Security and Privacy

It seems we have come full circle, again entering into an era in which our fundamental rights are questionably tampered with. In todays modern world, we enjoys the fruits of technology never before seen. Yet these fruits are not as sweet as they first seem. The vast technological boom has left us as consumers in quite a pickle. We buy into these new waves of tech advancements because on the surface, they seem to make our lives more simple. Yet we are vastly loosing something so precious. What we are handing up for theses advancements is so precious that  it is often labeled as a fundamental right. Our right to privacy is not just on the brink of being attacked, no, the war has already been waged and we currently find ourselves on the loosing side of this battle. Yet this war seems to have taken place  hidden in plain view, unbeknownst to the average citizen. According to the article The Wild west of Privacy, big internet companies such as Goggle and Facebook collect information about us which they deploy to late advertisement companies. These advertisement companies then collect as much data as they can about us before selling it to other companies desperate to utilize this information as they see fit. From the statues of our health, sexual preference, habits to our finances, nothing is held sacred. We tend to blame the larger corporations for this breach of trust, not those collecting the details and selling them. We don't hold face book and google accountable for this breech of privacy, we instead embrace them almost daily through our constant use of theses services. Is the lack of push back from societal members due to generational differences? The article Survey reveals generation gap in attitudes about security and privacy, seems to point to this conclusion. A survey conducted by Fortinet concluded that a generational gap exists between member of the Gen-X and Millenials. The gap between the two generations points towards the difference of opinion regarding what information is important and what is not. One of the most glaring differences between the two is the Millenials "caviler attitude about work place policies and protecting work data". This caviler attitude leads to the leaking of information more often than not, the recent Target disaster being but one example of this. There needs to be some kind of system instilled that insures companies are upfront about their info snatching practices, even a system that would require them to receive permission from users after the user has been informed of what specific information is being sought out. Lastly, something needs to be done to ensure the lackadaisical attitude of the few no longer effects the masses.