PSA: Everyone Can See Your Drunken Pizza Purchases.
Hey y’all, have you checked your online payment privacy settings lately? Berlin-based researcher Hang Do Thi Duc analyzed at nearly 200 million public Venmo transactions - complete with FULL NAME, location, transaction notes, entire conversations, blood type (ok, maybe not that last one, but seriously I don't think we're that far from that...) Y’all should really check out her research project website Public By Default and see how she was able to craft personal dossiers on five different users out of the 100% public and searchable data they share every day. Then you should boot up your payment app ASAP and make sure we can't see who's paying you for trees.
And for all you science-minded folks out there wondering how best to have your research make a splash: this researcher knows what's up. Do Thi Duc does an excellent job of using character-building and storytelling to illustrate a very real and technical problem to drive home the emotional urgency of online privacy risks. We know that volumes and volumes of raw data do not inspire action (bone up on your Tufte, friends!) so when Do Thi Duc zooms in to show how it impacts real people, you pay attention. And her project website is cute AF to boot, so read it and cringe, everybody!
In other news,
Jupiter is one sneaky bitch: astronomers just found TEN MORE MOONS hiding around that striped and gaseous sphere.
An undercover reporter posing as a Facebook moderator says that the company’s content moderation policies are applied differently to far-right pages and groups. GREAT.
And finally, my Mum would like you all to know that a 100 foot-wide fissure has opened up in Grand Teton National Park, near that them thar Yellowstone Supervolcano. You know, the second-largest-Volcano-on-Earth that is waaaaay overdue for a full-on eruption. Resident Missive Geologist Miles, if you’re reading, can you please report back as to how utterly fucked we all are? KTHXBAI.
I love you all. Be kind to each other.