The Secure Surfing Organization is going through a complete re-think about what service it offers and how those services are offered.
At this point, we are genuinely in the “thinking” stage, but there will be major changes.
What is likely:
Trimming the array of subject areas covered. In covering everything, average users become disinterested in the contents of the site, depriving them of valuable, potentially disaster-preventing content. We never started out to be a site for experts and we have to get back to our main mission.
Moving some subject areas to their own independent sites, particularly those that evaluate and review software.
Keeping the forum function as a center of discussion and help for all related sites and any others who wish to establish user security, internet safety, identity and privacy or related forums.
The secure privacy-protecting search interface Scroogle.com is back in operation after the operator received some coding assistance from Scroogle users. It remains to be seen if Google will make additional changes leading to a permanent end to the much valued service.
Facebook is the opposite of anonymous browsing or secure surfing.
Several of our readers have sent email questioning why the Secure Surfing Organization has not published on the moves Facebook is making in its collection, distribution, use and administration of Facebook member personal information.
Frankly there has been so much coverage in the mainstream media that it seemed reasonable to let all the experts have their say, since no credible sources have been exactly applauding Facebook.
On the other hand, we feel particularly betrayed. When Facebook did its first major overhaul of its privacy practices, we did applaud those changes. They improved users ability to control their privacy, most particularly in allowing users to completely delete their accounts.
So we publicly commended the social networking site.
In a discouraging development, the safest and most effective web search interface has been forced to end its service.
Scroogle has been operating a “Google scraper” since 2002. We have featured the search interface on all of our web sites and encouraged users to make Scroogle their first choice for Google searching. This was because Scroogle completely stripped IP addresses from searches, protecting users from profiling and surveillance.
Unfortunately, we will be removing all those links as soon as practical, as the service has been defeated by Google making changes in its interface. The changes are such that Scroogle cannot reliably respond.
You may read Scroogle closing for business note here. [Update: The service has been restored so we will leave all links in place]
All is not lost however, as IxQuick remains operational. IxQuick is similar to Scroogle in that it protects users privacy and identity by stripping IP addresses and does not Read the rest of Scroogle Closes Down
The following is the response (unedited, the typos are their own) by Web of Trust to Secure Surfing Organization’s complaint about their “we’re not responsible” reputation rating system. Below it you will find the original message we submitted and you can find our full assessment in the immediately previous SSO Report.
=====================Web of Trust Reply=====================
Sorry for my late reply. Your site’s reputation ratings are based on ratings from our users and we as a hosting service provider are unfortunately not in a position to Read the rest of Web of Trust Responds
Most people are familiar with the original form of extortion marketing on the internet. The scam was to register someone’s domain name and then try to sell it to the owner of the trademark or brand for a profit. That practice has largely ended with the application of policies and judicial rulings that prevent registering trademarks by non-owners of the trademarks.
But there is another form of extortion marketing that it is not going to be solved with laws or regulations.
The perfect example of this “business model” is the so-called “Web of Trust.”
Well, it is happening much faster than even we anticipated. Today, May 07, 2010, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued an order in favour of the corporate movie industry lobby, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The order grants movie distributors the right to take control of the set top boxes in your home.
A pdf of the order is on the FCC site here. As you read it, here is how the jargon translates:
“multichannel video programming distributors” is anyone who distributes any kind of video programming through more than one “distribution channel,” for example over television and via DVDs. Apparently the small companies that only produce for the DVD market have much less at stake in piracy than the corporate giants.
“selectable output control” means that the corporate authority can selectively choose what parts of your home electronics to disable. They can disable video outputs on your set top box or PlayStation, they can disable audio output, or they can disable everything that might not contain a signature they have inserted somewhere.
Not being paranoid doesn’t mean no one’s out to get you.
Ah, for the days when that saying didn’t start with the word “not.”
As an interesting exercise, take a visit to Sysomos , which is one of many vendors in the business of watching you to the finest detail possible.
If you read their sales pitches, you will see that they monitor all communications on social media, blogs, forums and the rest of the internet, to such a degree that they promise their clients that people can be tracked by name, age, “sentiment” and dozens of other variables.
With Facebook extending its platform to the “regular” web, services like Sysomos will accumulate more and more data about you, specifically you.
To get an in-depth look at how you are being profiled, read our Guide “How Profiling Works.”
So what to do?
First lie a lot. For any service that does not involve a financial transaction, lie about your age if you are required to provide one. Lie about your address and especially your postal code. In general use a false name.
For non-financial transactions, you really should have a complete alternate identity.
Usenet is an internet system that provides great benefits to the people who know it exists and also know how to use it. In common language “Usenet” is now called simply “news groups” because the system started long before the world wide web and its primary function was to distribute news groups that are very similar to “forums” you might find on various web sites. One service has so completely surpassed all others that some people only new Usenet by the the service name, “Giganews.”
The difference between newsgroups and the web is that news groups were also being used to distribute “binary” files. A binary file is simply one that is not text. Messages are text and files such television episodes of your favourite series are binaries. Photographs, music and software programs are all binary files.
If you want an outstanding narrative on the challenges facing personal privacy, click on this link, Digital Dossier, a video that might make you think.
Consider that, for the sake of time and narration, the author is using a trivial number of examples to convey the ideas, but that the sources of data generated by and about you greatly exceed those cited. Just think of your loyalty or rewards cards, the warranty cards/registrations, the health club, the library… you get the point.
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