Privacy in the 21st Century

Privacy in the 21st Century
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I am trying to keep abreast of issues related to privacy, (both in general and also specifically in relation to the internet). I thought I would create this post as a repository for links to anything I find which is relevant. I am interested in all aspects of privacy - technical, political, economic/marketing, psychological, sociological, etc etc.

Stuff here is not currently in order of relevance or importance - I'll just chuck it in chronologically.


So here are my first three links:

The Google Cookie
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Whilst I don't believe that currently there is much evidence that Google is becoming evil, or even a little bit mischievous, we of course all need to keep an eye on what they do just as much as on anybody else. Who knows what they will be, who will own them in 20 years....

If you ever wish to search google without being tracked by ip, you can (as of the 6th January 2006) use the marvellous scroogle scraper.


http://www.scroogle.org/scraper.html

No cookies, access logs deleted after 7 days. I still use google, as actually I think they are not only non-evil but actually 'quite good', and I use many of their features - qotd, top news, gmail [for some stuff] , google maps ( the new google earth looks insanely impressive - haven't actually tried it out yet though :) etc etc. But I wouldn't feel nearly so good about using google if I didn't know there were alternatives such as scroogle for if I ever want to search privately.


"Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists"
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http://www.applefritter.com/bannedbooks



mySpace & similar
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http://www.applexnet.com/trent/blog//index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=50

privacy tips
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http://redtape.msnbc.com/2005/12/new_years_perso.html#posts


anonym.OS
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Really Interesting article from wired about 'anonym.OS', which I had never heard of before.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,70017-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

"Titled Anonym.OS, the system is a type of disk called a "live CD" -- meaning it's a complete solution for using a computer without touching the hard drive. Developers say Anonym.OS is likely the first live CD based on the security-heavy OpenBSD operating system.

OpenBSD running in secure mode is relatively rare among desktop users. So to keep from standing out, Anonym.OS leaves a deceptive network fingerprint. In everything from the way it actively reports itself to other computers, to matters of technical minutia such as TCP packet length, the system is designed to look like Windows XP SP1. "We considered part of what makes a system anonymous is looking like what is most popular, so you blend in with the crowd," explains project developer Adam Bregenzer of Super Light Industry."