Dragnet Nation: Here’s How You May Already Be Getting Hacked

[Purveyor]

Who is watching you?

This was once a question asked only by kings, presidents and public figures trying to dodge the paparazzi and criminals trying to evade the law. The rest of us had few occasions to worry about being tracked.

But today the anxious question — “who’s watching?” — is relevant to everyone regardless of his or her fame or criminal persuasion. Any of us can be watched at almost any time, whether it is by a Google Street View car taking a picture of our house, or an advertiser following us as we browse the Web, or the National Security Agency logging our phone calls.

Dragnets that scoop up information indiscriminately about everyone in their path used to be rare; police had to set up roadblocks, or retailers had to install and monitor video cameras. But technology has enabled a new era of supercharged dragnets that can gather vast amounts of personal data with little human effort. These dragnets are extending into ever more private corners of the world.

Consider the relationship of Sharon Gill and Bilal Ahmed, close friends who met on a private online social network called PatientLikeMe.com.

Sharon and Bilal couldn’t be more different. Sharon is a 42-year-old single mother who lives in a small town in southern Arkansas. She ekes out a living trolling for treasures at yard sales and selling them at a flea market. Bilal Ahmed, 36 years old, is a single, Rutgers-educated man who lives in a penthouse in Sydney, Australia. He runs a chain of convenience stores.

more...

http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/13/heres-how-you-may-already-be-getting-hacked/

[DirkGently]

1. "...the intruder: it was the Nielsen Company, the New York media-research firm."

Wow.

KNR.

[DirkGently]

2. Here's kind of the crux of it for the "Nothing to hide / nothing to fear" side of the debate.

Personal data are often abused for political reasons. One of the most infamous cases was a program called COINTELPRO run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the late 1960s. The FBI’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, set up the secret program to spy on “subversives” and then used the information to try to discredit and demoralize them. The FBI went as far as to send Martin Luther King Jr. a tape recording from surveillance of his hotel room that was meant to cause King to get separated from his wife — along with a note that King interpreted as a threat to release the recording unless King committed suicide.

[PumpkinAle]

3. Kick

Everyone should read this article - it really sheds light on how we are being thrown to the wolves who do not mind paying the asking price for information and usually that price is very little to them, but can mean a person's whole identity is under seige.

[marions ghost]

4. This is a long and very info-packed excerpt

from the book. If you don't have time to read Dragnet Nation, at least read this!

Thx Purveyor.

[DirkGently]

5. Kicking for visibility. +++

[Mojorabbit]

6. k and r nt

[woo me with science]

7. K&R