Privacy Compromised
In the “Information Generation”, the zeitgeist and buzzword of today Internet security and privacy; how do I browse anonymously online? While many people are concerned with the matter of privacy, it turns out most people do nothing about it, or what they do is not nearly enough.
It is a scary world these days. British magazines “The Sun” and “The News of the World” were recently accused of doing the unheard of, even for the “gutter press”; they allegedly tapped celebrities phones to find out what they were up to in order to check up on them and have more things to report about. Seems like Orwell is turning in his grave right now. This was a wake-up for the public: while celebrities are famous, they are just people, and if this could happen to them, it could happen to us!
This scandal followed a recent one, although the latter was not the fault of the press. Photographs, personal information, and even pictures of family of Sir John Sawers, Britain’s soon to be chief spy, surfaced in many gossip magazines after his wife posted them on FaceBook. Obviously, his cover was compromised by an entire nation of peeping eyes.
These days, people haunt FaceBook and MySpace more than they actually go out and socialize in real life. Call it convenience, call it what you will, people are different online than in real life. Oftentimes, they are more open and out-going, and attention hungry. People post tons of pictures of themselves hoping people will comment and tell them that look good, and post all sorts of personal information for everyone to see.
Even advertisers see the change. The old ways of just spamming users with ads and other marketing tactics are out of the window; people now will click on ads that interest them and quickly close out ones that just pop-up. This requires that the advertiser know its users and its desired demographic. They have employed a controversial program that will help them do just that.
Behavioral Advertising is what it has been dubbed, and it actually looks through a person’s browsing history and decides their interests based on it. Although this seems like a blatant invasion of privacy, the sites assert that all data is kept anonymous and that it is only to help the consumer, by showing them things they might actually be interested in.
Last week, British Internet giant BT was considering adopting one of these behavioral advertisers called Phorm, to use on its users and hopefully net them a large commission from Phorm’s earnings. Privacy advocates everywhere protested this involuntary release of their sensitive data, and after a large backlash, BT backed out, saying it had other products to pursue at the moment.
Lawmakers are concerned about the software’s use of advertising on children, and how it will know if a child is surfing the Internet. The companies say if they have any indication that it is a minor, they will not advertise at all. These practices are under a self-regulation policy right now, but that is up for debate.
For those who are really concerned about your online safety and anonymity, using a change IP proxy server is the best way to travel securely. These can hide and encrypt your data so no interloper can intercept and read it, and anyone who tries to do an IP lookup of your location will be totally thrown off. You will adopt the change IP proxy’s IP, therefore, your location and IP will not match and the criminal won’t know what to do. Using a change IP proxy server is the first and most imperative step to online safety, and something the “Information Generation” needs to adopt quickly to regain back its online freedom and power.
To read the full story and learn more, click NY Times and get educated.
Nicholas Says:
This stuff is scary! It is just simply annoying to get pop-up ads and other blinky stuff on the side of your screen that has nothing to do with your interest, but I’m not sure it’s worth it to have our privacy compromised so much. They will actually dig in to our browsing histories and read what we do without our permission. They should at least make this optional and offer us some sort of incentive to be read like an open book! These gossip magazines are scary too. Who wants to get so in-depth in to some random person’s life? It is a complete invasion of privacy and it would make being a celebrity completely unbearable; no amount of money or possesions could sell me to sell my life and secrets to some magazine for a hungry public to gawk over. For the online stuff, the change IP proxy works like a charm. On the one I use, I have little or no advertisements, and they certainly aren’t prying into my computer to learn about me. Although it only costs a couple of dollars a month, I would pay much more for the services and safety that it provides.