I’m happiest in sweatpants
I’m Alexys or as my sixth grade teacher liked to call me “Alexis with a Y.”
Denver, Colorado is my home where I live happily with my loving husband and our little dog named Latty (short for Latitude). I’d say I’m the typical Colorado gal, except I don’t ski or snowboard and complain every time my face is met with twenty degree wind— but I love to camp and the butterscotch smell of pines trees in Rocky.
My family moved to Colorado when I was ten, ending a decade of moving at the direction of the United States Military. My…
Cybersecurity
A lesson executives can learn from SolarWinds’ response to its hack
Last week, former SolarWinds CEO pointed fingers at a former intern as the root cause of the company’s 2019 security breach. Intrigued by the CEO’s accusations, I wanted to understand how an intern could possibly be the culprit behind a breach that gave hackers access to 18,000 government and company systems. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the intern’s fault.
A Quick Review of the Recent SolarWinds Hack
SolarWinds provides IT service management to its customers, which includes high-profile clients, including Fortune 500 companies, and multiple US government agencies. They build many of their solutions on a standard technology called the SolarWinds Orion Platform (“Orion”).
In September 2019, SolarWinds’ systems…
Data Privacy
Exploring your privacy risks after Google acquires Fitbit
Privacy experts quivered from Google’s 2019 announcement of its intent to acquire Fitbit. Allowing an advertising giant to possess the health and wellness data of over 25 million people across 100 countries is quite terrifying.
We’ve learned a lot over the past year while this acquisition went through regulator scrutiny to answer this $2.1 billion privacy question: is it time to ditch your Fitbit?
Why is Google’s acquisition of Fitbit concerning?
Inherent risks exist when you wear an Internet-connected fitness device regardless of who owns the device. You’re sharing health and wellness data, and often location data, with a technology company who may misuse your data.
BLUE INSIGHTS MAGAZINE: ISSUE 001 — JAN 2021 — STARLIGHT’S GLOW
New found treasure
Cultural Prompt: “Expressing Positive Changes Emerging After Our Lives Were Disconnected Physically from Our Pre-Covid-19 Lifestyles”
Smarthome Privacy
When in doubt, avoid opt-out.
One design decision can negatively shift the public’s perception of your new product. A reality Amazon’s currently living.
Amazon recently announced Sidewalk, a shared network feature for Echo and Ring devices in the United States. It allows your neighbors to automatically share their home network with your Amazon devices and vise versa. Users benefit because Sidewalk simplifies new device setup, extends the low-bandwidth working range of devices, and helps devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home WiFi.
But Sidewalk has one significant design flaw.
Amazon Sidewalk is turned on by default
Amazon’s choice to use an opt-out consent model for Sidewalk…
The Future of Privacy
Exploring privacy in a circular economy
Earth is dying one credit card transaction at a time. We’ve all read the articles, watched the documentaries — we know our consumption habits are killing dear Mother.
For decades, we’ve band-aided our planet’s wounds with recycling programs and slightly greener technologies. We need a better strategy like shifting to sustainable economy.
But will we have to sacrifice our privacy to save the planet?
Experts advocate for a circular economy
Our current economy is (mostly) linear. We take goods from the earth to make products. We use the products for a while before disposing of them, creating pollution throughout the product lifecycle. …
Cultural Prompt: “Learning to tame your grays between the dark and the fake…”
A poem
A somber call turned light
into darkness.
The scan revealed a life changed,
her doctor doubtless.
Her tingling feet sway,
each step provoking demons.
Pleads flow to the Gods,
bartering with acts of treason.
The darkness holds a brush
painting the world gray.
Self-loss a constant torment,
the emotion she cannot convey.
Committed to recover joy,
she battled an internal war.
Light now shines brighter,
she lives a life to adore.
Thank you to Francine Fallara at Blue Insights for this cultural prompt: “Learning to tame your grays between the dark and the fake…”
Living with a Chronic Disease
Some days I don’t want to be in my body
If you could be any animal, what would you choose? Five years ago, I’d answer a house cat. Embodying a cat would melt my stress away, allowing for lazy days basking in the sun beaming through my owner’s windows.
Now, I want to be a flatworm. (Yes, insects are animals).
My day-to-day would be weird, sure. But flatworms have pluripotent stem cells. These particular stem cells give flatworms regenerative abilities, allowing them to regrow any part of their body, even their heads. This power would change my life.
Instead of the scarred neurons littered throughout my brain and spinal cord…
Privacy by Design
A PIA creates a plan to operationalize Privacy by Design
As a UX professional, it’s your responsibility to meet your users’ privacy needs, values, and expectations when designing products that collect or process personal information. Privacy experts advocate that adhering to Privacy by Design (PbD) principles ensures your embedding privacy into the technology.
But as a designer, you need more than guiding concepts to consider when designing your product. You need a tool to quickly identify the users’ privacy and turn the PbD principles into specific features.
A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is one tool that will help you operationalize Privacy by Design.
What is a Privacy Impact Assessment?
A PIA is a privacy risk assessment…
A valuable lesson I learned from my dissertation chair
No one warned me that my doctorate would kidnap every ounce of my self-confidence and only return it to me once I successfully defended my dissertation. Your advisors warn you that it’s stressful and time-consuming, that you need to set expectations with your friends and family because they won’t see you much for years. But the emotional toll you’ll experience isn’t in your welcome packet.
By the time you make it to the dissertation phase, you’ve missed years of memories with your loved ones and added another $30K+ to your growing student loan debt. Your sacrifice was pointless unless you…
