Spy Master K
So, I'm sitting in the school computer lab while my students busily type away on memoirs they are writing for class. Why, you ask, am I not up making sure they aren't surfing porn or gambling online?
The answer is simple. I can see every screen from the comfort of my monitor. We have a program called NetOp on the instructor console. This lovely little program allows me to see all screens in the lab at once. It's fun to play with, but I feel like Big Brother. I can change the font color and start typing on their documents making them think their computers are possessed.
It's also a little disturbing. What guarantee do we have that the government will not one day do "sneak and peek" on our computers the way they can invade our homes under the Patriot Act? And what right does corporate America have to find out so much information about me that I get ads targeted to my interests on my Yahoo Mail login page? I don't often get paranoid, but NetOp freaks me out. What if the powers-that-be at SBC decide to do market research by surfing the desktops and documents of its subscriber's computers? OnStar, the popular new automobile feature touted as the "in-vehicle safety and security system", also freaks me out. The automobile industry now knows exactly where and when we operate our vehicles.
M.H. thinks that we are conditioned to be paranoid that the government can get too much information about us. And she has a point. If I have nothing to hide, why should I care who's looking?
Nevertheless, the potential invasion of my privacy by snooping FBI gumshoes or corporate researchers leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
posted by Sarah @ 12:43
2 comments
2 Comments:
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I've been juggling the privacy question for awhile. Aside from the question of what do you have to hide, you have to wonder what do they care about you? SBC isn't about to start a blog about all the websites you visited this week as entertainment for the entire world.
Corporations track this information anonymously. Let's put it this way, does it really bother you more that you get targeted Spam than if you just got regular Spam? Or could the commercial value be just what it is, a value, that you could opt out of if you really wanted.
On the goverment side, it all depends on how this information is used. If they are tracking criminals, I think we're all on board. It's the fear that the government will use this to consolidate its power by pressuring dissidents that worries most privacy advocates. I think that recognizing this risk, with enough safeguards in place, we should be fine.
And I think the world would be better off if we could track the movement of everybody in the USA. I bet terrorists would have a seriously hard time sneaking around. But this is your post, and I don't want to takeover.
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