Privacy and technology

Change of pace…

Posts here are going to become far less frequent. Reasons are that posting with the current frequency is becoming a bit of a chore, and that this blog as a means of sharing information with co-workers - which was one of the original purposes - doesn’t really seem to be that effective.

Basically, this means that the “Something for the weekend” type of posts are going to stay, and everything else is going away. Posting frequency will be once a day (as long as there’s nice, new content available.

Like the doctor said: “Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment to soon.”

Oct 05

Ch-ch-changes…

Over the next couple of days there may be a bit of weirdness going on on this blog.

First of all, Tumblr is still working on the queue functionality. This morning I made the mistake of placing 16 new links in the queue, which I currently can’t access because Tumblr’s queue functionality is off-line. If, one of these days, you see 16 bits of old news appearing on the blog, this is the reason why.

Also, I’ve started using an online feed reader. Google Reader wasn’t an option since the sign-up process requires a mobile phone number which I currently don’t have. I’m currently using FeedShow which is OK but kind of slow, which means that I tend to alternate between FeedShow and my RSS subscriptions in Internet Explorer. I tried to avoid posting the same links twice, but if one slips through this is what causes it.

Sep 29

A wrinkle in time

I usually use the “queue” feature to post here: I add to the queue whenever it’s convenient, and Tumblr publishes one new post every hour for as long as there are queued posts.

Queued posts should be published with a timestamp that reflects when they were published. Over the last couple of weeks, an increasing number of queued posts were published with a timestamp that reflected when they were added to the queue, or a timestamp that seemed to have no connection to any actual events (I don’t go on 4 AM posting sprees). Though I kind of dug the randomness, this did make the web version of the blog increasingly hard to follow (the RSS feed was OK as long as you ignored the ‘posted at’ notices).

I understand that Tumblr is working on the problem, and for the time being I’ll be posting everything real-time.

Sep 17

New tags

(You can view this post again by visiting the blog and clicking the ‘Help’ link at the top of the page. You may have to scroll down a bit.)

I’ve decided to reorganise the tags. The main changes are that I’m getting rid of the “… and privacy” part in tags like “Google StreetView and privacy” and that there will no longer be separate tags for English-language and Dutch-language posts. In the coming days I’ll have a go at converting the tags of the existing posts to the new format and updating the post that’s under the ‘Topics’ link at the top of the page.

When tagging a post, I’ll first try to tag it with one tag that is as specific as possible.

General topics:

ACTA
ANPR
Cookies and behavioural targeting
Censorship
Data breach notification
Data mining
Data retention
DNA
EU-Israel data transfers
EU-US data transfers
Net neutrality
RFID
Surveillance

Dutch only:

EPD
Jurisprudentie
Kamerstukken
OV Chipkaart

Specific topics:

Apple
Apple iPhone
Blekko
Classmates.com
Clearsight
Diaspora
Facebook
Foursquare
Google
Google StreetView
Microsoft
Pandora
Twitter
WoW

Organisations and publications:

EDPS
EDRi
(IN)Secure
Hakin9
WP29

Dutch only:

NOREA

The following are both a bit of a special case. “Something for the weekend” announces posts to my other weblog and “Help” is what it says on the tin.

Something for the weekend
Help

When none of the above fits, I’ll try these:

Privacy
Information security

And anything that doesn’t even fit in either of these broad categories goes here:

Everything else

Jul 29

FAQ, contact information

(You can view this information again by visiting the blog and clicking the ‘FAQ, contact information’ link at the top of the page.)

Why is this blog here?

The information is primarily here for my own use (though if it’s useful to other people that’s cool too).

Why is it on the web?

I chose a web-based tool in order to be able to access the information from the office (where I tend to need quick access to information about specific topics) and from home (where I actually have time to read any of the linked information in depth).

Why is it public?

Why not? The blog only links to information that is publicly available. The blog reflects the topics about which I’m encountering information at any given time; it does not reflect the topics that I’m working on at any given time. Also, I’m experimenting with using this blog as a means to share information with coworkers, and putting the information behind a password would kind of defeat the purpose. (There’s also the question of how much security the password would provide anyway.)

Why Tumblr?

It has the functionality that I want (basically, the capability to store, tag and retrieve links) and it’s easy to use. Tumblr wasn’t my first choice (sorry, guys) but in order to sign up with my first choice I needed a mobile phone (which I didn’t have at the time) so here we are.

Who is reponsible for this blog?

I am.

The blog reflects my personal interests. It does not represent the positions of others like my employer, former employers or clients. In this blog I link to information that I find interesting. I am not responsible for the content of any linked website. A link doesn’t consitute an endorsement of any products or services that are offered on linked websites.

Can I contact you?

You can reach me through the contact page of my web site. Please bear in mind that I don’t give general information about privacy or information security, and that I also won’t advise you on these topics. For general information about privacy you should contact the data protection authority, information commissioner’s office or similar body in your jurisdiction. Advice may be obtained from consultants specialising in privacy and / or information security.

Jul 14