homeland security

I use Facebook. Primarily to promote my blogs and myself (shameless, yes, I am...). And of course I enjoy being a bit of a critic too.

Especially when it comes to the huge amount of Facebook apps, I am worried. Not about the applications themselves, but by the way people uses them without any criticism and understanding of how they give away information about themselves and their network.



Of course it is fun that friends decides to throw virtual snowballs at you, vote you the most hansom in their network, want to add your birthday to their calendar and so forth. And what is even nicer is that the fact that your friends does this to you means that you have a certain popularity. And being popular is always nice, and as result, you will lower your guard. And by lowering your guards, you become an easy target - not a target of those friends trying to hit you with a snowball, but a target of those creating applications only to harvest information about

• you, your networks,
  
• your whereabouts,
  
• interests,
  
• religion,
  
• political views,
  
• who you know,
  
• who you communicate with most,
  
• how you communicate,
  
• what you say
• to whom you say it
• and so forth...
  

Sometimes I tell my contacts that I block most applications on Facebook. Other times I do not. I just click the "Block this application". And yes, I accept that by doing so, I risk to be received as a boring old man. And I am, when it comes to my privacy. As long as I do not know who is getting my information, how they use it, for how long they will keep it and whether or not I can trust them, I keep the information to my self.

And when it comes to the applications on Facebook, they may have been developed by a fanatic hacker who is out to cash in on selling your information to the highest bidder. They may also be developed by the order of a foreign (or allied) state, harvesting intelligence about their own people, or people in a target state.

Most of us have read the 1984 by George Orwell. And most of us have some idea of what was going on during the cold war (and most other wars) - governments collected information about everyone, because everyone could be a terrorist, could be working for the enemy, could have ideas and views opposing the "accepted values".

And this still goes on in the war on terrorists - it is extremely easy to show up on the "radar", but to clear your name may turn out to be very hard - as opposed to the publicly accepted principles of justice, when it comes to war, you no longer need to be proven guilty. It is more than enough to be suspected.

Using the Internet to gather this type of information is so easy that former surveillance officers are wetting their pants. And the ease which they are lullying all of us into the safety of surveillance is alarming. Hiding surveillance as nice-to-have tools - like video surveillance to stop thiefes lifting your pocket on the street (who believes that the camera really stops someone picking you pocket anyway???), GPS devices on phones to help you find your way (giving away your exact position and target to Google and who know how many others...), fraud detection systems in the banks (following your every movement and the shops you visit - in real time).

The list goes on forever. And we accept it. It is so easy to accept. It has become a habit. Something we just do. Just like when Facebook shows us their privacy policy and user agreements. No need to read it through, just click "I accept this" - whatever it says. And that is what most of us do. Just accept it.

We choose to trust this application with our most personal information - including pictures from parties, our current moods, our social life, interests. You name it, and you will find it.



I do not enjoy virtual snowballs. I prefer the real thing. Then you know what hits you. And when. You can wipe your neck, and move on. With the virtual snowballs you have no control, and you have no idea what will hit you and when. All you know is that having fun with your friends comes with a price, and that price is sharing your privacy information. To someone else but your friend. Someone is using your friend to trick you to give away valuable information that may make of break your future.

I have nothing against snowball wars amongst friends. I'll take your challenge any day. As long as we use real snow!

On a side note - enjoy this lovestory!

Larko pointed me to this global rating about freedom of press. It seems I live in a country where we have the de facto standard. Which is nice of course. But turning attention to the other end of the list is not fun reading.

List includes:

• Norway & Iceland - 1. place, with 0,75 points

Which probably means that as long as I stay here, I can keep up writing whatever I feel like. Darn, there go my international career!

• USA at place 48. with 14.5 points

A large amount of my readers are located there, as are many bloggers. I bet you guys will work to raise the US on the list. Particular events like these:

"There were slightly fewer press freedom violations in the United States (48th) and blogger Josh Wolf was freed after 224 days in prison. But the detention of Al-Jazeera’s Sudanese cameraman, Sami Al-Haj, since 13 June 2002 at the military base of Guantanamo and the murder of Chauncey Bailey in Oakland in August mean the United States is still unable to join the lead group."

will hopefully put your focus on working against censorship.

 

• It seems there are more freedom of press in Europe & Australia than anywhere else in the world

• China & Burma is almost at the bottom of the list, together with Iran, Eritrea and North Korea(No surprise there)

It is friday. Time for a laugh. I picked this YouTube up on Mitchell Ashley's blog.

Ever wondered about the new airport security? Wonder no more. The Homeland dep. have more questions than answers, and they only employ the cream-de-la-cream as their security staff. As I've said before, the airport security only serves as a security show-off, and I believe it actually makes it less safe to travel as everyone - and I mean everyone - gets annoyed and angry.

Time for your weekend laugh. Now you know why there are long lines at the airport!

 

 

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzqFz_nHZE