Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Reality 2.0
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Reality 2.0
By Katherine Druckman and Doc SearlsTechnology
Reality 2.0 episodes
- Episode 79: Your Identity - Twitter Verification, Facial Recognition, and More
Tune in to our new episode! Katherine Druckman, Doc Searls and Shawn Powers chat about Twitter verification, facial recognition, YouTube moderation, and algorithmic bias.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guest: Shawn Powers.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- I’m Not a Reporter. But I’m Verified as One on Twitter | WIRED
— I NEVER CALLED myself a journalist until Twitter made me. I’m an attorney, activist, and faculty member, but it was only by using the “journalist” label that I was able to get one of the most coveted assets in social media, the blue “verified” checkmark. My months-long effort to get verified revealed a system that is stacked against grassroots activists, particularly BIPOC communities.- Twitter verification requirements - how to get the blue check
— The blue Verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. To receive the blue badge, your account must be authentic, notable, and active.- Goodbye, Fleets
— We built Fleets as a lower-pressure, ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts. We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter. But, in the time since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped. Because of this, on August 3, Fleets will no longer be available on Twitter.- Black teen barred from skating rink by inaccurate facial recognition - The Verge
— A facial recognition algorithm used by a local roller skating rink in Detroit wouldn’t let teen Lamya Robinson onto the premises, and accused her of previously getting into a fight at the establishment.- Algorithmic bias - Wikipedia
— Algorithmic bias describes systematic and repeatable errors in a computer system that create unfair outcomes, such as privileging one arbitrary group of users over others. Bias can emerge due to many factors, including but not limited to the design of the algorithm or the unintended or unanticipated use or decisions relating to the way data is coded, collected, selected or used to train the algorithm. Algorithmic bias is found across platforms, including but not limited to search engine results and social media platforms, and can have impacts ranging from inadvertent privacy violations to reinforcing social biases of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. The study of algorithmic bias is most concerned with algorithms that reflect "systematic and unfair" discrimination. This bias has only recently been addressed in legal frameworks, such as the 2018 European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. More comprehensive regulation is needed as emerging technologies become increasingly advanced and opaque.- Face-Detection Cameras: Glitches Spur Charges of Racism - TIME
— When Joz Wang and her brother bought their mom a Nikon Coolpix S630 digital camera for Mother's Day last year, they discovered what seemed to be a malfunction. Every time they took a portrait of each other smiling, a message flashed across the screen asking, "Did someone blink?" No one had. "I thought the camera was broken!" Wang, 33, recalls. But when her brother posed with his eyes open so wide that he looked "bug-eyed," the messages stopped.- Meet the Censored: Matt Orfalea - by Matt Taibbi - TK News by Matt Taibbi
— Yes, the government is helping crack down on text messages and Facebook posts, but not to worry. At least your private thoughts are safe, right? Not so fast, found filmmaker Matt Orfalea- Texas’ social media censorship bill pushes unconstitutional limits on free speech
— Amid ongoing allegations that social media platforms are censoring conservatives, regulating Big Tech has become one of the hottest issues across the country. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has called a special legislative session in part to debate and pass content moderation legislation.- I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too. - The New York Times
— Little-known companies are amassing your data — like food orders and Airbnb messages — and selling the analysis to clients. Here’s how to get a copy of what they have on you.49 min - Episode 78: Human ID for Single Sign-On
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk to Bastian Purrer and Namik Muduroglu about Human ID, their open source anonymous single sign-on solution.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guests: Bastian Purrer and Namik Muduroglu.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- humanID | One-Click Anonymous Login
— humanID is an anonymous, bot-resistant authentication for safer online communities.Non-profit and open source, the project was started in 2018 by the Foundation for New humanID. With the help of Mozilla and Harvard, we’re on a mission to #FixTheInternet.51 min - Episode 77: Musings on Privacy, Remote Work, Health, and More
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk to Shawn Powers about everything from healthcare to bad weather. Join us for a chat about everything.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guest: Shawn Powers.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- Apple shouldn't use privacy & security to stave off competition, EU antitrust head warns | AppleInsider
— Responding to comments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook in June, European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager said that Apple shouldn't use privacy and security concerns to stifle competition on the App Store.- Why Google Can't Bring Itself to Make the Internet Respect Your Privacy | Inc.com
— The search giant has delayed the rollout of FLoC, its controversial replacement for third-party cookies, until 2023.- Real Time Lightning Map :: LightningMaps.org
1 hr 9 min - Episode 76: Brian Fox on Voting Systems, Post-COVID Work, and Bash
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk to Brian Fox about voting systems, open source, work in the post-covid era, blockchain, programming languages, and more.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guest: Brian Fox.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- Brian Fox (computer programmer) - Wikipedia
— Brian Jhan Fox (born 1959) is an American computer programmer and free software advocate. He is the original author of the GNU Bash shell, which he announced as a beta in June 1989.[1] He continued as the primary maintainer of bash until at least early 1993.[2][3] Fox also built the first interactive online banking software in the U.S. for Wells Fargo in 1995,[4] and he created an open source election system in 2008.- Opinion | To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software - The New York Times
— Although Russian hackers are reported to have tried to disrupt the November election with attacks on the voting systems of 39 states, the consensus of the intelligence community is that they were probably unsuccessful in their efforts to delete and alter voter data. But another national election is just 15 months away, and the risk that those working on behalf of President Vladimir Putin of Russia could do real damage — and even manage to mark your ballot for you or altering your vote — remains.Since the debacle of the 2000 election (remember hanging chads?) American election machinery has been improved to reduce the chances of mis-tallying votes, outright fraud and attacks by hackers. These improvements brought with them a new concern: lack of software security. Most voting machines’ software can now be easily hacked. This is in large part because the current voting systems use proprietary software based on Microsoft’s operating system.- Gerald Jay Sussman - Wikipedia
— Gerald Jay Sussman (born February 8, 1947) is the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his S.B. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT in 1968 and 1973 respectively. He has been involved in artificial intelligence (AI) research at MIT since 1964. His research has centered on understanding the problem-solving strategies used by scientists and engineers, with the goals of automating parts of the process and formalizing it to provide more effective methods of science and engineering education. Sussman has also worked in computer languages, in computer architecture and in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design.[1]- Lisp (programming language) - Wikipedia
— Lisp (historically LISP) is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized prefix notation.[3] Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today. Only Fortran is older, by one year.[4][5] Lisp has changed since its early days, and many dialects have existed over its history. Today, the best-known general-purpose Lisp dialects are Racket, Common Lisp, Scheme and Clojure.- Pwnie Awards - Wikipedia
— The Pwnie Awards recognize both excellence and incompetence in the field of information security. Winners are selected by a committee of security industry professionals from nominations collected from the information security community.[2] The awards are presented yearly at the Black Hat Security Conference.[3]- Z shell - Wikipedia
— The Z shell (Zsh) is a Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell and as a command interpreter for shell scripting. Zsh is an extended Bourne shell with many improvements, including some features of Bash, ksh, and tcsh.1 hr 3 min - Episode 75: Let's Talk About FLoC Blocking
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk to Drupal Association Community Liaison, Rachel Lawson, and Drupal developer, Tony Savorelli, about Privacy in Drupal and beyond, and protecting ourselves and others on the web.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guests: Rachel Lawson and Tony Savorelli.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- Add Permissions-Policy header to block Google FLoC [#3209628] | Drupal.org
— Google is introducing what it calls Federated Learning of Cohorts, which is a way to gather user data without cookies, regardless of whether a website is loading any Google-related trackers. This is enabled starting in Chrome 89, and only in select countries on a trial basis.Although other major browser vendors are likely against this technology and will presumably not be implementing it, given Chrome’s market share this will become a concerning issue, because it largely remove users’ ability to easily opt out of being tracked—particularly true in the case of less-savvy users.See a very informative post by Plausible.Since no one can reasonably expect users to just stop using Chrome, it will be up to responsible developers to block FLoC at the source.- Amazon is blocking Google's FLoC — and that could seriously weaken the system
— Amazon is blocking Google’s controversial cookieless tracking and targeting method.- Privacy analysis of FLoC
— In the current web, trackers (and hence advertisers) associate a cookie with each user. Whenever a user visits a website that has an embedded tracker, the tracker gets the cookie and can thus build up a list of the sites that a user visits. Advertisers can use the information gained from tracking browsing history to target ads that are potentially relevant to a given user’s interests. The obvious problem here is that it involves advertisers learning everywhere you go.- Surveillance Self-Defense | Tips, Tools and How-tos for Safer Online Communications
— We’re the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an independent non-profit working to protect online privacy for nearly thirty years. This is Surveillance Self-Defense : our expert guide to protecting you and your friends from online spying.- University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons
— The Tradeoff Fallacy - How Marketers AreMisrepresenting American Consumers andOpening Them up to Exploitation- Reality 2.0 - Blog - Reality 2.0 Newsletter - June 4, 2021: More Tracking Tech and Apple
— After a lengthy discussion in Drupal’s core issue queue by some of Katherine’s favorite people, the upcoming release of Drupal 9.2 will officially block Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) by default! Similarly, the WordPress and Joomla communities are taking similar measures. With these platforms representing a huge chunk of websites, this must be quite a blow to Google, enough so that a member of Google Chrome’s developer relations team weighed in on the Drupal issue himself. I hope this news inspires you to run off and build a Drupal site, so I’ll just leave this documentation link here just in case.1 hr 3 min - Episode 74: DeleteMe, Privacy Tools, and Protecting Yourself
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk to Abine’s Rob Shavell about DeleteMe and other privacy tools, as well as emerging issues like vaccine tracking, AI, and facial recognition.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guest: Rob Shavell.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- Remove Personal Info from Google - DeleteMe
- Redact | Mass Delete your Social Media
— The only platform that allows you to automatically clean up your old posts from services like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Discord and more all in one place- DuckDuckGo — Privacy, simplified.
1 hr 8 min - Episode 73: More Apple News and Shady Apps are Shady
Katherine Druckman, Doc Searls, and Shawn Powers discuss Apple's new privacy features, the Anom app, and the problems with cloud storage.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guest: Shawn Powers.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- Apple unveils new privacy features, digital IDs and changes to FaceTime. - The New York Times
— Apple once again took aim at the vast digital-advertising industry on Monday and unveiled a number of changes to protect iPhones users’ privacy and strengthen its position as a gatekeeper between consumers and the rest of the digital industry.- The FBI operated an 'encrypted' chat app for organized criminals | Engadget
— The FBI covertly ran an encrypted communications platform for years that allowed it to intercept 20 million messages from international criminal organizations. Hundreds of arrests have been made across 18 countries as part of the investigation known as Operation Trojan Shield. Suspects, including members of the Italian Mafia and outlaw motorcycle gangs, are among those that have been charged. Australian Police, who helped conceive the sting, have arrested 224 offenders and seized 3.7 tonnes of drugs and $44.9 million in cash and assets.- Everything you can’t do on an iPhone - The Washington Post
— I’ve used an iPhone for the past 12 years, and like most of you I am not looking to change. But we’ve become so accustomed to restrictions Apple built into the iPhone, we don’t even realize how we’re contorting ourselves to comply — or what we’re missing out on. One sign we’re being manipulated by a monopoly is when it’s hard to even consider an alternative. Apple says it’s protecting our security and privacy, but it has become clear that locking down our iPhones is also about controlling us so Apple can make more money.- iOS 15, iCloud Updates: All the Big Privacy News From WWDC '21
— It wouldn’t be an Apple event without a nod to the company’s pro-privacy stance. As part of its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) keynote this year, the company announced some major privacy upgrades that will come with iOS 15 and iCloud—here are some of the biggest.38 min - Episode 72: To Opt-In or Not To Opt-In, That is the Question
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk about Amazon’s new Sidewalk feature, more about Apple’s opt-out options, and other privacy issues.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSupport Reality 2.0
Links:
- Doc Searls Weblog · Apple vs (or plus) Adtech
— If you haven’t seen it yet, watch Apple’s Privacy on iPhone | tracked ad. In it a guy named Felix (that’s him, above) goes from a coffee shop to a waiting room somewhere, accumulating a vast herd of hangers-on along the way. The herd represents trackers in his phone, all crowding his personal space while gathering private information about him.- Apple’s New Privacy Ad Is Absurd. That’s Why It’s So Brilliant
— The iPhone maker is taking a much more aggressive stand on whether users should allow tracking. At all.- How to Find the Mobile Ad ID on Apple and Android Devices?
— The mobile advertising ID, also known as a mobile ad ID or a MAID, is a sequence of alphanumeric characters assigned to a mobile phone or tablet by the device’s operating system, either iOS or Android.- Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors | Ars Technica
— If you use Alexa, Echo, or many other Amazon devices, you have only 10 days until you're opted in to an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.- How Amazon Sidewalk Works—and Why You May Want to Turn It Off | WIRED
— It promises connected convenience. But the ecommerce giant doesn't exactly have an inspiring record when it comes to privacy.34 min - Episode 71: Tons of Tracking Tech
Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk about Apple’s IDFA, Ford In-Car ads, and more about AirTags.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSupport Reality 2.0
Links:
- Ford Patented In-Car Ads Because We Live In Hell Now
— I’m all for innovation in the automotive sector, but there are some technologies I simply cannot abide by, and Ford’s newly-patented billboard detector that can read ads and display them inside your car is exactly one of those technologies.- Apple forcing developers to ditch unique device IDs | Ars Technica
— 2013 article about the origins of Apple's IDFA.- Proposal: Treat FLoC like a security concern – Make WordPress Core
— Why is this bad? As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains in their post “Google’s FLoC is a terrible idea“, placing people in groups based on their browsing habits is likely to facilitate employment, housing and other types of discrimination, as well as predatory targeting of unsophisticated consumers.This is in addition to the privacy concerns of tracking people and sharing their data, seemingly without informed consent – and making it more difficult for legislators and regulators to protect people.- Add Permissions-Policy header to block Google FLoC [#3209628] | Drupal.org
— Google is introducing what it calls Federated Learning of Cohorts, which is a way to gather user data without cookies, regardless of whether a website is loading any Google-related trackers. This is enabled starting in Chrome 89, and only in select countries on a trial basis.Although other major browser vendors are likely against this technology and will presumably not be implementing it, given Chrome’s market share this will become a concerning issue, because it largely remove users’ ability to easily opt out of being tracked—particularly true in the case of less-savvy users.See a very informative post by Plausible.Since no one can reasonably expect users to just stop using Chrome, it will be up to responsible developers to block FLoC at the source.- Joomla! and FLoC
— Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) proposes a new way for businesses to reach people with relevant content and ads. We explore what this could mean and why we are giving you the choice as to whether to use it or not.28 min - Episode 70: Apple AirTags and Privacy
Tune in to our new episode! Katherine Druckman, Doc Searls, and Petros Koutoupis talk Apple Airtags and privacy.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/NewsletterFaceBookTwitterYouTubeMastodonSpecial Guest: Petros Koutoupis.
Support Reality 2.0
Links:
- I tracked my kid with Apple's Airtags to test its privacy features - CNN
— I clipped a keychain with one of Apple's tiny new Bluetooth trackers, AirTags, onto my son's book bag and waved goodbye to him on the school bus. I watched on my iPhone's Find My app as the bus stopped at a light a few blocks down from our street.- Apple AirTags only partly stop stalking - The Washington Post
43 min
About Reality 2.0
From the publisher's feed
Join Privacy and Open Source advocates, Doc Searls and Katherine Druckman, as they navigate the new digital world, covering topics related to digital privacy, cybersecurity, digital identity, as well…
as Linux and open source and other current issues.