Lab 01 - Getting to know all about you

Understanding how technology works can range from the relatively straightforward (¡°If I press the power button on my phone, it turns off if it was on, and turns on if it was off¡±) to the much more complex. Today when we think of technology, it's hard to imagine a device that does not have connectivity to the Internet. Most people have phones that have web browsers built in, and what was once ordinary jewelry is a device in a new category called wearables, where your bracelet or watch can keep track of your personal fitness levels unobtrusively, without looking like hospital equipment. To work well in this connected, interactive, global technology sphere, our devices need to share information with each other across a network, including their unique identities.

To consider:

Privacy, uniqueness, and the Web

In this first lab, you'll visit sites that can give you more insight into how technology works in a networked environment like the World Wide Web. As you go, review your answers from the To consider: section above. Have you changed your mind about any of them?

Learning more

  1. Do you know how much information your browser shares with the World Wide Web? And do you know that the information you share may be able to uniquely identify your computer and your browsing habits? Visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Panopticlick website to find out what you may not know you are sharing. Look closely at the column labeled "one in x browsers have this value".

    • Where is that number the highest (which means fewer people share that same information)?
    • Did you know you were sharing the information you see on the site?
    • Why do you think you are sharing it by default?
    • Finally, make a note of the numbers this site shares with you. What would happen if you went to the site more than once? Try it and see if your guess was correct.

  2. One admittedly creepy site called Take This Lollypop is an interactive short video from 2011 that went viral. If you have a Facebook account, you can still experience it for yourself by going to the Take This Lollypop official site, or you can watch the videos Facebook users have posted on YouTube. The video uses the developer tool Facebook Connect, which has since been replaced by a suite of tools in Facebook for Developers. You can read more about the Take This Lollypop project in this CNN article, Interactive video turns Facebook fears into 2 minutes of horror.

    • Why do you think Facebook has so much information about Facebook users?
    • Could Facebook still provide all the functionality and user experience it does now without keeping track of so much personal information?
    • These stories took place in 2011. Has Facebook offered its users more privacy or less since then? Why do you think that's the case?
    • What other websites do you use that collect personal information? What do they ask you for? Could you use those sites without giving them that information?
    • Many phone apps allow people to post to their Facebook (or Pinterest, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter feed, etc.) pages without the inconvenience of having to login to the service every time. Do you have a phone with these apps? How much personal information would someone else be able to see if you lost your phone?

  3. Even products like Snapchat, which offers its users more control over what they share by promising shared images and videos would ¡°self-destruct¡± shortly after they had been sent, admitted misrepresenting that functionality, resulting in the breaches detailed in this Information Week article, 5 Ways Snapchat Violated Your Privacy, Security.

    • Do you or your friends use Snapchat? If so, did you know about these breaches of privacy and security?
    • Have you ever considered deleting an account in a service you like using because of privacy issues?
    • Would you feel comfortable if the things you shared on Snapchat were posted anywhere else?
    • In a separate privacy-related case, an NBC News story reports the European Union Court of Justice has upheld a man's ¡°right to be forgotten¡± by search engines. Do you think there could be any disadvantages to enforcing that ¡°right¡±? What about the advantages?

  4. Search engines like Google, bing, and Yahoo!, as you may already know, also collect information about where you are when you search, and what you search for. Try searching for the word waffles in Google. Try it again in Yahoo! and in bing. Are any of the results close to you - in your city or state? Try the same search in the version of Google targeted at people who live in Spain. This effect is sometimes called a "filter bubble." Eli Pariser, from MoveOn.org has given a TED talk about this effect.

    • What was your experience? Aside from any language differences, which results are the same? Why do you think those sites appear in the results list?
    • If you got results that were physically close to you, like a restaurant that serves waffles in your neighborhood or a map of places to get waffles in your city, how do you think the search engine decides to show those results?
    • When is knowing what city you are in when you search helpful? When could it be harmful?
    • If you tried these searches from your computer, try a search from someone else's computer, or a computer in a library, or from your phone. Do you get different results? Why do you think the results are the same (or different)?
    • Try doing the same search from the same computer in the same place a week from now, two weeks from now, and a month from now. What changed? What could be some reasons for any changes you see?

Moving on

As you build your fluency with information technology, keep in mind both the good and bad aspects of sharing information, personal or otherwise. Sometimes you may have fewer options about which pieces of information you or your devices share with the rest of the world. Knowing what is being shared, where, how often, and why can help keep your increasingly networked experience a positive one.