Geekistry: It's all geek to us » Podcast

Geekistry Live Schedule

Geekistry — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:47:13 +0000

We’ve gotten over our Epic Identity Crisis and re-branded ourselves “Geekistry – What geeks do“. We’re in eleventy billion places and want you there, too. You can keep up with what we’re doing and find out the latest scoop on Geekistry Live three times a week on USTREAM. We live-stream 3 times a week, Sun and Tues at 10 pm Eastern, and Thurs at 9 pm Eastern, but you’ll also find us all over the rest of the internet.

Chat with us on USTREAM while we’re recording
Chat with us (and your fellow geeks) 24/7 on irc.geekshed.net channel #geekistry (IRC help here)
Follow @Geekistry on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Send us topic ideas or suggest other ways we can encourage audience participation
Leave us feedback on iTunes

See you soon!

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Post tags: chat, contact, email, Facebook, feedback, geekistry, IRC, iTunes, live, Podcast, Twitter, ustream

Geekistry LIVE Recording Schedule

Geekistry — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:38:50 +0000

As Geekistry picks up speed we’ve decided to set a schedule for our live-streamed podcast recordings. The schedule might be revised in the future (we’ll work on any kinks we come across and adjust accordingly,) but for now we’d like to invite you to join us on USTREAM three times a week: Sunday and Tuesday evenings at 10 pm Eastern, and Thursdays at 9 pm Eastern. We’re looking forward to incorporating as much audience participation as possible and hope you’ll swing by! Wanna know how can you ‘geek-out’ with us? We’re glad you asked!

Send us topic ideas
Suggest other ways we can encourage audience participation
Answer our current poll (we’ll be talking about the topic on an upcoming show)
Chat with us on USTREAM while we’re recording
Follow @Geekistry on Twitter
Leave us feedback on iTunes

See you soon!

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Post tags: delomni, Entertainment, live stream, Podcast, record, starman, ustream

Facebook: Your Privacy on THEIR terms (Not Yours)

Geekistry — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:05:16 +0000

Once upon a time I had a MySpace account, but because MySpace spammed me with ads and didn’t keep my information as private as I wanted it to, I deleted it. Enter Facebook. Prior to January 2009 I’d given very little attention (or private information) to Facebook for the same reasons, but then I discovered Facebook’s fully customizable privacy settings. I eagerly embraced Facebook as a state of the art social media tool, and, in combination with carefully constructed profile security filters, added every detail about my life to my profile. If only I could have seen the future.

Fast forward to now. Beginning in December 2009, and as recently as 10 days ago, Facebook has been making giant changes to it’s Terms of Service policy and user security options. As a result, Facebook has been getting a lot of attention and scrutiny (even Congress isn’t too happy) about their (deceptive?) business practices. Is it any wonder that some previous Facebook fanboys and girls are departing faster than they embraced Facebook just over a year ago? Not to me.

One of the most recent changes, and most controversial, is the new “instant personalization” feature. By default “instant personalization” is set by Facebook as “opt-out”. In other words, if you don’t uncheck the box that “allows select partners to instantly personalize their features with your public information…” the entire internet will know any public information you’ve ever posted on Facebook.

But it doesn’t stop there – Facebook has a multiple-step opt-out system that is complicated and creates a user environment ripe for missing steps to protect one’s security. In addition to unchecking the instant personalization box, a Facebook user must also go through each section of their account’s privacy settings to customize each option. Even still, very easily overlooked and commonly missed “opt-in by default” features like the “Public Search Results“ (which, unless changed, will “create a public search listing so others can see a preview of your Facebook profile on search engines,”) can be missed by veteran Facebook users.

Simply put, Facebook allows you to customize your privacy, but only on THEIR terms. The best policy comparison I’ve seen so far is The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s post called “Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline” wherein they chronicle Facebook’s privacy policy circa 2005,

“No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings,“

to April 2010′s shady and complex policy,

“When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.“

Like our friend MissSomething, I’m thinking of deleting my Facebook account, because honestly, what can I trust Facebook with? At the moment, NOTHING.

Hey, Facebook, give me back my privacy on MY TERMS, not yours.

———-
Props to SAT Slayer for this post’s thumbnail image!

© June Sixth Productions for Geekistry: It's all geek to us, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: delomni, Facebook, Podcast, privacy, Social Media, ui