About my website  Tags: websites, webdevelopment, my blog.
Thought I'd write a bit about this blog, the ideas and origins behind some things.

Why'd I start a blog?
Let's begin at the beginning. About a year ago I started reading more on the web. Of course you read all day long when you are on the computer, but it are all bits and pieces. I'm talking about stuff which is like 14 pages in length (on a full HD screen). Back then I read a lot on qntm.org,

On security questions  Tags: security, websites.
Security questions, as still used by many websites among which Windows Live, are conceptually flawed in many ways. They should never have been launched on the scale that they have, they should never have been taken as seriously as they have, and they should have been phased out long ago by now--the only thing they haven't. Also I discovered recently that their purpose is a mystery to many users, which only increases the security risk they introduce by a lot.

Why Facebook works  Tags: social networks, privacy, websites, randomthought.
I finally got it! The reason why Facebook still exists and rules over all other social networks.
Many people say Facebook has privacy issues. But it are not issues, not at all. It is their business model and, more importantly, their marketing model. People come to Facebook at first to find out about other people. Or let's call "people" Joe. Through their name Joe finds where the person lives, his/her relationship status, and even recent photos.

Then, Joe want to reply to that photo or event the person went to, perhaps Joe was there too or wanted to go there.

My experiment about user privacy  Tags: privacy, websites, security.
This first part is mostly about the experiment mentioned in the title, further on there is a part more about passwords (thought I'd mention it as it's tagged with 'passwords' as well).
As announced in a previous blogpost, here it is: The experiment I conducted on a forum to see how users respond when their privacy is brutally void by a third party. To give you an idea what the scope of this was: on the forum there are about about 164 messages posted every day, from which I do on average 2.9 every day for the past 3.5 years.

Mind what you post  Tags: social networks, privacy, websites.
I knew companies like Facebook store a lot, but seeing everything makes it look plainly ridiculous.
This article is about someone who used the European right to retrieve all data a company (which has to be operative in Europe though) stores about you. He was sent a CD with the data, and posted the contents on the web - with the really personal stuff blacked out of course. Note that he deleted all contents of his account first, before getting the CD.

I've skimmed through it, and it's just insane.