New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specializes in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. If you are one of the millions of people using social networking websites, be careful what you reveal about yourself, further warns the New Scientist.
The NSA could use advances in internet technology to combine the data with personal details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing it to build profiles of individuals. The idea is to identify terrorists and other criminals, but who will monitor any of this?
The NSA could use advances in internet technology to combine the data with personal details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing it to build profiles of individuals. The idea is to identify terrorists and other criminals, but who will monitor any of this?
On one hand every website I go to whether it is to buy books on Amazon or to transfer my monthly rent to my landlord, insists that no eyes will ever be able to decipher the clear mumbo jumbo of alphabets and numbers I create as passwords or be able to misuse any of the information I feed in. They encourage me to read their privacy policies all of 2 pages long in font size 2.
Now, Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software talks about how you should always assume anything you write online could be stapled to your résumé. He says we don't realize that we could get Googled just to get a job interview these days. How very charming.
Once again I come back to the same emotion of helplessness, which accompanies any dealing with large corporations these days. Apart from the random and far and few in between incidences of an underdog biting a large corporation, the rest of us are just dog tired barking our lungs out with no effect whatsoever, except noise pollution. What could be more huge than the NSA? Of course Americans have to deal with phones being tapped, we just crib about the abundance of CCTV monitoring here in Britain. I too am warming up to the Big Brother environment. I can perhaps identify with the housemates a bit more now. Every time I write a blog, or enter my home address on a website or even say hello to my mother through an email, I feel I could be nominated for eviction. Here is to the power of the internet that was hailed as supreme by none other than top dog Tom Friedman.
Why does my Goldfish have this cheeky expression now?
Now, Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software talks about how you should always assume anything you write online could be stapled to your résumé. He says we don't realize that we could get Googled just to get a job interview these days. How very charming.
Once again I come back to the same emotion of helplessness, which accompanies any dealing with large corporations these days. Apart from the random and far and few in between incidences of an underdog biting a large corporation, the rest of us are just dog tired barking our lungs out with no effect whatsoever, except noise pollution. What could be more huge than the NSA? Of course Americans have to deal with phones being tapped, we just crib about the abundance of CCTV monitoring here in Britain. I too am warming up to the Big Brother environment. I can perhaps identify with the housemates a bit more now. Every time I write a blog, or enter my home address on a website or even say hello to my mother through an email, I feel I could be nominated for eviction. Here is to the power of the internet that was hailed as supreme by none other than top dog Tom Friedman.Why does my Goldfish have this cheeky expression now?
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