Blown
to Bits by Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis gave me a whole new perspective in
information security. This book gave me
the idea that any form of technology can be used help us, or be used against us
to invade our privacy. Chapter 2 talks
about GPS and how it can be used to help people find their location and maybe
even save them from being lost. GPS can
even be used to find important geological and cultural discoveries. This same
technology can be used by hackers or criminals to infiltrate our privacy and
stalk us. Chapter 3 warns us of who we
send PDF and Microsoft Word Documents to.
This chapter explains that the information we erase from a document can
easily be brought back. Technology
provides convenient solutions to programs but in the wrong hands can be used to
exploit society.
This
book has tons of valuable information and shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone,
especially CIS students, and especially CIS students who plan to go into Cyber Security,
like myself. This book is relevant to
anyone who signs onto a computer, uses GPS to get directions to a destination,
has a Facebook account, and everyone who has ever Googled something. All of the information being inputted is
going somewhere. The big question is “Where
does it go?”. Chapter 4 educates the
reader on how search engines know what you are going to search before you even
finish typing it in. For instance, when
bring up Google on your web browser and you start typing in the question “Who
won…” and all these suggestions pop up like “Who won the Vietnam war?”, “Who
won top chef Seattle?”, “Who won king of the nerds?”. This makes us feel like the entire world is
at our fingertips, but in reality Google has already made a profile of your
interests based on millions and millions of bits of information obtained from
you and other users. This is information
obtained without permission from you and stored somewhere where Google can
access it anytime. You are not anonymous
on the Internet. You have a number
associated with you.
I
found a huge amount of interest reading this book because a major topic in
society right now is the Counter Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).
CISPA is a bill that if passed would
allow the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government
and technology and manufacturing companies.
The government already tracks your activity on the Internet for the
purpose of Homeland Security (another department that strips us of
individualism and humanity), but this proposed law will allow companies to
access your information. This
information then can be used to manipulate the way you think, interests, purchase
patterns, and eventually how you act.
Your freewill will dissipate over time.
Propaganda will be designed specifically to you and your morals. You will believe anything if it you think it
is morally correct and the idea promises progress.
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