Development Update #1

So, what have we got here?

The main page has been built. It has an AJAX form which allows to enter any thought on the category specified above it. Categories are present on the right-hand side. So far I've used courses and professors at Hult as an example. Whenever a user posts a comment, it goes in a comment table in the database and is linked to the correct topic. So far users do not have to register, however this will be implemented soon. User will eventually be able to create their own topics, but let's first see how interested they are in the website.

The back-end algorithm that reads and is able to tell whether comments are positive or negative is in its embryonic stage, and is being developed separately. Results seem decent, but more work is definitely need. All in all, the site is shaping up to be quite interesting!

As with most ideas...

...I got it while in the toilette. And as with most ideas, I was not thinking of anything in particular, it just came. The initial thought was to have a "thought database" (pardon the repetition): a place where people could express their thoughts freely and anonymously about anything. The idea made sense to me; after all "expressing oneself" on the internet was the biggest trend of the 21st century. So I simply set up a form and a database.

However, it soon dawned on me I could have done much more. Even though I have not abandoned the "thought database" idea, I decided to expand it a little bit. So instead of random thoughts, I would be looking for opinions on a certain subject. However, I never liked implementations such as 'like' or 1-10 scores, or little stars, they always seemed a bit anachronistic. Enter the idea to have an algorithm that analyses what you've written and decides whether your opinion is positive or negative, and all stops in between.

That's the main idea, lots of more thoughts to come!

A few thoughts about Internet Privacy

Personal data on the internet is collected whenever one registers on a website. All the data in the form that is filled out by the user is entered in a database for storage by the site owner. The reason (or excuse) is that by having this data in the database, going back to the site would be easier and quicker, as users would not have to enter their details every time. While that is true, most of the time this data is used for other purposes, such as marketing or selling to other 3rd party sites. This is not at all illegal, but is agreed by the user whenever he ticks an “I agree to terms & conditions” checkbox. Examples of data that may be gathered by web forms are names, dates of birth, gender, age, sexual orientation, profession, marital status, education, salary, work experience, tastes and hobbies. Basically anything the website owners require you to enter to be able to access the website can be asked. Obviously this depends on the power of the website: if tomorrow Facebook decided to only allow users to register if they give their credit card number, you’d still see a higher number of registrations than if say unknownsite.com were to do the same.

There is also additional data that is gathered when a user accesses the site. This is usually gathered anonymously by the use of cookies (files that track a user’s activities). It could be authentication data (user name and password), session data (whether the user is logged in or not, and other variables at the site’s discretion), user preferences, shopping cart contents etc. Websites can even track data such as the IP address of a user, leading to their exact location at the point of surfing, or the MAC address, leading to the identification of the machine the user used to visit a website (these addresses can be easily masked, but most users do not know how to do so).

There clearly is an argument against the gathering and sale of such data. Firstly, most users that sign up to a website have no idea of the many types of data they’ll be giving away, nor are they fully aware that they are being tracked. Secondly, the issue of privacy seems to be less important on the WWW than in real life, this being possibly due to the “inhuman” nature of the web. Consider the following example.

You’re in a bookshop. A shop clerk follows you around the aisles and notes down whichever book you pick up. If you’re unsure which book to choose, he tells you (without you explicitly asking) what other people think about the books you’ve been viewing. At checkout he asks you for your name, address, date of birth, gender, email, and a word he should remember you by, just in case he forgets who you are next time you come. The he takes your credit card so that you may pay for the books. He returns the credit card, but has another clerk note down the numbers on it, so that he won’t be able to see it and use it inappropriately, but that way when you come back you won’t have to give him your card again, you’ll just have to ask the other clerk! The following week, as soon as you walk in the store and before you get a chance to look at any other books he tells you “I know what you bought last week, and based on that I am sure you’re going to love this other book I have here! I can tell because most people who bought your book actually went on to buy the other one!”.

Are you scared yet? If you are, and you should be, I hope you’re not on Amazon, because that’s exactly what they do with their website. The issue is that most people would be frightened (and would be questioning the mental stability of the clerk) if this situation happened to them in real life; however, when this happens online it all seems to make sense, until they realise the extent to which their activity has been tracked (which they very often don’t).

However, there are arguments on behalf of data gathering as well, mostly around the issue of “progress”. Think of the most successful IT firms of the 21st century: the already-cited Amazon, Google and Facebook, to name a few. These companies would not be here today if there wasn’t a way to gather data from users visiting the websites and to use it in a profitable way. Facebook sells data to companies based on the latter’s criteria (“Dear Facebook, I want males 16-20 who like Lady Gaga and play Badminton”). Without the possibility to gather user data, Facebook would not make any money. Without any money, you guessed it, no Facebook. So forget catching up with old classmates, poking the girl you fancy, or sharing the latest video of your cute baby trying to dance to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”. No Facebook means none of that. And would you be prepared to make that trade off? I know I wouldn’t. I absolutely love Beyoncé.