[Air-l] theory to explain plazes.com?

[Ralf Bendrath]

Jill Walker wrote:
> I can subscribe to RSS feeds for where individuals are  
> logged in from without them even having made me a buddy and thus  
> given me specific access.
Someone should ask the company if they heard about what happened at 
Friendster when they startet RSS-feeding changes in their members' 
profiles. About 70 000 people protested...

Mapping IP numbers to geolocation is of course not new. Just look at the 
world map of your visitors you get when you use google analytics for your 
website.
Wifi access points are more accurate, though: 
 >http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8702329>
The NSA recently filed a patent for determining the geographic location 
through IP traffic from someone. I think it had to do with latency or 
something like that.

> I'm not well-read on newer theories of surveillance, no doubt there  
> are many, 
The most prominent thinkers in this field are David Lyon, Gary T. Marx, 
and Oscar Gandy.
Helen Nissenbaum's concept of "privacy as textual integrity" might also be 
helpful.

 > but I'd also consider danah boyd's work on public displays
> of friendship and networks - she sees this as a form of identity  
> performance, 
While we're at it: Does anybody know good conceptual work on the privacy 
aspects of online identity management? Michael Zimmer has done some work 
on this recently, but that's mostly it - as far as I know.

Ralf

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