Slashdot Mirror
Schneier: The Internet Is a Surveillance State
An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier has written a blunt article in CNN about the state of privacy on the internet. Quoting: 'The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period. ... This is ubiquitous surveillance: All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored forever. This is what a surveillance state looks like, and it's efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell. Sure, we can take measures to prevent this. We can limit what we search on Google from our iPhones, and instead use computer web browsers that allow us to delete cookies. We can use an alias on Facebook. We can turn our cell phones off and spend cash. But increasingly, none of it matters. There are simply too many ways to be tracked."
Ghostery is a good start.
Slashdot has been a broken website for years now and constantly making things worse. It is very unwelcoming to new visitors and other AC. Especially those who run No-Script or block scripting altogether. That being a much safer way to visit websites. The so called "Classic Discussion System" is no longer available to anyone but logged in members with their preferences set for it. The option to use the "Classic Discussion System" for visitors/AC disappeared from the site quite some time ago unfortunately and since then the site is mostly unbrowsable, especially after a certain number of comments. I have little doubt that I am not the only AC here who could have had a low digit UID if they had actually cared to sign up for it. However I bet many of those no longer come to Slashdot because of how inhospitable it has become due to the abrasiveness of AJAX and javascript in general.