Once Upon a Time, There Was Privacy…

Some time ago I was a little bit concerned with the fact that we're losing privacy and barely gaining anything when talking about security and cyber-security. I thought that perhaps I was taking things too seriously and that I was just exaggerating; well, until now, when I saw this blog entry by security expert Martin McKeay.

Have you read the news lately? All sorts of security measures are being deployed with little regard to one's privacy. Governments don't really care if you're offended by the fact that you're being surveyed, they're trying to uproot terrorism, so privacy is just a small issue. Then, there's the problem of traffic monitoring - if you think that nobody knows what you're doing on the web, then you're wrong - your ISP knows everything.

Should I say anything about spyware, keyloggers and any hacker activity? I don't think it's necessary - they've already made the news too many times. Also, some IT managers know whatever their employees are doing, this is pretty good for security, but it's not so good if one should access a bank account from work or IM someone, or send a personal e-mail.

Privacy is being stepped on, for the sake of security, but that's not the real issue - the problem is the fact that even though this is done, things still aren't as good as they should be. Although many security measures are being deployed, hacks occur, not to say about how ineffective things are outside the cyber-world. Just look at the United Kingdom's case - they filled up the streets with cameras, but they still have a high percent of crime!

In my opinion, it is way more important to prevent crime from happening than to deploy measures that will help you solve things AFTER bad things already occurred. It governments continue in this way, I guess that after a while people will lose the whole privacy concept. I am no seer to predict what's going to happen, but let's hope that if we're to lose even more privacy, things will head for the best!