Tag Archives: privacy

Security Blanket

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"The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield."

"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

"When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

– Thomas Jefferson

Fighting Terrorism Without Sacrificing Privacy
People submit to invasive technology because it makes them feel safer, but that’s all it’s doing, security expert says.
By Nancy Weil

"LAS VEGAS — In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks people have been willing to accept invasive technological measures officials contend are being used to thwart terrorism not because those technologies will actually accomplish that goal–because they won’t–but because they help us feel safer, author and lawyer Jeffrey Rosen said here Tuesday."

Ministry of Information (MiniInf)

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Stop the Government Plan to Mine our Privacy

Recent media reports have revealed that a little-known Defense Department office is developing a computer system called “Total Information Awareness” that threatens to turn us all into “suspects” without proof of criminal wrongdoing.

Not only do Big Brother warning alarms go off with this one, but a few others as well. I’m no Masonic conspiracy nut, but the logo for the Information Awareness Office freaked me out.

For Your Eyes Only

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Anonymizer.com Boosts Privacy Service
Version 2 further cloaks your Internet travels, and now tames JavaScripts.
Tom Mainelli

"The advantages of Anonymizer are clear for people, companies, and even governments that deal in highly sensitive information. But what do Joe and Jane Surfer have to hide?"

"It's more complicated than that, Cottrell says. It is true that subscribers can use the service to keep their employers from seeing what they're doing online at work. And it can help you hide a browser's true history from your significant other. But Anonymizer's mission is to protect your information from the outside world, he says. This is especially true with the explosion of spyware on the Web. "

Live in PA? Stop Phone Spam NOW!

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State debuts its ‘do-not-call’ list
The aim is to provide protection from those pesky telemarketers

Linda Och of Knoxville was thrilled yesterday to put her name on the new statewide “do not call” list. It means that she no longer has to screen her telephone calls to avoid those annoying telemarketers. She had been getting as many as 30 calls a day. One came on Christmas Eve. She said a phone salesman lured her into a credit card scam that cost her $400. Never again. “We’re all victims of telemarketers, I think,” she said as she registered her phone number on the do-not-call list. “This is the best thing since sliced bread. I’m thrilled.”

To complement this wonderful service, we need the following:

  1. the other 49 states to follow suit
  2. a “Do Not Email” list to deter unsolicited email marketing spam
  3. a “Do Not Snail Mail” list – see above

Privacy or Paranoia?

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Net Users Try to Elude the Google Grasp
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

THE Internet has reminded Camberley Crick that there are disadvantages to having a distinctive name. In June, Ms. Crick, 24, who works part time as a computer tutor, went to a Manhattan apartment to help a 40-something man learn Windows XP. After their session, the man pulled out a half-inch stack of printouts of Web pages he said he had found by typing Ms. Crick’s name into Google, the popular search engine.

“You’ve been a busy bee,” she says he joked. Among the things he had found were her family Web site, a computer game she had designed for a freshman college class, a program from a concert she had performed in and a short story she wrote in elementary school called “Timmy the Turtle.”

“He seemed to know an awful lot about me,” Ms. Crick said, including the names of her siblings. “In the back of my mind, I was thinking I should leave soon.”

When she got home, she immediately removed some information from the family Web site, including the turtle story, which her father had posted in 1995, “when the Web was more innocent,” she said. But then she discovered that a copy of the story remains available through Google’s database of archived Web pages. “You can’t remove pieces of yourself from the Web,” Ms. Crick said.

I don’t like having my privacy invaded any more than the next guy, but people have to realize that if you post something on the web, it’s published for the world to see. Don’t be so shocked when people know all your intimate details. It’s your own fault for positing a “dear diary” weblog. Also, why does Google have to be implicated in this? They don’t deserve bad press just for being the best search engine on the web.