oh shit

Privacy Mythbusting #3: Anonymized data is safe, right? (Er, no.)

Companies often tell you that sharing your data is safe because they "anonymize" it by first removing or obfuscating your personal information. However, this depersonalization leads to only partial anonymity, as companies still usually store and share your data grouped together. This data group can be analyzed, and in many cases, then linked back to you, individually, based on its contents.

Deanonymizing data has been studied for a long time. In 1990, Carnegie Mellon University researcher Latanya Sweeny showed that with just a list of gender, date of birth, and five digit zip code, you can uniquely identify, thereby deanonymizing, 87% of Americans!

Data deanonymization of this nature has taken place time and time again when companies release so-called "anonymized data," even with really good intentions such as for research purposes. For example, even though every effort was taken to anonymize data, people were still deanonymized through Netflix recommendations and AOL search histories.

Now imagine what happens when companies don't even make that effort when sharing your anonymized data. It's like trying to win a game of hide-and-seek like this:

Fig 1: Hide and Seek Champions

The only truly anonymized data is no data. That's why at DuckDuckGo we throw out your personal information every time you search, making sure we don't store anything that could be tied together to identify you. We protect your search history from everyone — even us!

Proudly Private,

atwood: bored

In the December 1994 issue, for instance, Atwood described being “Bored” not so much as a mental state as a series of mundane physical tasks, sensations, and observations:

                                                                        

BORED

By Margaret Atwood


All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove, steered, paddled. It
wasn't even boredom, it was looking,
looking hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their time at,
ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels,
shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed
such things out, and I would look
at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under
the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know.

---

Margaret Atwood is the author of numerous books, including The Robber Bride(1993). Her volume of new poems, Morning in the Burned House, will be published next year.

You can read the full poem here and find more pieces by Atwood in our archives.

Snowball Earth Period?

Paul Hoffman, a geologist at Harvard University who has studied the snowball Earth period, says this work won’t be the last word on how the planet responds to dramatic climate change.
“That such a basic issue should not have been simulated in a model until now, even in a preliminary way, illustrates how much is still to be learned about the snowball Earth phenomena,” he says.

READ

Trump Twitter Museum?

I wish I had gone...
Television political satire The Daily Show opens a "presidential library" in New York displaying a trove of unusual exhibits: Donald Trump's tweets.
WATCH: 
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-40349994/trump-twitter-museum-opens-in-new-york

We Are NY Renews

What is the truth? Watch

Behind the Scenes with Bradley Whitford from YEARS of LIVING DANGEROUSLY on Vimeo.

happy solstice

Surprising Solstice Facts

7 Facts About the June Solstice

 

This year, the June solstice falls on two different days: Wednesday, the 21st, for those in Eastern Standard Time, and Tuesday, the 20th, for time zones further west!  Enjoy seven cool (or, is it hot?) solstice facts—and see how many you know!

HERE

Read more

Aimee Mann - Patient Zero

Aimee Mann is a Grammy- and Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter. In the 80s, she fronted the band ‘Til Tuesday, and in 1993, she released her first solo album. In 2017, Aimee released her 9th album, Mental Illness, and in this episode, she tells the story of how the song “Patient Zero” was made. I talked to Aimee along with the song’s co-writer, Jonathan Coulton. The interview was recorded in front of a live audience, on board the JoCo Cruise, a music and comedy themed cruise organized by Jonathan Coulton. VIA

Interview

Oldest Known Human Remains Extend our History Back by 100,000 Years - say what?

Adding to a recent string of discoveries that are rewriting the narrative of human evolution, fossils of a number of ancient human individuals that were unearthed in Morocco have been dated to more than 300,000 years ago. this find pushes evidence for the age of Homo sapiens back by roughly 100,000 years, and also shows that our ancient ancestors were much better traveled than previously assumed.

The fossils in question were excavated from the Jebel Irhoud cave, located 62 miles west of modern-day Marrakesh, and included the remains of five individuals, along with flint tools and the remains of their campfires. The skulls of the individuals bore faces that were unmistakably that of modern humans; although despite having a brain of similar size to other H. sapiens, the cranium was somewhat flattened and elongated towards the rear, unlike the more spherical braincase we see today.

The researchers were surprised to find that the group's tools dated to between 280,00 to 350,000 years ago -- roughly one-third older than modern humans were assumed to be. The previously oldest known remains were 200,000 years old, and found in Ethiopia, prompting the scientific community to assume that the area they were found in was the origin of humanity. But aside from being separated by 1,000 centuries, the remains found in Morocco and Ethiopia are on opposite sides of the African continent: with the far older remains being found 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) away from the previously-assumed eldest fossils, this raises the question of where modern humans actually originated from.

"What people, including myself, used to think was that there was a cradle of humankind in East Africa about 200,000 years ago, and all modern humans descend from that population," explains Philipp Gunz, with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "The new finds indicate that Homo sapiens is much older and had already spread across all of Africa by 300,000 years ago. They really show that the African story of our species was more complex than what we used to think." 

• Image Credit:
• Taken at the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. flickr.com

• News Source:
• theatlantic.com

Read the original source: http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/oldest-known-human-remains-extend-our-history-back-100000-years#ixzz4kCEkthJJ

Good Music Monday: Perfume Genius

.@perfumegenius breaks down his song "Slip Away" —
https://t.co/XjCW0UQ7cw pic.twitter.com/LAs7eyeOsQ

— Song Exploder (@SongExploder) May 12, 2017

BOOM!

 you needed this

My curious journey from orphan to activist

READ THIS

All humans–including orphans–should have a right to know and have access to our first family and to ancestral roots. The demand-driven adoption market ignores childrens’ rights.
Visit the website: http://www.adoptioncoalitionworldwide.com

Redbone: Message From a Drum

"Forget Winnetou!"

Sunday Love: Wilma Mankiller

Awesome words of wisdom from Wilma #Mankiller for some #MondayMotivation! #MyMankiller pic.twitter.com/xtkyxC5TNV

— Mankiller Doc (@mankillerdoc) May 8, 2017