Geek Stuff category archive

Facebook settles charges of abusing user data, without, of course, admitting any wrongdoing. As part of the settlement,

Facebook was barred from “making any further deceptive privacy claims” and ordered to regularly undergo a third party audit to ensure it is keeping its promises.

In other news, pigs, wings.

Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.

What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.

Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.

Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)

When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, December 1.

Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)

Advertising uber alles twits.

I’ve known this day was coming for quite a while.

I finally got fed up with the direction in which Ubuntu is heading and replaced it with Slackware on my primary laptop. I started my Linux days with Slackware and it’s still my favorite distro.

I’ve put it off because the laptop has a Broadcom wireless chipset, and Broadcom can be a little tussle to set up; the firmware to use it must often be installed manually (in most cases, in my Linux world, hardware drivers are already in the kernel; having to install drivers separately is almost never necessary).

The machine came with Ubuntu and the wireless worked, so I’ve stuck with Ubuntu out of laziness.

Since I use the Fluxbox window manager, I was able mostly to ignore that Unity monstrosity Ubuntu is touting as the Next Big Thing (it’s not), but the recent update to Ubuntu v. 11.10 caused too many irritations.

The installation gave me a bad moment when it crashed halfway through the first CD, twice, at the same place. I took the CD out, found a fingerprint, wiped it clean, and then it went swimmingly.

So I’m a happy Slacker once more.

The ACLU seems to have had enough.

A new web feature by USA Today details the ways that Facebook stalks you around the Internet – even when you’re not logged in. Facebook’s tracking methods – in the guise of the innocent seeming “Like” button – record every web site its 800 million-plus members have visited during the previous 90 days, even if you never click on that button, or don’t have a Facebook account.

We shouldn’t have to choose between browsing the Web and keeping Facebook from tracking everything we do online. That’s why we’ve asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to look into Facebook’s practice of tracking your web activity even if you never click on a Like button or log into Facebook at all, and why we encourage you to tell Congress to take steps to protect our privacy by creating a “Do Not Track” mechanism with legal force. And, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has pledged to hold a hearing to investigate these reports.

I seldom visit Facebook and, when I do, I do so in a private browser session; cookies dropped in private session are deleted when that session is ended.

I’ve also set my browser to “delete new cookies” upon exit.

That took a teeny little bit of work.

I set the preferences to the default of retaining cookies. I then deleted all the cookies except for the two or three I wanted and exited the program.

I then restarted the browser and changed the cookie setting to “delete new cookies,” so that the ones I wanted would be retained, since they were no longer “new.”

No Facebook creepy stalker cookies on my computer.

The newest things since patent trolls: twitter twolls.

This is distinguished, of course, from pictures users post of themselves:

Facebook says it is looking into reports that pornographic and violent images have been posted to its website.

The pictures are reported to have shown up in users’ newsfeeds.

According to the technology site, ZDnet, the material is being spread via a “linkspam virus” which tempts members to click on a seemingly innocuous story link.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said: “[We are] aware of these reports and we are investigating the issue”.

Addendum:

Facebook is blaming a “browser vulnerability” (which browser or browsers are not specified in the article) and claims it was a target, malicious act, rather than random vandalism.

Whatever it turns out to be, I am confident it won’t be stringent enough.

Facebook Inc. is in talks with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to settle claims that it violated users’ privacy when it changed default privacy settings to disclose more information than was previously made public, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

The local rag editorializes about this situation. A snippet:

With its byzantine privacy settings, which change with every sunrise and with the multiple and sometimes dizzying interconnections that cannot be easily managed, Facebook is designed to expose secrets.

Read the rest and, as they say on the railroad, be guided accordingly.

It’s a bleedin’ cult, for Pete’s sake:

An Illinois man was arrested early yesterday after he called 911 on several occasions to complain that his iPhone was not working.

Don’t keep those racy pictures in your email account, folks.

A Minnesota woman today pleaded guilty to hacking into the e-mail account of a former Playboy Playmate and swiping racy photos of baseball star Grady Sizemore, images that later were widely distributed online.

Teenager mouthing off in frustration meets stupid zero tolerance policy.

Result: Maximum stupid.

Addendum, the Next Day:

The stupid has been slightly moderated.

A friend of mine used to say, “The lowest possible level of technology that accomplishes the goal is the proper level of technology.”

Case in point.

Judge is Facebook friends with defendant, who is a figure in local politics.

Judge dismisses charges DUI charges, questioning the credibility of the arresting officers.

Should the judge have recused himself?

Read more »

The Duqu computer infection was spread with the help of an infected Microsoft Word document, according to a report.

The research says the Trojan exploited a previously unknown vulnerability embedded in Word files, allowing Duqu to modify computers’ security protection.

The code is believed to have been designed to gather intelligence from industrial control-systems.

One of these days, Microsoft will get computer security.

Also, pigs, wings.

I have reached a point of distrusting Facebook so much that I will only visit it in a private tab in my browser.

If I didn’t use Facebook to pimp promote my blog, I would have deleted all my data (even though Facebook keeps deleted data, so what’s the point) and signed off long ago.

Facebook Agonistes: Another appearance in the agony column.

Via Science 2.0.

When does “delete” mean “keep”?

Apparently, in Facebook World:

Facebook’s international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, are being audited by a government data protection agency and Facebook could face a fine of up to 100,000 euros ($138,720) if found to be in violation of the personal data laws of the United Kingdom, according to a report in The Guardian on Thursday.

The Irish office of the Data Protection Commissioner confirmed to the newspaper that it is investigating the world’s largest social network after numerous complaints were filed by a 24-year-old student, who discovered Facebook had been holding onto boatloads of personal information he had deleted from his Facebook account.

The investigation is not completed, but, given Facebook’s track record of acting in bad faith, I suspect that the findings will be worse than expected.