Data Transmission / Collection And Encryption

Ever feel like you are being watched? How about having the feeling like some one is following you home from school? Well that is what it will be like if users do not have the privacy on the Internet they deserve. EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), a advocacy group that has been fighting the Clinton Administration for tougher online consumer protection laws, and other privacy protection agencies have formed to protect the rights and privileges of the Internet user. With the U.S. Government, EPIC has had to step in and help small companies and Internet users with their own privacy problems, hackers getting into their systems and ruining the networks, and crackers stealing and decrypting private

This is really a question that's nearly impossible to answer without some context, since the context within which you are using the Internet is going to have a significant impact on whether or not you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The internet is a vital part of our lives, but what if I said it was a completely public one? Privacy is a rare commodity in today's world. As Nicholas Carr writes about in his essay “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” corporations pay close attention to citizens. The most frightening part is that this practice is perfectly legal. Even recently the government stripped more of our privacy away. In the beginning of April 2017, President Trump repealed regulations by the Federal Communications Commission that would have forced internet service providers to gain consent before selling data collected from their customers. However, corporations aren't the only ones capturing data from internet users. The government is also making use of these records.

With the seemingly exponential propagation of inexpensive digital communications technologies over recent years, the general public is becoming more aware of the issues surrounding information privacy and government surveillance in the digital age. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a smart-phone has to be wary of how they use their private information for fear of that information being collected and used in a way contrary to their wishes. "Leaky" smartphone apps that transmit private information across the internet can be unethically used by government agencies. The issue of privacy is a balancing act; the public usually wants increased privacy and the government usually wants increased access.

Over the last four decades, mobile devices have become the trademark of our society.cell phones and other mobile devices have inundated our society At any given time; we can see drivers talking or texting in a moving vehicle. According to Brenner (2013), 87% of American adults and 78% of teenagers own a cell phone. The scary part is that almost two-thirds of

Privacy is something that most people believe is not possible on the internet, but with the correct knowledge it can be possible. In Nicholas Carr’s essay “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty”, he states that “It is very easy to find information about people on the internet, even private things that people don’t expect others to be able to see” (538). People don’t realize that what they do online can affect their personal lives such as their credit score, the ads that are recommended to them, and even the cookies in their computer. While Carr may have great points, he may not have considered the ways people do have privacy. There are some ways to protect browsing, people just need to know how. Most browsers have a mode that allows people to visit sites without being tracked. There’s no history, and no cookies.

Every move you make on the Internet can be recorded step by step, website to website. While researching articles on internet surveillance one said how US government has been forcing American telecommunication companies to turn over the call records of every one of their customers to allow the NSA to search them with a reason.(Glenn Greenwald. NSA collecting phone…). However I find this completely wrong, the government shouldn’t be having our call records unless they have some sort of evidence that we are a suspect or threat to this country. It also mentioned how the “NSA believes this general monitoring of our electronic communications is justified because the entire process takes a small amount of seconds”.(Glenn Greenwald. NSA collecting phone…). Despite the general illusion that today’s surveillance technology is used for a good purpose, people should be aware of the consequences when it’s used in the wrong

Another Important milestone in the new privacy paradigm was the revelation of the NSA’s surveillance program, PRISM. On June 5th, 2013, Edward Snowden leaked documents that revealed the National Security Agency’s surveillance program. The documents revealed that the NSA was tracking information from nine major Internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple. PRISM could collect about 600 million communications a day and store them for up to 30 days. Through the use of various methods, the NSA was able to intercept communications in real time (“Edward Snowden Leaks” 2014). With the implementation of PRISM, the United States government was able to covertly monitor information. The program was used to collect information from the Internet, but it was also used to obtain information from allies. One of the major issues with this program was the ability to monitor citizens without them ever becoming aware of the intrusion. PRISM was a drastic shift from the policies implemented in the eighties. Certain companies were cooperating with the NSA, many willingly handed over records. While these programs were implemented over a decade ago they have shaped the way the government views privacy. New policies are implemented which extend the government’s ability to gain access to information. This increase in power is problematic to the Internet user because it has restricted the rights of people. Internet privacy has been limited under the new paradigm in order

The government has been monitoring and regulating an every day’s persons website history and what we buy and look at on the Internet. With the Internet growing rapidly and the amount of users on the Internet increasing, the easier it is for the government to find out peoples’ interests. Many people argue whether or not we should have vigorous rules and regulations when it comes to the Internet. One of the main concerns people have when it comes to their Internet is their privacy. There are many people who want to do harm using the tools that the Internet provides us with. The Internet should be regulated but not as harsh as some

But then in the Congressional hearing with NSA director Keith B. Alexander in 2012, where they deny all the interceptions in the e-mails, phone calls, text messages and searches on the internet. But in 2006, technician Mark Klein revealed that the NSA was tapping into AT&T´s network in San Francisco. Customers filed a lawsuit. Continuing with the questions I´m not ok with the CIA, NSA, and others agencies, logging everyone’s digital live. Because these agencies only follow you if they have a judicial order, otherwise, if they don’t have the judicial order given by the FBI (In United States case) they are violating the right to privacy.

And with 3 billion phone calls made and 150 billion emails sent to and from the United States every day, the collection of this personal data without specifying the limits to their searches is unclear and unjust. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo among many others have recently, under protection from the Obama administration, revealed details as to the statistics of government collection. Even our nation's biggest telecom companies, AT&T and Verizon, were obliged to work with the NSA, lately disclosing information on the filtering equipment they were necessitated to use. The storage of this data for prolonged periods of time also makes these companies and their users vulnerable to security breaches such as theft and attack by hackers; for example, the cyber-security firm Trustwave discovered a server on November 24, 2013 which contained the information of over 318,000 accounts on Facebook. This breach was evidently made possible by companies storing data for an unnecessary amount of time as well as a weakened encryption standard. Both were implemented and enforced by the NSA, and the forced retention this data for over five years not only renders this metadata vulnerable to theft or misuse, but has also not been proven to be notably valuable in thwarting terrorist attacks.

A subscriber agreement between a customer and an ISP is not enough to be quenched for a reasonable expectation of privacy (Craig, 2013). Moreover, the government cannot force a commercial Internet Service Provider to run in the contents of a subscriber’s e-mails without obtaining a warrant based on probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment. In the United States v. Warshak, the government did not obtain a warrant and violated the Fourth Amendment when they captured Warshak’s

How many apps have you used today, or how many websites have you visited? The answer is probably very many, some even without your knowledge. Behind the pixels of your phone or personal computer’s screen, thousands of bytes of data are being transmitted. Most of that data is what you’d expect: e-mail, texting, weather, games, and so on. Unfortunately there has been a growing problem over the last several years, and it’s not one that is obvious to the average internet user. Some of that sent data contains information which isn’t necessary, oftentimes it’s personal data. Your browsing habits, favorite games, most listened to music genres are being shared to advertising agencies for profit. Privacy is quickly vanishing from the internet and

"The US government along with federal, state, and local have authority over many different aspects of our everyday life. It is important to have structure and security in the society we live in. I believe we all have the right to our privacy to an extent. Government control over Internet content is a topic that is constantly being argued about daily. Monitoring the content of our internet does violate our privacy but, there is understandable reasons on why it should be monitored. The need for privacy, the reasons to what content is being monitored, and how often it is monitored are the focus to the extent of government involvement in internet monitoring.

The U.S. Government has turned the Internet into something it was never intended to be: a system for spying on us in our most private moments. Out of control government