BLOG WARS
It is a time of civil war.
The Rebel fleet leaves planet LiveJournal and
seeks refuge on the Blogspot system.
Seven Articles have been left behind.
The future is uncertain.
Will there exist another post?
2006-06-28
BLOG WARS
BLOG WARS
It is a time of civil war.
The Rebel fleet leaves planet LiveJournal and
seeks refuge on the Blogspot system.
Seven Articles have been left behind.
The future is uncertain.
Will there exist another post?
2006-06-17
Privacy
(recovered from livejournal)
I'm becoming more and more concerned about privacy issues on the web, especially the so called "user-tracking" problem. Let's say that provider A is controlling the web sites A1, A2 and A3. User Stella is browsing through the web, hopping thru websites Z -> A1 -> D -> E -> A2 -> A3. Provider A can track a good proportion of Stella's web-browsing activities, by examining the logfiles of the webservers hosting the sites A1, A2, A3 (plus any info coming from referer sites or followed-links). The logfiles contain (among other things) browser identification info (OS, version etc.), the actual page requested (along with any URL-submitted parameters), and the IP address of the public host that seemed to have requested the page in question.
I'm not really interested in what the provider does with this data (user-modelling, data mining etc.). What I'm concerned about is the possibility that a single entity could control such a number of websites that it would be feasible for this entity to reconstruct part of a (random) user's web-surfing route.
Of course the number of sites that a provider would need to control seems at first look daunting. If you even consider that the sites must be of varying subjects, so as not to follow just the people that have clustered around a specific domain of interest, this makes the user-tracking task look even more daunting.
But, let's imagine the following scenario:
A company offers the following services:
a) Search Engine
b) Ads (or other site-embedable objects like website usage statistics, maps etc.)
c) Blog-space
d) Webmail
e) Social Networking
....
If you're beginning to see the pattern here then maybe it's time to pass some legislation regarding the effective web presence (or omnipresence for this matter) of entities with common interests...
..or maybe it's high time we start looking for anonymizing proxies :P
Current Mood: worried
Current Music: Husnu Senlendirici - Husnu Klarnet
I'm becoming more and more concerned about privacy issues on the web, especially the so called "user-tracking" problem. Let's say that provider A is controlling the web sites A1, A2 and A3. User Stella is browsing through the web, hopping thru websites Z -> A1 -> D -> E -> A2 -> A3. Provider A can track a good proportion of Stella's web-browsing activities, by examining the logfiles of the webservers hosting the sites A1, A2, A3 (plus any info coming from referer sites or followed-links). The logfiles contain (among other things) browser identification info (OS, version etc.), the actual page requested (along with any URL-submitted parameters), and the IP address of the public host that seemed to have requested the page in question.
I'm not really interested in what the provider does with this data (user-modelling, data mining etc.). What I'm concerned about is the possibility that a single entity could control such a number of websites that it would be feasible for this entity to reconstruct part of a (random) user's web-surfing route.
Of course the number of sites that a provider would need to control seems at first look daunting. If you even consider that the sites must be of varying subjects, so as not to follow just the people that have clustered around a specific domain of interest, this makes the user-tracking task look even more daunting.
But, let's imagine the following scenario:
A company offers the following services:
a) Search Engine
b) Ads (or other site-embedable objects like website usage statistics, maps etc.)
c) Blog-space
d) Webmail
e) Social Networking
....
If you're beginning to see the pattern here then maybe it's time to pass some legislation regarding the effective web presence (or omnipresence for this matter) of entities with common interests...
..or maybe it's high time we start looking for anonymizing proxies :P
Current Mood: worried
Current Music: Husnu Senlendirici - Husnu Klarnet
2006-04-26
Is internet TV here already?
(recovered from livejournal)
First, a message to our sponsors:
If you are a person working for (or in charge of) a greek TV station I'd like you to know that whatever you're doing is wrong and you should stop doing it. Thank you.
I really can't say that I'm not a TV-buff. I've spent hours and hours in front of the telly during the '80s and I miss all the thrills I used to get from cliffhangers on matlock, dr who etc. The shows were good, the reporters seemed to know a bit about their job and you could actually feel the people struggling to get a quality show on the air.
I won't go into the status of current Greek (or international) TV. It's horrible. And I feel that they've actually lost even the passive viewers (what is an active viewer?) they used to have: no more getting back from work and unwinding on the telly.
This reminds me of the time I was a student abroad and didn't have a TV set. I didn't really miss the shows. I would usually watch a film, or an episode of my favorite cartoon series (all available on the web - remember UGO cartoons?) on my PC and it felt the same. In fact, no commercials, more pop corn and even more friends coming over :-)
Appart from a few shows like Heavy's "Behind the music that sucks" or Slashdot Radio (featuring geeks on microphones) there wasn't much of a continuity on internet broadcasted media. Most shows were of the ad-hoc type (few friends having laughs in front of the camera - remember TheBroken?) and you never knew if there was going to be any episode next week.
But the times they are a-changin:
I recently got broadband internet at home (384kbps - don't laugh) and during a web search for geek-related media I stumbled upon a few shows that seem to be changing the scene. There is definitely some backing from companies who are interested in presenting their products, but also ISP's and others who merely wish to advertise thru this new (?) medium. So, instead of geeks with a camera, running around trashing laptops in their backyard, you have studios, regular interviews, wmv broadcasting, podcasting, multiple downloadable formats (h264 anyone?), RSS feed with information on the shows and much more..
Here are a few links to wet your appetite:
Too geek-y? Well, they were the first results on google.
Archive.org has an online archive of freely available video's, but.. it's really not the same. They do archive the video's but you don't get the sense of continuity you'd like when watching TV programs.
Now, all there needs to be done, is to setup Distributor companies, who scout for such shows, *support* by some means (money, bandwidth) and create user profiles so as to allow users who are interested in one type of show to find out about other shows related. This is not the same as the podcast directory, since we're talking about organisation of the digital media on live as well as static formats (DRM is not my friend) and in "channels" according to the likes of the user.
I'd love to see BBC taking a chance on something like this..
Current Mood: refreshed
Current Music: Bebo & Cigala - Lagrimas Negras
First, a message to our sponsors:
If you are a person working for (or in charge of) a greek TV station I'd like you to know that whatever you're doing is wrong and you should stop doing it. Thank you.
I really can't say that I'm not a TV-buff. I've spent hours and hours in front of the telly during the '80s and I miss all the thrills I used to get from cliffhangers on matlock, dr who etc. The shows were good, the reporters seemed to know a bit about their job and you could actually feel the people struggling to get a quality show on the air.
I won't go into the status of current Greek (or international) TV. It's horrible. And I feel that they've actually lost even the passive viewers (what is an active viewer?) they used to have: no more getting back from work and unwinding on the telly.
This reminds me of the time I was a student abroad and didn't have a TV set. I didn't really miss the shows. I would usually watch a film, or an episode of my favorite cartoon series (all available on the web - remember UGO cartoons?) on my PC and it felt the same. In fact, no commercials, more pop corn and even more friends coming over :-)
Appart from a few shows like Heavy's "Behind the music that sucks" or Slashdot Radio (featuring geeks on microphones) there wasn't much of a continuity on internet broadcasted media. Most shows were of the ad-hoc type (few friends having laughs in front of the camera - remember TheBroken?) and you never knew if there was going to be any episode next week.
But the times they are a-changin:
I recently got broadband internet at home (384kbps - don't laugh) and during a web search for geek-related media I stumbled upon a few shows that seem to be changing the scene. There is definitely some backing from companies who are interested in presenting their products, but also ISP's and others who merely wish to advertise thru this new (?) medium. So, instead of geeks with a camera, running around trashing laptops in their backyard, you have studios, regular interviews, wmv broadcasting, podcasting, multiple downloadable formats (h264 anyone?), RSS feed with information on the shows and much more..
Here are a few links to wet your appetite:
- DigitalLife
- CrankyGeeks
- Revision3 (5 Tech-savvy shows, plus archived TheBroken episodes)
Too geek-y? Well, they were the first results on google.
Archive.org has an online archive of freely available video's, but.. it's really not the same. They do archive the video's but you don't get the sense of continuity you'd like when watching TV programs.
Now, all there needs to be done, is to setup Distributor companies, who scout for such shows, *support* by some means (money, bandwidth) and create user profiles so as to allow users who are interested in one type of show to find out about other shows related. This is not the same as the podcast directory, since we're talking about organisation of the digital media on live as well as static formats (DRM is not my friend) and in "channels" according to the likes of the user.
I'd love to see BBC taking a chance on something like this..
Current Mood: refreshed
Current Music: Bebo & Cigala - Lagrimas Negras
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