The Death of Secrets Some say if you wonder about all the devices out there, you are paranoid, but others say they know we are being watched. I can’t help but think about this every time a new device comes out which is monitoring our vitals, checking our locations and so forth. My friend was telling me about a new smart watch he had purchased which monitors many of his vitals and can even tell him how many steps he walks a day. This sounds great on the face of it, but who else is getting this information? Is it going to countries like China and Russia and even if it isn’t and companies are collecting it are they protecting it? What about the dark web, are we going to find out some day all our personal information is listed for all to see, or being sold? We often hear we don’t have to worry about anyone from a provider looking at our personal information. We were told when we bought a smart device like the Echo our info was safe and no one was spying on us through the camera or microphone then it came out, the employees from one of these companies were doing it for fun, and the company in question had to apologize and said it would never happen again, yeah sure! There are some people I have met who try and insure this is not happening. They take their laptops and put a piece of paper over the camera lens and cover the mike. I can’t really blame them because it has been found hackers are able to turn on these things without us knowing it and without turning on any lights. This brings me to one of the most notorious devices we have, can you guess what it is? I am sure you can get this one right. It is the cell phone. With more power comes more danger. All the different devices packed into a cell phone make it prime territory for finding out everything about you. A talented hacker can find out where you are, listen in and activate the camera. They can scan your files and look at all your photos, hope you don’t have anything embarrassing on there, and cause all sorts of mischief. If you keep your banking on the cell phone some say you are playing Russian Roulette. Some people think when their cell phone is off they are safe. If it is connected to the internet, it can be turned on remotely and tracked. I have been saying for years the only privacy is our thoughts and even those are slowly being interfered with by new brain reading technology. Every device seems to be watching us in some way. People would be shocked to see all the data our cars are now collecting. They collect data on everywhere we go, speed, accidents, and so much more. Street cameras watch our every move. One of the big problems today is everyone seems to have a camera on their phone and they record things when something happens. Do you think this is a good thing? It might be good sometimes, but unless an entire incident is caught on camera it can lead to the wrong conclusion and has in many instances. It is bad enough some videos on the news only show a part of the video to get the news caster’s point across and leave out the rest which could show the opposite was true. One of the great changes in information storage has happened in doctor’s offices and hospitals. Gone are the days when there was only a file in a cabinet which had our medical history in it. The funny part of this is when computers came into play, it was thought all the paperwork would go away, but now we still have paperwork but also have digital files stored on the internet with all our info in them including social security numbers, Medicare and Medicaid numbers and private health care names and numbers. Also, much of our other personal information is contained. It is a gold mine for criminals if they can get to it. Think you are safe from being observed when you watch television? Some of the new smart televisions might be watching under the guise of recording what you are look at to better improve the types of programs you watch. There is always an excuse. When the smart bell came out which lets you see who is at the door from your phone or smart device and talk to them, it was a great idea, but that ability also has pitfalls. Others might be able to see who visits you, what others in the street are doing and even recording the conversations you are having. Did you ever notice when you are talking and there is a smart device in the room it starts to talk to you because it was listening? This happens all the time and has happened to me every once in a while. It has to always listen so when you say the wake word it will answer. While this is handy, it is also very upsetting to some people who think everything they say is being heard by others and maybe recorded and because of this they refuse to have a smart device in the room. Some believe your cable modem is recording things and sending them back to the cable supplier. They believe the addresses of everything you looked at the provider knows about. In truth I found a lot of things from all other the world on my modem and removed them. They were names of companies in many different countries and they had no reason to be sitting on my modem and observing my input and output. I was not a happy camper when I discovered this. Sometimes the software on our smart device can malfunction. It may not happen often, but it can happen. There can also be vulnerabilities in the software which allow others to get into it for nefarious reasons. One of the things to worry about as if this hasn’t been enough is artificial intelligence. Once it becomes a common thing on the internet will it get into all our private stuff? We have to remember many governments in many different countries, including our own, want to know everything about everyone. They all claim It is for security and yet we see how much more dangerous crime is which is hard to understand if security is the claim. The world has changed and there are no more secrets for the common person.
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