Loss Of Privacy
By Trina Coates
As we approach the 21st century the world watches the Internet become a larger and larger driving force in today's society. It crosses borders and enters homes with incredible ease and speed. It leaves most people, on average, viewing this as a huge improvement to our society. After all, racial and gender borders are being broken, people are accessing information without having to leave their own home, letters are actually being sent versus being wrote and then left to file because we couldn't be bothered to get that stamp. The Internet revolution is a technological wonder designed to make our lives just that much easier, but what about the "other" side of the Internet? The side that was displayed in the movie "The Net", in where the Internet was used to destroy an innocent persons' life by gathering and changing private information? Information that would have otherwise been viewed as inaccessible and having too many obstacles to bother with. What price do we have to pay for this newfound wonder? It seems as though the price is called privacy. By using the Internet we are subjecting ourselves to the scrutiny of others as we stand by helplessly watching them acquire all sorts of information about us.
The word privacy barely seems to exist on the net, but what does privacy mean to us exactly? How does the Internet violate this definition, and is the Internet violating a personal right or simply hurting our once thought sense of security?
Privacy, in itself, is a difficult word to define, to the point where it would be misleading and conforming to try and attain a general definition. The difficulty of defining privacy and it's underlying principles can be attributed to the fact that privacy is directly affected by cultural, political and historical differences. These differences, consequently have often paralyzed policy makers and philosophers in their desire to attain such a general definition. One privacy scholar resorted to defining privacy simply by saying "you know it when you lose it." Other definitions include "Privacy allows individuals to choose when to withdraw and when to participate." and "To be let alone or to control personal information." Each of these definitions vary widely and help little when we are looking for an answer. The term varies widely from country to country, or even varies within the wealth statues. Persons who have a large family and little money, where multiple persons share the same quarters, are going to have a different definition and understanding of privacy than someone who lives on their own and has a whole house to do what ever they please.
While privacy can't be defined on a whole, if we break it into subject areas it becomes a lot easier. When privacy is being referred to in reference to Internet issues a somewhat safe definition could be "an intrusion of the personal information of a given user" or simply "gathering personal information without asking." For the purposes of this essay the latter definition seems more appropriate. When referring to a violation of privacy it will be referring to an intrusion of personal information verses other possible definitions such as an intrusion on personal space.
This new wave of computer technology seems to be a bit of a nightmare coming true, no information about you is sacred. While Dan's firm charges for the information it acquires about a person ( Unlisted phone number = $49, Social Insurance Number = $49, Bank Balances = $45, Driving records = $35, Stocks, bonds and securities owned = $209 etc.) and are a professional agency, if they can do it, so can many others.
People complaining of violations of privacy through the use of the net seem to be arising everywhere. One man, Adam Penenberg, decided to put these accusations to the test and challenged a web detective, Daniel Cohn, to dig us as much information about him as possible. Within two days Dan had acquired Adam's birth date, full name, address, and Social Security Number. Within six days Dan and his company, Docusearch.com, " shattered every notion [Adam] had about privacy in this country (or what remains of it). Using only a keyboard and a phone, he was able to uncover..... whom [Adam called ] late at night; how much money [he had] in the bank, [his] salary and rent, even both his unlisted phone numbers.'' It quickly became apparent that peoples complaints about the net were entirely valid.
Another breech of privacy can occur through the browsers you use to search the Internet. In the movie "The Net," a program called the gatekeeper was used to supposedly protect companies from hackers, but due to a flaw in the program did the just the opposite. While Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are not quite to that extreme, they too have 'tools' that allow Web sites to reach into your hard drive and run programs. In the wrongs hands, they could be used to steal data or programs from your hard drive. The Majority of web sites using these 'tools' (applets/ Java) are used perfectly legitimately, but it is almost impossible to distinguish between good and bad sites.
In using the Net, virtually every site gets you to disclose information about your self, at the very least being personal interests. It is information that can be traded, sold or bought with out your permission, similar to the ways that companies sell your mailing address in order for you to receive that wonderful junk mail.