IT@Pitt

NSA

2006-12-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

In the 1940’s, the United States and the UK formed a joint intelligence program which later added secondary partners Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The program became known as SIGNIT. Its purpose was the interception and sharing of global electronic communications through a common set of methods and terminology. One of the first collaborations occurred in 1941 when the US delivered a model of the Japanese PURPLE machine, a communication encryption device to British codebreakers at Bletchley Park. In return, the British gave the U.S. representatives an assortment of advanced cryptological equipment, including the Marconi-Adcock high-frequency direction finder. (World-Information.org). The alliance grew, and by the Cold War in the 60’s, in order to gather any and satellite based communication, a new project, named ECHELON, was instituted and run by the young intelligence agency, the NSA.

ECHELON is still going strong, although to what degree and to what end is unclear. And therein lay the problem. The fourth amendment protects American citizens from search and seizure without probable cause and a warrant. England possesses similar laws against violations of citizens. In 1967 the Supreme Court held that the 4th Amendment covered both physical searches as well as electronic surveillance, but there was no precedent for whether the Amendment would hold should the matter at hand be one of national security.
Senate Committees in the late 70’s starting pushing this issue, and initiating extensive investigations into domestic surveillance. Out of these investigations came the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to regulate and standardize procedures for foreign surveillance domestically. However, there was no provision for any intel gathered beyond our physical borders. This essentially provided a loophole for allied nations to share collected data, gathered abroad, on each others citizens while still remaining legal. Yet even this was not enough for big government. After 9/11, they got their wish. Under the guise of the “war” on terrorism, Bush was able to secretly push through “National Security Presidential Directives,” effectively unleashing surveillance on our own people.
As one would assume, something of this magnitude would not stay secret for long and the story leaked to the press and the New York Times ran stories about thousands of US citizens phone calls that were tapped without warrant. The stories started a maelstrom of response.
The ACLU has created a watchdog group, and even the European Parliament launched an official inquiry, sending emissaries to the US on a fact finding mission under clouds of speculation that ECHELON is secretly being used to gather intelligence on European industry, civilians, and even not-for-profit relief organizations.
The NSA themselves have spin control on their site in the form of a “Responsible Citizen” page. It lauds itself on its approachability to the American public, the need for oversight committees, and respect for citizens’ trust. Yet this magnanimous nature falls apart with even the slightest provocation, as one would expect. The People for the American Way Foundation after being denied access to NSA records under the Freedom of Information Act, ended up suing the agency for the documents it says should be available to the citizenry. The NSA states the records would jeopardize national security. Ironically, the People for the American Way Foundation weren’t looking for names and locations. They only wanted information about the program structure; how many wiretaps? Who reviews them? The advocacy group argued that the law can't be used to protect the government from disclosing details about illegal programs.

Bits and Bytes nugget

2006-12-07T22:00:00.000-05:00

I had a few smaller aha moments during today's lab. One of these aha moments was finding out why byte is spelled by a Y as opposed to an I. I had wondered why this was once or twice in my fluency voyage and now I know. I usually just chalked it up to computer lingo. However, there is a very practical reason behind it. The change was made so that bytes and bits would not be confused do to a typographical error.
Another smaller aha moment I had came with the explanation of of how the related nominal numbers to binary and mentioned that counting has the same intervals. The only difference is that binary numbers are counted by a base of ten as opposed to a base of 2 for nominal numbers. I have been trying to think of a easy, but precise way to try and convey this concept in my lab next week I understood the process, but was having a hard time figuring out how to get it across to the audience and now I know how to do this. Although, I now I do not have to go into as much depth next week and can just skim over it since it has already been covered.
I found the dice boggle game to very helpful in reinforcing the concept of of digitizing. I think that it really helped to get across the main concepts behind digitizing and it did it in a simple and fun way.

Virtual Reality

2006-12-06T10:19:00.000-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Ken Sochats of the University of Pittsburgh SIS Department to discuss virtual reality and its role in society and education. My FLAG group was doing a presentation that included some discussion of virtual reality and I was wanted to be as prepared as I could to this part of the presentation. During this meeting I had many aha moments. I had previously only thought of virtual reality being used for mainly entertainment purposes. That was until Mr. Sochats informed me of all of the interesting and informative things Pitt was doing with virtual reality and took me through a tour of many of his projects.
Like me, many people think of weird helmet and glove combos or modern video games when they think of virtual reality and yes these are form of it. However, the real splendor of virtual reality comes through its use in training and educational programs. The virtual reality team at Pitt has virtual training simulation that have a complete to scale interactive image of the Pittsburgh City Buildings that EMTs can use for emergency response training. EMTs can virtually run through the buildings and learn danger zones and general building layout. This allows these EMTs to be properly trained and be familiar with the Pittsburgh governmental building without having to disturb work lives of city employees.
Another important simulation that Mr. Sochats showed me was of a nuclear powerplant. This simulation can be used by young engineers who wish to be trained in the field of nuclear power. This simulation was necessary to create because after accidents like 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl the amount of people who pursued careers in nuclear power greatly decreased. Presently, there is a mini-crisis going on because many of the engineers who have the knowledge and know-how are retiring. Therefore, it was important to create this simulation with input from these engineers before the knowledge was lost forever. You can not just waltz into a nuclear powerplant and walk around, but with this new simulation you can receive a personal virtual tour from the Westinghouse CEO and top engineers themselves and have them share their wealth of knowledge with you.
virtual reality really is an up and coming field that has yet to reach it's full potential as the book mentions. I was a bit skeptical at first and thought that it was just for video games, but I now believe that it has the ability to change the way we learn and live.

Computers only do what you tell them to!

2006-12-03T23:31:00.000-05:00

The lab this past week actually made me rather deflated. I had spent the past 10 years always blaming my computer every time it seemed to have a bug or any other type of malfunction. I thought it was just that, a computer malfunction. In truth more than 90% of the time "computer malfunction" is due to human error. I suppose that deep down inside I knew that more often than not the malfunctions were human and not machine, but I was completely caught off guard by the fact that the percent was so high.
I felt that it was very helpful to have the three different types of error (wrong data, wrong command and logical design error) identified and explained to increase understanding of the type of errors that may have been made. You have to know what you are trying to fix before you can solve the problem. I also was comforted by the fact that there is new software on the market that can help rather clueless users, like myself, debug their computers once we have fouled them up.
Also the providing of helpful websites and the step by step process of debugging has already helped me to debug my computer when I recently needed help navigating a problem. I have seen almost this exact step by step process used before in other aspects of life and problem solving, but never with computers. In my recent experience it is definitely just as useful in diagnosing and fixing computer problems as it is in other aspects of life. I also found that viewing the source, as the gigamanics suggested really helped.

Zero-day no more!

2006-10-31T16:58:00.000-05:00

Websense is about to change the way the world thinks about computer protection. Having seen a flaw in the way that anti-virus protection works today, Websense has come up with a new way to protect against zero-day hackers taking advantage of computer vulnerabilities.

Searchsecurity.com defines zero-day exploits as: "one that takes advantage of a security vulnerability on the same day that the vulnerability becomes generally known. Ordinarily, after someone detects that a software program contains a potential exposure to exploitation by a hacker, that person or company can notify the software company and sometimes the world at large so that action can be taken to repair the exposure or defend against its exploitation. Given time, the software company can repair and distribute a fix to users. Even if potential hackers also learn of the vulnerability, it may take them some time to exploit it; meanwhile, the fix can hopefully become available first." ( Engelke, C. 2006)
By being able to recognize possible malware, Websense will have a definite advantage over today's anti-virus software. As pointed out in the article, viruses are becoming more advanced everyday and hackers are moving away from more traditional code. To continue using regular anti-virus technology to protect against the new strains of malware would be like sending the Ross Township police force to Iraq to patrol. It is true that the police force has guns and could regulate to a certain degree, but to really get the job done you need tried and true soldiers.
Though I believe that ultimately this new technology will be a good thing I am not entirely sure I am willing to put all my faith into it at this application. As with all new technology I think that it needs to be tested a bit more. I am not completely convinced that this application will be able to only find zero-day hackers. The program only looks for certain suspicious behaviors and so it is entirely possible that it could target code that does not have malicious intent. However, there is no doubt that many of the anti-virus programs on the market are inadequite in providing proper virus protection and therefore I welcome this new technology, at least for the most part.

The skinny on IBM's new tech. w/ Thin Clients

2006-10-31T16:50:00.000-05:00

IBM is revolutionizing the way most American workplaces think about server-based computing and their ability to use it. With the new program described in this article, companies will be able to save themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in underutilized equipment cost and lost IT time because of constant and repetitive updates to multiple terminals. However, the benefits to the organization do not end there. By using a server-based computing system the companies' network will be more reliable and more secure.
Every year companies spend thousands of dollars purchasing and updating technologies that often go unused by the people using those machines. Even if these purchases and updates are necessary, many man hours must be used to install these updates on each computer. However, when using a thin client model, the operators need only load the add-ons into the server and they can be distributed throughout the system, streamlining the process. Also, this same process allows the company to cut down on the number of licensing permits they must buy for their software. Companies can buy less licenses because user privileges can be shared through the whole system. IBM can help customers more easily meet their needs, and their budgets, by allowing customers to use existing software until it needs to be replaced and then rolling out the new thin client machines.
You can also take comfort in the fact that IBM is not only pushing this software onto the public, but has also began to utilize it in their own system. They have determined the immediate need within the enterprise and have implemented over 4,000 machines. If it is good enough for IBM to use in their own system then I am sure it will be good enough for me to utilize in organization in which I may work or manage.

Access milestone

2006-10-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

I learned a great deal today in Breen, Elly and Jeremy's lab about all the wonderful things you can do with Microsoft Access. Although, I have to say that I was a bit deflated by the fact that the presentation could only be loaded in "read only." I really was looking forward to really exploring all the different functions that Snyder outlined in his chapter. The group did a great job under the circumstances and I was still able to take away a great deal from their presentation.
One of the main things that I learned during the presentation was completely accidental. I was unaware the Access programs could be misinterpreted as viruses or malicious software by a computers anti-virus system. I know that the group did not intend for this to be part of their presentation, but it was definitely a valuable nugget of information to pass along. It would be very embarrassing in the future to spend hours working in on a project in Access only to have it not load when you are about to give the presentation.
I also took a great deal of information away from their attempted demonstrations of how to project, select, union, difference, product, and join. It was almost as helpful just to see how the action would look when I are finished as it would have been to do the commands myself.

nugget: freedom of information blocked again...for now

2006-10-22T23:07:00.000-04:00

Freedom fighters in the battle for information tried to take another step forward on Oct. 17. On that day the Electronic Frontier Foundation, (EFF), filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice after two failed attempts to gain access to the FBI's "Investigative Data Warehouse" (IDW). Or at the very least, information about the parameters needed to be met to gain access to the database, through the FOIA, which we have discussed at length in class. The IDW contains 560 million photographs, biographical info., location and financial data about the American people. Most of which was collected without these people's knowledge or permission.
The FBI has failed to file public notice as is required by the Privacy Act of 1974. In my opinion this is just another example of the government abusing the trust the American people have put in it under the what has become the black hole of "national security." I am sure if you asked the FBI why they were withholding the information from the American people they would say that is was for the America's own good and protection. I, however, believe that this could not be further from the truth. By withholding information from the American people the FBI is crippling the people's ability to truly protect themselves. As we have discussed often, people must act as their own first line of defense when it comes to what type of information about them and their doings exist out there.
I believe that the director of the FLAG Project put it best when he said, "Americans deserve to know what information is collected under what circumstances, and who has access to it, and what if this database contains false information about you? How would you correct that? These are serious questions that the FBI needs to answer" and "Transparency is critical to the functioning of our democracy, especially when the government seeks to hide activities that affect the rights of citizens, we have recently seen numerous instances where federal agencies have sought to conceal surveillance activities that raise serious legal issues."

Excel milestone

2006-10-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

I have to admit that I definitely had an unexpected "aha" moment in Thurs. class. I thought I was rather fluent in Microsoft Excel. Little did I know I had only scratched the surface of the various applications that Excel can, and should, be used for. I have created many budgets, many for smaller non-profit or governmental agencies, and yet was completely blown away by the lab on Thurs. I did not know that you were able to put little notes in about each one of the budget additions or subtractions that I plugged into Excel. That was the one part of the budget making lab that really had me going, "Huh, well that is neat! I will definitely be able to use that both personally and professionally."
Also, I found Andrea's part of the lab where she illustrated how to get large sets of pre-existing data into one's own spreadsheet enthralling. In the past I have spent many hours trying and failing to properly cut and paste data into a pre-existing spreadsheet or retyping data into a spreadsheet. I almost wanted to cry thinking back on all those wasted hours of plugging away on a computer at work that could have been spent doing much more noble things had I only had this lab 6 months or a year ago.
Actually, I guess the whole lab today was kind of "huh, well that is neat! I will definitely use be able to use that in the future both personally and professionally" moment.

E-condolences

2006-10-18T17:05:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week a childhood friend of mine passed away. The news of his passing was presented to me by another friend who informed me that the obituary, and an article about the accident, could be accessed through our hometown papers online. She also mentioned the end of the obituary mentioned that "e-condolences" could be sent to the presiding funeral homes' website. She then began to go on about how great e-condolences are since a majority of my deceased friend's friends have left the area and are now scattered through the country and the world. She had just sent one and thought it would be "really sweet if I sent one as well!"
I however, beg to differ. As we have previously discussed in class, emails are horrible ways to attempt to communicate any type of emotion, much less the type of sincere sympathy and sadness that surround this event. I agree that the original thought behind sending e-condolences to the site was well meaning. And I will also concede that the ability to send e-condolences may make it easier for more people to express their sympathy to the grieving. However, I still find the whole idea rather half-assed and almost antagonistic. It seems to me that you are almost saying, "Yeah, I am sorry that you are grieving and your son was a great guy, but not sorry enough to pick up the phone, send flowers or even run down to CVS to buy and send a card." Sending an e-condolence is better than doing nothing I suppose, but not by much in my mind.
I am aware that many may think that me blogging about how tacky and improper e-condolences is, is even more tacky than the previously mentioned offense. However, I do not feel this way. For one of the first times this semester I am blogging about something that really did get me fired up and have a knee jerk reaction to technology's role in our life...and death.

Xhibit, Dora and China....what an interesting combo

2006-10-17T15:25:00.000-04:00

One of the key things that we have learned in IT so far, at least in my opinion, is that the expansion of the internet and other forms of technology have made information and "entertainment" sharing easier than ever. The internet has changed how the world entertains itself. Relevant information sharing and communication on the internet is something I am definitely in favor of. The internet has allowed huge advances in business communication, foreign relations and government transparency. However, I can not see much benefit or social importance in broadcasting "Pimp my Ride" and "Blues Clues" to Chinese people. An article recently came out about MTV attempting to bypass the regulations of the Chinese government and broadcast their programming to the Chinese people. The Chinese government tends to be overly restrictive and oppressive in their limitations on its people and the type of information and media that they are allowed to obtain, to that I will concede. However, I think they might be right in limiting MTV and other American programs.
I was rather shocked that MTV would be able to bypass the previously rather strict internet filter. Persons in China usually only receive about 70% of the internet and such things as pornography and various types of spam are usually blocked.
I believe MTV's ability to crack the Chinese governments chokehold on the free media access in their country only goes to further show how innovations in technology, especially internet technology, are changing the way government and the world operate. Governments may be using new technologies to more closely monitor their people, but new technologies are also giving people access to various forms of information whether the government likes it or not. Though, while I admit that I enjoy an hour or two of "Extreme Elimination Challenge," myself once in a while, I can honestly say that I would be probably be a better and more educated person if I spent that hour or two watching a biography of Woodrow Wilson on PBS. I believe that the same rings true for China; as much as people may enjoy "Pimp My Ride," there are better things to be broadcasting around the world.

Reason #345: Why Pitt works better than the government

2006-10-08T22:21:00.000-04:00

In previous labs, one of which was my own group's, we had discussed appropriate and inappropriate internet usage at work and whether it is ethical for employers, organizations or the government to monitor internet usage of people. Recently, I came across this article that highlighted abuses of internet usage within a larger government agency, the Department of Interior. In a week long study, that's right, a whole week, it was found that employees of the Department of Interior spent rather substantial portions of their workday searching the internet for sexually explicit material. Some individuals spent up to 60 minutes at a time also going to gaming and auction sites. Engaging in this type of searching accounted for more than 24 hours of the agency's internet use in the ONE WEEK test period.
The agency claims to conduct training and have appropriate-use policies. However, the Department of the Interior is one of the largest governmental agencies with more than 80,000 employees, but it does not have a systemwide monitor or a blocking system. I personally found this shocking. The University of Pittsburgh has a very good systemwide monitoring and blocking system as we have learned and discussed in class. The small county agency I worked for in MA had a suitable system monitor and blocking system, but the Department of the Interior does not see a need for one. Perhaps, they would change their mind if they put some stock into the reports referenced in this blog. The agency had 80,000 employees, 7,763 of whom used computers to access gaming and auction sites during their workday, yet only 177 disciplinary actions have ever been taken against individuals for misuse of company computers.
I will surely remember, and may even bring it up, the next time that I pay $25 to go camping at a national park. The Department of Interior loses more than 100,000 work hours, equal to 50 full time employees, annually due to inappropriate internet usage that does not even take into account personal email my $25 dollars would just be a drop in the bucket.

Vermont vs. Verizon

2006-09-30T10:46:00.000-04:00

While reading the Garson reading I ran across this article in The New York Times about Verizon contemplating pulling out of parts of rural Vermont in order to more fully pursue more lucrative markets, like Boston. All I could think the whole time I was reading this article was how much this related to the discussion in the Garson book about the digital divide. There is no doubt that those with dial-up are at a greater disadvantage that those who have digital connections and those in rural areas are more likely to have dialup connections. These people in Vermont were already at a digital disadvantage because they are still having to use a dial-up connect in order to access the internet. These live in such a rural area that there no high-speed wires that reach their homes. The slower dialup connection becomes busy that in order for people to access the internet they have to wake very early in the morning to try and connect.
It has been stated that people who are still using dial-up connections are being left behind in today's tech. oriented society. This is especially true if the connection is so bad/busy that you can not get on in the normal hours of the day. I believe that these people are being discriminated against and left behind technologically and that this digital divide will only become larger if Verizon pulls out. Verizon is not discriminating on the bases of age, sex or race, but there is definitely discrimination on the bases of location, and something needs to be done about it. Lucky some individuals see the need to branch the digital divide in rural areas You simply can not allow people to be uninformed because you would have to string some wires or there is a more lucrative market 100 mile south!

Nugget 4: Free labor (& a bit of a milestone)

2006-09-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

First off I was glad to see CMU and their technological achievements mentioned numerous times in this article. I knew that they were leaders in technology, but I did not know how pervasive they really were. I must say that I am impressed.
This article was of course referring to net surfers and I probably should have guessed that from the onset, but I didn't. None the less I stumbled across this article about Google using a game formate (developed at CMU) to encourage users to help them label and caption the billions of pictures in their search index. I personally think this is quite a novel idea. It both entertains the "gamer" and helps Google label some of its pictures. I am aware that this in barely going to make a dent in labeling Googles picture search index, but every little bit helps. Also, I agree that the system of having "gamers" label the pictures could be troublesome, but the pictures and the participants are picked at random and both party's labeling have to agree on the label so I think it is fairly accurate. I personally am okay with having images that I may search in this way!

Google edit

2006-09-24T19:28:00.000-04:00

My name is Julie and I am addicted to googling random, rather unimportant, but vaguely interesting things! There I have admitted it and it is now out in the open. Recently I have come to embrace by Google addiction and have even began to talk to my friends and classmates about it. During Dr. Shulman's class this past week I was informed that Google searches were the end all and be all of internet searches. My classmates informed me that Google edits all internet searches of materials that it thinks may be seen as inappropriate or offensive to members of society. Google automatically has your search at moderate filter when you first long on if no other preference has been given. I was encouraged me to do a Google internet image search on Michelangelo's painting, a rather "safe topic" by most accounts, as I normally would and see what images the computer generates. Then once I observed what images were presented through a "normal" search I was told to go up preferences and change my Google
Safesearch preference to strict filtering or no filtering. I switched my preference first to strict filter and was reasonably surprised at how many images were cut from my search. I then changed my preference to no filtering and was shocked at how many new images I received in my third search that had been restricted in my first two searches. I personally was not offended in any way by these newly generated additions to my search. In fact, I was rather upset that they were not included in my initial search. However, I understand why Google decided to edit the content because it may be explicit for some viewers and am glad that they allow you to easily change your preferences. I just wish that I had known earlier the my searches were already being edited.
I also benefited immensely by Tom's part of the presentation where he discussed the importance of word/phrase selection when you are searching for something in particular on Google. As mentioned about I do use random "googling" to pass the time from time to time, but I also use it for many information searches for article for papers and blogs. It is a very big part of researching both at school and at work. Therefore, I found Tom's helpful hints for word selection very helpful and will keep them in mind when I am topic searching in the future. I also will keep in mind the alternative search sites that were mentioned during the presentation. I definitely will use the knowledge that I obtain in this lab in the future in both my academic and business life.

Hyped-up about hyperlinks.

2006-09-18T00:11:00.000-04:00

One of my milestone is finally learning how to properly use anchor tags and how to cite a hyperlinks. I had spend a fair bit of type while typing college papers trying to figure out how exactly to easily add hyperlinks to my digitally submitted papers. I usually just ended up cutting and pasting the whole web address at the end in the workcited page which though effective was not efficient. I have been able to put this knowledge to use countless time over the past few months both in paper that I did for class as well as for reports and other forms of communication at work.
Another helpful aha moment I had today came during the lab exercise. I was never all that familiar with how to use html directly to change the fonts and overall outlook of different parts of a webpage. Therefore, this lab was almost custom made for my needs. I learned how to change the colors and fonts of the page and also input data directly into the html to seen on the webpage. This will help me greatly in my future endeavors trying to modify and improve webpages I am working on. I will be able to make the webpage both more user friendly and generally more inviting.

Employers and emails

2006-09-12T22:00:00.000-04:00

I really did not realize how prevalent the practice of employers scanning their employees emails was in the United States and around the world. In fact over 70% of companies with more than 1,000 employees monitor emails and other internet activity according to a Nightly News poll. Also, over 30% of the American working public has received some kind of disciplinary action because of employer monitoring of email or internet use. We discussed this fact in the FLAG presentation that my group did this past week in part of the presentation that deals with netiquette. One of the rules of proper netiquette is to always seek the approval of the sender of an email before it is forwarded on to another party. I agree wholeheartedly with this suggestion. However, if employers are already reading employees mail then email are already being seen by unintended parties which is in violation of the previously mentioned netiquette rule.
Also, in I agree that employees should do their assigned work on company time and if you are not doing your job because you are too busy doing your own personal business then you should be disciplined. However, I do not believe that an email that you send during you break or lunch hour should be able to be viewed by anyone than the party you intend to view it. It would only be proper netiquette.
this chapter is the issue of how to design a "safe" password. Through the use of heuristics a person should be able to design a password that it almost uncrackable to anyone, but themself. I personally have attempted to use heuristics to create passwords and have ha mixed success, but learning the macanics of heuristics was a bit of an aha moment in and of itself.

nugget2: Facebook privacy

2006-09-11T13:56:00.002-04:00

I must admit that I am a member of facebook. I joined while I was pursuing my undergraduate degree at the urging of some of my classmates and friends. I have never really been a facebook fanatic, I check it maybe biweekly just to see what is going on in the lives of friends in other parts of the country. For this very reason of only wanting to see what was new and important enough to change a profile over when I went on to facebook I usually just check the recently updated profiles of friends. Therefore, I , unlike most facebooks users from what I can gather, liked this new feature that allowed me to quickly see what what changes friends had made to their profiles without having to click through all of their "new and improved" profiles.
I can see how some people may feel that the new facebook system of automatic custom alerts could be annoying, but I fail to see how they are truly an invasion of privacy. All of the people that would be getting these alerts would be people that you actively put on you list of friends. When a friend request is made by one party the requested party has the ability to approve or reject the other partys request to be friend. If you do not approve someone as a friend they do not have access to your profile. Anyone who can see your profile and would be getting the alerts has already when invited to see any updates that you make to your profile. In my opinion facebook was just making it easier to keep up with friends. If Facebook had opened up peoples profiles and made them visible to anyone who looks you up (like myspace) or sent alerts to everyone who had ever requested you as a friend regardless of approval, ignored or rejection status then I could see how this could be a privacy issue. Allowing pre-approved persons,who would be able to access the same information by simply clicking into your profile, to more easily view changes to your profile is not only not an invasion of privacy in my opinion, but it actually a rather helpful and timesaving measures. If you do not want people to be alerted of a change in your life do not write about the change on a website. You have to actively change some fact about yourself that you had already posted about in order for other to alerted about the change in your profile.
That lecture aside, I must say that I am both impressed and distress with how quickly Facebook was willing to appease their user and try to make stride to "fix" the site. I am very happy to see that Facebook listens and is responsive to its users wants and concerns. However, I am also slightly distressed with how quickly Facebook folded to the demands of some of its users without trying to explain to its users the perks and reasoning behind the new feature. I would have liked to have seen Facebook defend it new feature. I personally liked it and I am sure that they did too and this this was not just come fly by night decision.
Here is what some more information about the facebook change and what some other bloggers are saying about this new change.

Nugget 1: IT recycling and privacy

2006-09-10T10:44:00.000-04:00

I found this article about criminals recovering personal information from discarded cell phones and other electronics while I was surfing the net the other day and it really made me take a step back. Myself and many of my friends, like most 20 somethings, tend to go through cell phones like tissues. It seems like I find myself back at the Verizon, Cricket etc. at least once a month helping a friend pick out a new phone because their previous one just wasn't suiting their fancy any more. Usually once a new more tech. savvy phone has been picked out the older "out of date phone" is donated to a battered women's shelter.
A few years back a friend of mine was doing a internship at a shelter for battered women and informed me that her shelter, and many shelters like hers, collected used cell phones and their chargers to give to battered women to be used in case of an emergency. I, like most of my friends, thought this was a really noble cause and began giving our stockpiles of disregarded phones to this shelter without a second thought. We all just assumed that they would be going to a trustworthy cause and never thought to erase our memory from the phone. However, this story has made me think a bit differently about this practice. I am not going to stop giving my used cell phones to battered women's shelters, but I am going to make sure that I delete the memory on my cell phone before I do it and I will make sure that I inform all of my friends about the benefits of deleting memory before donation of a used IT good.
Identity and personal information theft is becoming more and more prevalent in today's modern society and thefts are coming up with new ways to retrieve personal information as this article proves.Young people need to more conscious of identity theft and that it can and will happen to them if they are not careful with what information they allow to enter the public domain.