Web Security and Privacy: An American Perspective

Browsing the Web gives one the heady feeling of walking without footprints in cyberspace. Yet data surveillance can be both ubiquitous and transparent to the user. Can those who browse the Web protect their privacy? And does it matter if they cannot? I offer answers to these questions from the American legal tradition. The American legal tradition focuses on a right to privacy, rather than a need for data protection. To answer these questions I begin by delineating the differences among privacy, security, and anonymity. I then discuss what information is transferred during Web browsing. I describe some of the available technology for privacy protection, including public and private key cryptography and Web proxies. I then describe the American tradition of privacy in common, statutory, and constitutional law. With the support of this tradition, I close by arguing that although privacy in Web browsing has no current legal protection in the United States, the right to privacy in the analogue equivalents has been recognized in the American legal tradition.     

Unfolding the popularity of video conferencing apps – A privacy calculus perspective

Video conferencing (VC) applications (apps) have surged in popularity as an alternative to face-to-face communications. Although VC apps offer myriad benefits, it has caught much media attention owing to concerns of privacy infringements. This study examines the key determinants of professionals’ attitude and intentions to use VC apps in the backdrop of this conflicting duality. A conceptual research model is proposed based on theoretical foundations of privacy calculus and extended with conceptualizations of mobile users’ information privacy concerns (MUIPC), trust, technicality, ubiquity, as well as theoretical underpinnings of social presence theory. Structural equation modeling is used to empirically test the model using data collected from 484 professionals. The study offers insights regarding the trade-offs that professionals are willing to make in the face of information privacy concerns associated with VC apps. Based on the findings, the study emphasizes the promotion of privacy protection at the organizational level, control mechanisms that motivate employees to actively engage in privacy protection behavior, and a multi-faceted approach for data transparency within the VC app platforms.     

Seeing is believing: Towards interactive visual exploration of data privacy in federated learning

Federated learning (FL), as a popular distributed machine learning paradigm, has driven the integration of knowledge in ubiquitous data owners under one roof. Although designed for privacy-preservation by nature, the supposed well-sanitized parameters still convey sensitive information (e.g., reconstruction attack), while existing technical countermeasures provide weak explainability for privacy understanding and protection practices of general users. This work investigates these privacy concerns with an exploratory study and elaborates on data owners’ expectations in FL. Based on the analysis, we design the first interactive visualization system for FL privacy that supports intelligible privacy inspection and adjustment for data owners. Specifically, our proposal facilitates sample recommendation for joint privacy–performance training at cold start. Then it provides visual interpretation and attention rendering of privacy risks in view of multiple attacking channels and a holistic view. Further it supports interactive privacy enhancement involving both user initiative and differential privacy technique, and iterative trade-off with real-time inference accuracy estimation. We evaluate the effectiveness of the system and collect qualitative feedbacks from users. The results demonstrate that 96.7% of users acknowledge the benefits to privacy inspection and adjustment and 90.3% are willing to use our system. More importantly, 87.1% increase the willingness of contributing data for FL.     

浅谈高校贫困生精准扶贫档案的构建

本文阐述了高校贫困生精准扶贫档案构建工作的意义和工作现状,具体分析了高校贫困生精准扶贫档案的构建方法和构建内容,并有针对性地提出了加强高校贫困生精准扶贫档案工作的具体措施,以期能够促进我国高校对贫困生进行精准扶贫工作水平的提高.     

江泽民忧党意识论析

江泽民《论党的建设》一书，充满着强烈的忧患意识，特别是忧党意识，主要表现为：忧执政党的领导水平不高和执政能力不强、思想政治建设薄弱、人心背离问题的发生、领导人才素质不高、制度建设滞后等；其根本特征就是：忧党和强党的统一。     

我们应该建立一种新的发展哲学

人类的发展迫切需要建立一种新的发展哲学,为可持续性发展战略提供理论指导.新的发展哲学实质上是一种新的人学目的论,它把发展的元价值作为自己的研究对象,其宗旨在于揭示发展的终极意义———人的全面发展和彻底解放.     

Environmental values and environmental concern

Abstract

Attitudes, values and concerns are frequently measured to monitor individual preferences of adolescents. As there is still some discussion about how to monitor those variables with respect to empirical instruments, directions of items or length of instruments, we applied two established scales (2 Major Environmental Value Model [2-MEV] and Environmental Motives Scale [EMS]) to a Slovenian sample of 804 middle and high school students. Subsequently, we confirmed the validity and reliability of both scales as well as their applicability to Slovene subjects, aged 12–18?years. The main objective of our study was to explore the relationship between three factors of environmental concern (EMS) and the two higher-order factors of utilisation of nature and preservation of nature (2-MEV). The results show that altruistic (ALT), biospheric (BIO) and egoistic (EGO) environmental concerns correlate strongly positively with preservation of nature, but negatively and less strongly but still significantly with utilisation of nature. We conclude that raising awareness of EGO environmental concern may be as important as ALT and/or BIO concern for understanding the environmental values and attitudes of an individual. Consequences and recommendations for designing and completing educational programmes are discussed.     

Communication Privacy Management: A Thematic Analysis of Revealing and Concealing Eating Disorders in an Online Community

This study analyzed the discourse of a pro-anorexia website, prettythin.com. Narratives and posts were thematically analyzed using communication privacy management as a framework to understand the tension between revealing and concealing an eating disorder. Two themes were constructed during data analysis: (a) personal ownership and control, with the subtheme strategies for maintaining control and (b) communication choices surrounding disclosure and two subthemes, (i) seeking to fulfill needs face-to-face and (ii) positive fulfillment of needs online. Theoretical and practical contributions are addressed in terms of how communication theory can help understand people living with eating disorders. Specifically, how these individuals manage their personal information online and face-to-face and how prettythin.com provides support to men and women with eating disorders.     

试论科学发展观的理论体系及其基本问题

科学发展观以“建设一个什么样的社会,怎样建设和发展社会”为理论主线,着眼于人的发展、社会发展、经济发展、政治发展以及战略抉择等多重领域,对发展的本质、规律、动力、目标以及实现途径等问题进行了深刻的揭示与诠释,总体上形成了科学而完整的理论体系,成功地实现了对传统发展观的继承与超越,是马克思主义发展观的当代阐释。     

Conflicting Views of Realistic Professionalism: Preservice Educators' Concerns Arising from Analysis of Themes in Their Reflective Writings

Current demands for professionalism from society are great, and future educators are concerned that they do not have the stamina and resources to fulfill their personal roles. This research examines 453 reflective writings of 151 preservice teachers, child and youth care providers, and counselors who, despite being asked to identify how their learning could help children, also wrote about their professional concerns. The 406 expressed concerns were identified based on 86 vocabulary leads. The categories of concern were (a) Misbehaviour, Aggression, Violence, and Victimization, (b) Multiculturalism and Diversity, (c) Personal Preparation and Career Choice, (d) The Responsibility of Providing Appropriate Teaching and Learning Methods, and (e) Appropriate Involvement in Children's Lives. The overall highest concern was for Personal Preparation and Career Choice, although the second highest concern for Misbehavior, Aggression, Violence, and Victimization increased dramatically after a special unit on childhood discipline practices was presented to the participants.