Just wanted to post this since I feel like not enough people speak up to represent the not-so-paranoid crowd.
Just wanted to post this since I feel like not enough people speak up to represent the not-so-paranoid crowd.
What is this? has any thought gone behind this?
I'm not your peer: I'm stupid, uncool and very, VERY old. That's why I decided to teach you fuckers a lesson and put on my fake cop uniform. With a few fake emails & and a phone call, I convinced Bobby, the head of security at data center #34 in Dallas to give me your life's records. Yours along with 5 million other people.
It's the agglomeration of lots of people's data that gets dangerous/interesting. And seemingly boring data like your browsing history can actually be pretty revealing -- ah, hey, I notice you regularly sign into the Bank of America site, plus you have an account on the forums at (easily hackable site)... might your username and/or password be the same? Ah, you sign in as the admin on an "anonymous" blog... and you mention your first pet (common security question) and link to your favorite uncle's blog, but he has a different last name from you... so is that your mother's maiden name? You see how this works.
If some clever had access to this level of data on lots and lots of people, they wouldn't strike gold for everyone, but there would be quite a few casualties.
All this to say that there are some very good reasons to avoid letting corporations gather lots of wide-ranging data about you in one place. The intentions of the corporation don't actually matter as much (though obviously if they're selling your data, the risks are higher); it's how valuable that data stockpile is, and to whom.
If you just have your own data, and you manage it yourself, it's not worth it for someone to put much effort into hacking you personally, so you're in a much safer position.
Not too long ago, "Google fires employee for snooping on users" - http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/16/business/la-fi-googl...
What if that one person is one who thinks "if you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"[1], and who just happens to be the CEO of the company? Would you still trust the company totally?
What the head honcho of the company says _is_ its agenda.
I love Google for the cool things they have done and continue to do. But it does get scary to think how big they have become.