Jill Walker wrote:
I can subscribe to RSS feeds for where individuals are logged in from without them even having made me a buddy and thus given me specific access. Someone should ask the company if they heard about what happened at Friendster when they startet RSS-feeding changes in their members' profiles. About 70 000 people protested...
Mapping IP numbers to geolocation is of course not new. Just look at the world map of your visitors you get when you use google analytics for your website. Wifi access points are more accurate, though:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8702329> The NSA recently filed a patent for determining the geographic location through IP traffic from someone. I think it had to do with latency or something like that.
I'm not well-read on newer theories of surveillance, no doubt there are many, The most prominent thinkers in this field are David Lyon, Gary T. Marx, and Oscar Gandy. Helen Nissenbaum's concept of "privacy as textual integrity" might also be helpful.
but I'd also consider danah boyd's work on public displays of friendship and networks - she sees this as a form of identity performance, While we're at it: Does anybody know good conceptual work on the privacy aspects of online identity management? Michael Zimmer has done some work on this recently, but that's mostly it - as far as I know.
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