Update: This has gone into effect. Commentary is still welcome...

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The following is a draft of the new MemeStreams Privacy Policy.

We will leave this up for public review until Tuesday. We would very much like to hear your feedback before making it official. If you don't have any objections, we would still like to hear a "looks good to me comment".. We want to make sure that we have full community involvement in crafting any site policy.

There is little change in substance and spirit between this version and the current privacy policy. This rewrite is mostly to clarify things, be easier to read, and have the necessary statements in place to satisfy requirements for working with advertising partners.

MemeStreams is designed to enable you to share information with other Internet users about web sites you find interesting. All of the information collected by the system is intended to be published, except where specifically noted.

If you are concerned about the information you publish, we recommend that you publish your weblog under a pseudonym, and do not recommend web sites you do not want other people to know you are reading. Any information that you publish on your weblog or in your profile is available to others.

The people who run this site are concerned about privacy rights, and will make every endeavor to protect information that ought to be private. We will attempt to protect you, and inform you about how you can better protect yourself.

Your email address is private: MemeStreams makes you verify your email address when you create an account in order to be able to post. We must verify your email address because MemeStreams can be used to generate outbound emails. We will never sell your email address to spammers or share it with third parties. However, if you choose to publish your email address in your profile or in posts, others can obtain it.

Your click-through data is private: MemeStreams collects information about the websites you've visited from other user's weblogs. This information is used by our reputation system and search engine to improve results. We will not intentionally provide this information to any third party.

This website uses cookies: All users of this website are issued cookies. These cookies are used to associate transactions with user's accounts, as well as to gather statistical data on our visitors. This statistical data is used to gauge the size and nature of our readership, as well as target advertisements on the website. Third parties, such as our advertising partners, may also set cookies.

This website uses Javascript: MemeStreams uses Javascript to provide a more powerful end user experience, as well as to deliver advertisements and collect statistics. This website will not work prop... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

We need to make a minor change to the MemeStreams Privacy Policy. In the tradition of putting this stuff up for discussion before doing it, here are the details...

Currently, it says the following in the section about email addresses and bio information:

We may make use of some of the information you supply to target the banner ads on our site, and in aggregate to provide advertisers with demographic information about our user base.

This about cookie data:

This website uses cookies: In order for this website to work effectively, it has to know who you are. Each user on this site has an account, and transactions have to be associated with that account. When you login, you are issued a cookie. Its the only way we can keep track of which account you are logged into. You must have cookies enabled in order to use this site.

And this about javascript:

This website uses JavaScript: This website has been developed using JavaScript. Personally, we have a poor opinion of the way that JavaScript is used by most websites, where it primarily offers useless animation or annoying pop-up ads. We have attempted to use JavaScript as it should be used, to provide a more powerful user interface. While it may be possible to use this website without JavaScript enabled, the user experience is likely to be poor. We would recommend enabling it for this site.

In spirit these are accurate. However, these three sections are slightly out of line with both reality and future plans. Here are the factors:

1) We use currently using cookies for tracking unique visitors, as well as handle authenticated users.

2) We are going to need to allow third party entities (Google) to use cookies/javascript to track visitors for advertising and analytical purposes, as well as eventually deliver advertisements.

We are not sure if/when we will turn on advertisements. There is no benefit in doing so until we can get an idea of how much revenue it will generate, as well as gain an understanding of what the site's current geo/demo/psychographic is. However, we do need to get on a footing were we can do so. We have been making a large number of changes to the site, and more are on the way. We expect operational costs to start rising. It is also fast becoming time to do a server hardware upgrade.

We need to have our ducks in a row in order to create a revenue stream to support MemeStreams. So far, all expenses have been paid out of our own pockets. (Ok, Tom's pocket...)

The statement about using email/bio information to supply ads and aggregate demographic information about our user base is not accurate. We have not been using email/bio information to do this. We don't need to use email/bio information for this. We need to use cookies and javascript.

In this regard, the statement in the email/bio section needs to be moved into the cookie section, and changed to reflect this. The JavaScript section also needs to be tweaked slightly.

Comments?

The MemeStreams user interface has gotten a much needed makeover. The navigation of the site has been greatly simplified. The posting process has been made more intuitive. The site logo has been updated. A box on pages showing site activity has been enabled.

More changes are on the way...

Big New Feature

You'll notice a new box on the topic pages that shows you "popular topics." These topics are shown in order on a weekly basis. This is a minor thing but I think it will make the site a lot more usable for people who don't have accounts and may have trouble finding the content by drilling around in the topic higharchy...

More to come...

Small New Feature

At several points in the past, we have attempted to get people to colonize a MemeStreams IRC channel. Each time, its had about the same result. Five or six people pop in the first day.. The times when people are chatting don't line up, and people stop coming. Then I see a trail of people entering and exiting for 15 minutes at a time for the next several days..

Lets try this again... This time, stay in the damn channel. Idle there. Attract some more people. It takes awhile for any given channel to grab traction.

The topic isn't limited to MemeStreams, but should have something to do with media, idea transfer, Internet issues, communication theory, or current events.

irc://irc.freenode.net:#memetics

Freenode is a great network. Its stable, there are numerous servers, and the channel/nick services work well so there is no need to have bots to administrate the channels.

For those that don't use IRC, its a very old chat protocol. There are numerous networks and a plethora of clients you can use to connect to it. Asking which client is the best to use is like asking for a major debate. I prefer XChat myself. The main site has the Windows and Linux clients. There is an OSX specific port as well.

MemeStreams is now operating from our new facility in Atlanta. Things went perfectly. Let us know if you encounter any problems.

The system time is now in Eastern Standard Time (EST). We were running of Pacific Standard Time (PST) previously.

Thanks!

Late Sunday night, we will be transitioning MemeStreams to a new data-center and server. We will be unavailable for about an hour during this operation. The site will issue an automatically refreshing message informing you of our progress.

The new infrastructure has completed testing successfully, we have created a procedure for all the changes involved, and there is very little room for error. We expect everything to go smoothly.

The actual work related to the transition is only expected to take about a half hour, but we will most likely be down for a full hour. This is to account for DNS issues and unanticipated problems.

As previously mentioned, Industrial Memetics is going to be sponsoring the PhreakNIC convention TV channel. We encourage all convention attendees to bring CDs or DVDs with video we can air on the station. Anything that we don't have to worry about the licensing of is open game. That means many clips of odd and strange things are game. Its suggested you raid the Internet Archive.

I have some big news... I just got off the phone with Mark Neale, the maker of No Maps for these Territories, the recent documentary about William Gibson, and he is allowing us to show the film. Mark seemed about as excited as I am of the prospect of showing all you his most excellent film at the second oldest hacking convention in the United States.

Hopefully I'll be able to clear the rights for another thing or two before the weekend.

Decius and Rattle will be representing Industrial Memetics at PhreakNIC this year by giving a talk entitled "Information Warfare for The People". Everyone is encouraged to attend. The talk will be at 3pm on Saturday. Please refer to the speakers page and schedule for more information. We look forward to seeing you all.

In addition to this, Decius will be delivering his yearly rant at 10pm Saturday night.

Industrial Memetics is also sponsoring the hotel's contention TV channel. During the day, the TV channel will be showing the talks. At night, it will be showing whatever content we can put up without licensing concerns cued by [adult swim] style bumps. In an effort to make the channel as open as possible, we are encouraging convention attendees to bring with them any content they would like to see on the station in file format that VLC will play, burned to either CDs or DVDs. Make sure its something that does not require a license for us to use. Find Rattle at the convention on Friday and give him whatever you have.

... and that's far from being all the content at the convention from MemeStreams related people.

Fellow MemeStreamer and Industrial Memetics Resident Engineer Acidus will be giving a talk entitled "Layer 7 Fun: Extending Web Apps in Interesting Ways" on Friday at 6pm. This talk encompasses using web applications such as Google Mail for uses they were not intended for.

Virgil will be giving an updated version of his talk on "Artificial Intelligence". MaxieZ will be giving a talk entitled "Web Security 101". Dolemite, who is also running the con, is going to be talking about "MythTV". And much, much, much more..

Be there, or be ^2.

Update: Video of our talk is available for download.

'Information Warfare for The People' | Decius and Rattle to speak at PhreakNIC 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 8/13/2005

The Industrial Memetics Institute is proud to announce that Zachary Patten has been added to its ranks as a Resident Engineer. Patten's addition continues Industrial Memetics mission of assembling a staff with extensive expertise in its two primary areas of focus, Internet Communities and Security Research.

Patten and Industrial Memetics founder Tom Cross have past experience working with each other dating back to the 1990's when they developed the Sentry Inc. flagship product CyberAngel, which was designed to facilitate the tracking and recovery of stolen laptops. Patten's work in the security space also includes the development of Encryption Software, Intrusion Detection Systems, and Border Network Security Management Platforms for Silicon Valley companies such as OneSecure and Dataway.

Patten's Internet Community work currently includes the development and administration of VinylBeats.net, an online community focused on DJ turntable beat mastery. VinylBeats is a central point for getting news, reviews, and information about upcoming events. VinylBeats hosts a live stream every Thursday night, and past streams can be accessed in their mixes section.

Patten's induction follows a recent decision by the Industrial Memetics BoD to only induct new residents in person. "We have taken the virtual office environment thing a little too far," stated Acting CEO Nick Levay. "From this point on, we need to start treating elements of how [our team structure] works much more seriously, it should mean something to be a part of this."

When asked how he felt about the Industrial Memetics Induction Process, Patten responded, "Wow, that was hard! I wasn't expecting that."

"I'm happy with where VinylBeats is going," Patten said in discussion before his induction, "but I would rather be building my own [codebase] than using someone else's."

"In my past experience working with Zach, he has always shown a remarkable ability to lay things out in a way that makes logical sense," stated Tom Cross, who is currently 'on sabbatical' from Industrial Memetics, but was present for Patten's induction, "he may be exactly what we need to bring a new level of functionality to MemeStreams UI."

There are no plans to merge MemeStreams and VinylBeats, which slightly resembles a certain News Corporation web property. VinylBeats will remain under the control and direction of Patten.

"This may present an excellent situation to experiment with protocols like OpenID," said Nick Levay. "Once folksonomy style tagging goes into MemeStreams, it will be possible to easily syndicate focused news, reviews, and other content to sites such as VinylBeats." Nick rattled on, "We are more interested in creating an environment to work on that type of thing then we are in merging web properties."

Patten will be maintaining a presence in the MemeStreams Community at: http://www.memestreams.net/users/infinite/

Direct all inquiries to Acting CEO Nick Levay by email at nick @at@ nicklevay.net.