Tuesday Sweep: 18 September 2018

Your weekly reminder to back up your data, update software and otherwise pay attention to your digital environment. (Oh, and to head to the CRASH Space meeting…)

• On the blog
• On the repo
• See all the zones

Zone 03,  Permissions, who gets to see what and when.  Otherwise know as boundaries. It’s good to a healthy to have limits to the behavior you’ll let in you life. To swipe some of what I said in June, consider crafting, actually in writing, your own personal terms of service. This exercise ties back to the Beyoncé Rules post from back in 2016, but then goes further. It’s so much easier to hold the line when you actually have defined where it is. If it isn’t written down you may start to forget, try to put on rose colored glasses to get along. The various autocracy rules of survival flag the slow shifting of norms as a threat, meaning to maintain values one has to be able to remember what isn’t normal. With IoT and and Apps they’ve come rushing in like toddler tyrants that have no sense of boundaries, and it’s up to us all to teach them some manners.

It’s not normal for an entity to come into your life and immediately:

• ask for the contact data of everyone you have ever met
• start tracking you where ever you go
• monitor all your communications and conversations
• hand your secrets over to strangers as a way to earn points with them
• control what you see as a way to manipulate your feelings
• try to get you to make decisions when you’re at your most vulnerable
• stay even after you’ve asked them to leave

This is not healthy behavior. You deserve better.  Require it.

Jump in Here

• Welcome. If you haven’t been following along, it’s okay. You’re not behind, you’re just where you are.
• Need a instant pick me up? Jump straight to our Easy Wins.
• There are more recommendations under Start Here.
• Feeling more ambitious? Just wait for the Learn section!

Sweep

Weekly Basics

• Check that backup systems are actually running. (more)
• Update main computer(s), phone(s) and tablet(s). (more)
• Clean out and reset wallet/purse/laptop bag/vehicle. (more)
• Spend some time adding passwords to your password manager and updating flagged passwords. (more)
• Wipe down your main devices, physically! (more)
• What neglected inbox will you check today? (more)

This Week’s Focus:

Zone 03:  Permissions

• When in doubt, remember to use the website, not the App. (more)
• Spend 10 minutes moving unencrypted data (for example, email) older than ~3 months old to offline archive. (more)
• Keep using privacy minded browsers and search engines, Spend 5 minutes clearing cookies and history as needed. (more)
• Check dockets. Call your reps. (more)
• Don’t let apps see your contact book, or spend time moving sensitive contacts into something else. (more)
• (more)
• Review your standards, move closer to them. (more)
• Spend 10 minutes check your location sharing settings and clear out other location leaking data (more)
• Spend 10 minutes changing the default setting on a service you use, social media, navigation, search engines etc. (more)

Learn

News and Updates

Where do you scan for news, include a politics update!

• The Effectiveness of Publicly Shaming Bad Security by Troy Hunt
• US Mobile Giants Want to Be Your Online Identity – Long very thoughtful article on krebsonsecurity.com
• Conservative Group Behind Kavanaugh Confirmation Has Spent Years Reshaping State and Federal Benches – or the importance of having a long game
• Linus Torvalds will take a break to learn some more positive communication techniques. Good for him. Thumbs up for growth.
• Anatomy of AI “A child working in a mine in the Congo would need more than 700,000 years of non-stop work to earn the same amount as a single day of Bezos’ income” via @FrankPasquale
• Also, nice reading list from Molly Steenson’s  AI & Culture / Bodies & Cyborgs class at Carnegie Mellon
• No, ride share services do not make traffic better.
• Google has launched a dataset search  (more on searchengineland.com)
• US Gov report into Equifax breach (PDF) via Kevin Beaumont
• WiFi isn’t free if it is spying on you. We should want better for our civic infrastructure.
• And just for fun: The math of why it’s so hard to build a spherical Death Star in space

Engage

We are a community. You are a welcome part of it.

• Did you learn something cool in your sweep? Make something? Share it!
• Speak up
• Give
• Like going to conferences? Maybe one is coming up!
• Show up at CRASH Space.

Relax

Really really detailed hobbies are wonderful for zone out.  Like building warriors from instant ramen. If noodles can be a warrior, than so can I. Image: Cup a Noodle Warrior by Taishi Arimura via LaughingSquid