Is Nothing Private Anymore
The siege engines of technology have been attacking personal privacy for some years now and I have written about privacy before, suggesting there is a link between freedom and privacy. Because of this link privacy is probably a larger concern than is generally appreciated and the threat from technology very real.
When Jeffrey Wigand blew the whistle on the systemic campaign of lying by big tobacco companies his identity was known. It seems no exaggeration to say he was personally hounded and there were suggestions of death threats, although nothing was ever proven. In contrast, Deep Throat was critical in exposing government corruption in the Watergate scandal and suffered no personal fallout because he was anonymous. Without privacy the personal cost of truth increases.
Don’t believe the propaganda; everyone has things that should remain private. As it stands market forces are working to destroy your privacy, not in a malicious way, they’re simply making money of it. Large internet companies have a vested interest in declaring privacy dead and convincing you it doesn’t matter. Such declarations and suggestions should be taken with a grain of salt; never forget they’re being paid to say it.
Should your medical records belong to you, or should they be sold to the highest bidding pharmaceutical company like second hand goods? Whose business is it that you were adopted? Is it right advertisers target your children using information they gathered off your browser without telling you?
It’s no good looking to government. At this stage, aside from pumping out propaganda, governments are the mother lode of hypocrisy. Whilst expanding wholesale and general surveillance with cameras, phone taping and email snooping they scream blue murder when anyone leaks any of their documents. Just look at the anger directed against WikiLeaks. According to government, removal of your privacy is for your own good. Removal of government privacy is treason.
It’s in this climate that internet privacy is quickly dying; or being killed by Google, Facebook and their party bus of friends.
What has driven this home is the reporting off our own web site. We’re not particularly advanced on reporting and tracking activity, but even we get to see the following from visitors:
- Your source IP address with reverse DNS check.
- What version of browser you are running.
- What types of browser plugins you have installed.
- What your screen resolution is.
If Java is running even more privacy beans are spilled and we see what version of operating system you are running.
Imagine how much information aggressive collectors of information like Fairfax get from their large news portals. When you combine all this information you’re looking at a kind of digital footprint that identifies you, regardless of privacy settings you might use on your PC. Delete all the cookies and stop all the scripts you like, you are being tracked anyway. There is a silent war being waged by companies who make a living off your internet movements using digital footprints just like the one we see on our web site.
Make no mistake. This kind of large scale tracking of people is not simply an efficiency increase of existing systems. No such system of this kind has ever existed in history. It makes secret police look like amateurs. The wisdom of what is taking place should be questioned at every step.
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