After this weeks workshop and the discussion of Terms and Conditions, as well as Privacy Policies of large use websites I was a little curious about how easily we could access other people's information without the need of hacking an account. It turns out it's not that hard.
This article looks at a speech by Steven Rambam, director of the Pallorium Investigative Agency, given in July 2008 at the Last HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference. "Anything you put on the Internet will be grabbed, indexed, cataloged, and out of your control before you know it.." sums up his feelings on the matter. As a private investigator he used to hunt for information in many time consuming ways, but now everything is available at the click of a mouse button. Not just for him but for anyone that has an internet connection and the desire to look. “"Dominos has built the biggest consumer database in America," and the U.S. Marshall's Service, the New York Police Department and collection agencies are using it to track people down, Rambam said.” Who thought that they were just getting a pizza?
Many of us wouldn't have thought that with profiles up on Face Book and using other online sources we were remaining completely anonymous, but this article not only points out all the different places our information could be kept and used, but also how easy it is to find. You can extrapolate from this information, all neatly put together in one article, as a good hard look at the information you put out there and how much of it do you really want known by the public. Most of us don't mind with a lot of our details what gets shared around, but I for one didn't know about Face Book Phonebook, and that anyone of my Face Book friends, could access my mobile number by me not changing the default settings to self only.
Another point he raises is the locatability of people through their mobile phones. The government wont have to use microchips under our skin to keep track of us in the future, they will just need our mobile numbers. Or the continuous placing of security cameras in hidden areas can keep track of our movements without us noticing.
If you're not a criminal then does it really matter how much of what you say or do gets out there? You don't have anything to hide. There is the thought though, that potential employers could look at your Flickr account, see what you get up to on weekends, and decided to go with another applicant. Or the potential for an online stalker becoming a real life stalker and tracking you down.
Rambam is a P.I., but anyone with basic internet skills can do half of what he does, no sweat. Ultimately, unless we move somewhere without electricity and phones, we will keep using the internet. The onus is on us, to determine how much of our personal information we want floating around online, and how much we think that may effect our lives. If we take simple precautions when using the internet, like not given personal details out to strangers in chat rooms, then our information, and potential safety of ourselves can be assured.
Here is a link to osportfolio.org summing up the points this article makes, but in a one and a half minute video, with a catchy beat, and accented female voice over. It has one message "are you in control?".
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