Privacy Controls

I am torn on how I feel about CEO Eric Schmidt's statement. On one hand, my personal adult hand, I feel that my privacy should be kept private. However, on the other, my mother hand, I feel that my children may be somewhat more protected from predators whose privacy is not protected.
Personally, when I think of where I would like my privacy protected I think of online banking, credit cards, and bill payment. I do not feel those should be public at all. However, online sights such as facebook, twitter, etc. I feel unsure if any or how much should be public. If these sights were to become public then, yes it may be easier to identify and turn in predators. However, the majority of predators would be informed of the change and find a new avenue of approach. Not to mention, now all or some of my children's information would now be public to view.
It is a tough call. I think that the thought was with good intention but the action may give adverse results. People, myself included, also begin to feel with the loosening of privacy controls we as a society are losing more and more of our freedoms. To have someone, anyone, tell you what is allowed to kept private and what is not, is a personal violation. I fear what is next? If the government is allowed to remove your privacy on the web, then where will they focus next?

Privacy in the Digital Frontier

My whole take on the loosening of privacy controls and more open displays of information on the web is that if one is uncomfortable with the information being presented, then don't give that information out to others. Once you decide that you are willingly going to share something with another individual, business, website, third party, or whatever, it is your responsibility to realize that that information is no longer in your control and is no longer "private". For sites such as facebook, there is a very long EULA which I'm sure nobody reads, that spells out everything, including how they handle your personal data (they do a lot with it!), and by simply using their service you are agreeing to let them do as they please just as it is spelled out.

The internet itself is dreamed of and often described as a place of limitless and unrestricted access to information, yet so many people believe they have a right to privacy when entering into this domain. Nobody is forcing us to use the internet, make blog posts, check facebook, and post on our favorite websites. Yet we do anyway because it is an enjoyable pastime. The idea of facebook itself is one of you (the user) having special access to other users' personal information, ideas, photographs, and so on in the form of them being called your "friends". The act of using facebook is one of willingly and knowingly invading the privacy of others that many fight to protect, though they too engage in these kinds of behaviors. I know hypocrisy doesn't make an argument invalid, but I feel that so many people ignore the benefits they reap from accessing others' information as well.

What it all comes down to is this: if you don't want your information out there, don't put it out there. If you want to remain as "private" as possible, then stay off the internet and keep out of others' private matters as well. If you just can't keep yourself offline, then keep a tight lid on what you say and who you say it to, or throw some money down and use the services of Reputation Defender. They'll be more than happy to help for a fee of course.

Play Your Cards Right

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

What an interesting quote. It’s sort of like those sayings, what came first chicken or the egg?

I don’t know if I agree or disagree.

The Internet is definitely not a private place. If you are going to put something online, there is like a default disclaimer you should be aware of - all things are public, post at your own risk. But then you wonder about banking and credit card websites and bill pay online, right? How private is that? It probably isn’t that private but those companies build up their repuations and boost up their security to prove to us they are secure through certifications and spam control and such.

Webster’s dictionary defines private as something intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class. Secret is defined as something kept from knowledge or view. Both are intangible and both essentially mean the same thing but technically they don’t. A secret is usually between two people and privacy can be a general place or group or something in that manner.

The internet is no place for secrets. There is some privacy within security options on websites, like social networking sites, you can block certain things. However, once a picture, or a status, or whatever it may be, has been uploaded on the website, it is also roaming/streaming around the world wide web.

The timeline that was posted showed how we basically went from government watchdogs invading our homes to check for proper MORAL conduct, to a law that allows wiretapping in which government or whomever can listen in on anything and everything we are saying or doing. That is just scary, its not about morals anymore, it's about who knows what first, no matter how dirty you got to get to get the information.

The owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, for instance, everytime there is an update to facebook, the update includes privacy control and basically he wants everything and everyone to put all their information out there, no secrets. To show the world the truths that lay underneath it all. That nothing is really private, allow people to join in. I feel his concept is to make or put all people on the same level of exposure.

So, in other words, how do you feel about some of the loosening of privacy controls and more open displays of what were once considered private behaviors on the web?

I will say that I am not surprised. As our generations grow, there are more and more things that are becoming translucent. We want everything clearly spelled out for us, we don’t want complications. And with those wants comes many other consequences that we have to deal with.

I feel the loosening of the privacy controls and open displays of material once considered private is not a bad thing, because I am one of those people that do not want to be blindsided. I already know that nothing is private anymore, and I feel as long as our personal morals are straight and we are fully aware of the consequence or repercussions of our actions, I don’t see a problem with the loosening of anything. Let people do what they want, I mean, they are going to anyway.

I will leave you with a few sentences from two of our readings that I feel says a lot and goes along with how I feel with all this.

“Most generalizably, youth focus on all that they have to gain when entering into public spaces while adults are thinking about all that they have to lose. Part of the challenge in this is figuring out where someone's at and what their expectations are.”

––––– Danah Boyd

“Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live…We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”

–––– Davos, Switzerland

So basically, the choice is yours. You decide and define what you call and want private or to remain secret. I don't believe people join networks and post scandalous material without knowing what they are doing. it's all a game. Play your cards right. or wrong. what's your motive?

Week 1: Online Privacy Rights

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments about online privacy are disturbing. After reading through the assigned articles, a couple of key points popped into my mind. In Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think," Bush states that the human race needs to keep records of important discoveries and thoughts for future generations to benefit from. He also discusses the problem of finding those records out of the mass of other records. In order to keep and retrieve records on the internet today we need intelligent search engines. To sort and organize the results, it is necessary to gather as much relevant information about the subjects in the records.

A problem arises when an author of a record only intends for a certain audience to retrieve that record in the future. Search engines (such as Google) are designed to grab as much as possible about a subject so that the user can quickly make judgements about that subject, sometimes without even clicking on a link. For example, if someone has been charged with a crime but not convicted (not found guilty), shouldn't Google's results display that the person isn't guilty? Often it wont, potential employers might see that the person has had legal problems and immediately dismiss them as a potential employee.

Another problem with maintaining privacy (while using the internet) is that information is often sent through a maze of different companies that, unlike ARPANET, can harvest that information for their own interests without the public's knowledge or permission. Encryption has helped keep email, passwords, and financial information more secure. However, there is always someone out there with the means to defeat the encryption. Whether that's a government, business, or individual, the internet is certainly (unfortunately) not a place to communicate private matters with the expectation of totally secure transmissions.

Privacy and transparency go hand in hand

Eric Schmidt's claim that "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" demonstrates not only an ignorance toward privacy issues on the internet, but also a flippant insensitivity that's disappointing as CEO of a company who believes that you should "focus on the user and all else will follow" (not to mention their informal corporate slogan, "don't be evil"). In a speech addressing the current state of privacy on the internet, Danah Boyd implored parents to approach their children with an understanding attitude about the dangers of social media, creating a dialog rather than banning these potentially useful tools outright. Schmidt comes across as the reactionary parent who permits their child to use social media on the condition that they never make a mistake. But as Boyd also outlines, privacy issues like the need to hide one's location from an abusive father aren't simple issues of choice. Schmidt refers to things we don't want "anyone" to know, but privacy is more often an issue of controlling who can and cannot gain access to the various elements of our lives. As various writers have suggested, privacy is a manifold idea that encompasses issues like self esteem, physical protection, and the ability to uphold relationships. While it's an ever-shifting term that few can agree on, and who some insist is a useless front-end term for various other rights, it's rarely the case that people want to make their actions entirely private or entirely public. Privacy is not, as Boyd says, a binary value.

Government intrusion isn't the only threat to privacy these days. The architecture of the internet has a huge effect. Web 2.0, as defined by O'Reilly, includes the concept of the "perpetual beta." This means the prevalence of sites that are constantly evolving and improving with user feedback. Privacy is also a shifting and dynamic idea that (according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) may even depend on concepts as tenuous as culture. These sites are better equipped to handle privacy settings in a way that accommodates changing individualized needs. And since the sites that listen to their users tend to be the most successful, we can be assured more privacy. Yet the stakes are higher than ever, as these Web 2.0 sites also rely on crowd sourcing and leveraging their user base to expand. This means users are giving away more data, and the competition for that data is getting fiercer. Some have emphatically stated the need to keep external bodies like government out of our internet, but I think internal sources - the companies keeping our data - should be of equal concern. The problem is largely an issue of transparency. Many users are deeply unaware of what's done with their data once it gets entered. Controls may be overcomplicated, leading to mistakes. Sites like YourOpenBook expose data that people may not know is public (try typing in "my social security number is" for a fun surprise).

With so much of our data out there, things can get confusing.

It's an exciting time for communication, and there's no doubt that sharing our information through the internet has enhanced our lives in some ways. Josh Harris' prediction, as seen in the 2009 documentary We Live in Public, was that people's craving for exposure and recognition would lead to an online information society where the key mode of validation is the most page hits or friend requests. His experiments are fascinating, but he fails in his extremity to realize that even exhibitionists control their image to some degree, and our public version of ourselves is often a different and more finely tuned one than our private version. I think nearly everyone behaves differently in different groups, even among the closest of friends; I would argue everyone has many versions of themselves, each of which has been carefully refined to match the interests of who they are interacting with. Being genuine doesn't mean acting the same around everyone; adapting is human nature, and it's to our best advantage. This is the nature of privacy. This is also the nature of secrecy. Both describe the same intent, whether for malicious reasons or not. Regardless, there are so many benign reasons for privacy that we can't let its protection be outweighed by the need to expose people who are hiding malicious secrets. The stakes may not seem high now, but how long before people start managing really sensitive information - like their finances - on Facebook?

Overall, Vannevar Bush certainly predicted one of the chief uses of the internet in his 1945 piece As We May Think in saying: "man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems." Yet it's that permanence of data (which, it turns out, is hard to get rid of) that makes it a danger for privacy. Something we may feel totally comfortable sharing with the world now could become embarrassing or threatening to our livelihood (such as the ability to get a job) later on. The original purpose of the internet as envisioned by the RAND corporation was to create a decentralized, rugged network that could survive even nuclear attack. The internet we know now certainly follows that principle, and our data too is getting spread around and made all the more permanent because there's no single point of removal should we want it removed. What we need moving forward is more transparency from corporations storing our data. We need to foster a corporate culture of communication and openness with users, allowing them control over what is done with their information. That's not enough, though. As evidenced by the Facebook privacy settings bait-and-switch described by Boyd, a lot of users have control over their privacy, but they're not aware of it. User education also needs to be a high priority task. We need to ask ourselves: how can we educate users better? How can we make data storage more transparent without inundating users with details? As services that use our information continue to expand, let's remember to keep a wary eye on the corporations that are managing it.

Privacy settings should not be diminished!

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

I totally disagree with the statement! We all have the right to do as we please. We have strived (or so we thought!) to have a society as free as possible in which we can conduct our private lives in the manner that best suits us. I should not be intimidated into not scratching by butt cheek in my house because I don’t want people to see me. Well, they can’t see me because my house life is private and nobody intrudes in it. Last time I checked…the Inquisition has been long gone with the Spanish empire.

While searching for definitions of privacy and secrecy certain concepts overlap the two. For instance, discreet, of one’s person, and confidential. Even Google definition uses privacy to describe secret (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=oO0&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&defl=en&q=define:secret&sa=X&ei=uaozTf3LE8GC8gat6MXQCA&ved=0CBMQkAE). Jung-at-heart.com describes Privacy as “the state of being unobserved” and Secrecy as “the act of keeping things hidden” (http://www.jung-at-heart.com/jung_at_heart/private-vs-secret-what-is-t.html). The author states that the difference stems from the “act of choosing boundaries”, in the case of privacy, and “hiding from…disclosing something [potentially incriminating]”, in the case of secrecy (http://www.jung-at-heart.com/jung_at_heart/private-vs-secret-what-is-t.html). Thus, while privacy is a way of preserving our boundaries from others for our well-being or comfort, secrecy is keeping things from other people because we fear retaliation.

The internet is far from being a “private” place but the little privacy we do have under our control should not be diminished. For example, I have the right to write a literary discharge against my employer on my blog and I also have the right to keep people from seeing it by keeping my profile private. Yet, I can’t control someone from my private group sharing this. Nonetheless, at least I should keep the ability to keep certain people or the general online public off my blog. The internet can be a place where careers, lives, marriages, etc. can be ruined. Thus, in my hypothetical example, I should understand the responsibility of bashing my employer and the repercussions if the material is leaked. But I should not be condemned to not having the ability to manipulate my privacy.

Privacy And Secrecy Are Myths

      Here's the deal when it comes to the internet.  Nothing should be trusted and considered "private" or "secret".  At one time we have all entered our Social Security Number, address, birth date, sexuality, phone number, political preference, the list is miles long.  Remember, the internet is an infinite file cabinet.  All that information previously stated existed somewhere in paper form prior to the web, so I ask what is the concern now?  The only thing that comes to mind is speed.  Privacy does not exist when it comes to the internet.  In a matter of seconds I can find "confidential" information about anything or anyone.  It doesn't matter what "privacy" settings are activated on your particular social network site, I can still find ways to see you.  Activities viewed as "private" are not so, but more assumed.  For example, I assume you go to the bathroom, have sex, masturbate, watch pornographic material, and partake in drugs and alcohol.  I just choose not to think about it.
     "Learning who to trust is actually quite hard."-Boyd  It sure is, but there is a simple solution.  Don't trust anyone.  Family, friends, co-workers, randoms, they can all expose you.  You, are the one in control of your online identity.  While personal information may accessible by anyone, how you are perceived online can still be saved.  Just be smart about your approach.  "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."  Keep that thought in the back of your mind next time you are posing in a photo smoking a joint, bonging a beer, snorting blow, or half naked.  Using a search engine for "How To Make A Pipe Bomb," is probably not the best idea either.  Just be smart.  "Privacy," and "secrecy" do not exist when it comes to the internet.  They are myths; words created to make you feel better about your guilty pleasures.