Personalizing Privacy

A lot of buzz has been going around these days about websites not keeping your private information to themselves. I don't intend to go into 'whether this should be allowed or not' or 'what's right or not' in this blog.
I assume the above information is true, and that they are leaking your information. So what now?

OOP
When I was a student in OOP (Object Oriented Principles), I was introduced to the world of objects. An object is any entity that exists in your system context. An object has attributes (which determine it's state) and operations (which determine it's behavior). OOP also included important terms - 'encapsulation' and 'information hiding' which allowed these objects to be in full control. They were responsible to safeguarding their state. I'd like to treat each individual as an object and apply encapsulation and information hiding on him.

Private and Privacy?
Which information is considered private? While one considers information about his family 'private', the other says that it's his 'credit card' and 'bank-account' information, and a third his 'religious beliefs'. The content of what's considered private differs across cultures and individuals. Privacy is the ability to protect this information and reveal it selectively.

Designing the Private

Tricky and complex as it may sound, it's actually not that hard. Yes, it would not be possible to construct a generic, true-in-the-world-context model, but a simpler form is very much conceivable. Allow me to paint the following picture. Since each individual is his own judge to what's private to him, it's not difficult to build a simple object diagram with this information. Something along these lines..

This achieves two things - makes you think what's private to you and makes you aware what you'd like to share with these websites. I believe that self-awareness is already a victory achieved.





So the next time you come across a news article on a privacy leak, you know you have your list with you!

Journey to learning Dutch

It's taken me 2 years of evening  school, 2 times per week to pass the NT2-II exams. NT2 stands for 'Nederlands als Tweede Taal' (Dutch as the second language). More info on the exam here. The European Language Framework recognizes me at a Dutch level of B2 (refer Wikipedia).

Although Dutch is not really my second language, it has been real fun learning it. Until now, I knew languages - English, Hindi, Marathi, Konkani and Gujarati, and Dutch has been a very welcome addition. It's a very different experience trying to learn a language in your adult life. Being a software developer, I'm no stranger to learning new languages. But languages such as Java, Groovy, UML tend to have a strict set of rules which natural languages do not possess. With a natural language, it's often the rule, and then the exceptions to the rule. It's a bit hard to learn the exceptions, particularly when they're so varied. I often compare natural languages to the laws of society.

Initial Approach
My initial approach to learning Dutch was to learn the grammar. Naive! After few days of schooling and on advice from the teachers, I dropped that approach. I then focussed on learning more and more words and pronunciation. This helped me identify them being used in texts and communication. What sounded gibberish until then started to make some sense. I also made it a point to learn the correct spelling of the word while I memorized it.

Thinking in Dutch
There was this day after six or so months of schooling, when all of a sudden I stopped thinking in English. I could think in Dutch. This was the point of revelation. Learning after this point was so much easier. After this point, I focussed on the language grammar and tried to form sentences.

Speaking Dutch
Although I spoke Dutch in school, I did not have the confidence to speak it outside. I was motivated by my teachers to just start speaking in public without worrying about being completely correct. It was easier said than done. I hestitated because I could not express myself correctly. In an interview for a new assignment, I was asked to speak Dutch. They wished to check my Dutch since all of the system documentation was in Dutch. That was the first moment where I spoke Dutch outside school borders. It was like a hurdle passed, a big hurdle! (Felt like potential energy being transformed to kinetic energy). Although I thought I could have done much better if the interview were in English, I got the job. In this assignment, I began speaking and e-mailing in Dutch. The colleagues were supportive and understood that I was just a learner.

NT2 exams
I decided to give the NT2 exams on advice of one of my teachers. The diploma would be a proof of a certain level I have when it comes to the language. Although I cannot prove that my level of the English language is X, I decided to go for the NT2 exams. It served as a good challenge and at the same time a good end to the schooling journey. After a lot of preparation through sample exams, I appeared for the NT2 exams on 6 and 7 April 2011. The exams consist of four topics - writing, speaking, listening and reading. The listening exam still gives me the chills!

I'm very proud to have achieved this, something I had never thought I would need to do if you asked me 5 years back.