“If we would have our creations be true, beautiful, and good, we have to attend to our hearts.”
These words come from computer pioneer Frederick P. Brooks, who joined IBM in 1956 and was a chief designer of the IBM 360 operating system. I was intrigued when I first read about him in the 2013 IVP publication Shaping a Digital World by Derek C. Schuurman. To become more familiar with Brooks, I watched the 7-minute YouTube video “Fred Brooks–Computer Pioneer” by Kevin Bryan.
I doubt that Brooks was able to predict the future of digital technology in the early days of IBM, but I consider his advice to be especially applicable to this week’s issue of the invasion of privacy by “pirates” who track, analyze, and sell information but in so doing risk harming their sources. I believe this issue requires us all to “attend to our hearts.” I am confident that people like Brooks were hoping to make the world a better place by their innovations, and that they never intended the harm caused by today’s trackers. I look forward to our discussions about ethical standards in the Digital Literacy segment of our course!
My two-day experience with “Lightbeam”
On Monday, March 20, I installed the Lightbeam extension. I had an inkling, based on previous experience, that the New York Times would likely result in an explosion of third party attention. Sure enough, after only one brief visit to read a Times article, I opened Lightbeam and there were 80 trackers! Then I accessed Freely, a YouTube video and other sites associated with our course—6 sites in all—whereupon the number of trackers increased to 156!
Today, while experimenting with various buttons on the Firefox and Google Chrome search engines, I found a few extensions and add-ons that, I hoped, would help block some unwanted tracking. AdBlocker seemed especially interesting to me. Then I “reset” Lightbeam and visited several course-related sites. This time, after visiting 7 sites, I saw only 56 third-party connections, and even after visiting 10 sites, the total number of third-party connections was still only 68!
I wonder if the sites I visited the second day were “safer,” or if the Facebook fiasco is already having some effect. . . Frankly, I am distressed by the news that the Facebook accounts of 50 million Americans were unknowingly hacked before the 2016 election. We are all well advised to treat the information we post to the Web with care.
Let me share two questions about Internet security that concern me as an online instructor
1 – It became obvious to me while working with Lightbeam that those of us who have a longer history of blogging to the Web also have more information in cyberspace that they might want to “take back” by retrieving it and erasing it. Is this even possible? I read today that it takes 90 days to delete a Facebook account and there is no guarantee that everything will be deleted. I hope to learn more about what will happen to blogs posted to the course hub after a course has been completed.
2 – Thanks to one of my students, I became familiar last year with Feedly, Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. I wonder how secure these programs are—can the teams using them be confident that what’s private stays private? If so, I wonder if they might be preferred in K-12 settings–or perhaps within MA Lead–to annotation and problem-solving tools such as hypothes.is and GitHub, which are open to participants around the globe.
Hi Colin,
Thanks for your thoughtful Update focusing on the issues of Tracking and Privacy. I really appreciate your leadership in this course! Let me share a couple of brief comments in response—
(1) You’re correct, of course, to assert that what Facebook did was not “hacking” if you think of the 4th definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “gaining illegal access to a computer network, system, etc” although I point out that what Facebook and Cambridge Analytica did should be illegal. I had in mind, rather, Merriam-Webster’s 1st definition: “to cut or sever with repeated irregular or unskillful blows. . .” In other words, I’m more concerned about the breach of trust involved. I consider it significant that this issue might not have come to light without the initiative of a whistleblower. Furthermore, my distress level went down a bit when I heard Mark Zuckerburg’s apology. I don’t much care who is in control, especially because when it comes to computer technology I’m a relative novice and I rely very much on you and others who know more than I do. My hope and prayer is that those who control information I have shared publicly treat it with respect. Why am I expected to read every word of a privacy policy when I subscribe to websites with the implicit understanding that I will not be mistreated?
(2) I’m still grateful to the TWU student who asked me to read her LIP Report appendices by using and opening Google Docs. That was a learning experience for me, and I greatly benefited from the skills I learned while experimenting with that program by being able to communicate intelligently with school administrators since then. Looking forward to our digital future at TWU I completely understand and support your promotion of the TWU Faculty Development Website. I am a bit baffled, however, about your advice against using Google Docs, etc. You answered a question I didn’t have—I’m well aware that when I sign on to use the services of any website I must consider the likelihood that its owner hopes to make money. Surely that applies to Reclaim Hosting as well? My question is: Do you have any experience that leads you believe that Google Docs is any less secure from the viewpoint of the user than Google Chrome, Firefox, and Feedly, programs you have instructed us to install on our computers. I mentioned that the Microsoft search engine Edge is the default search engine on my computer. I’m looking for a good reason why I should or should not make the Google sites my defaults.
Sorry this comment got so long. Thanks for your patience as I continue to experiment! I guess I’m a bit like Doug Atha—for me, the jury is still out on some issues.