Online Privacy and You

Who cares about online privacy?

Why are we still having this debate for the 22nd year?

Scott McNealey said "You have zero privacy. Get over it." in 1999. Part of me says we're still having this debate because the only one who cares about their online privacy is you. Another part of me says there's a nihilistic feeling that the forces are arrayed against you and it takes a ton of effort to simply keep pace with it all. There are more nuances to this discussion, but this is neither the time nor place. 

At the suggestion of a friend, I watched "Made To Measure". It is an hour-long documentary about building a digital clone from a stranger using their only their online data. I won't spoil the show, but it is great to watch.

I watched and enjoyed it, even if at parts it is a bit intense and deeply personal. I started thinking about "could it happen to me?" How much could you gather from my data strewn across thousands of websites? Could you find them all? Could you start with my Twitter feed and expand from there? I don't really have much of a social media presence by design. Or do I?

Most of my social interactions can be found in the real world or via a few sites, linked from my "contact" page. Ostensibly, the majority of the communications are encrypted in transit, and in some cases, encrypted at rest. What could you learn from these communications?

It would be an interesting experiment to see if taking moderate steps to protect your privacy online could be replicated in the way "Made to Measure" did so. I would volunteer for such an experiment.