{In modern times, giving your information online is commonplace. Huge data technology companies such as Google and Facebook pride themselves over their reliability in data handling. Recent events, however, illustrate the questionable state of security and privacy.
Over time, there has been an ongoing trend: the more people increase their ability to collect and store information, the more they feel a need to collect every piece of information available. A classic case of the human urge to know everything. One example of this: wiretapping.
Wiretapping was born in New York, 1895, after a retired telephone worker turned member of the police, suggested the use of wires to intercept criminal communication. For a while, it was effective. With the assistance of the then New York City Mayor William L. Strong, who gave the project his approval, and telephone companies, which initially helped with wiretapping, made New York City the city of wiretapping. The police would use telephones to listen to suspects and those who were affiliated with them in hopes of hearing that one sentence that would give the criminal their sentence. But it wouldn’t take long for wiretapping to go a little overboard.
Officers were given full permission over telephone lines with no repercussions. Some would pass the time through tapping lines for no reason at all, under the defense that you can never tell where and when criminal activity would take place.
In the 1954 Washington Spotlight, “Do We Need Wiretapping Laws?” a debate, between scholars and politicians, presented different peoples’ views on the nonstop wiretapping plaguing Americans. “In my judgement, it’s difficult for me to escape the fact that when government officials engage in wiretapping, they are engaging in a form of criminal conduct, and I don’t think that we should impose it among the American people.” These are the words of late Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, who was against the idea of wiretapping. Furthermore, he added that “it is a serious violation, in my judgement, of the precious right of privacy, the right to keep the American home, the free man’s castle.” Following the trend of the steady increase of surveillance, each year, more and more information was getting collected. That was, until the day of September 11, 2001, also known as the infamous 9/11 attacks. As a result, Americans all over the world were dedicated to one thing: bringing those responsible to justice. All this led to the signing of the Patriot Act, also known as the Anti-Terrorism Act, essentially giving away the privacy that people such as Senator Wayne Morse worked so hard to obtain. At the same time though, the use of social media and the internet was beginning to skyrocket. This new technology enabled users to access a vast world of knowledge for the ‘easy price’ of giving away their own personal data. This worked for a long time, the cycle of exchanging information for the sake of accessing the internet, a safe and secure system. Over time, though, the cycle developed a few problems. The type of information stored in databanks by social media companies are not just the things you have sent or downloaded, shockingly these include your search history, location, interests, and even how much time you spend in a particular site. In a nutshell, the data stored in these buildings are not just things about you, it is an exact replica of you. “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” 4Privacy, a company based in Columbus, Ohio, is paving the way towards a secure and private digital space through three key technologies to be implemented. In its 4Privacy app, end-to-end encryption is meant to be administered wherein users truly hold the keys to their information, therefore owning their data. The program enacts Zero-Knowledge architecture which is a way to ensure that only users themselves get to control who gets to see their data. Furthermore, the system uses open-source coding that allows its trustworthiness to be independently verified. “We want to remove the dirty data spewing engine that the internet is currently running on and replace it with a clean engine built for privacy,” said Destin Sandlin, co-founder of the company.
In the 1954 Washington Spotlight, “Do We Need Wiretapping Laws?” a debate, between scholars and politicians, presented different peoples’ views on the nonstop wiretapping plaguing Americans. “In my judgement, it’s difficult for me to escape the fact that when government officials engage in wiretapping, they are engaging in a form of criminal conduct, and I don’t think that we should impose it among the American people.” These are the words of late Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, who was against the idea of wiretapping. Furthermore, he added that “it is a serious violation, in my judgement, of the precious right of privacy, the right to keep the American home, the free man’s castle.” Following the trend of the steady increase of surveillance, each year, more and more information was getting collected. That was, until the day of September 11, 2001, also known as the infamous 9/11 attacks. As a result, Americans all over the world were dedicated to one thing: bringing those responsible to justice. All this led to the signing of the Patriot Act, also known as the Anti-Terrorism Act, essentially giving away the privacy that people such as Senator Wayne Morse worked so hard to obtain. At the same time though, the use of social media and the internet was beginning to skyrocket. This new technology enabled users to access a vast world of knowledge for the ‘easy price’ of giving away their own personal data. This worked for a long time, the cycle of exchanging information for the sake of accessing the internet, a safe and secure system. Over time, though, the cycle developed a few problems. The type of information stored in databanks by social media companies are not just the things you have sent or downloaded, shockingly these include your search history, location, interests, and even how much time you spend in a particular site. In a nutshell, the data stored in these buildings are not just things about you, it is an exact replica of you. “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” 4Privacy, a company based in Columbus, Ohio, is paving the way towards a secure and private digital space through three key technologies to be implemented. In its 4Privacy app, end-to-end encryption is meant to be administered wherein users truly hold the keys to their information, therefore owning their data. The program enacts Zero-Knowledge architecture which is a way to ensure that only users themselves get to control who gets to see their data. Furthermore, the system uses open-source coding that allows its trustworthiness to be independently verified. “We want to remove the dirty data spewing engine that the internet is currently running on and replace it with a clean engine built for privacy,” said Destin Sandlin, co-founder of the company.