Internet Privacy – No Thanks

Orwell’s 1984 is reality now - Big Brother is watching you!

Data mining and online surveillance are reality. Someone watches your every click whether you shop, socialize, use email or just research “stuff”. Sophisticated software analyzes the data in hope to find patterns of behavior and identify potential terrorists. No, I’m not kidding, terrorists use the internet to communicate their plans with practically no chance of detection. I wonder how many innocent people are tagged as terrorists, is it really worth it? By no means do I want to ignore the terrorist threat but don’t we have a right to privacy? Watch the video Data Mining for Terrorists and Innocents and decide for yourself. How much further will it go?

Daily, thousands of spam emails and ads commute on the internet highway, where do these people get our email addresses? Have you ever noticed when you unsubscribed from one “solicitor” you get bombarded with more emails from others? How come they don’t use high-tech software to identify those terrorists? They hijack our email addresses and solicit every second, with each click; I wonder what behavior pattern those spam bombs produce? Plus, it’s solicitation illegal? I guess only on the streets, must not apply for the data highway. Surprisingly spam filter are not as advanced as anti-terrorist technology. All that data analysis for terrorist watch lists, amazing we can’t get a simple do-not-email list legalized.

References

Christina, V. V., Karpagavalli, S. S., & Suganya, G. G. (2010). Email Spam Filtering using Supervised Machine Learning Techniques. International Journal On Computer Science & Engineering, 3126-3129.

Laudon, K. & Laudon, J. (2012). Management Information Systems: Managing the digital Firm (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall.