privacy

While the machine uprising may not be upon us just yet, a group of University of Washington researchers has conducted a study on the various threats to security and privacy that household robots currently on the market could introduce to our homes. While their findings found little to fear in the way of an I, Robot-esque revolt, it turns out common household robots can open a home to various security and privacy threats, mostly via web-enabled features that are supposed to make the robots more useful.

Fret no longer, citizens of Japan, about Google's camera vans exposing the awkward moments of your private lives to millions via Street View. Because here, see? All that's behind its scary secrets is an impossibly adorable anthropomorphic camera truck in a wonderland of children's toys. Dawww, its bobbing camera head just snapped a photo of your car! It's so cute!

The dropping price of laptops and netbooks has resulted in a proliferation of computer use in public spaces. Whether at the airport, in a cafe, or on the Chinatown bus, more and more people are using their computers in the view of others. This has made protecting personal data from eavesdroppers a high priority. Sure, a couple of dollars can get you a polarized screen that offers some protection from the wandering eye of the person next you, but for people with sensitive military, industrial, and intelligence information on the screen, that simply isn't enough.

Enter Oculis Labs. This software company has married face-recognition technology with encryption, to create two programs that protect on-screen data from prying eyes.

Hundreds of thousands of Web sites show ads provided by Google, such as those little text ads that offer you everything from diets to dog training. Now Google has announced plans to track your clicks across all these sites, and then serve up ads personalized to your tastes. Visit a bunch of electronics-related sites, say, and the next site you view may show you an ad for the latest must-have gadget, even if you're now reading about ways to reduce stress through yogic meditations.

As Big Brother as it sounds, this is actually something that many advertising companies already do. But don't worry: There's a way to stop Google--and all the others--from prying.

Last week, Google released a beta application that provides walking directions in major cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. It's another sign that the search giant is getting even more specific about "organizing the world's information," right down to the sidewalk in front of your house. If you want to walk from your apartment in the suburbs to a restaurant downtown, Google will show you the best route with turn-by-turn directions you can print out or follow on your smartphone.

In 2006, David Holtzman decided to do an experiment. Holtzman, a security consultant and former intelligence analyst, was working on a book about privacy, and he wanted to see how much he could find out about himself from sources available to any tenacious stalker. So he did background checks. He pulled his credit file. He looked at Amazon.com transactions and his credit-card and telephone bills. He got his DNA analyzed and kept a log of all the people he called and e-mailed, along with the Web sites he visited.

What do you think happens when you connect your computer to the Internet?

You don´t have to be a conspiracy theorist or a criminal to be uncomfortable with the fact that your online movements are frequently tracked and recorded. Maybe you don´t want commercial Web sites using your browsing habits to inform their marketing, or perhaps you want to post an opinion to an online forum without worrying that it could be traced back to you.