Actionable Books is having a vote to determine which of four books to summarize on their site. If you are willing, please go there and vote for Liars and Outliers. (Voting requires a Facebook ID.) Voting closes Monday at noon EST, although I presume they mean EDT.
Joel • April 28, 2012 5:50 AM
If you choose not to have a Facebook account, by all means, do so. Then you can’t vote. Meanwhile, those of us who are FB users could consider voting for that book on that website.
What’s to be upset about? And most of all, why complain HERE of all places, instead of on the offending website?
Bruce Schneier • April 28, 2012 6:23 AM
I understand the Facebook issue. That’s why I wrote “If you’re willing….” I don’t even have a Facebook login.
Dr. I. Needtob Athe • April 28, 2012 6:36 AM
Sorry, I don’t have, or ever want, a Facebook account either.
I think we should all post here just to provide evidence that the poll has an unfortunate bias.
Dr. I. Needtob Athe • April 28, 2012 6:45 AM
Added comment: Joel is right!
If you have a Disqus I.D. you can complain on the website. I did.
Peddl R. • April 28, 2012 7:06 AM
“I understand the Facebook issue. That’s why I wrote “If you’re willing….” I don’t even have a Facebook login.”
Want one ? I have a few hundred thousand here.
MikeB • April 28, 2012 7:33 AM
At 8:32 EDT on Saturday: 96 for Liars, 28 for second place.
kashmarek • April 28, 2012 9:53 AM
I have an interesting observation to pass along, with regard to “I have a few hundred thousand here.”
We have been getting trash phone calls, with caller id “Abadi Dave”. A Google search shows this person (or id) is everything everywhere. On 411.com, there are 27 entries (different addresses), many of which I checked on Google Maps and they are all fake. I suspect the phone numbers are fake also. On LNKEDLIN, there are 14 instances listed that they let me see and up to 150 that hidden until I become a member. All of the visible instances of “Dave Abadi” are foreign, unverifiable, and presumably fake as well (most with questionable credentials). All this WITHOUT going to FaceBook.
I guess you could live off the web (off the grid so to speak) or load the internet up with fake instances of yourself so you are hard to find, hard to verify, or difficult to assess. As with this case, it is probably deliberate to mask the caller in some trash telephone campaign (marketing, debt collection, politics, or who knows).
Thus, I expect FaceBook itself is loaded with such duplication as well, in general seeming to follow the AOL model of subscribers (800 million real subscribers; I don’t think so – many are defectors doing so for their own benefit at the expense of others). Thus, any vote tally on FaceBook is meaningless. Bruce should not have posted the request.
Peter E Retep • April 28, 2012 10:35 AM
If Bruce wants support
to promote his book,
let him have it –
I mean the support.
zaphod • April 28, 2012 10:47 AM
Enjoying your talk at penguicon right now… For this, I’ll vote. Open wifi around here gives plenty of Facebook accounts to vote from.
Daniel • April 28, 2012 11:19 AM
@kashmarek
I’m long suspected that the FB numbers are meaningless and I would be surprised if their unique subscriber base is 1/2 what the official numbers say. Not that 400 million or whatever is anything to sneeze at, mind you.
David Romm • April 28, 2012 2:50 PM
Even with various anti-virus protections turned off, I couldn’t sign in with my Facebook account. I think. It was sort of hard to tell. I didn’t want to pay $99 to subscribe for a month. So I signed in with my Yahoo account. I think. In any event, I finally made it to a FB page with the books, and I duly became the third person to vote for Liars and Outliers. You’re way ahead.
Tom • April 29, 2012 1:33 AM
At 8:32 CEST on Sunday: 178 for Liars, 29 for second place.
Stanislav GE • April 29, 2012 8:20 AM
I’ve downloaded “Liars and Outliers” from a torrent. Is there any way to donate?
Chris Taylor • April 29, 2012 12:12 PM
Hi All –
I’m the founder of ActionableBooks.com, and I wanted to thank everyone here for weighing in on the “Facebook account requirement” to vote for our community pick:
This is the first instance of concern that we’ve had around requiring a Facebook login to vote. (the strong response makes me fascinated to read Bruce’s book!). As I posted on the poll overview page, you can vote simply by commenting via Disqus; no need to use/have a FB account for this one. We’ll be looking into alternative voting platforms for next month’s poll as well, based on this feedback.
With any further questions/ comments, please feel free to contact me directly – Chris [at] actionablebooks [dot] com
Dr. I. Needtob Athe • April 29, 2012 1:49 PM
Great news! It was Joel who first suggested that we complain on your site instead of here. He was right, and so I did.
We all hope you enjoy the book.
Chris Taylor • April 29, 2012 3:37 PM
Happy to help!
D0R • April 30, 2012 6:44 AM
On a related note, I want to say that I like Bruce’s new photo on the book, although I’d have added a baguette under the arm.
Hawke • April 30, 2012 8:00 AM
@Stanislav GE
re: “I’ve downloaded “Liars and Outliers” from a torrent. Is there any way to donate?”
Yes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and O’Reilly have been set up to receive donations for the book… and with a proper donation, they’ll even send you a free copy of the book.
Hope that helps.
Lollardfish • May 1, 2012 2:41 PM
Hawke – that was funny, snarky, and clever all at once! Nice work.
JS • May 8, 2012 10:44 PM
Disqus also tracks you. Perhaps not as thoroughly as Facebook, though. Setup a new account on every page, and hope they don’t track by IP too.
Privacy is dead! Long-live the multiple-personality disorder inducing internet tracking overlords!
JS • May 8, 2012 10:53 PM
Argh… The word “Actionable” needs to be taken out and shot for disservice to the community.
Awards • July 25, 2012 4:28 PM
I don’t think privacy is dead, it’s just more expensive. You could buy 30 or 40 privacy proxies and a VPS from a hosting company. Route all your browsing through the VPS and the privacy proxies and you should be untraceable.
Wael • July 25, 2012 4:33 PM
@ Awards
Route all your browsing through the VPS and the privacy proxies and you should be untraceable.
Can you trust the “privacy proxies” ?
Awards • August 2, 2012 10:37 AM
@Wael Can you trust the “privacy proxies” ?
That is a good point, some of them are “see through” (I think that’s the term) so the original IP (you) can still be traced. I do believe that some private proxies are safe and not “see through”. There must be a way of testing them. If you use a VPS located somewhere else in the world, in addition to the private proxies, tracing you will become very difficult.
That being said, if you’re trying to run from the long arm of the law you’re probably out of luck because there is always a paper trail.
Wael • August 2, 2012 12:31 PM
@ Awards
The long arm of the law may setup some “private proxies” around the world as well. Good luck testing them. They will pass your tests, but record and save your information and make the “paper trace” a lot easier.
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Andy • April 28, 2012 4:50 AM
The requirement for a Facebook id will eliminate a large number of readers of your blog. This includes me.
Shall I register with Facebook so they can monitor and cross reference lots of data about me and my so called friends so I can vote on a book which discusses issues about management of personal data?
I think not!