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On Internet Privacy, Be Very Afraid (harvard.edu)
Cybersecurity expert and Berkman Klein fellow Bruce Schneier talked to the Gazette about what consumers can do to protect themselves from government and corporate surveillance. From the interview: GAZETTE: After whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations concerning the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance operation in 2013, how much has the government landscape in this field changed?
SCHNEIER: Snowden's revelations made people aware of what was happening, but little changed as a result. The USA Freedom Act resulted in some minor changes in one particular government data-collection program. The NSA's data collection hasn't changed; the laws limiting what the NSA can do haven't changed; the technology that permits them to do it hasn't changed. It's pretty much the same.
GAZETTE: Should consumers be alarmed by this?
SCHNEIER: People should be alarmed, both as consumers and as citizens. But today, what we care about is very dependent on what is in the news at the moment, and right now surveillance is not in the news. It was not an issue in the 2016 election, and by and large isn't something that legislators are willing to make a stand on. Snowden told his story, Congress passed a new law in response, and people moved on.
GAZETTE: What about corporate surveillance? How pervasive is it?
SCHNEIER: Surveillance is the business model of the internet. Everyone is under constant surveillance by many companies, ranging from social networks like Facebook to cellphone providers. This data is collected, compiled, analyzed, and used to try to sell us stuff. Personalized advertising is how these companies make money, and is why so much of the internet is free to users. We're the product, not the customer.
SCHNEIER: Snowden's revelations made people aware of what was happening, but little changed as a result. The USA Freedom Act resulted in some minor changes in one particular government data-collection program. The NSA's data collection hasn't changed; the laws limiting what the NSA can do haven't changed; the technology that permits them to do it hasn't changed. It's pretty much the same.
GAZETTE: Should consumers be alarmed by this?
SCHNEIER: People should be alarmed, both as consumers and as citizens. But today, what we care about is very dependent on what is in the news at the moment, and right now surveillance is not in the news. It was not an issue in the 2016 election, and by and large isn't something that legislators are willing to make a stand on. Snowden told his story, Congress passed a new law in response, and people moved on.
GAZETTE: What about corporate surveillance? How pervasive is it?
SCHNEIER: Surveillance is the business model of the internet. Everyone is under constant surveillance by many companies, ranging from social networks like Facebook to cellphone providers. This data is collected, compiled, analyzed, and used to try to sell us stuff. Personalized advertising is how these companies make money, and is why so much of the internet is free to users. We're the product, not the customer.
dam thing is just a horror story
People willingly give up all of their privacy millions of times a day for no good reason at all. The vast, vast majority of people don't give a shit about privacy.
I don't respond to AC's.
Based on your search terms I imagine. We all have fetishes don't worry.
I live in Canada, and all our documents are encoded in UTF-EH, making them incompatible with other systems on the planet.
#DeleteFacebook
They're all gone. The problem is, when you walk around with an aluminium foil hat all the time and you happen to have half a sandwich to store in the fridge for later, you just grab your hat and... then it's too late.
#DeleteFacebook
Do you think a totalitarian government that will use the data provided by these vendors as a means of culling the population as an impossible thing?
You're ignoring the last 200 years of history, then. Imagine what 19th century monarchs or 20th century totalitarians might have done with such a treasure trove.
Do you really think it will never happen again? Think again.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Very naive idea that only the guilty have something to fear. The cops don't care if you're "innocent" or "guilty"--witness the vast numbers of people in jail right now who are not guilty. They care about arrests and convictions and along with the prosecutors will use whatever means they have at their disposal to get a conviction on whoever they decide fits their idea of who's guilty.
The only thing to be afraid of or alarmed over is the possibility of getting caught doing something illegal, unethical, or otherwise with negative consequences if people find out you're doing it.
What's legal, ethical and acceptable today may not be after the next election or revolution.
Have gnu, will travel.
I didn't speak out when they came for the Jews because I wasn't a Jew so I had nothing to hide... ...
I didn't speak out when they started censoring all information about Tianamen Square because I wasn't Chinese...
I didn't speak out when political dissidents were being doxed, harrassed, bullied, fired, fined, imprisoned and even executed because I wasn't a dissident or I didn't live in Thailand etc.
I didn't speak out because I never expected such things to happen here in the glorious utopia of the West where we're all so far above all that petty nonsense because we're such perfect ubermensch and our politicians are sublimely moral...