LET’S BE FWENDS ISSUE #16:

WHY THE HECK IS FACEBOOKS ‘PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW’ ALGORITHM SO DAMN SPOOKY?

It’s because - somewhat unsurprisingly - Facebook keeps data on people who never signed up for their service and uses it to connect users who have. It’s called_Shadow Profiles_, and Gizmodo has the details.

Related: How to clamp down your digital security

Granted, the Motherboard Guide to not getting hackedis not something you can read during a quick coffee break - but read it you should. It’s full of great advice about basic and not-so-basic computer security that will save your ass one day - just like that backups you regularly perform - right? Right?

Remember my rant about road safety the other day?

Recently, I went on a short rantabout how most of technology usage for road safety is pretty misguided, and then offered some suggestions how, if you must, you can use technology to make road users less vulnerable. Turns out Apple was listening. Not to me, mind you, but to reason. IOS 11 introduces ‘Do Not Disturb While Driving’, which does exactly what it says. And if it was mandatory, it would even get a clap from me.

”Everything looks quite different from here!”

European cities tend to be not the most children-friendly environments. Do you have an idea on how to change that? The Vienna Business Agency is calling for ideasabout how children experience their world – outside or at home, at play, in encounters, in doing things on their own – and that are helping to shape the city as a place for children.

Put in your submission before 30.11.2017.

BitCoin: Putting ‘scarce’ back into the Digital

One thing that has baffled economists for decades now: The limitlessness of digital resources. Creating the first copy of anything that is digital costs next to nothing, and the second copy is just as cheap. And of course, the market can’t have that. That’s a problem for virtual currencies, because in our understanding of economy, something can only have value if it is scarce. Something abundant as air has no value to humans.

Wait. What?

Anyway. Bitcoin solved this problem by forcing ‚miners‘ (people generating new currency) to provide ‚proof of work‘ by solving complex computations. In order to get a coin, you need to put in some digital elbow grease. Due to how bitcoin is designed, this work increases with the number of transactions performed.

We now have reached the point where one bitcoin transaction uses up as much energy as a family home needs for a week.

Good thing air has no value to humans. Wait. What?

And as cryptocurrencies gain traction we’re lucky for all the Panda-shaped solar farms that will provide us with all the energy we need to buy stuff online.

One of many more Panda-shaped solar farms to come by Panda Green Energy Group.

A new Internet-of-Things catastrophe is in the making

and it is aptly called ‘Reaper’.”While many of those [surveillance cameras] have patches available, most consumers aren’t in the habit of patching their home network router, not to mention their surveillance camera systems.Check Point has found that fully 60 percent of the networks it tracks have been infected with the Reaper malware”

I hope I don’t sound too alarmist when I say we’re all going to die.*

* someday, and of unrelated causes.

Another valuable life lession

When things go wrong, they usually go terribly wrong.

And trying to fix them tends to make them worse.

That’s it from this edition of Let’s be Fwends. In the very probable case that you did not set something on fire during reading this issue, please high five yourself. And if you did, please put out that fire first, and then high five yourself (maybe for putting out that fire, or for something else. Up to you). 🔥