La cara oculta de Facebook

¿Sabes qué sucede realmente con tus datos en facebook? ¿Eres consciente de que Facebook adquiere el derecho a hacer lo que quiera con las fotos y vídeos que subes? ¿Has pensado alguna vez en quién está realmente detrás de Facebook?
ÉSTE ES UN FALSO DOCUMENTAL que por desgracia es menos falso de lo que aparenta, que la CIA esté detrás no es ninguna novedad ni ningún secreto. ¿Por qué es un falso documental y no un documental? Pues, porque es un trabajo de clase y esas eran las instrucciones, y porque las pruebas que aportamos no son más que las que puede obtener cualquiera si investiga por internet. Así que... ¿estás dispuesto a hacer clic en el botón "Aceptar" y poner tu vida al alcance de las multinacionales? ¿Estás dispuesto a vivir un gran hermano? Tendemos a creer ingénuamente que todas aquellas facilidades que nos dan en internet son gratis, que no pagues no significa que sea gratis, estás ahorrando a las agencias de seguridad y las grandes empresas los estudios de mercado, ahora cualquiera puede saber qué haces y qué te gusta, cualquiera puede saber cómo hacer para que te compres una colonia o vayas a ver una película determinada al cine. Sólo por creer que tú puedes configurar el acceso a tu perfil no significa que no hayas cedido a Facebook el derecho de vender tus datos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feature=player_embedded&v=xzTgIdNW6lg

US Facebook Map - Pete Warden

http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-to-split-up-the-us.html

As I[Pete Warden]'ve been digging deeper into the data I[P.W.]'ve gathered on 210 million public Facebook profiles, I[P.W.]'ve been fascinated by some of the patterns that have emerged. My latest visualization shows the information by location, with connections drawn between places that share friends. For example, a lot of people in LA have friends in San Francisco, so there's a line between them.
Looking at the network of US cities, it's been remarkable to see how groups of them form clusters, with strong connections locally but few contacts outside the cluster. For example Columbus, OH and Charleston, WV are nearby as the crow flies, but share few connections, with Columbus clearly part of the North, and Charleston tied to the South:

Some of these clusters are intuitive, like the old south, but there's some surprises too, like Missouri, Louisiana and Arkansas having closer ties to Texas than Georgia. To make sense of the patterns I'm seeing, I've marked and labeled the clusters, and added some notes about the properties they have in common.

Stayathomia

Stretching from New York to Minnesota, this belt's defining feature is how near most people are to their friends, implying they don't move far.

Dixie

Like Stayathomia, Dixie towns tend to have links mostly to other nearby cities rather than spanning the country.

Greater Texas

Orbiting around Dallas, the ties of the Gulf Coast towns and Oklahoma and Arkansas make them look more Texan than Southern.

Mormonia

The only region that's completely surrounded by another cluster, Mormonia mostly consists of Utah towns that are highly connected to each other, with an offshoot in Eastern Idaho.

Nomadic West

The defining feature of this area is how likely even small towns are to be strongly connected to distant cities, it looks like the inhabitants have done a lot of moving around the country.

Socalistan

Californians outside the super-cities tend to be most connected to other Californians, making almost as tight a cluster as Greater Texas.

Pacifica

Tightly connected to each other, it doesn't look like Washingtonians are big travelers compared to the rest of the West.

Read more...

Twitter and Facebook flooded with alien theories about Google UFO logo

· Twitter, Facebook and the worldwide blogosphere have been flooded with alien conspiracy theories about the new Google UFO 'doodle'.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/6142650/Twitter-and-Facebook-flooded-with-alien-theories-about-Google-UFO-logo.html

The 'doodle' (adaptation of Google's logo), showing a classic saucer-shaped spacecraft shining a light down on the search-engine's regular logo, has been the subject of much speculation.
The world's internet voices want to now whether the all-powerful web giant is trying to tell us something.
Google regularly changes its logo to mark important event such as the recent 40th anniversary of the moon landings.
But nobody can work out why Google has chosen this date to put a UFO logo on the world's most visited web page.
"Does anybody know what's going on?" asks one.
"Aliens landed on Earth this day last year," offers another blogger by way of explanation.
Some think Google's global dominance may extend beyond this planet.
"If Google says the aliens are coming, I'm getting out of here," says one US blogger.
One of the things bothering the online community is that early on Saturday morning the new logo could be seen in some places, but not others.[This may be key in understanding this whole (for lack of a better word) 'test'.]
"Am I the one that is going crazy?" asks a blogger in Arizona who can't see the logo.
If you click on the alien logo you are given the results for "unexplained phenomena".
In Google's top ten most searched terms "unexplained phenomena" merits two entries.
It is unclear whether Google is responding to popular demand or dictating what the public should be interested in.

[Source: www.telegraph.co.uk]

[...and Google explains... Well, not really.]
Google statement on its unexplained phenomenon doodle
· Google has added to the mystery surrounding the appearance of a UFO on its home page on Saturday by releasing a statement which does nothing to end the speculation surrounding it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/6145346/Google-statement-on-its-unexplained-phenomenon-doodle.html

The UFO, which appeared to be abducting the second O in the word Google, referred the user to the search term "unexplained phenomenon" when clicked. The term was, throughout Saturday, one of the most searched-for phrases on the search engine.
Google tends to use its so-called doodles - the adaptations of its logo - to mark major calendar events or the birthdays of large organisations. But Saturday's doodle appeared to have no commemorative tie-in and the web was alive with speculation as to its purpose.
During the morning, a numeric code (above) - 1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19 - appeared on Google's Twitter stream. The code, which translated to the phrase "all your O are belong to us", was an echo of a famous internet meme from 2000.

But late on Saturday Google released the following statement:

"We consider the second ‘o’ critical to user recognition of our brand and pronunciation of our name. We are actively looking into the mysterious tweet that has appeared on the Google twitter stream and the disappearance of the “o” on the Google homepage. We hope to have an update in the coming weeks.”
·

[Source: www.telegraph.co.uk]

Facebook 'violates' privacy law

·The popular social networking site Facebook is not doing enough to protect the personal information it gets from subscribers, and it gives users confusing and incomplete information about privacy matters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/facebook/5846719/Facebook-violates-privacy-law.html

"It's clear that privacy issues are top of mind for Facebook, and yet we found serious privacy gaps in the way the site operates," Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said in a report on an investigation into Facebook.
The report said Facebook violates Canada's privacy laws by keeping the personal information of people who have deactivated their accounts in its databases indefinitely.
[...]
Facebook told the commissioner it needed to keep personal data for those who shut down accounts because about half of users reactivate accounts that they had deactivated.
[...]
Stoddart also said Facebook lacked adequate safeguards to prevent unauthorised access to users' personal information by third-party developers. There are more than 950,000 developers in 180 countries.

Read more...

[Related news...]
Police close down Facebook barbecue for 15 people

Cyber warriors join fight against censors and foil Iran’s bid to silence bloggers

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6531831.ece

[...]
Ehsan Zahedani, 27, is sitting at a table, checking his Facebook page. The student of politics and Iranian studies at nearby UCLA has more than 1,950 “friends” and his profile page is filled with posts, pictures and links to videos on YouTube — all about the protests in Iran.
Mr Zahedani is part of an informal online network across Southern California working to support the protesters on the streets and broadcast their message to the world.
[...]
A guerrilla war of slogans and strategies has played out on Twitter and websites such as YouTube as protesters have sought to get round the Iranian Government’s efforts to shut down communications outlets. Iranians in California are determined to do their bit to make sure that the censors do not win. Web-savvy supporters have pitched in to give technical support to those in the homeland trying to get round the blocks.
[...]
They have set up proxy servers, which can help to bypass censorship by hiding the identity and location of users. Hundreds of proxy servers all around the world have been set up for use inside Iran and, as they have been shut down, others have popped up.
One blogger put up an “Iran Election Cyberwarfare Guide” detailing how activists could support Iranian tweeters. Advice included: “Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is Tehran and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become Iranians, it becomes much harder to find them.”

You must read all of this...

What Is Facebook Actually Worth? $10 billion!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/business/27views.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Holy cow, Facebook is worth $10 billion? That may be how the social networking Web site would like the world to interpret its latest capital infusion. But don’t be fooled. While that may represent a target valuation for Facebook, the actual worth, today, of Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room creation may be much lower.
That’s not to completely dismiss the headline figure. Under terms announced Tuesday, the Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies is plugging $200 million into the company for about a 2 percent stake. By that arithmetic, Facebook would indeed be worth $10 billion.
For a company that, by its own admission, won’t generate positive cash flow until sometime next year, that’s an impressive figure to bandy about. True, Facebook’s last capital-raising 18 months ago, which brought Microsoft and the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing in as investors, put a $15 billion price tag on the company. But considering the trajectory of financial markets since then, the valuation attached to Digital Sky’s trade actually looks even more robust.

Read more...

[But remember these other news, Issues About Online Social Networking Sites, ie. Facebook, Myspace, and so on...]

Issues About Online Social Networking Sites (Vids)

[VIDEO: Facebook Killed the Private Life]

[VIDEO: Facebook - CIA Profile Database]

I wasn't invited to Bilderberg 2009 in Vouliagmeni Greece, May 14th-17th

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79913317158&ref=ts

It has been reported that this year's meeting of the Bilderberg Group will be held at the Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece from May 14-17.
I don't know what the Bilderberg Group really does, but
the way that they conduct their business sure makes it seem like they are a shadowy cabal of elites plotting world domination. Will the press cover this meeting with anything more than a passing remark? They really ought to. If you are the sort of person who is alright with going down the rabbit hole, I recommend a few google searches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bilderberg-group/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4290944.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/10/features.weekend
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060609/bilderberg_group_060609/20060609?hub=TopStories
[Source: facebook.com/group]

Facebook users unwittingly revealing personal information thanks to way privacy settings work

Cambridge study says social networking site's public profiles could be used to access private details.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/02/facebook-profiles-personal-information

Millions of Facebook users could be unwittingly giving away personal information because of the way in which the social networking website's privacy settings work, researchers said this week.

In a study presented to a conference in Nuremberg, a team from the University of Cambridge's computer laboratory showed how Facebook public profiles could be used to find out personal information despite appearing to contain only a few details.

The researchers used a computer programme to sift through tens of thousands of public profiles – visible to internet search engines such as Google – in order to build detailed maps of people's relationships.

In the paper, called Eight Friends Are Enough, the Cambridge team pointed out that it was possible to reconstruct somebody's friends list – which Facebook calls the "social graph" – in a way that could allow marketers, governments and even criminals to understand the private relationships between different people.

Read more...