Privacy On & Offline: What You Should Know

 Privacy On & Offline: What You Should Know

Technology is evolving more and more each and every day and keep in mind, “just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there” (Catherine Crump, 2014, 5:03). In Crump’s TEDTalk, The Small and Surprisingly Dangerous Detail the Police Track About You, she brings attention to the way police track, everyday people. Whether or not a person raises suspicion, they are still tracked and that information is stored in a database. This database holds photographs, phone records and other information about seemingly innocent people. No one is safe from this type of tracking and it is not something new. For more than 100 years, phone companies have provided wiretapping assistance to governments. Christopher Soghoian says in his TEDTalk on How to Avoid Surveillance With The Phone in Your Pocket, that “our telephones and the networks that carry our calls were wired for surveillance first. First and foremost” (0:35). This means someone could be listening to your phone calls, this person could be someone within one’s own government or another, it could even be a second or third party.

You may be thinking: how can I stay safe in a world with little to no privacy? Encryption. Encryption makes it harder for wiretapping to happen. Soghoian suggests using the tools right at the fingertips of many: Facetime, iMessage, and WhatsApp. All three of these communication systems are safe and cannot be monitored. Even Apple says they cannot break into these conversations due to their default encryption. Of course, there is always a backdoor and the encryptions can be broken but for the average person, it is a great tool to keep your conversations private.

TEDTalk links:

Catherine Crump: https://www.ted.com/talks/catherine_crump_the_small_and_surprisingly_dangerous_detail_the_police_track_about_you?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Christopher Soghoian:

https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_soghoian_how_to_avoid_surveillance_with_the_phone_in_your_pocket?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Photo credits:

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Big-Brother-is-Watching-You-1984-by-oliveribanez/47437697.LVTDI