Where is the Privacy? [Extra Credit]

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-15/business/38558739_1_gamma-international-privacy-international-software

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/24/kaspersky_mobile_malware_infosec/

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-apple-siri-queries-20130419,0,7117017.story

All this news about our personal life going on the “cloud” gets me worried. Are we making our private lives public or are we being made to make it public?

That’s a tough question. On one hand, we have our social networking websites, where we intentionally upload every moment of our lives online; pictures, status updates, videos. We want people to know about us. Deeper analysis shows that stalkers, who we’re not aware of, can dig deep into our personal life. On the other hand, we have software such as Siri that record what we say, whether we like it or not. There are also various reports on governments using spying devices in people’s phones that tap into their conversations. Who is to be blamed for this? Our technology or our government? Or ourselves? Or is anyone to be blamed at all?

These cloud services come with advantages and disadvantages. They help us communicate better. Today, we are easily able to find anything over the internet, we are able to locate people easily and we can keep in touch with everyone, everywhere at once. Another significant advantage is the security that all this provides. Every action of an individual can be tracked and hence this can be used to provide security to not only keep people from harm but also convict the guilty. But moving over to the disadvantages, do people really want their government to know about every breathe they take? Another critical issue concerning technology is cybercrime, what if our information ends up in the wrong hands?

All these questions leave us in doubt of whether this rapid technology growth is a boon or a bane.