But really, each of these has choices is distinct, and in many cases their use-cases do not overlap. Carrier pigeons, for example, are really point-to-point messaging mechanisms, unless you have a flock — and they take time to breed, so they are a poor choice if you have need to keep people updated on a variety of different topics. And unlike the owls of Harry Potter, carrier pigeons go to places and not people — so tracking down your significant other in either Greece or Italy — why won’t they call? — is out. (You may, of course, find different ways to make these work for you — in the digital age, square pegs can be refactored to fit in round holes, after all.)

Image via Wikipedia

Facebook

Facebook is the ideal place for keeping in touch with real people I’ve really met, especially if I’m likely to lose track of them otherwise. It’s geographically diverse, lets me share enough to give people a sense they’ve got an idea what I’m up to, and (despite its best efforts otherwise) lets me otherwise stay private (with caveats). So who do I connect with on Facebook? Friends (of various levels) from high school, college, postgrad. Friends — not professional colleagues — from work. Tricky decisions of categorization abound, of course: is this colleague enough of a friend for me to connect with them on Facebook, or do they belong on LinkedIn only? Segregating people into groups with various privacy settings help, of course, as does not sharing things I don’t want the public to possibly see. Sure, this is friend-stuff, but nothing I put on Facebook would be too embarrassing, or cost me a job. Facebook has been pushing pages (AP, PBS, BBC, business generally) that share non-personal information, but I’m increasingly finding this a distraction from the reason I use Facebook: people.

Image via CrunchBase

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has been touted as the professional version of Facebook, but that’s only partly true. LinkedIn is not really about sharing day-to-day details about me, but rather about highlighting my accomplishments and work. But beyond that, it’s mostly a Rolodex of up-to-date business cards of people I’ve dealt with professionally. I will connect with any colleague (or one of my undergrads) on LinkedIn without hesitation, unlike on Facebook. In terms of privacy, well, the point is to be visible and findable professionally. So that’s what goes up there. No home addresses, no home telephone numbers, just business contact details.

Image via CrunchBase

Twitter

Twitter is for link sharing and quick conversations (very quick, and very short) with absolutely anyone I find remotely interesting. I don’t refollow anyone who follows me, only those I think are interesting. I share things I want to broadcast with the world (but am too polite to get a bullhorn). Sometimes it’s personal, sometimes professional, but always with the idea that anyone might read it. It’s great for more distant connections with people I may or may not ever meet, but who say and write about interesting things.

Image via CrunchBase

Google Plus

Google Plus is the new player, but it brings in some of the best of both Twitter and Facebook. Yes, I can put my actual friends in circles and easily limit what I share with just them (so that’s a bit like Facebook, but more focused). No, not everyone I know on Facebook is on Google Plus (and may never be). Google Plus also lets me follow people I’ve never met who say interesting things, like Twitter, but it emphasizes longer posts and more detailed, threaded conversations — without forcing me to dance with privacy settings as on Facebook, and without assuming these people are actually my friends (even if they could be). In many respects, I’m finding that it challenges quick-blogging services like Posterous and Tumblr more than Facebook or LinkedIn. It does seem a potential threat to Twitter, which I am finding myself more and more viewing as a social link sharing service as opposed to a discussion mechanism (but it’s GREAT for that).

Summary

So, here it is in short form:

Facebook: real people, real sharing of personal (but not too personal) information. If you actually know me in “real life,” friend me. If not, go elsewhere. I share semi-personal stuff here (what I had for dinner and who made it).

LinkedIn: real people doing real business networking. If I’ve met you in a professional capacity, connect with me. If not, well, tell me why we can do business! I share only professional info here.

Twitter: on the Internet, no one knows if you’re a dog, but we do care if you have something interesting to share. If you do, follow me and I might follow you back. If you don’t, follow me and I won’t follow you back. I share thoughts and links here.

Google Plus: real people (for now) sharing what they found interesting today, including articles, thoughts, stories, and photos. If you actually know me, I might add you to my Friends circle; if not, but you are interesting, you’ll make Following. Please give me commentary with your links!

Maybe next week I’ll explain how I use carrier pigeons.

Related articles

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For the Fourth Amendment — the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure — one of these foundational cases was Entick v. Carrington (1765). In Entick, agents of the King and acting under the orders of Lord Halifax, broke into the private residence of John Entick and seized his private papers.

Image via Wikipedia

In broadest terms, Lord Camden, author of the final opinion, ruled “that the state may do nothing but that which is expressly authorised by law, while the individual may do anything but that which is forbidden by law.” In these broad terms, then, the case established a core principle in English and then American law that limited the breadth of executive power.

In terms specific to what would become the Fourth Amendment, the case emphasized the importance of a specific legal authorization (today we know this as a warrant, but that term has not always meant what it does today) to excuse the invasion of private property by government agents. Striking, and of key importance to Fourth Amendment jurisprudence all the way up to Katz v. United States at least, is the focus on trespass and private property. Warrants were considered required to search a person’s home (or other physical space, like an office), but there was really not much thought given to papers or materials searched outside “the sanctity of a man’s home.”

In 1877, ex parte Jackson extended the requirement of a “warrant, issued upon oath or affirmation” to the postal mail. Justice Field wrote:

Letters and sealed packages of this kind in the mail are as fully guarded from examination and inspection, except as to their outward form and weight, as if they were retained by the parties forwarding them in their own domiciles. The constitutional guaranty of the right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to their papers, thus closed against inspection, wherever they may be.

In other words, the court built upon protections against unreasonable searches and seizures “in their own domiciles” to papers in transit through the postal system.

The 1886 case of Boyd v. United States continued to extend Fourth Amendment protections beyond searching someone’s home (or similar private property). Looking to both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, the Supreme Court in Boyd struck down an attempt for force a defendant to produce private papers for inspection. In his opinion, Justice Bradley wrote:

It is not the breaking of his doors and the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property … which underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden’s judgment.

Clearly, the focus on property is still present in both, but in Boyd, the Court did recognize the importance of “personal security” and “personal liberty,” instead of focusing on trespass onto real property. Similarly, in ex parte Jackson, the Court protected private papers in transit outside the home, with no almost no regard to trespass at all. Both cases did not involve physical trespass by government agents into a person’s home, but rather focused protection on “papers” as an extension of personal liberty, and not on the “sanctity of the home.”

Image by nizger via Flickr

Olmstead v. United States (1928) refused to continue this extension to wiretaps that occurred “without trespass upon any property of the defendants.” The Court goes on to argue that the Fourth Amendment only protects physical things:

The Amendment itself shows that the search is to be of material things — the person, the house, his papers or his effects. The description of the warrant necessary to make the proceeding lawful, is that it must specify the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.

In short, Justice Taft says,

The Amendment does not forbid what was done here [a wiretap]. There was no searching. There was no seizure. The evidence was secured by the use of the sense of hearing and that only. There was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants.

It was not until Katz in 1965 that the Supreme Court returned to the tradition of ex Parte Jackson and held that “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places,” and laid the groundwork for warrant requirements to tap telephone lines and, later, to seize emails or monitor Internet traffic.

Related articles

• Constitutionalizing the sanctity of the mails (inpropriapersona.com)
• Extending the Fourth Amendment beyond the home: Ex parte Jackson (1878) (inpropriapersona.com)

An attorney for Google slammed a controversial intellectual property treaty on Friday, saying it has “metastasized” from a proposal to address border security and counterfeit goods to an international legal framework sweeping in copyright and the Internet.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, is “something that has grown in the shadows, Gollum-like,” without public scrutiny, Daphne Keller, a senior policy counsel in Mountain View, Calif., said at a conference at Stanford University.

via Google attorney slams ACTA copyright treaty | Politics and Law – CNET News.

I have to agree this Google attorney. I don’t like ACTA much, either, and don’t think it’s much of an improvement on the current, uncoordinated approach to copyright.

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has decided to reregulate Internet lines to protect net neutrality, siding with consumer groups and Internet companies worried that Internet providers have too much power.

via FCC to Overhaul Regulation of Internet Lines – WSJ.com.

Is this good for consumers? Good for business? We’ll have to see. At the very least, it means that Obama’s FCC is not interested in simply maintaining the status quo.

As just one example, many vaccination opponents focus on potential conflicts of interest by researchers, especially when researchers may be influenced by pharmaceutical companies and the potential profits such companies may enjoy through the use — especially the mandated use — of vaccines they manufacture.

These “[a]ccusations of having engaged in mercenary practices” are intended to reduce the authority of scientific experts. Many anti-vaccine Web sites, according to a 2002 study published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, take the accusation further, casting doctors and scientists as either “willing conspirators cashing in on the vaccine `fraud’ or pawns of a shadowy vaccine combine.”

Conflict-of-interest criticisms are also used by proponents of vaccination when they evaluate and review claims. For example, critics of vaccine opponent and scientist Andrew Wakefield, author of a now-retracted study published in The Lancet, accuse him of being “paid big bucks by trial lawyers” and of not revealing this “conflict of interest.”

Most proponents of vaccination see themselves, in the words of Dr. Paul Offit, as “science advocate[s],” not “vaccine advocate[s].” A major critique they make of vaccination opponents is that they ignore or distort science, equate correlation with causation, or fasten on preliminary or poorly-conducted studies as the final word on a subject.

Current opponents of vaccination also seek to align themselves on the side of science. Even as they criticize the mainstream scientific perspective on vaccination, nonetheless, “in what appears as a paradox, the appeal to scientific expertise” remains:

In the context of a controversy, any group which attempts to present its case and to participate in the critical assessment of alternative viewpoints without appealing to any scientific expertise puts itself in a very vulnerable position.

Despite this appeal to science, expertise in the vaccination debates remains a contested issue. Sharon Kaufman, a professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco, says that with the proliferation of “experts” on the Internet, “many parents see even the most respected vaccine experts’ perspective on the issue as just one more opinion.”

Vaccination opponents often combine references to science with a powerful emotional hook. Citing the 2002 study mentioned earlier, Liza Gross writes, “The bulk of antivaccination Web sites present themselves as legitimate sources of scientific information, using pseudoscientific claims and emotional appeals.”

The National Vaccintion Information Center site, for example, combines a “Memorial to Vaccine Victims” with a “Doctor’s Corner” containing materials written by physicians.  Gross adds that, on many anti-vaccination Web sites, intuitive views about vaccines were elevated above “cold, analytical science,” and accounts of children “maimed or killed by vaccines” were common — a finding that may help explain why those who advocate immunization receive death threats.

This combination of science plus emotion — validating the intuition of parents while providing alternative expertise to back up their beliefs — is a compelling one.

Scientific knowledge — or, at least the appearance of such knowledge — remains key on anti-vaccination Web sites. This is visible in “informed choice” rhetoric, for example, and is a key theme of the NVIC site.  It is also, perhaps obviously, a key component of pro-vaccination rhetoric as well.

For more specific comparisons of pro- and anti-vaccination Web sites, see Markers of Trust: How Pro- and Anti-Vaccination Web Sites Make Their Case on SSRN.

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Suzan Mazur: You’ve also got scientists in evolutionary biology who pound on th e creationists because they don’t have fresh discoveries themselves. What they’re doing is making an industry out of bashing the creationists instead of improving the science. That’s what’s happening on the science blogs, where you get these virtual death squads opposing any science that veers from Darwin orthodoxy. Characters purporting to be atheist scientists who are actually violent Darwin religious cultists censoring the free flow of ideas. Making statements like, “I’m always happy to see a fellow hang himself.”

That’s the peer review that’s now popular. It’s degenerated into a bloody massacre.

via Suzan Mazur: Peer Review as Censorship (for a more in-depth critique, see
Suzan Mazur – Perpetually Clueless).

Leaving aside her obvious agenda, does peer review constitute censorship? Technically, censorship involves government proscription, although can be seen to extend to suppression by anyone with sufficient authority. In the United States, censorship is typically considered anathema to a free society, but that is not true everywhere (Europe prohibits hate speech, for example, and even in the United States certain kinds of censorship are acceptable, such as bans on child pornography).

Unlike prohibitions with the legal backing of government authority, the peer reviewers act in a more ad-hoc fashion. They simply do not operate with the kind of unified power characteristic of censors (unless you believe that biology is controlled by some kind of cabal, I suppose).

That said, there is a sense in which peer reviewers  —  especially in the sciences  —  do act in a kind of censorial capacity. They “referee” articles, looking for unwarranted claims, irrelevant data, unsubstantiated findings, or other “bad” science.

In theory, this review is not supposed to be on the acceptability or not of a certain theoretical perspective or result, but rather strictly on the basis of scientific methodology: objectivity, logic, rationality, proper controls, accurate math and statistics, and so on.

There are no peers for new discoveries. To judge something a peer would have to know about it. If a peer already knew about it, it would not be a new discovery. – Larry Spring

In practice, peer review certainly can act as a conservative break on innovative or controversial ideas, requiring additional support if an author seeks to revolutionize an area of science. (Personal perspectives of reviewers can also play a role in reviews, of course.) The effect of this may well be that proponents of such controversial ideas as “intelligent design” (to pick Mazur’s area of interest) are expected to follow rigorous scientific standards, standards which may indeed make it hard to get past reviewers (since certain logical fallacies,  evidentiary problems, and so on often occur in such arguments).

So is peer review “censorship”? Yes, in a decentralized and conservative manner, it is. But without it, peer reviewed journals would be less trustworthy, not more  —  we would not be able to rest our evaluation of trustworthiness on anything outside the article itself.

This might, though, allow for more controversial and revolutionary theories to emerge (innovation, anyone?) but it would increase the amount of work we, as readers, would have to do to evaluate the trustworthiness of sources. (This might be a good thing.) Essentially, scientific journals would be indistinguishable from the Web as a whole.

What do you think? Is peer review censorship? Is it bad censorship? Are reforms needed and, if so, what kinds?

Some of this difficulty is unavoidable when organizations are dealing with people connecting with a wide variety of equipment in a wide variety of circumstances. (Think Mac OS X and Apple’s limited hardware vs. Windows dealing with the vagaries of PC hardware.) But other technology challenges are easily remedied through decent design and forethought.

Case in point: connecting to the AT&T WiFi at Starbucks. I am an irregular Starbucks customer  —  but enough of one to have a pre-paid Starbucks card. Occasionally I use wireless provided by AT&T to check my email or do some reading while I drink my coffee and, in fact, the consistent existence of wireless is a reason I choose Starbucks.

(I suspect this use makes me pretty much the target audience for Starbucks, even if my technical knowledge  —  I am a former Web developer and systems administrator  —  perhaps gives me more familiarity with the underlying technology and design issues than some other customers.)

I have no trouble connecting to the 802.11 signal (“attwifi”). (My technology works fine.) It isn’t until I actually am connected that the trouble starts.

First, I’m greeted by a Starbucks screen with an orange AT&T bar at the top. There’s a box for a user name, a drop down confusingly labeled ”Make a Selection,” a password box, a checkbox for me to agree to term of service  —  and then two buttons, one labeled “Connect to the Internet” and the other labeled “Log In.”

OK, well, I’ve done this before (though it’s been a while), and I believe I already have an account. So even though what I really want to do is connect to the Internet, I’m going to try filling in my login info and clicking log in first.

So I put in my user name, then hit the dropdown box. There are 14 options, none of which say “Starbucks.” Hmm. Well, this is AT&T WiFi, so I guess I need to select that one. But wait, there’s three choices labeled AT&T! Which one am I? I suppose I’ll just try the first one, and see if it works.

So I put in my password (I think it’s the right password  —  it’s been a while since I last used the service), accept the terms, and click on the log in box (I hope that’s the right thing to do).

Instead of connecting to the Internet, I instead get a screen telling me that my email address hasn’t been validated, and I won’t be allowed to continue until it is. Find, it looks like I can send a validation email from this screen  —  but wait, I can’t connect to the Internet, so how am I supposed to see the email?

The screen also suggests that I must not have validated my email address properly before  —  but as far as I can remember, I’ve never been sent a validation email from AT&T anyway! So I guess, despite being a Starbucks customer, I don’t get to use the WiFi today, and won’t be able to until I get home and track down this validation email? What if it never comes? Do I have to return to Starbucks to try asking for another one?

Perhaps I logged into the wrong account. After all, I am a Starbucks customer, not an AT&T one, right? And I have a valid pre-paid Starbucks card (which I just used to buy my cooling coffee.) I’ll try going to Starbucks.com to see if there’s something about a Starbucks account or another way to login or access my account.

Starbucks.com only partly loads (why?!), but at the bottom there’s a link to “your account,” so I’ll try that.

Great, a login screen that’s branded with the store I’m actually in! My login works, but I’m not presented with much about WiFi. Still, WiFi is mentioned near “Account Management,” so I’ll try that.

OK, now on the left is “WiFi Info,” which sounds promising. Now I get a link to “create an AT&T account,” so I guess I’ll try that (do I already have one?) It says my prepaid card is my “ticket to free and easy Wireless access at Starbucks,” so that’s a good sign.

Unfortunately, the link appears to be broken. Hmm. I see two other laptops here online, so I guess I’ll try reloading. OK, that worked, now I get a screen “Starbucks Card Rewards with WiFi.” That sort of works. Now at least I have a “Sign Up” button to try.

This looks positive. I can sign in with my account on Starbucks.com. That sounds good, since I know that work, right? I just used it, after all.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. When I try to put my information in, I get the confusing response  —  presented in red as an error message  —  that I already have an account. Um, yeah, I know I already have a Starbucks account, that’s what I’m using! (Oh, you mean, I already have an AT&T account? Why don’t you say so! And that isn’t very helpful.)

Now what?

I give up and go home, not wanting to return to Starbucks again, and not interested in dealing with AT&T ever again.

After all, you voluntarily provided the information, knowing that someone else would learn it, use it, and possibly store it. Thus, your level of Fourth Amendment protection is lessened, and no warrant is required (although typically a subpoena or similar legal document is used).

This concept is well-established in the realm of telephony: since 1986, 47 C.F.R. § 42.6 has required telephone carriers to maintain such transactional records for 18 months.

So it should come as no surprise that the FBI has been seeking similar retention of transactional data for Internet communications:

The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years.

via FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited | Politics and Law – CNET News.

Exactly what would constitute such data is less, clear, however. Would it include IP addresses on both ends, times, number and length of connections? This information, while potentially vast, can be retained relatively easily and requires little work to access. It is very similar to the data retained for telephone conversations, since this kind of information is required to be exchanged with intermediaries (like ISPs) in order to use the Internet. (That many people don’t know this might, however, speak to the question of reasonable expectations of privacy.)

Much more problematic and revealing would be actual Web pages viewed. Arguably, these are shared openly, but accessing them does require packet inspection beyond the surface, and equally most people likely have a greater expectation of privacy in that information. But should they? Most sites log their visits, and tie in IP and cookie data to identify individuals as best they can. Thus, is this data really private? Do you really expect it to be? Should you?

Specific and detailed privacy laws targeting modern technology would help, but for now we’re working with what we’ve got. And that makes it very likely that the FBI will get what they want  —  and perhaps that’s OK? Privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment are always about balancing, not absolutes  —  so perhaps this is an appropriate balance to deal with computer crimes without over-burdening everyone?

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The cloud consists of data and services that live on someone else’s servers. Although the term itself is new(ish), the basic idea is embodied by traditional legal research services like LexisNexis and Westlaw  —  data lives on someone else’s servers, not your own. Thus, someone else controls the data, not you. And someone else can delete or modify the data, and you’d never know…

It’s one thing to have to contend with Supreme Courts, like California, that have the power to “depublish” an opinion that helps your case and making it worthless as far as precedent is concerned. But to my knowledge, those cases are still on the books, and binding on the parties to the litigation that created the opinion. It’s an entirely different problem when a court can ask a publisher to take down an opinion previously published, and the publisher does it. In fact, the publisher has apparently been doing it for years. Maybe you knew about it, but I didn’t.

via Dear Publisher, Please Stop Deleting Case Law | Jason Wilson | Law Publishers.

This is the sort of thing that has always given librarians heart attacks  —  to the extent that one librarian I knew years ago attempted to print out every Web site she ever accessed and stored them in file cabinets. A bit extreme? Yes, but the point was that she could control it once it was in print: the data couldn’t disappear, change, etc.

I don’t have the solution to this conundrum  —  cloud services make too much sense to fight  —  but the downsides are expensive, too. What to do, what to do?

According to Rob Salkowitz of Internet Evolution, in the so-called Hamburg Declaration issued July 9, publishers argued that services like Google are “using the work of authors, publishers and broadcasters without paying for it”:

Numerous providers are using the work of authors, publishers and broadcasters without paying for it. Over the long term, this threatens the production of high-quality content and the existence of independent journalism. . . .

Universal access to our services should be available, but going forward we no longer wish to be forced to give away property without having granted permission.

We therefore welcome the growing resolve of federal and state governments all over the world to continue to support the protection of the rights of authors, publishers and broadcasters on the Internet.

Salkowitz points to Google’s simple response:

“We agree,” wrote Cohen on Google’s European Public Policy Blog on July 15. “If a webmaster wants to stop us from crawling a specific page, he or she can do so by adding '<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">' to the page. In short, if you don’t want to show up in Google search results, it doesn’t require more than one or two lines of code.”

He points out that, basically, if newspapers want to go back to the “old way” for themselves, they can. No need to change the law to prevent Google from indexing their content. But of course, this isn’t really want publishers want.

In truth, publishers get value from Google – value that is necessary for them to compete and market themselves today. So they need Google or services like them. This makes their attacks on Google a distraction from the real issues for them, which really involves a business model that can’t compete well in today’s marketplace.

There are a number of choices, two of which seem most obvious: change the law or change the model. Unsurprisingly, publishers want to change the law.

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