Surveillance State
The recent spate of bad publicity for Flock Cameras and what that kind of surveillance can do? Possibly constitutional infringements? Legal gray area(s)?
Between that, and combing through my own archives, I kept stumbling across a tiny piece of software, an image, barely more than a few pixels, technically, a hundred pixels wide, but not much more. In its original version, the purpose was that attached as a signature in an e-mail file, and I could, if I wanted, find where those e-mails eventually wound up as that image loaded from my own server.
An adage of mine? “Just because we can measure it, do we really need to?” That’s a correlation to ignore the metrics.
Surveillance State
But as website integrity changed?
target=”blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”
The expression is a common HTML/web snippet.
My original intent, and this more than 20 years old, but the “best practices,” then? “target=blank” and that meant the related click would open in a new window. My thinking, best practices circa 2000, at the time, was that browser user would be stuck with my site open in the background, then the new click, that would be a refreshed window, especially if it was a funny or germane link.
The “target=blank” is one aspect of this. The other commands are more recent and discourage following support, and try to negate any evident referral. Which kind of backfires; although, at the time, I didn’t realize it was adding the additional support (or lack of support, really.)
At the beginning, having some semblance of background with business itself, I knew if I linked to a particular item, person, site, or most frequently, a book? I wanted credit. Powells Books, then amazon, and finally, a personal fave at the moment, BookShop.org, all pay a tiny “commission” for purchases. Realistically, the numbers dropped to next to nothing in the last years, and I’ve yet to see any deposit from BookShop.org but it all appeals to my capitalistic heart.
So I would build in the referral links then the software would add code that negated the purpose of the link — SMH.
Surveillance State
While I could, at one time, with that enclosed and included signature file, I had the ability to track where every e-mail landed, diving that deep was easily too much trouble. The information gleaned was less useful than the time spent to gather up that information.
I’ve run my own server for more than three decades. Once an e-mail leaves my electronic gateway? I can’t predict, or secure, the results. Flipping that notion around, once an e-mail crosses that electronic gateway and lands in my inbox? It’s mine to do with as I see fit.
I’m a solo operation, and as such, I have to budget my time for research, reading, writing, consultations that pay the bills, and bit-twiddling with the tech. I tend to summarize and glance through the logs, on an infrequent basis, check for leaks, holes to plug, and otherwise make note of what gets the most traction. But flipping that notion around?
I see what can be tracked, and while I tend skip the overt surveillance, I also learned to be a little more discreet with my own, digital hygiene.
“Smile. You are on camera.”
Surveillance State
Smile
Security Camera
This Property under camera Surveilliance
