Future fiefdoms: psychological profiling on the Web

This really makes me... uhh?

CNET's Elinor Mills notes new research in Psychological profiling on the Web:

'Inspired by the site WeFeelFine.org... The dashboard looks at the stream for expressions of emotion in real time and uses colors to indicate different emotions. ...But our own comments about our mental state can also be very revealing, to friends and enemies alike, said Dhanjani. He foreshadowed his research on his blog last month and elaborated on it in several subsequent interviews with CNET News. ..."It's almost like it gives other people the power to play God and glean what's happening inside your head," Dhanjani said. "I can see implications for economics, business, and psychology."

And I thought behaviorally targeted ads were scary!'

See tags advertising and propaganda for more.

Security apps for Linux, Mac, Windows

ArsTechnica looks at Five important security apps for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

If you're using Windows they probably won't stop Microsoft collaboration-ware USB-based COFEE.

Pollan on food

Michael Pollan, mentioned in previous posts on corn & biotech, a UC Berkeley webcast, and sustainability, has a new book -- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. This book was summarized last month in his New York Times Magazine article Unhappy Meals. One way to keep up with books is to listen to book tour podcasts; searching for podcast and the author's name gives you a decent number of audio choices. Pollan recently spoke on these 3 shows which provide audio dowmloads: Democracy Now, KQED Forum, and KALW Your Call.

Also recently available is Pollan's presentation at last year's TED conference, part of the green theme. Here Pollan returns to his thesis from The Botany of Desire and asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture and that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool.

Windows Update and Spambots

On the heels of recent warnings about botnets and news of denial of service attacks on DNS servers that seem to be part of an attempt to bring the internet down, Microsoft has a large security update for Windows -- for Vista and below. Part of the vulnerability is in the Windows security model itself and the way it parses PDF files.

Exploits often follow news of security holes according to the latest Security Now podcast, which explains how spambots work, why spammers need them, how to understand mail headers, and fixes.

This reminds me again of E.M. Forster's "only connect" warning in "The Machine Stops" and of the ecological thinking of Amory Lovins on resilience and complex systems that was buried by the Reagan administration. If there was an major oil supply disruption I wonder if the response would be similar to Katrina/New Orleans.

The rainbow bridge
collapses during the
destruction of Ragnarök.