#priavacy

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DO NOT TRACK

1. News from Espn.com. Espn has 6 trackers. I input twitter as my place for laughs and had two trackers. Trackers are a way for sites to see and record what you do on them and how long you are on them and in some cases they have the ability to sell your “profile” without your knowledge. Trackers do not operate on Amazon due to the fact that you are telling Amazon what you like and are creating your profile yourself. Trackers do this automatically. My data footprint effects myself and anyone else who has similar interests.

2. Websites use cookies which are little files that log your data for that site and allows them to try and use your data to sell ads and push adds to you. This tracks you and allows them to send you in the direction that you want if you are on a shopping website and not other sites who track where you go.  The ads online have increased due to the amount of time we spend on the internet and computers. This has allowed the internet to change to the consumer. You are now able to log on and go to a website and have ads targeted to you. There really isn’t anything you can do and I personally wouldn’t be willing to pay much because I value money and find this tracking as harmless and not worth my money.

3. Illumines is the practice of studying what you do online in order to figure out specific examples and traits about who you are. It can tell your personality as well as race. The Illumines allow sites to look into your social media account and find out bout your character and use it to get loans based solely on an account you use and they can predict character and if you are a good candidate for their money.  The benefit of this allows people without credit services in order to actually get a loan from the bank instead of being turned down without the knowledge of character. We can control our digital self if we know the education behind it. It is tough but possible.

4. Apps need your information in order to function. They need to have access to it in order to be able to function properly and use the permissions you give them. I only allow friends and family on my phone yet would be fine if it was missing causing me to want privacy. Google tracks location and where you visit in order to be so accurate and you can prevent this by deleting the history and not allowing your location to be shared. The wifi at a business has a unique IP address which allows anyone to find out where you are and this allows ads to be sent to you based on your location. There is a hidden meaning in terms of use where you agree to give up your child forever in order to use this service. This was put in in order to force users to read the terms. 

5, Algorithms process data and have stats that come out and those stats can be tested to find accuracy. Big data is a large amount of data that can be analysed. These can be problematic because of the sheer mass of them. These can be extremely helpful though by providing the ability to click a button and have an invisible equation or algorithm find out what you may enjoy or want and bring that information to you so that you don’t have to waste time looking yourself.

6. A filter bubble is something that looks at all of our interests as well as friends and then combines them into what it presumes we like to look at or what we are looking for. This allows for our own personal bias to be displayed in front of us and it resembles t.v. stations and newspaper based on the fact that it is showing us what we want. You will not watch Fox if you are a liberal because of its conservative views. This is what happens with a filter bubble online and can be done in even better ways when it is optimized. A big issue that I feel needs to be addressed when a filter bubble is getting rid of the other side is simply that, an educated argument must know both sides. You cant stand up for something without knowing every angle of it and then you can choose the angle you want to be associated with. The filter bubble blocks this from happening which creates uneducated arguments over topics that can change friendships or how someone is viewed at work.

7. The Utopian views of the internet came from the freedom it provided and with it being created for the people by the people. That was until Edward Snowden brought documents up from the NSA or National Security Agency that showed how much the government tracks and stores the information in categories created by algorithms that allow easy sharing throughout government branches. The biggest influence or most significant event that allowed the government to track individuals online came on September 9th, 2001. When the first foreign terrorist attack happened on United States soil, the public was scared and fearful of another. This allowed the Bush administration to write out a very vague act known as the Patriot Act in order to track phone and internet records in case of terrorist activity foreign or domestic. There still is a line between private and security but if you think using technology has anything to do with it, your wrong. Phone records and internet searches were already kept by your provider when you sign a contract with them and they by law have to give that to a government agency if they have a warrant for it. All the act did was skip this step. The only way to truly be private is to be private. Don’t post anything on social media or text the world information you aren’t willing to show a stranger. Its that simple. Keep to yourself with information you want private and only use the oldest technology we have which is our voice. Talk to someone you want to share personal things with in a personal space, that is how you can be sure your information is private.  In regards to top down and bottom up data it is simple. The top is controlling the way down where the bottom wants to use the data to solve issues caused primarily by the top. I truly do not have a problem with how the internet and our lives are monitored. I am safe and largely in part to some of these practices. Every country does it with or without permission, at least our politicians were smart enough to use our fears against use and give them legal reason to do it. A good idea of the advancement and the safety we have is the new surveillance technology in New York City. Every camera is connected and grids can be activated in order to find someone who committed a crime based on vague details from the victim. This allows Officers and government to take action with the knowledge and force needed to keep them safe and lower the crime rates. This is a good thing and smart technology but protesters across the country in cities who are trying to implement this are turning uneducated people away by claiming the loss of privacy. You are not private unless you are off the grid, don’t think of it any other way.

DO NOT TRACK PART 2

Avoiding getting Hacked

There isn’t really a way for you to not be hacked, you can however prevent the hacking. There are many steps you can take that will make it difficult for a hacker and thus making it so that they decide it’s not worth it or the hacker will look for an easier target. There are apps and sites that store your passwords for you in order for you to be able to quickly access them if you forgot them but the main way to protect yourself is to be smart when it comes to technology and your accounts. The biggest suggestion given on articles about preventing someone from hacking is to make your password longer with numbers and symbols. This will give you a hard password to guess and turn most hackers away.The price of the items to potentially prevent a hacker is anywhere from free low quality anti-virus to $100 anti-virus software being the most that I could find.

http://www.businessinsider.com/5-ways-to-prevent-your-account-from-being-hacked-2012-8

Surviving Cookies

Cookies are all over the internet and they track where you have been and what you look at. This allows a website to pay other companies in order to promote their products. The best way someone can survive this is to just relax. These can be extremely annoying on certain websites but if you choose to go on sites where the ads and cookies aren’t as bad you will be fine. There are ways in order to stop cookies and limit the amount of cookies that track you but there also is a disadvantage to this. If you stop the cookies or limit them, you won’t be getting the ads about things you may actually want or like and this just adds time onto your browsing and the potential cookies with the different sites. This adds time that can easily be saved if cookies are left on.

If you want to know how to delete your cookies on most computers, I have a link to Wall Street Journals step by step process.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703467304575383203092034876

“You are what you like”

Data mining which is basically the study of someone’s likes and interests and thus allowing the application to provide a story of usage and patterns. Even if you do not have any social media, anytime you log onto some internet source and browse the web, you are creating a profile and you have patterns just like you do with everyday life. You have a morning routine or watch/read the same news from the same sources in typically the same order. This builds that pattern of usage hence the phrase “you are what you like”. This literally means that you have a pattern dependant on what you like and this therefore creates your profile and makes it easy to get to know someone. When you go to the webpage you can think of it like a facebook post. You can ignore it and not go to the page or if it’s an interest and you go onto the page and you like it.

Phone Security

With the technology today, everything is at risk and everyone. Your phone can be your best friend and your worst enemy at the same time. What I mean by this is that you go everywhere with your phone, it knows all about you, and holds some of your most confidential secrets. This has caused the hackers to have a new and easy target. Most people have passwords saved on their phones or auto filled in their account information for banking or their phone company. This causes the loss of a phone to be a loss of identity. There are ways to get rid of this risk though. There is a market for antivirus software for your phone as well as your computer that allows you to feel a little safer. Similar to the anti-virus software for the computer the phone can still provide an access point for a determined hacker. With that being said the average price for mobile and pc combo packs is $45 (what I found from googling smartphone antivirus)

http://www.webroot.com/us/en/home/resources/articles/mobile-security/mobile-how-to-prevent-phone-hacking-and-sleep-like-a-baby-again

Characterized through math

Algorithms allows data to be observed in statistical form and have a result with probability. This is an issue if used in the real world and not for virtual world reasoning. In Chicago the police are working on a technology that resembles the movie “Minority Report” which is a movie about how the future Washington D.C. police department uses oracle like figures who predict a crime before they happen in order to have the police arrest the potential criminal before it happens. This is an issue because it is not plausible. This is basically stereotyping criminals based off of prior records, geographic location, and the crime in the area.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/us/police-program-aims-to-pinpoint-those-most-likely-to-commit-crimes.html?_r=0. This would mean that the technology would have to be able to tap into everyone in the areas mind and be able to determine what is actual thought of a crime or what is just a thought in the instance. Ways to keep away from algorithms is to use a tor browser which is a browser that completely hides all of your activity. This was used by a woman name Janet Vertesi in order to hide her pregnancy, basically she didn't want to have all of the baby ads and so she hid behind tor browsers. This is one way that you can keep privacy but it is difficult in order to get started.

In the interest of what you use to find information and the algorithms you may be a statistic in, here is a link to the top 10 world dominating algorithms:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-10-algorithms-that-dominate-our-world-1580110464

Filter Bubbles

Eli Parsier cautions consumers to not use the ideology of a filter bubble. This is the act of limiting or narrowing your world views. The only thing that can come from this and the disappearance of mass media without affiliations to viewpoints means that the uneducated masses are now viewing the only side of an issue that they agree on. There are more than one side to a story and the only way that you can be sure you have the real story. Looking at both sides allows for the person to form an opinion based on the viewpoints of both sides as well as the fact that looking at both sides allows for the gathering of all the facts. Facebook allows the continuing of filter bubbles because of how their news feed works. You see what your friends post and share and that typically means it is what you want to see. They do give users the ability to filter out the things they do not want to see or read by blocking the user. This provides the means to create a filter bubble and limit what you see. Unfortunately it is difficult for people to try new things and to break away from what they know even if that is what will allow the world to progress.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles

Future of the Internet

Edward Snowden is very similar to Wikileaks. The release of information that is confidential to the United States where Wikileaks released information about the United States foreign relations, Edward Snowden released information from the NSA. The only change that he brought to the United States was that the government was doing what they always do. The government has always had observations on both foreign grounds and domestic, this isn’t new. The only new thing about it is how it was phrased. Snowden made it seem as if rights were being violated but what the people don’t understand is that the only people to be mad at or blame are those who were able to vote in the early 2000′s. These are the ones who voted the Patriot Act into existence and created what is being seen as a violation of privacy when there really isn’t one.The government asked permission to do it, and the voters passed it. The laws have been changed in recent years to specify exactly what they can look into and collect. There is no such thing as privacy if you are willing to put it online. That is the best answer you can discover and the only way to be safe is to stay disconnected. The future of privacy is that there will be none, either it will be without the consumers knowledge or it will be with the permission but the governments of the world and the internet itself will control how we act and operate.