Privacy, we hardly knew ye…

More and more we are hearing reports, seeing articles, and coming face to face(book), with the lack of privacy today…

Each time we log on, make a phone call, or in the urban areas walk down the street, we are being tracked…

The facts are plain, Google has for years collected “unsecured” data with it’s Street View vehicles, both here and in Europe, the fine?$7 million… Against a company that makes something in the neighborhood of $100 a day…

And the fault?

The company blamed the intrusion on a rogue engineer who rigged a data-collection program into equipment that was supposed to only detect basic information about local Wi-Fi networks to help plot the locations of people using its mapping service and other products. After concluding its own investigation, the Federal Communications Commission last year asserted that some of Google’s managers knew about the engineer’s plan to vacuum information being transmitted over the Wi-Fi network

Report from CNN HERE; from Fox HERE. Now let’s be honest here, does anybody really believe the ‘rogue’ engineer story??? When they’ve touted how ‘tight’ their controls are on development, to put this kind of excuse out there is just ludicrous…

And the data will all be destroyed?  Yeah, right… It’s in government/regulator’s hands now and you can bet it’s already in a data mining data base somewhere!

Facebook has ‘always’ been “open” about tracking your account, your friends and other things (like buying, websites visited, etc.). Apple and the other phone providers track your location all the time and all those nicky neat pictures you take with your phones and digital cameras have metatags embedded that show exactly when/where the pictures were taken.  Here’s a LINK to the Wiki on it.

Bruce Sheneier has an editoral up at CNN International that goes into a good bit of detail, and hits most of the high points HERE.

Among other things, remember google maps, was not created by google, it was developed by In-Q-Tel, a taxpayer funded, not-for-profit, development organization of the CIA.  It is a whole lot easier for private companies to do snooping on AMERICAN citizens than it is for the government; and if they get busted they pay a small fine (see above), and are quietly reimbursed under the table by the agency that hired them to do their dirty work.  Oh, and as an aside, Siri, Apple’s voice query tool, also can be traced back to In-Q-Tel.  Now ask yourself, “What can the government do with voice-print and voice-recognition software, and how can they collect my voice….”  hmmmm, maybe you just gave it to them….

And here’s In-Q-Tel’s SITE if you want to read about it’s ‘history’…

Lastly, remember that everything you do on line is subject to snooping by any government agency, that includes walking around with your cell phone.  Also remember, there are cameras everywhere, and if you do not carry your cell phone you will stick out because facial recognition software will pick you out and you could be tagged as an “extremist/insurgent” who is not carrying a cell phone because he does not want to be tracked.  It doesn’t take much computing power to pick out people who don’t carry cell phones, especially if it’s old white guys with carry permits who are under constant surveillance anyway.  As for the filtering, it’s a simple comb filter algorithm that’s been around since the ’60’s.
And along this theme, a short story that Matt Bracken wrote at the WRSA site last year for your reading ‘pleasure’…
Are we screwed? Probably…

Comments

Privacy, we hardly knew ye… — 20 Comments

  1. Like the old saying . . . . “just because your paranoid, it doesn’t mean someone isn’t following you . . .” comes to mind. I suspect I show up on more that a few “lists” . . . . . heavy sigh. You’re probably all too right –

    We’re screwed.

  2. I was offended when I bought my most recent phone and was told that they no longer allow the battery to be removed. That stinks of government interference.

    The people who sell the metallic drone-blocking burqua (see my blog) also produce a case for a cell phone so that one can carry it and it is blocked. Maybe lead-lined? I think we should all own these pocket/cases. Go*gle does not have a right to track us day and night.

  3. Why does the term “SKYNET” start rumbling around my head? And to think, I was never a big fan of the Terminator franchise.

  4. I hear it all the time, “We need to hide from the government.” Yeah, right. George Orwell chuckles.

  5. I think people make too much foo foo over the privacy stuff. I don’t believe it for a minute. So if you will just send my your PIN I’ll be set.

  6. my brother went to google earth once, and looked up my parents address.. The little rogue person who does the street view pictures snapped a shot of my parents actually sitting in the driveway.
    It blew us all away. My parents believe my brother took the pic, but we had to convince them it wasn’t.

    Very Creepy.

    • they may be able to have that reported and removed, since Mr. Google didn’t ask their permission to post their photo or their property photo.

      • It is my understanding that they will just blur the faces.

        • It’s my understanding that they automatically blur faces, which has led to quite a funny one in a swedish town where the software blurred the face of a painted wooden statue.

  7. This is why I consider anything I do online, anything I do on my phone, and well 90% of my computing in general “public”. And by public I mean SkyNet is watching and recording.

    The key is to remember it’s there. Besides, if they really want your voice print, I’m sure there’s a data center some place that already has it.

  8. The data is already on file, and will soon be centrally located in the new super-mega-complex in Utah (?) … if it’s not already there. And yeah, any attempt to circumvent the illegal snooping by the authoritehs will be declared illegal by those same folks (if they haven’t already done so).

  9. eia- Yep… sigh

    Opus- Good idea, just remember to turn it off, otherwise it WILL eat the battery trying to connect (don’t ask me how I know that)…

    .45ACP- yep… dammit

    Stephen- Good point!

    WSF- Yeah, but HOW? MSM is not going to cover it…

    CP- Ummm Yeah, right… 😛

    JUGM/Matt/Barron/Mikael- Y’all are all correct, however they DO have the originals in their data mining repository!

    Barron- All true

    Rev- Hell we’re already on the ‘list’…

    Agirl- Yes it is…

    Ed- Me neither…

  10. As Scott McNealy said way back in 1999, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it”.
    To which I *strongly* disagree…..

  11. Well, NFO, you know I wrote about this recently. It’s especially disturbing considering the current president can apparently kill anyone he wants with a drone…and many of us are continually broadcasting our location with our wireless device(s).

  12. Now I see the Feds will be scanning (copying) all e-mails, personal and business that are carried over federal networks…like emails to the VA/IRS/etc. from private citizens. Gotta watch out for them “domestic terrorists.”