Blog Post #8: Privacy

 Privacy is a big and extremely serious issue in the world today. When I was young I thought that one of the things American did better than almost anywhere was give the people their privacy. I now know that this is very clearly not the case. It's as though technology has almost entirely gotten rid of our everyday privacy. Most people seem to know that their phones have a GPS and are essentially used so that the government can track where you are. However, I don't think many people truly know how far this invasion goes. One reason I have always warned my family to not get an Alexa for the house is by posing one question "How do you think Alexa knows when you call her name?" Everytime I said this to someone new I saw it click in their brain that she is always listening. Most people seem to think that our privacy looks like that photo. When in reality all those locks should be opened and unlocked due to how much access we give to any and everything without thinking. As we talked about in class, not many people pay attention to what information they are giving over when signing up for a new account. Many companies/websites will ask for your street address or your phone number. This can be a serious privacy risk as often companies will then sell that data to other sources. 

One of the main ways to protect ourselves from an invasion on our privacy is to limit our exposure of key information online. Try, when possible, to avoid entering your phone number, address, or any other key information when signing up for a new website or anything like that. Another easy way that we can protect ourselves online is to use a VPN. What VPNs do is they make sure your computer has a secure and encrypted connection to the internet anytime you browse