Armed with nothing more than a Facebook user's phone number and home address, anyone with an Internet connection and a few dollars can obtain personal information they should never have access to, including a user's date of birth, e-mail address, or estimated income.
The user in China wants the same thing that any Internet user wants - privacy in conversations, maximum access to information, and the ability to speak their minds online.
Tribalism isn't a bad thing. If you're a Facebook user, or Twitter user or Foursquare user or LinkedIn user, those are all tribes... and they may even have sub-tribes. It's not pejorative, it's declarative.
Many company policies restrict use of E-mail, limit access to offensive Web sites and prohibit disclosure of confidential information. Few policies, if any, directly address personal Web pages.
If there is a Like button in a page, Facebook knows who visited that page. And it can get IP address of the computer visiting the page even if the person is not a Facebook user.
I have no idea how to get in touch with anyone anymore. Everyone, it seems, has a home phone, a cell phone, a regular e-mail account, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and a Web site. Some of them also have a Google Voice number. There are the sentimental few who still have fax machines.
People who bet against the Internet, who think that somehow this change is just a generational shift, miss that it is a fundamental reorganizing of the power of the end user. The Internet brings tremendous tools to the end user, and that end user is going to use them.
I favor strategies that encourage industry to include some sort of key recovery capability in their systems which would also address user requirements for access.
Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers.
I was an early user of AOL - so early, I didn't even have a number after my user name. For me, email was once vital, both for personal and business uses.
The IRS is currently considering a rule that would make it easier for tax preparers to disclose the private information contained in tax returns - including name, address, Social Security number, employer, income, and charitable donations.
If an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same.
Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
I have done a pretty good job of partitioning my life digitally, posting utterances and stories that I'm happy to share with anyone on Twitter, leaving a few sparse comments and 'Likes' on Facebook (I'm not a huge user of the service, I'll be honest), and sending any number of photos to thousands of 'followers' on Instagram and Tumblr.
I'm addicted to the Internet. I admit it. It has transformed the way I work as a senator, communicate with my children, and keep tabs on news and cultural developments.... The Internet is a more direct communications link between legislators and their constituents....I constantly work at fusing my Senate work into my office home page to make it as useful, timely, and user-friendly as possible for Vermonters and others who may visit.....I look at my Web site, as my 24-hour virtual office, where visitors can send me an e-mail or search for the information they need anytime, day or night.
A domain name is your address, your address on the Internet. We all have a physical address; we're all going to need an address in cyberspace. They're becoming increasingly important. I believe we'll get to the point where when you're born, you'll be issued a domain name.
Mobile forced us to rethink the user experience and do something people would be able to carry out on in a couple of seconds on the mobile phone. By stripping out all the work the user used to do and putting that on the company, we were able to create a much better user experience.