Re:Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption...
by Silhouette on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @08:59AM
(#9652176)
The third party surveillance issue is certainly one that needs more attention and consideration.
Not on a social networking site? Don't worry, they probably know a significant amount about you anyway, just from friends who have given the social network the entire address book from their phone and a few photos with you in them.
Decided not to use Google because you're not sure about how much data they collect these days? Don't worry, they probably have a significant proportion of all the e-mails you ever send from one of the other parties anyway, and you have no reliable way to determine when this is happening or to avoid participating.
And of course there are the numerous third party widgets that not only make the modern web a slower, sometimes malware-ridden, often ad-ridden mess, they also follow those not technically skilled enough to protect themselves around. Don't worry, they promise they won't tell your health insurer about the medical conditions you were looking up. No, wait, they didn't.
Now we have the kinds of technologies mentioned in the parent post, with smartphones and headsets and home automation systems that have sensors and network connections being placed just about everywhere, and we really are starting to live in a society with permanent surveillance.
In many ways, these kinds of issues are much harder to address than the already difficult questions of how to control first party data collection. Most of them by their nature operate in the background where a lot of people will never even know they are there, and even those who do may or may not be able to do much about it.
Not on a social networking site? Don't worry, they probably know a significant amount about you anyway, just from friends who have given the social network the entire address book from their phone and a few photos with you in them.
Decided not to use Google because you're not sure about how much data they collect these days? Don't worry, they probably have a significant proportion of all the e-mails you ever send from one of the other parties anyway, and you have no reliable way to determine when this is happening or to avoid participating.
And of course there are the numerous third party widgets that not only make the modern web a slower, sometimes malware-ridden, often ad-ridden mess, they also follow those not technically skilled enough to protect themselves around. Don't worry, they promise they won't tell your health insurer about the medical conditions you were looking up. No, wait, they didn't.
Now we have the kinds of technologies mentioned in the parent post, with smartphones and headsets and home automation systems that have sensors and network connections being placed just about everywhere, and we really are starting to live in a society with permanent surveillance.
In many ways, these kinds of issues are much harder to address than the already difficult questions of how to control first party data collection. Most of them by their nature operate in the background where a lot of people will never even know they are there, and even those who do may or may not be able to do much about it.