tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post1213557731458079281..comments2024-03-22T21:02:55.051+13:00Comments on Bat, Bean, Beam: True NamesGiovanni Tisohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-25355140817826271632011-08-06T22:55:03.025+12:002011-08-06T22:55:03.025+12:00LOL, apropos this my wife just tried to sign up to...LOL, apropos this my wife just tried to sign up to Facebook - the better to keep tabs on her brother in the US - and was denied the name "Tobias Fünke". She is Not Amused, as I am "friends" with people she has no wish to be noticed by.James Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11459885200603545823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-72899675122693968622011-08-06T14:28:43.265+12:002011-08-06T14:28:43.265+12:00"Most companies will forgo some profit to mak...<i>"Most companies will forgo some profit to make them feel more comfortable with their operations."</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false" rel="nofollow">This article</a> by James Gleick for the New York Review of Books looks at "Don't be evil" amongst other things, and in spite of the very Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-39257309117610792162011-08-06T13:18:32.116+12:002011-08-06T13:18:32.116+12:00Especially those aspects of the social order that ...<i>Especially those aspects of the social order that underpin (and are in turn the product of) the political-economic system in which Google makes those profits, namely neoliberal capitalism.</i><br /><br />Especially, but not exclusively. My experience is that companies create and replicate aesthetics with an aim of producing a profit, but these are frequently at least partly at odds with doing George Dnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-37862703553701312962011-08-06T11:40:19.642+12:002011-08-06T11:40:19.642+12:00"It's easy to see Google etc as merely pr...<i>"It's easy to see Google etc as merely profit making machines, but they're also in the business of replicating and enforcing social order"</i><br /><br />Especially those aspects of the social order that underpin (and are in turn the product of) the political-economic system in which Google makes those profits, namely neoliberal capitalism.<br /><br /><i>"Real names"Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-69517665025145690742011-08-06T02:46:44.468+12:002011-08-06T02:46:44.468+12:00I think the commercial imperative is made manifest...I think the commercial imperative is made manifest in rather obvious ways, and this does help us in thinking usefully. However, <a href="http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html" rel="nofollow">opens up another line of enquiry</a> by identifying this as a use of power. ""Real names" policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power George Dnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-67875088252649107022011-08-05T23:25:47.447+12:002011-08-05T23:25:47.447+12:00Fair enough. I didn't mean that the polluting ...Fair enough. I didn't mean that the polluting of the graph would literally be an problem, and the point that a pseudonymous you may in fact reveal truer preferences is well taken. In fact market researchers have ways to discount random answers and outright lies. I suspect that the aversion is more ideological. The social graph, much like transhumanism, is predicated on the idea that identity Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-34461000752590482902011-08-05T21:58:02.787+12:002011-08-05T21:58:02.787+12:00It's interesting how the authors of the Twitte...It's interesting how the authors of the Twitter gender paper "verified" the genders of their subjects only by checking against existing online profiles - ie. what they were really testing is whether they could guess the gender a given person <i>self-identifies as on the internet</i>. I don't know if it's dealt with in the paper, but the reporting I've seen seems to James Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11459885200603545823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-38473049562941421792011-08-05T20:25:48.957+12:002011-08-05T20:25:48.957+12:00"Given merely the textual evidence of this bl...<i>"Given merely the textual evidence of this blog post, we can know nothing for certain about who you are, but assuredly if "Giovanni Tiso" were an alias for a 20-something Syrian lesbian who merely pretends to be Tiso in order to draw attention to the plight of expatriate Italian translators, this could and would be uncovered, at least to the extent that your post became of Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-13614401431405456242011-08-05T14:20:40.545+12:002011-08-05T14:20:40.545+12:00Yes, statistical algorithms are weak. But when we ...Yes, statistical algorithms are weak. But when we want to unmask someone, we don't use statistics alone, or even at all. Eg, see how Tom McMasters was uncovered, not by agents of a state, or any sort of professional service, but simply by ordinary people pooling their individually limit3ed information.<br /><br />Given merely the textual evidence of this blog post, we can know nothing for stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04486889878636801969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-28099237916732973182011-08-04T22:42:45.178+12:002011-08-04T22:42:45.178+12:00It's the most terrifying thing, isn't it? ...It's the most terrifying thing, isn't it? An apparatus of total surveillance run by idiots. That was <i>Brazil</i>'s inspired twist on Orwell. <br /><br />However, this:<br /><br /><i>We know who you are, Mr Tiso, no matter what you call yourself.</i><br /><br />needs to be unpicked somewhat. There is the inscription in the Net of various forms of control, including state control (theGiovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-42647175983903579382011-08-04T20:56:30.726+12:002011-08-04T20:56:30.726+12:00About whether or how Google or Facebook could/shou...About whether or how Google or Facebook could/should/might have caught Breivik: I just want to note that years ago, at the University of Waikato, the most frequent reader of the Usenet group alt.politics.white-power, and most frequent poster, was me. To this day, I read some vile and disgusting things on a semi-regular basis precisely because I have a special interest in opposing them. I'm stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04486889878636801969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-78493523714699482382011-08-03T21:56:49.980+12:002011-08-03T21:56:49.980+12:00There is also the fact that many people, millions ...There is also the fact that many people, millions of Indonesians for example are mononymous, and first name last name has no place in their reality. <br /><br />I'll come back here, but the comment about cyberspace rung entirely true. Cyber has shrunk, realspace has intruded.George Dnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-84605847121833088312011-08-02T13:00:25.445+12:002011-08-02T13:00:25.445+12:00(mostly I wanted to include Figure 8, in all its b...<i>(mostly I wanted to include Figure 8, in all its blinding awesomeness)</i><br /><br />Figure 8 made my day - thanks :)Greg Dawsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17702022200552986559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-58488159897008935902011-08-02T12:49:55.335+12:002011-08-02T12:49:55.335+12:00As a stipulation, a true connection between the pe...As a stipulation, a true connection between the person and their handle is scary in proportion to the reach of the organization collecting the data. Anyone with a small friends network they developed for some minor purpose is hardly sinister if they wish to know the actual identity of their members. But something the size of Google Wave.... <br /><br />As a practice, I've personally found Ben Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015337296196701141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-4863471746191847242011-08-02T12:07:05.436+12:002011-08-02T12:07:05.436+12:00That's the thing about the Dictionary - it'...That's the thing about the Dictionary - it's really quite clever.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-15389643092882687822011-08-02T11:59:17.909+12:002011-08-02T11:59:17.909+12:00I'm also intrigued by the relevance of the hum...I'm also intrigued by the relevance of the humorous definition of "anti-aliasing". Real <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_aliasing" rel="nofollow">anti-aliasing</a> is a technical workaround for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem" rel="nofollow">Nyquist's theorem</a> - a consequence of the information that is lost when James Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11459885200603545823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-82839549789532317682011-08-02T10:18:28.013+12:002011-08-02T10:18:28.013+12:00I had something about that in draft (mostly I want...I had something about that in draft (mostly I wanted to include Figure 8, in all its blinding awesomeness), but then it just became too much. And Twitter really does deserve a separate treatment, what they are doing *is* different even though there will be people trying to extrapolate a social graph from it nonetheless - with the eventual aim of selling stuff to Samuel Pepys, no doubt.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-25092221721311401062011-08-02T10:11:56.791+12:002011-08-02T10:11:56.791+12:00Posted without comment.<a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1769217/there-are-no-secrets-from-twitter" rel="nofollow">Posted without comment.</a>James Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11459885200603545823noreply@blogger.com