I am definitely one of the people who left Internet Security for someone else to figure out. Before researching the topic I figured all the sites and devices I used had to be somewhat safe and private due to my lack of knowledge on this situation. After a few Internet searches and researches on the topic, I realized I was completely wrong. Not every little thing we say and do can be completely recorded but a majority of the metadata can. Which come to find out is a lot of the times the most important part. If your wondering what Metadata is, it is a set of data that describes and gives information about other data. It may seem kind of vague when first trying to entail what that actually means but it is exactly what it says it is. For example, during a phone call a set of data would be the actual conversation itself. So the metadata on that phone call would be the sender and receiver of the phone call, duration of the call, where the call originated from, and where the call was received from.
Yes, there are plenty of ways to try to obtain perfect privacy but ultimately is that even possible? One thing you can do as a user of the Internet is to make sure you are connected to a secure Wi-Fi. Searching private information at a local Starbucks would not be a good thing for you to do. The most discouraging part is that you could be at your house browsing through your secure Wi-Fi system and thousands of miles away a hacker could still obtain your metadata if not even more. According to Seth Schoen of The Electronic Frontier Foundation's senior staff technologist put it, "Someone spying on you can still figure out a lot from your location, the timing and volume of your communications, and who you communicated with." For that reason, companies like Silent Circle and possibly Lavabit recently announced they would be exiting the secure email business. Both of those companies strive to obtain perfectly secure email and apparently they don't think it is possible either.
If email and desktops are not secure, are cellphones? Not even close, phone technologies used in the U.S encrypt the audio of your conversation, but decrypt it once it hits the telephone network. Through that process, hackers or law enforcement can intercept your information at any number of places. Not to mention, by using cellphones you could either be tracked by cell towers constantly or secretly listened to by some voice command bot. So yes, there are plenty of known privacy leaks in today's smartphones. If you do want privacy while talking on the phone you could use the app Silent Voice, which uses an end-to-end encrypted channel between two phones. Downside of that is the hefty price that comes with the app, $120 per year and for a lot of people that is a hard sell.
So for the meantime while Internet privacy is not completely private, what can we do? Yah a few downloads of Internet Security programs or settings on your smartphone could help you keep a low profile, but until the next generation privacy tools hit your best bet for a confidential conversation would be to just do it the old fashion way (in person).
"'Perfect Privacy'? In Internet Communication, That Doesn't Exist." NBC News. 27 August 2013. Web. 1 Sept. 2013
It's amazing how much information companies and the government can get without us even knowing. It always amazes me when I go on a website and then there is an advertisement for the product I was looking at on my facebook. The connections these companies make may be for marketing, but at some point it will go to far. As technology advances it seems like our lives become less private.
ReplyDeleteVery true, and it is very hard to determine where to draw the line in internet privacy. What becomes too much is unknown at the time and only time will tell.
DeleteYour blog was very informative. With the app Silent Voice, does our government still have the ability to collect metadata from your calls? It seems like with all the concern and outrage over what information the government is collecting from our phone calls there would be other apps that block metadata from being collected. Are there mentions of any other apps or services that will help stop the collection of metadata?
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good question, I am not exactly sure if the Silent Voice app can stop the government from receiving our metadata or if it just stops corporations from getting the metadata. I will try to do a little more research and get back to you.
DeleteI have always been somewhat worried about computer security, even on a mac. It seems to be a never-ending battle between the security programs and the hackers. I've never heard of the Silent Voice app. The $120 per year is very expensive, but for some people their information may be worth a lot more.
ReplyDeleteYah exactly, a lot of people don't worry about their privacy until it is too late. The silent voice app seems like a good idea but the price is definitely a little too much for me at the time.
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