Week 15: Privacy, Online and Off

The videos that I just watched on privacy have me feeling more inclined to throw my phone out the window than I ever have before. The way that companies, organizations, and world governments are using technology to spy on anyone and everyone is sickening. One TED Talk in particular (which I will link below) had me feeling extremely scared of the small rectangular device sitting next to me as I was watching. The TED Talk from Christopher Soghoian was eye opening to me. His presentation on just how easy it is to wire tap almost any form of communication had me thinking about all of the times that my communications could have been overheard by anonymous parties looking to gain and/or store information about me.

The video goes on to discuss certain applications and platforms that have their data well encrypted so that the threat of wire tappers isn’t as pressing. Particularly Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime features, as well as WhatsApp were among those brought up as privacy-friendly communication platforms. According to the video, the key is that these applications have data encryption on by default. That means that it’s a hell of a lot harder for these companies, organizations, and world governments to see and/or hear what you’re saying/doing. Soghoian brings up an interesting point though. He goes on in the video to discuss the fact that a world with these encryptions over everything is scary thanks to terrorists and anarchists who may have a lot more freedom to harm others. But, a world that takes away the privacy and freedoms of everyone is whole lot scarier. I agree with Soghoian when he says it’s not the kind of world that I want to live in.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni4FV5zL6lM