Why you should care about prism, even if you are not an activist
Whenever I have conversations about privacy on the internets with people other than members of certain political parties (arrr!) the reaction is mostly pretty much the same: I don't care, I don't have anything to hide. The usual answer to this is: but what if the government turns evil? I think this is too small an answer. Here is mine.
When I lived in Iceland, in Blönduós to be precise, I seldom my locked my front door. I simply trusted that people would not come in, take things or go through my stuff and read my diary. And no one did. Partly of course, because my diary does not make a great read and there might be legal consequences as well, but mainly because they wanted to live in a society where they can leave their door unlocked and still have people respect their private space. Even the authorities.
In the internet it is extremely difficult to keep your door locked. Even if you host your own data and are extremely paranoid. In terms of gmail, facebook etc, there basically is no door. As we now learned, this means the government sits in your living room watching you make dinner. Maybe you don't care. You are probably not putting poison in it to kill your husband. But the question is: is this the society you want to live in?
I'm not on facebook, as you probably know. If you look around my little corner of the internet, however, you might see that I'm not particularly shy about being public. So why not make my live easier? I would lie to say that not being on facebook does not restrict my social life, hell in Iceland it was severly restricted. Partys, trips, social gatherings I was not invited to, because people were too lazy writing an email (or forgot). So why do I bother? Because I do not want to live in a society where my social live depends on the whims of a misanthropic company. Do you want to live in one in which you privacy is at the mercy of people who have no problem walking in and out of your private space without even asking?
Living in a democracy (what all these programs claim to protect) means having the possibility to decide on the kind of society one wants to live in.
Go ahead then, make a decision...
When I lived in Iceland, in Blönduós to be precise, I seldom my locked my front door. I simply trusted that people would not come in, take things or go through my stuff and read my diary. And no one did. Partly of course, because my diary does not make a great read and there might be legal consequences as well, but mainly because they wanted to live in a society where they can leave their door unlocked and still have people respect their private space. Even the authorities.
In the internet it is extremely difficult to keep your door locked. Even if you host your own data and are extremely paranoid. In terms of gmail, facebook etc, there basically is no door. As we now learned, this means the government sits in your living room watching you make dinner. Maybe you don't care. You are probably not putting poison in it to kill your husband. But the question is: is this the society you want to live in?
I'm not on facebook, as you probably know. If you look around my little corner of the internet, however, you might see that I'm not particularly shy about being public. So why not make my live easier? I would lie to say that not being on facebook does not restrict my social life, hell in Iceland it was severly restricted. Partys, trips, social gatherings I was not invited to, because people were too lazy writing an email (or forgot). So why do I bother? Because I do not want to live in a society where my social live depends on the whims of a misanthropic company. Do you want to live in one in which you privacy is at the mercy of people who have no problem walking in and out of your private space without even asking?
Living in a democracy (what all these programs claim to protect) means having the possibility to decide on the kind of society one wants to live in.
Go ahead then, make a decision...