If online security is something you worry about, you should know you’re not the only one. In fact, a recent survey showed that some go as far as not using the online as much because of the concerns they have about their privacy.

According to the results of a survey conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, almost one in 5 respondents was the victim of some a negative online experience related to security.

Their conclusions were based on data from 41,000 households, which shows just how high the level of data breaches and identity thefts has reached. The NTIA survey found that many Americans are seriously concerned about privacy and security on the Internet.

The respondents were asked about whether they “refrained from participating in certain online activities due to privacy or security concerns during the year prior to the survey,” and 45 percent of them said they did.

Similarly, 30 percent said the refrained from at least two of the following activities: “conducting financial transactions, buying goods or services, posting on social networks, or expressing opinions on controversial or political issues via the Internet.”

As you might expect, the level of online distrust was even more emphasized in households that had experienced an online security breach. Identity theft was the greatest online concern, mentioned by 63 percent of all households.

The difference between people who were the victim of identity theft and those unaffected by this particular data breach was of 8 percent – at 70 and 62 percent, respectively.

Following closely was credit card and banking fraud, which was an active concern for 45 percent of the sample; next was data collection by online services (23 percent), loss of control over personal data (22 percent), and the government collecting user data (18 percent).

To understand better how Internet practices are influenced by bad experiences with online security and privacy, the NTIA wants to launch additional studies on the issue.

The organization is also interested in supporting policies that aim to help users feel more comfortable when they surf the Internet or make transactions. So far, they have shown interest in increasing the use of encryption, as well as building a baseline set of online privacy protections.
Image Source: Private Investigator

Podcasts, audiobooks, and digital storytelling, in general, have spiked over the last few years, making commute tolerable and helping us evade even if we don’t have a book or movie at hand.

But researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, were curious what happens in our brains when we listen to podcasts, so they had volunteers listen to stories from “The Moth Radio Hour” while their brain activity was recorded by an fMRI machine.

This experiment has helped them gain insight into the so-called “semantic system” in the human brain. The results could one day be translated into treatments for injuries that affect the ability to speak.

Alex Huth, the study’s lead author and one of the volunteers, listened to more than two hours’ worth of podcast episodes while positioned inside an fMRI machine. This helped him and his team create a map of sorts that shows how words are interpreted in the brain.

“Our subjects love to be in this experiment because they can just lie there and listen to these really interesting stories,” explained Huth.

However, because they kept laughing and destroying fMRI data with their movement, the researchers had to 3-D-print personalized “head cases” for each subject to maintain their heads stable.

The brain’s outer layer of tissue – the cerebral cortex – is known for its role in some of our higher functions, such as language abilities. Thanks to the fMRI recordings, researchers were able to see how this brain area reacted to the storytelling.

But instead of just observing which parts of the brain lit up, they tried to match the active region to particular words that played when that part fired up.

This process allowed researchers to create a map of word clusters linked to activity in various parts of the brain. Unlike previous beliefs, they noticed that both halves of the brain were involved in the semantic system, as over 100 areas in the cerebral cortex had activated during the experiments.

If a word had more meanings or was part of a memory network, more parts of the brain flared up. Take the word ‘dog,’ for example: when we hear it, we automatically envision one, already sense the smell and the feeling of the fur. But we also think about our childhood dog and the memories we have of it.

More than showing which parts of language fall in which region of the brain, the study allowed researchers to focus on a particular area or category of word types to see how they’re processed by the brain.
Image Source: Neurowiki