveillance can swing both ways. In his film, Hoback ambushes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the sidewalk outside his home. â??Are you guys recording?â? asks a peeved Zuckerberg. â??Can you please not?â? Hoback obliges and turns off the camera, which produces a smile from Zuckerberg. But the filmmaker neglects to inform him that heâ??s wearing spy-cam eyeglasses.

  3. Posted

    as I said ... I am for anyone versus the Habs ... GO SENS GO

     

    and, hopefully the Leafs can find their game again on Wednesday

     

    a Leafs versus Sens matchup would be great

     

    (and would be good for the Ottawa area hotels as those of us from here would have to go there in order to be able to afford a game ticket)

  10. Posted

    being snowed in today in southeast Wyoming ... this part of the world is getting smacked with a nasty snow storm and the interstate highways are closed ... and it has been getting worse all day ... a while ago I could look out my hotel room window and see the building across the street, but now all I see is WHITE

  12. Posted

    I bought a bunch of stuff at various points during my drive up and down Pikes Peak and then around Garden of the Gods today: two hats and a t-shirt at the summit, black leather native made cowboy hat and moccasins, two more t-shirts ... and then I bought beer on the way back to my hotel

  15. Posted

    well, as I get within 5 months and 4 days of my 60th birthday, I am certainly glad of two things

     

    most of me still works fine ... yes, more things ache more than they used to, but all in all, I have been lucky on the health front

     

    and, it is nice that the women who have responded to this thread appreciate (or at least tolerate) us older gentlemen

     

    cheers

    • Like 2

  16. Posted

    I visited the Goode Company Barbeque on Kirby Drive in Houston and had their three meat combo dinner, with two sides ... it was excellent and was quite a lot of food, and was had for the ridiculously low price of $12.75

     

    I have found in my US travels that you can pay a lot for a meal, just like you can pay a lot in Toronto or Ottawa ... but if you search a little, you can eat for damn near free

  22. Posted

    I hope spring arrives early ... I drove down the east coast of the USA over the last month and stayed in Florida for a week ... but, today was the first day where the daytime high got above 20 deg C ... I was between Panama City FL and Mobil AL ... as I head to New Orleans and then into TX, I hope it stays warm for a while

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