Quotes About Privacy

I used to say that Google knows more about what I'm thinking of than my wife does. But that doesn't go far enough. Google knows more about what I'm thinking of than I do, because Google remembers all of it perfectly and forever.

Embedded in digital photos is information such as the date, time, and location—yes, many cameras have GPS—of the photo's capture; generic information about the camera, lens, and settings; and an ID number of the camera itself. If you upload the photo to the web, that information often remains attached to the file.

Privacy is not a luxury that we can only afford in times of safety. Instead, it's a value to be preserved. It's essential for liberty, autonomy, and human dignity. We must understand that privacy is not something to be traded away in some fearful attempt to guarantee security, but something to maintain and protect in order to have real security. None of this will happen without a change of attitude. In the end, we'll get the privacy we as a society demand and not a bit more.

Surveillance is the business model of the Internet for two primary reasons: people like free, and people like convenient. The truth is, though, that people aren't given much of a choice. It's either surveillance or nothing, and the surveillance is conveniently invisible so you don't have to think about it.

The world now knows that US telcos give the NSA access to the Internet backbone and that US cloud providers give it access to user accounts.

The most insidious RATs can turn your computer's camera on without turning the indicator light on. Not all ratters extort their victims; some just trade photos, videos, and files with each other.

Retail store surveillance systems register our presence, even if we are doing nothing but browsing and even if we pay for everything in cash.

The only reason we know this story is that Levison ran his own company. He had no corporate masters. He had no shareholders. He was able to destroy his own business for moral reasons.

This is why regulation based on the concept of "personally identifying information" doesn't work. PII is usually defined as a name, unique account number, and so on, and special rules apply to it. But PII is also about the amount of data; the more information someone has about you, even anonymous information, the easier it is for her to identify you.

Post-9/11 surveillance has caused writers to self-censor. They avoid writing about and researching certain subjects; they're careful about communicating with sources, colleagues, or friends abroad.

How did he know that?" we ask. How did I lose control of who knows about my traumatic childhood, my penchant for tasteless humor, or my vacation to the Dominican Republic? You may know this feeling: you felt it when your mother friended you on Facebook, or on any other social networking site that used to be just you and your friends. Privacy violations are intrusions.

Apple has a worldwide database of Wi-Fi passwords, including my home network's, from people backing up their iPhones.

For example, we know that the US government convinced Skype—through bribery, coercion, threat, or legal compulsion—to make changes in how the program operates, to facilitate eavesdropping.

You can load your own documents onto your Kindle, but Amazon is able to delete books it has already sold you. In 2009, Amazon automatically deleted some editions of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four from users' Kindles because of a copyright issue. I know, you just couldn't write this stuff any more ironically.

Already law enforcement agencies make use of predictive analytic tools to identify suspects and direct investigations. It's a short step from there to the world of Big Brother and thoughtcrime.

Opting out just isn't a viable choice for most of us, most of the time; it violates what have become very real norms of contemporary life.

And before any of that can happen, there must be some major changes in the way society views and values privacy, security, liberty, trust, and a handful of other abstract concepts that are defining this

The UK company Cobham sells a system that allows someone to send a "blind" call to a phone—one that doesn't ring, and isn't detectable. The blind call forces the phone to transmit on a certain frequency, allowing the sender to track that phone to within one meter.

But when it comes to governments, unhappy as I am to say it, I would rather be eavesdropped on by the US government than by many other regimes.

Two of the NSA's internal databases, code-named HAPPYFOOT and FASCIA, contain comprehensive location information of devices worldwide. The NSA uses the databases to track people's movements, identify people who associate with people of interest, and target drone strikes.

The bargain you make, again and again, with various companies is surveillance in exchange for free service.

our personal information is being bought and sold without our knowledge and consent.

Snowden put it like this in an online Q&A in 2013: "Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.

Given current laws, trust is our only option.