I luckily missed being born into the Internet generation.  Facebook creeped me out with the amount of information demanded to create an account.  It took me all of 1 minute to create an account, 5 minutes to decide to delete it, and then two hours to figure out how. That was years ago and I still receive email reminders from Facebook to re-join with all my information still in the deleted  account, as if I never deleted it. If you ever wondered what Mark Zuckerberg thought of Facebook users, you may want to take a look...http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 

Perhaps a decade of working undercover has made me ultra-paranoid on personal information. At the time of doing UC work, I had little concern of sitting in an illegal business, having dinner with an organized crime figure and having one of his goons run me through Google, because there was no Google when I first started. That changed before I left the narc world and an undercover friend of mine was identified with Internet searches (while he was in the midst of a group of bad guys). If I was still doing undercover work, I'd no longer be doing undercover work. Thanks Google...

I can imagine that being born into the Internet age means never knowing what privacy is, nor have any concern about it all. Kids are literally texting in grade school, Facebooking in middle school, and blogging by high school.  Every generation now willfully gives up every aspect of their lives on social media and to buy some gadget online.

So when I see that the majority of people could care less about their most intimate and private details of their lives, it gives me pause. If you don’t think your Internet searches and web browsing is intimate, take a look at your web history and tell me that you don’t have some secrets in what you look at that you wouldn’t want anyone else to know about you. Health, wealth, and interests. How much more intimate can you get?

Despair at the Number of Americans Who Choose Security over Liberty, Privacy - Reason (blog)

http://news.google.com Thu, 31 Dec 2015 17:41:15 GMT

Reason (blog)Despair at the Number of Americans Who Choose Security over Liberty, PrivacyReason (blog)According to a new, frustrating poll, a majority of Americans in both the major parties appears to support warrantless government surveillance of Am ...

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I’m not sure if people just don’t care the government watches and logs their Internet activity or if they just don’t know that they have a right to be secure in their homes, papers, and possessions. Either way, the result is the same. Privacy no more, and like the arrow flown, you can’t get the data back.

I can say that there are government organizations that actually take issue with privacy, one for example: Public Libraries. I’ve had criminal investigations where I needed information about a library patron for serious felonies. Not only were librarians willing to throw down with me to fight giving it to me, but I was promptly kicked out and told to get a warrant (which I did every time).  The library in the county where I live takes privacy seriously (KCLS). No security cameras anywhere. Not inside the library. Not in the parking lots. Nothing recorded. Patrons can use Tor if they bring it on a CD or flashdrive to plug into public use computers. The WiFi is free, no login required, no tracking of the users. 

For this, I say libraries may be the last bastion of personal privacy protection, but then again, I have no idea how many national security letters have been handed out to librarians…

Certainly the day is close where privacy no longer exists in any manner. Already, if you ever applied for a security clearance, foreign governments have your application and probably your fingerprints too.

China says OPM breach was the work of criminal hackers - Engadget

http://news.google.com Thu, 03 Dec 2015 04:59:00 GMT

EngadgetChina says OPM breach was the work of criminal hackersEngadgetChina says the massive security breaches at the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that exposed the personal information of more than 21.5 million US government employees, con ...

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I can say with experience, the Internet is great for investigators. Finding suspects has never been easier. In fact, finding an entire life history of a suspect takes on a whole new meaning with Facebook and every other type of social networking account.  Heck, they list their associates too. How much easier can it get? Criminals are people too, and they put as much personal information online as everyone else. Take the Dark Web as one example.  The Silk Road creator took massive steps to hide his identity, but an IRS agent identifed him with Google searches...

The Tax Sleuth Who Took Down a Drug Lord - New York Times

http://news.google.com Fri, 25 Dec 2015 17:48:14 GMT

New York TimesThe Tax Sleuth Who Took Down a Drug Lord New York Times It was Mr. Alford's supervisors at the I.R.S. who assigned him in February 2013 to a D.E.A. task force working the Silk Road case. The Strike Force, as it was known, had so far had l ...

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My only concern with personal privacy evaporating like dry ice in the summer is that criminals also have an easier time of finding enough personal information to do damage to anyone, whether as ID theft, stalking, or worse.  It's bad enough that there are several levels of government agencies tracking everyone (including you), and that the criminals are using the same methods, but we also have the foreign governments doing it too.

Probably the best thing that can happen to the Internet is that it breaks...but then again, how will students find answers to their homework if they can't access Wikipedia? Can you imagine telling your kids to go to the library? The horror!