Two Cases About Internet Censorship And Privacy

When the Internet was first created censorship and privacy were not that big of a deal, since hackers and other malicious users who wanted to get access to private information didn't really exist back then. But a couple of years later the US created acts to censorship the Internet and more organizations started to secure their networks better to create more private communication networks. In this post I am going to talk about two examples of Internet censorship and privacy and a little about the consequences of what happened.

Censorship

A former Google Engineer, James Damore wrote an internal document for Google employees that openly discussed Google's diversity policies, citing research on average gender differences between men and women. Before it got spread around the Internet the responses were varied. Some agreed and some disagreed, but there really wasn't any serious backlash. But right after it got released to the wide world rational discussion became impossible about the subject. Extremist opinions got amplified and the backlash began. People openly insulted the author by saying that he was stupid or a sexist. One manager even decided to silence the views of James and got him fired from Google and the post was removed.

So in the real world you interact with other people around you and you might disagree with them, but you still treat them humanely, because they are still a human. In the Internet people become avatars and are not treated humanely anymore and that's what happened with James, he was objectified as all racism and sexism in the world, when earlier with his colleagues he was treated humanely. James obviously wanted to post the document again because he thought that all of the points that he was making were correct, but that would have been just harmful for the discussion and therefore he did not publish the document again.

Privacy

If you are an US citizen then your personal data is probably going around the dark web as we speak. Why do I think it's going around the dark web? Because in 2017 Equihax, one of the largest and oldest consumer credit reporting agencies from the US, was hacked. About 44% of the US population was affected by this hack, meaning that almost half of the US population's personal information is out there. So what do you think the US government did when the hack happened? A month later they gave Equihax a new contract for fraud detection, meaning that the US government did nothing about the leak.

This leaves the securing of your private information to the users themselves, meaning that they should have countermeasures to prevent an information leak from happening. Here are some of the key aspects you should keep in mind while protecting your data:
  • Never disclose your personal information to unauthorized people, even if they claim to be someone you know, but you cannot be 100% sure.
  • Keep all of your software up to date all the time.
  • Have at least 2 backups of your data in two different places and keep them on separate devices from what you use every day.
  • Secure your passwords with a strong password manager and two-factor authentication.
  • Having one layer of protection is usually not enough. Use multiple layers of security to protect your data and devices.
  • Choose a good antivirus program to protect your systems.
  • Educate yourself and the people around you about cyber security issues.
  • In the end no system is perfect and no solution can guarantee 100% protection for your devices, but it can drastically decrease the likelihood of a successful cyber attack.

References:

  • https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-censorship/
  • https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/12-true-stories-that-will-make-you-care-about-cyber-security/
  • https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/equifax-data-breaches-protection-guide/

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