Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
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Once upon a time there was a wonderful thing called privacy.
Whenever you wanted to be alone with your thoughts, or do something without
anyone else in the whole world knowing, you could do so.
Unfortunately those days are all but gone and every day we seem to lose
a little more privacy, our every move and action coming under a little more
surveillance and scrutiny.
Much of this erosion in our privacy is being driven by governments who
appear to gleefully be using "The War Against Terrorism" as an excuse
for passing laws that give them greater rights to poke their nose into
your and my lives.
Check Out The Aardvark PC-Based Digital
Entertainment Centre Project
Updated 2-Dec-2002
The desire to regulate ISPs and force them to track the online activities
and content of data exchanged through the Internet is just one example
of this.
And, unfortunately, although technology has become our friend in this modern
day and age, it has also become a major threat to privacy.
Take this story
published by the NZ Herald for example.
Just a few short years ago there would be no point in the police, SIS or
anyone else requesting more powers to remotely track the location of
those it suspected of terrorism or crime. That's because there was no such
thing as a match-box sized GPS receiver and cellphones were rare beasts.
But it's not just government that is using technology to destroy your privacy.
Things such as "spyware", which are small programs or parts of programs that
monitor your online activities by covertly running on your PC, are now an
everyday "find" on people's PCs.
Service technicians I've spoken with say that it's not uncommon to find customers
complaining that their computers are not running properly -- only to discover
that there are quite literally dozens of spyware processes running -- chewing
up valuable memory and bandwidth.
And now there's another threat to your privacy -- those tiny little spy cameras
that were, until recently, just another fictitious creation of movie-makers.
However, search for the term
wireless camera
on eBay and look what you find.
You can now buy tiny little cameras, about the size of a 10-cent piece, which
will broadcast a color video signal over distances of up to 300 metres. What's
more, these cameras and the associated receiver, can be purchased for as little
as NZ$100.
The lens on some of these tiny cameras is so small that they can be concealed
within every-day objects, requiring just the tiniest of holes through which
to peek.
Hey, maybe you're being watched by your boss right now -- and are you sure
you're alone in your bathroom or bedroom?
So it looks as if privacy is now just a memory we'll just tell our kids about and it
may be something which, thanks to technology and government paranoia, they
may never get to experience for themselves.
Is this almost total loss of privacy to government and others just too great
a price to pay for increased public safety?
I don't know about you, but I think the cure is worse than the complaint.
Yes, You Can Donate
Although the very kind folks at iHug continue to generously sponsor the
publication of Aardvark, the bills still exceed the income by a fairly
significant amount. It is with this in mind therefore that I'm once
again soliciting donations from anyone who feels they're getting some
value from this daily column and news index. I've gone the PayPal
way of accepting donations because the time involved in processing a bunch
of little credit-card billings sometimes exceeds the monetary value they
represent. Just click on the button to donate whatever you can afford.
NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally donate twice
what you were intending :-)
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in this column. If you'd like your comments published here then please
be sure to use this form and select For Publication.
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