FOI Topics and Links of the Week
December 23rd, 2009 | by elisabeth | Published in Android, Book, cybersecurity, Future of the Internet, iphone | 2 Comments
As Phones Do More, They Become Targets of Hacking. The NY Times observes that as computing — and especially commerce — moves onto mobile devices, security threats are growing. “It feels a lot like it did in 1999 in desktop security … People are using the mobile Web and downloading applications more than ever before, and there are threats that come with that.” [I (JZ) am skeptical of the iPhone's "contingently generative" environment -- outside apps are encouraged, but then subject to an ongoing approval process by a central gatekeeper who can use any criteria it wants, or none at all -- but this environment does provide extra weapons against security threats. Phones with more generative configurations, like Android, will have to figure out how to make them less vulnerable than, say, PCs, to hacking. I think this is a big unanswered question.]
The Google Phone, Unlocked. Google is introducing a branded smartphone running the Android OS. Interestingly, it’s an unlocked phone, although because it’s GSM, it can only run on T-Mobile and AT&T in the US. I wonder if it will be subsidized by the carriers; if not, it could be a first step in helping break the carrier-subsidy model—discussed in this slightly out-of-date paper. Of course, even the iPhone couldn’t make it unsubsidized.
This Dumb Decade: The 87 Lamest Moments in Tech, 2000-2009. Not so much the future of the internet, but the recent past. Many of the recent lame moments have been covered in this blog (Danger Sidekick phones lose users’ data for weeks; Apple rejects Google Voice; Amazon removes 1984 from the Kindle). The old stuff is fun. I didn’t know that Facebook donated $9.5 million to a privacy-education foundation after the Beacon fiasco.
Obama to Name Howard Schmidt as Cybersecurity Coordinator, President Obama appoints Howard Schmidt, who also worked for President Bush, as his cybersecurity coordinator. Good to see that the administration is taking cybersecurity seriously, although they’re really looking at a different problem than the book discusses—threats to military and commercial infrastructure, rather than users’ endpoints and experiences.
Taxi Hack. A website allows users to criticize or praise service from specific taxi drivers, identified by medallion or license number. This has echoes of a future imagined in Chapter 9 of the book—you see a taxi, you punch in the number, and you have the driver’s digital reputation before you step into the cab (or choose not to). (Hat tip: Emily Brill.)
Piqqem. A website crowd-sources stock picks. Of course, crowd-sourcing is all over the internet, but it seems it would be particularly treacherous if this website were subverted—say, by a company ordering its employees to vote its stock up.
—By Elisabeth Oppenheimer and JZ
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:47 am (#)
[...] of the Internet weekly roundup: http://futureoftheinternet.org/foi-topics-and-links-of-the-week-3 zittrain – Wed 23 Dec 15:35 0 votes previous next [...]
December 28th, 2009 at 7:41 am (#)
“A website crowd-sources stock picks. … it would be particularly treacherous if this website were subverted—say, by a company ordering its employees to vote its stock up.”
1) There’s much “worse” sites around, some with the backing of A-listers.
2) You’re way way late to the party on this one:
a) the heyday of this sort of fleecing was a decade ago, when day-trading was all the rage.
b) “ordering” would be illegal. The sophisticated thing to do is hire a confidence hustler, I mean, a social media expert.
3) See my old blog post talking about the disturbing implications of Joe Tripppi’s past as a stock tout:
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/000529.html