State of Internet Surveillance

As a modern society, we love convenience. We’re so integrated at this point, with data sharing, the Cloud, Google, Facebook, work networks, GPS and the like. But this integration and convenience come with a price. With all that we’re doing on the Internet, we’re leaving tracks.

Our service providers track what we’re doing, our social media tracks what we’re doing, our web browser tracks what we’re doing, our employer tracks what we’re doing, and the government tracks what we’re doing. Despite the fact that we are nearly 30 years passed the actual 1984, we’re perhaps light years passed what George Orwell really imagined in his novel “1984,” where he depicted a totalitarian utopian society that ruled everything and was run by “Big Brother.”

Nearly everything we do requires the use of computers, the Internet, or our smart devices. That usage produces data, the Gold that companies want. At a consumer oriented level, we can be sent email or served ads on items we’re likely to buy based on our past histories. At a more secretive level, the government can track what we do, what we watch, who we talk to and what we talk about.
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