Tech Musing #3
Juwen Zhang
Few weeks ago I watched a
panel discussion of privacy held in UA, and the movie CitizonFour last week. In
relate with recent debate about Apple vs. FBI case, the question about whether
people should concede their privacy when security were in danger was proposed
again. I have read many articles either from my classmates sharing or online
sources, and I have started to think that why government wants to monitor the
internet and if it is really for security why people being so aggressive to
this behavior.
“The commercialization of
Internet has changed the Internet”, Professor Chomsky mentioned that Internet
used to be a principle in lab but now has been commercialized. The role of
Internet played in today’s society is more like a profit generator in
marketing, economic and finance perspective. It is true that government may
want to prevent criminal usage from the Internet by control, intercept, and
monitor activities from each individual, but they were also trying to bound
people’s mind in a somewhat inappropriate manner.
Parts of the documents that
Snowden revealed includes a list of Internet giant companies who cooperates and
helps government to intercept users’ activity, including Google, Facebook,
Apple and some other companies that people use their service all the time.
According to those metadata, government will know what you have purchased, who
you have talked, where you have been, and by collecting all those kinds of data
they will know your entire life and you will never know they knew it.
Some thoughts beyond this
topic has came into my mind, with regard to the most recent document
disclosure, the Panama Papers, it reveals even more formidable data that many
top 1% authorities get involved. Some of the Chinese top authority also get
involved, but we did not see any news about it from Chinese media and most of
people in main land China does not even know the disclosure. Chinese people has
always been controlled in Internet activity, the government block Google,
Facebook and Twitter in China main land, instead, they have their own way to
monitor and control the public opinion among social medias by either blocking
foreign medias or intercept Internet activities, and we don’t know the answer.
It is important for us to understand
both security and privacy with regard to different situation. The policy in
different country may varies, but the importance of rights to speak in
different country is the same. I was impressed when Edward Snowden said that “The
privacy is more like a digital self, people would love to share their lives on
Internet, but would not appreciate if there is someone watching them behind the
wall”. We could not expect there will be people like Snowden in China or in
some other countries, but what we can expect is to let more people know the
main topic about privacy and security thus they will no longer be misled by the
media.
Excellent comments, Juwen. I happen to think that most humans, no matter what country they are from, have very short memories about these events. If people cared about the government monitoring their activities, they would encrypt their emails, use firewalls, change their passwords more frequently, stop using the SAME passwords. Little things. I'm not sure this will have much effect on the Chinese mainland, but it is at least one small step... Tech companies have since changed their tune - most have at least - because their behavior was so morally questionable. They knew it then, but figured no one would find out. Never say never.
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