MasHD Blog

Most of you are sure to have the social networking app  ,Facebook linked to your smartphone and/or tablet , although you use the app to connect with your social world , the app is now ready to use you for its next survey which involves the social surveying company Nielsen and  what TV shows you watch. The survey is set to kick off in the US with a agreement that users can opt out of being included in the full survey if they wish . The process will mine data such as the users age and gender and what TV/Movies they watch on their mobile devices  but that data will be available in two different ways to both companies -Facebook and Nielsen. Raw numerical data (excluding data about the TV show) will be available to Facebook while TV show data (excluding personal data of Facebook users) will be available to Nielsen . The move however has sparked privacy concerns which relate to how much Facebook already knows about individuals and how they plan to mine more data for the purpo...

The National Security Agency, in conjunction with England’s NSA counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, has been secretly intercepting Google and Yahoo data transmissions around the world, according to a new analysis of the Snowden documents. The documents show how the two spy agencies can cooperate to send copies of customer records en masse to the NSA’s data centers at Fort Meade. Intercepted records include email addresses, personal identities, and even the contents of private messages flowing between and among Americans and all other nationalities. The interceptions are within the bounds of current US law because they occur at points outside US soil. The analysis was conducted by the Washington Post in consultation with Google and Yahoo employees. It lays out four plausible scenarios by which the agencies capture the private data of millions of customers. In the case of Google, the most likely scenario is that the agencies have tapped into fibers and cables connecti...

A CNET reporter recently tracked down the meaning and nature of a barge moored to Treasure Island, a former Navy base in San Francisco Bay. The barge, which has been built up with shipping containers to resemble a floating, mostly windowless, four-story building, largely matches a Google patent for a floating data center filed in 2009. The investigative report corroborates widespread suspicions the secretive project realizes that patent. The evidence is tantalizing. Late last year, a company named By and Large started working on the project inside Hangar 3 of Treasure Island. That company is widely believed to be a subsidiary of Google, as evidenced by local witnesses spotting Google-identified employees working in relation to the Hangar 3 project, along with reporter Daniel Terdiman’s contact with By and Large and Google employees. The 250-foot long, 72-foot wide, 16-foot deep barge can be viewed via Google Maps and in person, even though the construction site is cordoned off by...