Topics: What Is Privacy?
Topics: What Is Privacy?
Topics: What Is Privacy?
What is privacy?
Types of privacy?
Things you need to know?
How can we protect ourselves from it?
How companies track us?
How many of you have broken no laws this month? That's the kind of society I want to build. I
want a guarantee - with physics and mathematics, not with laws - that we can give ourselves
real privacy of personal communications.
John Gilmore
WHAT IS PRIVACY?
The state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other
people.
Individuals understand their privacy as having autonomy of browsing, looking for information,
studying, communicating and doing many other activities without being watched and identified.
Moreover, people need to have control over the information they share with the public and private
sector. Protection of email, online banking and electronic communication is one of the pre-conditions
for privacy on the Internet.
The main challenges for the Internet privacy is digital fingerprints', which people leave when they use
the web. These fingerprints are like a puzzle which has to be connected to reveal a whole picture. This
information is gathered by putting together all parts of the personal data individuals provide to others
at almost every step of their Internet communication. Practices of association, speech and online
shopping become rich sources of personal information.
Once something has traveled over the Internet in any way, its potentially out there foreverand
potentially public. You can delete a file from your computer, but once data has gone into the cloud,
theres never a guarantee that all copies of it have been eternally expunged. In fact, its far more likely
that any given piece of data on the Internet will live on indefinitely. Not only that, but data tends to
escape even strong restraintshence the saying information wants to be free.
In the modern world, we all end up storing information online, even if we dont know that we are.
Every company that you do business with stores information about their customers, including you, in a
computer on their network. Every website that you visit on the Internet be it from your desktop
computer, laptop computer, cell phone, library computer, and Internet cafe is storing information
about you in some form or another. That computer or system of computers in some cases runs a
database that allows the customer service, sales, marketing, etc., staff to find customer information,
run reports on purchase history, etc. Even when you do business with companies in person and not via
the Internet, you will have information stored about your purchases within their systems.
TYPES OF PRIVACY
The right to privacy is considered one of the basic human rights and is protected by law in almost all
countries. Privacy protection describes the ability to keep specific information privacy or restricted to a
limited number of people. There are four different types of privacy protection: physical, virtual, third-
party and legislation.
Physical:
Physical types of privacy protection include the use of locks, pass codes or other security tools to
restrict access to data or property. These security methods are effective only if access to the key or
code is restricted or difficult to obtain. Many people fail to follow the proper protocol required to
maintain a high degree of privacy. The mistakes people sometimes make include giving other people
the keys or access codes or labeling keys so that the corresponding locks are easily identifiable.
Virtual privacy:
Virtual protection refers to all activity conducted via a computer or over the Internet. The first layer of
virtual privacy protection is a firewall. This software is used to restrict access to the files stored on a
computer to users within the network or to those who have authorization. The next layer of privacy
protection is to apply security protocols to the Internet connection. Software programs to eliminate
any viruses or malicious programs are designed to maintain a certain level of data security.
There are several well-known companies that specialize in privacy protection. The services of these
companies usually are obtained by people in high-profile positions or celebrities. The specific tools
used to provide the protection vary, depending on the specific areas of concern for each client. For
example, a prominent business leader might require lawyers to ensure that private information is not
published in the media. A celebrity may want health issues to remain private.
Most countries have legislation or laws that specifically address privacy rights. Companies or people
who violate these laws can face a civil lawsuit for monetary damages. Over time, privacy protection
laws changed to increase personal privacy protection so that it includes information technology and
the use of data provided for a specific purpose.
Third party:
Many companies collect or obtain personal information as part of a service or contract with the
customer. The companies then sell this information to marketing companies or affiliated businesses
without the customer's permission. This activity generates revenue for the business and exposes the
customer to unsolicited sales activity. This aspect of privacy protection has been an area of concern for
many people.
FOUR TYPES OF INVASION OF PRIVACY
1) Intrusion:
The first type of invasion of privacy is intrusion. Intrusion occurs when a person invades another
person's private affairs. If you record another person's private conversations without his knowledge,
trespass onto a person's property or take intrusive photographs of a person, you are violating that
person's right to solitude. Media and news sources have to be careful not to intrude on a public figure's
private domain; otherwise the public figure can sue the media for invasion of privacy.
2) Public Disclosure:
The second type of invasion of privacy is public disclosure of private facts. This form of privacy invasion
occurs when someone publishes hurtful, embarrassing or offensive facts about a person's private life. If
the media digs up private facts regarding a high-profile person and makes these facts public
knowledge, the victim of the disclosure can sue the media for invasion of privacy. A court may find the
media source guilty of invasion of privacy depending on how the media obtained the private
information.
3) False Light:
The third type of invasion of privacy is false light publicity, which occurs when someone produces false
statements about a person or frames that person in a false light. If, for example, a writer embellishes,
distorts or fictionalizes a news story, he may place someone in a false light that distorts the truth. False
light publicity is not the same as defamation; a person can condense or fictionalize a story without
adding malicious intent to it.
4) Appropriation:
The last type of invasion of privacy, appropriation of name or likeness, refers to the unauthorized
commercial use of a person's name or image without his knowledge or approval. A company, for
instance, cannot use a celebrity's name or image to endorse a product without the celebrity's consent.
Generally, a court does not consider photographs in newsworthy stories, or incidental references to
real people in books and films, as appropriation. If the media uses even part of a person's name
without his consent, that person can sue the media.
RISKS OF SHARING TOO MUCH
INFORMATION ONLINE
When companies collect and store large amounts of information about us, that information becomes
more at risk of being stolen by other people. The biggest threat to consumers when it comes to
identity theft is that the information needed to steal someones credit card information or their entire
identity can be found in the computers of companies that those consumers do business.
WHO WANTS YOUR PRIVATE DATA AND
WHY?
Advertisers:
The Web is powered by advertising as much as its powered by servers and routers. Many Web sites
devote far more space and resources to ads than to their actual content. As you know, its difficult to
read the news, watch a video, check your email, or even search for pictures of cute cats without being
bombarded by ads.
Web sites sell advertising space because thats the only way most of them can make any money.
However irritating or even slimy you may consider online advertising, it is the mechanism that has kept
most Web sites and other Internet services free.
The companies that purchase advertising want to get their moneys worth, and that happens only if the
ads result in sales. So advertisers expend a tremendous amount of effort to ensure the ads each person
sees are likely to be interesting and thus lead to purchases. When advertisers make money, theyre
able to keep buying ads and the sites that display the ads can stay in business.
The Google Problem:
Google isnt just a search engine; its a provider of email, document storage, videos, phone service, and
numerous other capabilities. What they all have in common is Googles legendary contextual
advertisingthats how Google makes money. And the more of Googles services you use, the more
personal data the company has about you that can be used to target ads with ever greater precision.
Make no mistake about it: every search, every YouTube video viewed, every email read contributes to
Googles personal profile on you, to be used for the express purpose of displaying targeted ads.
Hackers:
Some of them do it for fun. Some do it for notoriety. Some do it to make money. But one way or
another, thousands of intelligent but misguided people around the world spend every waking hour
trying to break into computer systems to steal information and money, to trick you into buying
something, or simply to cause mischief.
Big Media:
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of
America)along with record labels, movie studios, publishers, and other major copyright holders are
keen to know who has been pirating their media. Apart from monitoring BitTorrent traffic and file
sharing sites, these firms work closely with ISPs to identify people who illegally share movies, software,
and other copyrighted materials. Depending on your location and provider, this could lead to serious
consequences including civil lawsuits and termination of your Internet service.
MASS SURVEILLANCE
NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a U.S. intelligence agency responsible for providing the United
States government with encrypted communications (information assurance) and the reading of
encrypted communications (signals intelligence) of other nations. The NSA is tasked with the global
monitoring, collection, decoding, translation and analysis of information and data for foreign
intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, including surveillance of targeted individuals.
"Getting the ungettable" is the NSA's own description of its duties.
Facts And Figures
NSA has a 100,000 square foot mission critical data center, where they are intercepting 1.7
billion American electronic records and communications a day, using 5 Zettabytes (1 Trillion GB)
space to keep every information stored for next 500s years at least.
The total annual budget of NSA is $52.6 billion, which is greater than Indias defense budget this
year and more than New York Citys tax revenue in 2012.
NSA monitors 1.6% of daily internet traffic i.e. 29 PB of data out of 1826 PB.
Some Programs Under The Nourishment Of NSA
Prism:
Do you use services from Microsoft, Google, Apple, or many other major Silicon Valley companies? If
so, a long-running government program called PRISM may have been harvesting your photos and other
user data, The Washington Post has revealed. The news came just a day after journalist Glenn
Greenwald uncovered a secret court order requiring Verizon to collect records of both domestic and
international phone calls and report them to the National Security Agency, giving it the ability to
conduct widespread surveillance of US citizens.
The exact scope of PRISM is still unclear, as the original report claiming the NSA had "direct access" to
companies' servers has been partially retracted, and several companies have denied any knowledge of
the initiative's existence.
Tailored Access Operations:
It describes, among other programs, the NSAs hacking unit, known as Tailored Access Operations. So
just what is Tailored Access Operations? According to a profile by Matthew M. Aid for Foreign Policy,
its a highly secret but incredibly important NSA program that collects intelligence about foreign
targets by hacking into their computers, stealing data and monitoring communications.
The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It
maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping
deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.
MYSTIC:
According to leaked documents obtained by The Washington Post, the NSA currently has the capability
to record 100% of a country's phone calls, enabling playback of any individual call for up to 30 days.
The voice interception tool, dubbed MYSTIC, was launched in 2009 and became fully operational in
2011. According to the Post, it's currently deployed in at least one country and has been considered for
use in others, although the paper declined to name the specific nations involved for reasons of national
security.
These are only some of the programs general public knows about, who knows what other things are
happening in cyber world without our knowledge.
WHAT YOU HAVE TO HIDE
Of course you have things to hide! We all have secrets, and thats as it should be. But you may not
realize how much you want to keep private and how you might inadvertently give it away online.
Bear in mind that privacy nearly always depends on context. You may want to keep certain information
from your employer but not your doctor; you may want to tell your spouse things that you wouldnt
tell your kids; you may share information freely with your lawyer that you would prefer not to have
repeated in court.
You want your real-life friends and family to know where you are and what your kids are doing; you
dont want strangers to know.
Contact information:
You may hand out business cards freely, but are you willing to let any stranger know your name,
telephone number, and home address? (Some people dont mind at all, but others find it problematic.)
You enter this information nearly every time you make a purchase online, and in many other
situations.
Vital statistics:
Personal facts such as your date and place of birth, the names and ages of your parents and children,
and your marital status are probably well-known among family and close friends. In the wrong hands,
that data could help someone hack into your accounts, steal your identity, or even blackmail you. And
yet, youve probably revealed much of this information on Facebook.
Location:
Unless you take deliberate steps to prevent it, the mere act of turning on a mobile phone or visiting a
Web site on your computer can reveal your physical location, sometimes down to your street address.
This information may be stored, too, such that your movements and online activity over time can be
mapped out and that, in turn, can often suggest what you have been doing in all those locations, or
even with whom youve been doing it. Do you mind that someone you dont know can tell where you
are now, and where youve been in the past?
Financial Information:
You may file your taxes online, and you may submit online applications for credit or other financial
services. Thats all fine; tax authorities, banks, and lenders have a legitimate need to know how much
money you earn, what your Social Security number is, and so forth. But Ill bet you wouldnt want
everyone to know that information. Likewise, you can probably log in to your bank accounts online, but
it may not be in your best interest for just anyone to see your bank statements. And yet, any
information thats transmitted online could conceivably be misused.
Medical Information:
Everything that your doctor knows about youyour height and weight, past and present illnesses,
surgeries, medications, pregnancies, genetic data, and so onis almost certainly stored in a computer
somewhere. If a security breach or human error resulted in any of that information leaking out, or if
you shared it injudiciously by email or social networking, might that have any negative consequences?
Purchases:
When you buy anything online, the vendor keeps a record. Your bank may know about all your
transactions, too, including those made in person with a credit card. And what if some of that
information is leaked?
Browsing behavior:
Youre aware, Im sure, that every Web site you visit, every Web search, every video you watch, and
every file you download leaves a trail, which includes information about your location, your computer,
and your browser, among other things. Parts of this trail are stored on your own computer or mobile
devices as histories, caches, and cookies. Some parts are stored on the servers of search providers,
advertisers, and other entities. Its extremely difficult to avoid leaving a trail and virtually impossible to
erase all traces of your browsing behavior after the fact.
HOW OUR PRIVACY IS COMPROMISED(HEADING 8)
Phishing: Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as
usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as
a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Social Engineering: Social engineering, in the context of information security, refers
to psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.
Man in the middle attacks: a form of active eavesdropping in which the attacker makes
independent connections with the victims and relays messages between them, making them believe
that they are talking directly to each other over a private connection.
Dns spoofing: DNS spoofing is a computer hacking attack, whereby data is introduced into a Domain Name
System name server's cache database, causing the name server to return an incorrect IP address, diverting traffic
to another computer.
Keyloggers: is the action of recording (or logging) the keys struck on a keyboard, typically in a
covert manner so that the person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored.
Scamming: an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, in the
classical sense of trust.
Unsecured wifi connections like public wifi hotspots
Spywares: Spyware is software that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their
knowledge and that may send such information to another entity without the consumer's consent, or that asserts
control over a computer without the consumer's knowledge.
HOW CAN YOUR PRIVACY BE EXPLOITED
Ransomware:
Ransomware is a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and
demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed. Some
forms of ransomware encrypt files on the system's hard drive, while some may simply lock the system
and display messages intended to coax the user into paying.
Bitcoin mining:
The hacker took advantage of vulnerabilities in your system then place the malware softwares which
uses your computers resources to mine bitcoins.
Blackmailing:
Attacker can hack your computer to get your personal data or pictures and in return they want
something for that.
Identity fraud:
Identity fraud may occur when someone steals personal information, opens credit card accounts in the
victim's name without permission, and charges merchandise to those accounts.
E-mail addresses:
E-mail addresses can be used for spamming.
Crackers:
Crackers may also want our computer resources for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on
other computers or Web sites.
SO HOW TO BE ANONYMOUS ON INTERNET
Encrypting:
Securing your hard drives with Bitlocker.
Using Crypto-Currency:
Use of Virtual Money like Bitcoin is a largely untraceable form of currency which has gained a lot of
attention in the last year or two. Not every website accepts it, but for the websites that do, this can be
a great way to help protect your identity when making purchases.
The Browser's Incognito Mode:
The private browsing mode in Google Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers records no information
about your browsing, including form data you enter, files you download, or history of pages you visit.
Proxy Servers and VPNs:
Although private browsing mode is great for preventing sites from writing trackable cookies and other
info to your computer, it doesn't completely make you anonymous. If you want the most assurance
that others won't know who you really are, you'll want to use a proxy server and/or a virtual private
network connection so you can appear to be someone and somewhere else.
SOME BROWSER EXTENSIONS:
A) Ghostery: Ghostery sees the invisible web, detecting trackers, web bugs, pixels, and
beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google Analytics, and over 800 other ad networks,
behavioral data providers, web publishers all companies interested in your activity.
B) NoScript: Allow active content to run only from sites you trust, and protect yourself
against XSS and Clickjacking attacks.
C) AdBlock Plus: The add-on is supported by over forty filter subscriptions in dozens of
languages which automatically configure it for purposes ranging from removing online
advertising to blocking all known malware domains.
6.TAILS OS: The Amnesic Incognito Live System is a security-focused Debian-based Linux
distribution aimed at preserving privacy and anonymity using TOR configurations.
7. Using different Search Engine like DuckDuckGo which provides more security and
privacy. It also does not keep records of your browsing searches.
CONCLUSION
When security agencies such as NSA spend 52.6 billion on surveillance there is no way of protecting
your privacy for sure. All the above mentioned method to make yourself anonymous on the internet
are precautionary measures which help make spying on the user a little more difficult but they in no
way guarantee your privacy, they merely give you a false sense of security. But revelations made by
whistle blower such as Edward Snowden have made people more aware of the risks they face
regarding their privacy and help shed light on the mass surveillance programs.
So WE believe you can try with all your might, but ultimately all your endeavor will be in vain as you
CANNOT hide from these Cyber Giants.
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