WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

Twitter just asked all 300+ million users to reset their passwords, citing the exposure of user passwords via a bug that stored passwords in plain text — without protecting them with any sort of encryption technology that would mask a Twitter user’s true password. The social media giant says it has fixed the bug and that so far its investigation hasn’t turned up any signs of a breach or that anyone misused the information. But if you have a Twitter account, please change your account password now.

In real life, in the natural course of conversation, it is not uncommon to talk about a person you may know. You meet someone and say, “I’m from Sarasota,” and they say, “Oh, I have a grandparent in Sarasota,” and they tell you where they live and their name, and you may or may not recognize them.

An email from Aleksandr Kogan sheds light on exactly how much your Facebook data reveals about you, and what data scientists can actually do with that information. The researcher whose work is at the center of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data analysis and political advertising uproar has revealed that his method worked much like the one Netflix uses to recommend movies.

Google knows what you're looking for. Facebook knows what you like. The CIA knows how to use your TV/Smartphone to spy on you. Still think you have privacy?

If anyone uploads a profile picture that includes your face, Facebook will alert you of that, too. “We’re doing this to prevent people from impersonating others on Facebook,” the company wrote on its blog Tuesday.

These third party login tools promise more traffic, more subscribers, more members, more customers and more sales — and those promises have come true: as some have noted, up to 80% of web users choose Facebook Connect or another social authentication option when it’s available (as opposed to signing up for a site with their email address), and Facebook itself has claimed that social authentication increases registration by 30-200%. (...) But is that promise worth the price of losing direct access to your customers’ contact information and profiling information — or for that matter, direct access to customers themselves?