FOG - Fear Of Google. One who fears Google, you could say, is a FOGger.
With me, I think it’s a love/hate thing - I love Google for the toys and pretty goodies they have available for my Personalized Homepage (I *refuse* to call it iGoogle, dammit!) and for their very handy Calendar, but at the same time hate them for their many “indiscretions.”
*cough* Can you say profiling? I thought you could … *cough*
Robert Scoble had a really good article posted yesterday about Google — especially covering their recent acquisition of FeedBurner for $100m. I dunno ’bout you lot, but that one really bothers me. I use and depend on FeedBurner for several of my hobby sites, and am not happy about the fact that I may soon need to find a suitable replacement. (if such a thing even exists!)
Geek News Central posted a very heated objection, and while I whole-heartedly agree, what really stuck me was this: “My RSS feed is SACRED and I will NEVER share the SUBSCRIBER data with ANYONE, those that are using FeedBurner will never be able to claim that!”
He’s right, and to be perfectly honest, once Google starts making changes I cannot honestly tell anyone that their subscriptions are safe — whether my site or any other using the FeedBurner service. What’s more, what will happen with the FeedVertising? I imagine that Google will quickly swap that out first and foremost with AdSense ads. I have an AdSense account, but I’ve found that I’ve had much better luck using — well, pretty much anything else!
However, something I thought Mr. Scoble had posted put forth a decent perspective on this whole Google thing: “I saw lots of reactions to Feedburner’s purchase by Google decrying that Google will know what feeds they are subscribed to. I think Google has to be very transparent, very warm, and very open when it comes to privacy and the data it’s collecting on all of us and to many of us it’s coming across as closed, cold, and opaque. That leads to bad PR. Bad PR — if continued unabated — leads to government action. Just ask my friends at Microsoft.”
Had an uber-busy weekend. For those who observed it, I hope everyone had a good Easter. Jim’s brother and his family are in town, so we spent most of the weekend with them.
I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time on the pc, so I’m just now catching up. Posted a lot of things to BYKYC that I’ve missed over the weekend. I had originally resigned to sit and go through my Twitter updates, but let’s face it — I got WAY too may Friends listed, and I’m not keen on pouring through 25 pages of one-liners, LOL!
I did read today’s though! hehe
I have run across a nice site for keeping up-to-date on new Twitter gadgets and various Twitter-related news: Twitter Hacks. They featured a piece on there today on how easy it is to spoof someone on Twitter:
Can someone pose as you on Twitter? With a very simple trick, yes they can.
Both Twitter and Jott authenticate users by their phone number. Twitter does this by validating users based upon the source of SMS messages sent to the phone number 40404 (US), and Jott does this by trusting the incoming Caller ID when someone calls 877-568-848. From a security perspective this means the following:
* Anyone who knows your phone number can update your Twitter page by spoofing a SMS message, i.e. post a Twitter entry as you.
* Anyone who knows your phone number can spoof his or her caller ID to send a Jott message as you.
Read Twitter and Jott Vulnerable to SMS and Caller ID Spoofing by Nitesh Dhanjani for the full details. Needless to say I hope they are able to fix this. I don’t know much about the SMS world but hopefully they’ll be able to block these fake sender services. The problem is new ones will fill up all the time. Does this mean Twitter and similar services need another layer of authentication? I know a lot of people on Twitter publish their cell phone numbers on their web sites so this could get ugly kinda quick like.
I guess lucky for me I don’t have a cellphone, so the above wouldn’t apply to me; but anyone who does, it would be easy to spoof an account and send an unGodly amount of spam — say, messages advertising that Phentermine stuff? Anyone with a blog has seen those! That’d likely piss off people on your friends list, easily having your account terminated, and worse: labeling you as a spammer.
I did this theme last month during one of my (quickly becoming many) sleepless nights, and thought I’d subject you guys to it a little early. *grins*
Had a semi-lousy weekend. I say “semi” because it was good that I got out and was able to see Grandmother — though I didn’t care for the family drama that went along with it. My brother’s wife is pregnant — did I tell y’all that? They’re excited and I’m very happy for them. Jim’s afraid my parents will from now on focus their attention only on his child, and basically ignore Jessie. I had brushed aside that thought off in the hopes that they wouldn’t dare … but something my grandmother said Saturday after mom left leaves me to feeling otherwise now. Honestly, it’s crossed my mind before, but I’d never voiced that fear to anyone (with of course the exception of printing it here).
*sigh* Moving out of state is starting to look appealing again.
I’ve been a lot more headaches lately. Jim’s worried it’s stress, but so far they’ve all been sinus (no migraines, *yet*) … it just means Spring is not far away. Unfortunately it also means that my allergy medicine isn’t working as well as it has been the last couple of years, so my ENT will probably have to switch my medication again. (ugh)
I may be just grinchin’ here, but I’ll be glad when all of these bloody holidays are over … I’m tired of tiptoeing around certain subjects and biting my lip to keep from spouting off what I *really* think.
Posted by Nicki on February 12th, 2007 at 11:19 am
LONDON (Reuters) - Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct. That is the sort of service Google Inc. boss Eric Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.
Politicians have yet to appreciate the impact of the online world, which will also affect the outcome of elections, Schmidt said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Wednesday.
He predicted that “truth predictor” software would, within five years, “hold politicians to account.” People would be able to use programs to check seemingly factual statements against historical data to see to see if they were correct.
“One of my messages to them (politicians) is to think about having every one of your voters online all the time, then inputting ‘is this true or false.’ We (at Google) are not in charge of truth but we might be able to give a probability,” he told the newspaper.
The chairman and chief executive of the world’s most popular Internet search engine was speaking during a visit to Britain this week, where he met British Prime Minister Tony Blair and spoke at the opposition Conservative Party’s annual conference.
“Many of the politicians don’t actually understand the phenomenon of the Internet very well,” Schmidt told the Financial Times. “It’s partly because of their age … often what they learn about the Internet they learn from their staffs and their children.”
The advent of television taught political leaders the art of the sound bite. The Internet will also force them to adapt.
“The Internet has largely filled a role of funding for politicians … but it has not yet affected elections. It clearly will,” Schmidt said.
Writing in the Sun tabloid, the Google boss said the online world has empowered ordinary people with the ability to challenge governments, the media and business.
“It has broken down the barriers that exist between people and information, effectively democratizing access to human knowledge,” Schmidt wrote.
“This has made us much more powerful as individuals.”
Now I wonder … would such a thing spark an increase of websites featuring misinformation for the sole purpose of skewing Google’s probability ratings? (as if there isn’t enough of that crap out there already!)
As I’m sure most of you have noticed, I’ve switched to the Roll Tide Roll theme. I’m sorry I had to switch off the Theme Switcher. It seems that WP-Cache was interfering with it, so I’m hoping that will be resolved soon so that those who enjoy using the other themes will be able to access them again.
Alabama’s first game is next weekend, against Hawaii … though it’s PPV (yes, I’m still grumbling about that one *grrrrr*).
In my most recent fit of Google addiction, I decided to dump the iCalShare calendar feed from my Google Calendar for Alabama’s playing schedule and decided to make my own. It’s incomplete, but I will fill in the times and stations as soon as they’re published to the University’s website. (also available as XML or iCal link)
Work’s still really busy … and stressful. We’re well into our “busy season” … that, and I’ve purposefully NOT blogged about several happenings lately due to many reasons. The biggest being that I’ve noticed referrals coming in from search hits via searches by who I believe are either clients or members of management. There are several “touchy” subjects I’ve tossed out into the open and/or set on fire lately, and I think I’ve pissed off enough people for now … so better safe than sorry. (for now)
I will say this … if the next few days to couple of weeks go well, I may not have to worry about that anymore. *crosses fingers!*
