To help keep things more structured and organised i have decided to dedicate a project site for the research and experiments which will contribute to my final year project.
All future posts will be posted at the new url “http://www.minimalistics.co.uk/idat/privacy/“
So for the past couple of weeks i have been heavily investing my time into the research of privacy, or rather the lack of within cyberspace. After reading countless articles and numerous chapters in published material i have become to gain a better understanding and view regarding our privacy online.
Part of my research has included looking at what people have done to try and combat this problem.
My main interest is to look at the effect that google has on the web and our personal data so i have been mainly looking at google based applications/artworks tackling the difficult subject of privacy.
Scroogle! Scroogle.org
Scroogle is a secure method for searching online protecting your privacy. By using its service it stops Google from leaving cookies, tracing your ip, and leaves google with no idea who has sent the search queries, enabling any user to stay anonymous.
Google: I want your soul
A short film/animation revealing information about Google.
TrackmeNot http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/
“TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one’s tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines (AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN) and requires no 3rd-party servers or services.”
My Google Search History - Launch site
“My Google Search History is a set of movies, sounds and text inventory with all my search requests done since 2006 on Google search engine.
Displayed as an inventory, my searchs show a full selfportrait.
Like a big souvenir movie, this video can refresh the small things i was looking for at specific moments.”
The Search Wall http://www.thesearchwall.net
“The Search Wall is a collaborative tele-interactive art work reflecting what people are searching for on the Internet. Privacy issues almost daily make news and are a large concern for many of the Internet’s users. However, through daily usage of search engines we nevertheless willingly gradually disclose it.”
FACELESS http://www.ambienttv.net/content/?q=faceless
“Wanting to tell a story, you choose video as the appropriate medium. You look for locations, only to discover that every place has already been filmed and featured. The question arises: why shoot more footage in places which have permanent cameras monitoring every corner, recording every move 24 hours a day? Rather than bringing in more cameras, why not use the existing recordings that capture London’s daily life from every angle?” more
TheBigPlot http://www.thebigplot.net
Coming Soon
Carnivore http://r-s-g.org/carnivore/
“Carnivore is a surveillance tool for data networks. At the heart of the project is CarnivorePE, a software application that listens to all Internet traffic (email, web surfing, etc.) on a specific local network. Next, CarnivorePE serves this data stream to interfaces called “clients.” These clients are designed to animate, diagnose, or interpret the network traffic in various ways. Use CarnivorePE to run Carnivore clients from your own desktop, or use it to make your own clients.”
The Surveillance Camera Players http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html
A recent video i came across wen researching googles data logging.
This was shot in building 41 in Googles headquaters.
Just stumbled accross this video whilst researching privacy issues related to the google toolbar. I’m sure it will be an eye opener to some people.
An interesting interview with Steve Ballmer CEO at Microsoft.
To read the full article over at techcrunch.com click here
My idea aims to raise questions relating to digital privacy on the Internet. Should our online activity really be tracked?
I want to explore the many issues and debates with regards to anonymous browsing and digital privacy on the web. Some of the issues that I would like to research further include; Have we become ignorant to the fact that nearly every step we take on the web can be logged, traced, stored and used to “help improve” our web experience?
A major debate online questions Google Inc’s Privacy Policies and their attitude to data privacy. With the slogan “Don’t Be Evil” how can we be sure that this is not a tactical ploy to reel us in and to make us feel safe? There has to be some motive to giving out free applications and features.
By using existing technologies I aim to demonstrate whether or not the power and information that these businesses hold on us as individuals is being used to benefit the end user or instead to benefit the companies themselves. From the moment we log on to their websites they are aware of a multitude of information, ranging from what operating system we are running to personal information such as our location. Google Inc for example, offers a range of services and by signing up to just a few of these services they will know where you live, your age, and even your bank account details. As Google now own some of our largest online and offline services and products are they really looking after our data or are they using it to take over the web? At present our personal data is in safe hands, or so we would like to think. With the recent legal between Google’s YouTube and Viacom, our information is no longer in trusted hands.
My aim is to expose how and why these companies gather, utilise and process our data. I will pay particular attention to the motives of capturing and mining data on the web and the effects of these actions. Are these motives for the good of the public, a way to enhance the user’s web experience, or just a sneaky way to increase profitability, hits and above all to gain even more market share?
Anonymousity, Privacy, Data mining, Internet Coporations, Digital Privacy
This project is innovative as it will look at both new and existing debates surrounding the field of privacy on the web. Although previous research into this area has been done, the web is an ever changing environment. As a result of this growth and change more powerful and innovative methods are being developed and introduced by companies allowing them to further data mining.
There are numerous resources online all with direct information on specific aspects of privacy, relating to companies such as Google.
The target audience for this piece would be individuals who are unaware to the data collection of such corporate firms. I will aim to target Google inc customers/users as in January 2008 they owned 68.8% of the search engine market compared the other big players in the search engine field.
At the moment I have not fully decided on which way to take my project but i have been considering a number of ideas:
- One of the ideas is to create an interactive which will expose the information that Google harvests. Users could select the services to which they utilise or are subscribed to, be it you tube, Google mail, Google search. The output from the installation would give the user an insight into how much of their personal information these companies have.
- Another of my ideas is to create some kind of tool / aid to reduce the amount of data captured by such global data mining companies. Tolls could include a new web browser or even a website with tool kits and steps to reduce data capturing.
I feel the project is a directly related to the industry as there is ever growing concerns regarding anonymous browsing. I plan to base my project on both the internet and on the actions of Google as culturally they both used by millions globally and Google is one of the most dominant figures of the internet today. It also relates to political / industrial events when the lawsuit between YouTube and Viacom.
The technologies that I am considering using will use will be mainly web based, using a combination of Flash, PHP, Java, HTML and possibly some api’s.
To begin the production of the project I will firstly need to form a more solid idea/realisation for the project, pinning down the conceptual and cultural aspect. After talking it over with a project supervisor I am sure that my idea will become more solid allowing me to explore more areas and offer a more focused approach to the project. I will need to consider more precisely how I will technically achieve the results and what methods I will take to embed the effects of using such companies into the viewers mind.
Researching will pay a heavy part in the concept of the project. My initial area of research will be looking into the way these companies harvest our information, revealing the subtle techniques they use to track our everyday movements. From the location in which we log on, to whom we are emailing and even what we are emailing.
After defining my research area I will begin to build a number of prototypes, of which I will experiment and test.
I recently stumbled across a short video made by Googles Maile Ohye, one of the “support enginers” at Google Inc. The video goes into a simple exmplanation of googles privacy and what private information google stores when you make a simple search query.
Very well explained and even has some lovely diagrams….
