Category: freedom
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Privacy and Identity on the Internet
Jeffrey Rosen, law professor at George Washington University (GWU), has called the current incarnation of the Internet “a digital world that never forgets” in a recent piece on privacy for the The New York Times. It’s an astute article looking at the idea of segmented identities, the search for a way to safely control our…
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Market Segmentation and the PRIZM NE System
Market segmentation is a method of grouping people with similar characteristics, primarily for marketing purposes. A number of years ago, USA Today described in detail the information large consumer segmentation businesses track and use to group us. It’s an eye-opening read: The [consumer segmentation businesses] are pinpointing who lives where; what they’re most likely to…
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Privacy and Tracking with Digital Coupons
Data collection and mining can be quite lucrative pursuits for many retailers, and technological advances are providing them with more novel and extensive methods of doing just that. Data mining is a topic I’ve been fascinated with ever since I was introduced to it in university, and this look at how digital coupons track us…
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Northern Ireland’s Segregated Peace
Twelve years after the signing of the Belfast ‘Good Friday’ Agreement signalled an end to the Troubles, Northern Ireland is in a state of ‘segregated peace’, says Kevin Cullen, describing the situation. Not only is there an official ethos of separate but equal, but an infrastructure underpinning it. There are three times as many so-called…
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The CCTV Trade-Off
That CCTV doesn’t substantially help in reducing crime has been shown beyond reasonable doubt, proposes Bruce Schneier, so now the pressing question is whether or not the benefits security cameras do afford are worthwhile. There are exceptions, of course, and proponents of cameras can always cherry-pick examples to bolster their argument. These success stories are…
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Charitable Donations: The Problem of Restricted Funds
By donating funds to disaster-specific charitable organisations and campaigns we restrict the use of our funds to the relief of that problem only. This can cause long-lasting issues for charities and worldwide disaster recovery efforts in the future. To ensure the charitable help best, the charitable should ensure they give unrestricted funds that are not…
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Terrorism and Our Responses
Shortly after the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 incident, Bruce Schneier providedĀ links to a number of articles that published interviews, quotes or essays from him. As expected, Schneier calmly reiterates his old advice that is as valid now as it was pre-9/11. The one not to miss:Ā Is aviation security mostly for show? The best defenses against…
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Ability to Inhibit Prejudices Diminishes with Age
As we age we become less able to inhibit prejudiced inferences, relying more on ethnic and sexist stereotypes to interpret situations, research into the science of prejudice suggests. There are a lot of clichĆ©s thrown around about the elderly, but one that seems to be trueāor at least is backed up by researchāis the belief…
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CCTV Prevalence in Britain
For many years the British public has often been told that the United Kingdom has 4.2 million CCTV camerasāthat’s one for every fourteen residentsāas widely quoted by politicians, various media, and even the police. This statistic is rarely questioned, but thanks to a recent episode of the excellent More or Less (UK-only?) suggesting that this…