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December 30, 2019: Dvorak keyboard and other tech tips, plus DJ Paradox

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From the Dvorak Zine.

The Dvorak keyboard and other tech tips, feat. DJ Paradox

In tech news:

• Data on Hundreds of Millions of U.S. Facebook Users Exposed (Bloomberg, Dec 20): "Information on 267 million Facebook users, including user names, phone numbers and Facebook IDs, was exposed online . . . Of the affected users, 99% were from the U.S."

• Google Nest or Amazon Ring? Just reject these corporations' surveillance and a dystopic future (NBC News, Dec 21): "For too long, we've been sold a false choice between privacy and security. It's more clear every day that more surveillance does not mean more safety, especially for the most vulnerable. Talk to your family and friends and encourage them to do their research before putting any private company's surveillance devices on your door or in your home. In the end, companies like Amazon and Google don't care about keeping our communities safe; they care about making money."

• Think Alexa Is Too Creepy For Your Kitchen? Don’t Give It to Aunty Mary. (NYT, Dec 25): "The grass-roots surveillance network in the United States is poised for yet another major expansion this Christmas season. Think of each new Ring video doorbell, discount DNA test, WiFi-equipped clothes dryer, smart speaker and mobile phone as a new node on the world’s most advanced and pervasive effort at human monitoring."

• Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy (NYT, Dec 19): data set of 50 billion "pings" from 12 million Americans' phones obtained anonymously from a "location data company." One would think that American "citizens would surely rise up in outrage if the government attempted to mandate that every person above the age of 12 carry a tracking device that revealed their location 24 hours a day. Yet, in the decade since Apple’s App Store was created, Americans have, app by app, consented to just such a system run by private companies. Now, as the decade ends, tens of millions of Americans, including many children, find themselves carrying spies in their pockets during the day and leaving them beside their beds at night — even though the corporations that control their data are far less accountable than the government would be."

• Where Even the Children Are Being Tracked (NYT, Dec 21): "Robert Howell, a professor of philosophy at Southern Methodist University, has identified what he calls the Peeping Tom Effect to express the indifference many people feel toward data surveillance. He says we have a visceral reaction only 'when we think about living, breathing agents observing our private lives.' It just doesn’t feel like such a personal violation when 'corporations are collecting the same information and storing it on their computers.' This psychological bias in favor of faceless surveillance may explain why Amazon’s Alexa smart speaker faced such a backlash after reports revealed that Amazon hired thousands of people to listen to the recordings. Few people had seemed bothered that Amazon could store conversations for eternity and using them for targeted advertising or other profitable ends. That feeling curdled only when Alexa users learned that real people were listening in."

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