Three for the Price of One

I'm going to look like I'm taking the easy way out in writing about three things less deeply than I usually talk about one thing, and it might bite me gradewise...but that's OK. I have good reasons for this ;) I've had all three of these tech articles in my thoughts for a few days now.

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First--it's not really tech, but I mean no sarcasm when I say that Bill Gates is one of the most important people of our time. He is on his way to surpassing Rockefeller in success and philantropy (in fact, probably has passed), and his contribution to the computing revolution is practically incalcuable. (Whether this be through the software of Microsoft or through his business practices).

I'm not kidding. This dude is awesome.

Bill Gates makes his point on malaria

Kudos to Bill for making his point to a bunch of ivory tower, stuffed shirt, celebrity, self-inflated individuals. But the story made me feel itchy the first time I read about it, for sure. The Bill and Melinda Gates (also an incredible person) Foundation is about real results, not drawn out discourse about what might work for the world's problems.

And, because I can, I give you The Incredible Bouncing Bill (Head)

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Do you know where your kid is? Check Google's maps


Very interesting. I can now be tracked via Google Maps. Very Enemy of the State, except this isn't government spy technology. Of course, being unscared of what people can find out about me, and curious about new google gadgetry, I went straight to sticking it on my iGoogle page. In order to get this installed you have to click "Agree" on this:



So right from the get go, your settings have you visible to the world. You are not yet visible in that you have to install something on your computer to make that location visible, and I think you do something similar on your phone. But once you get all that done you might forget to go check out your privacy settings.

Privacy Group: Google Latitude Could Track Unsuspecting Users

Before I even read this article I thought of several ways to abuse this technology. One thing I didn't see mentioned in any of the articles I read was that despite Google's claims that it retains no information about past locations for a person using this service, and thus no one can track movements, it is simply not true. I can track movements by checking back at intervals through the day and recording the data on MY computer. Patterns can easily be determined. You can get a feed for every other Google service, so I'm sure it would be possible to acquire this information as well.

I can't get "Gears" to install correctly on my computer at the moment, so no one can find me in my "Unknown" location. But one of my friends actually responded to my Latitude invite, and um wow, I know she's at work right now...or at least her phone is. And it comes right up on my iGoogle front page. You know, forget technological methods of stalking her...someone could know I'm friends with her and stand behind me while I'm doing a quick search, or just wait until I step away a moment to grab a drink.

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Lastly:

Google taking security a little too seriously?

I missed seeing the great Google catastrophe by only a few seconds. I had gotten to work, and had not yet done one of my tens of Google searches for the day. A friend I was chatting with through Gmail suddenly started freaking about the broken Google. I went to check and it worked fine for me.

But what if I'd gotten to work an hour earlier and had already started helping patrons and doing research? Wow, I would have been very disoriented. There's a lot more analysis that could be done on what this issue brings to light about what might happen if a major online resource breaks down...but I see it's 11:58. ;)