Privacy, Online &
Off
Your
online footprint is something that is very permanent. Therefore, you must be
very careful what you put online. What most people do not realize is what goes
online stays there forever. Throughout the many different Ted Talks that I
watched for this blog it made it even more apparent just how careful you must
be.
In the first Ted Talk, by Juan Enriquez, he compares your online footprint to tattoos. This is because what you post online is just as permanent as getting a tattoo. The only difference is that when you die, your tattoo dies with you, but your “online tattoo” does not. This is a scary thing to think about. From someone who loves tattoos, and I have many myself, I realize how important the decision-making process is when deciding what to put on your body. I take years to decide what tattoos I want but have never took the time to decide what I put online. Although I have been very careful not to put anything too bad online, you can still find some slightly inappropriate pictures of me. Maybe I need to think a little more carefully about what I post going forward.
Catherine
Crump’s Ted Talk talked primarily about the power that police stations and
government agencies have. They are using license plate readers and cell towers
to uncover locations and tendencies of all citizens. They may claim this is for
their citizens protection, and that it may one day become useful, but really it
us just them constantly spying on us. Yes, it is important to find the locations
of wanted criminals, but to do so for innocent civilians is simply wrong. Why
should the government be allowed this power? They should not, but there is
little that we can do about it now.
In Cristopher
Soghoian Ted Talk is about telecommunication companies recording all our calls
and texts. He explains that these companies have done this for our protection,
but it has simply gone too far. There are benefits of this like spying on terrorists
and other national security threats, but there are also negatives. Hackers can
easily gain access to this information as well. So, while they may be
protecting us from threats to our safety, it is our privacy that is being
attacked. He claims, and I agree, that the negatives of this power outweigh the
positives.
The most important things to take
from these Ted Talks is to be careful what you put online, and to understand
that you are always being watched. Today the government has a lot of power and
is constantly able to spy on its citizens. There is not much we can do about it
but being more cognizant of what we do online can help protect us moving
forward.
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