12 privacy-destroying technologies that should scare you
Build a better mousetrap, and someone will use it to kill humans. It seems inevitable that technological advances always seem to come with misuses or some kind of maluse. The technology isn't bad, just its use.
So as technology advances and gets smaller and more accurate, it seems some people have been finding ways to spy on and intrude into our lives. I try not to fall for the tinfoil hat nonsense that you find on places like Alex Jones's site or Godlikeproductions.com, but sometimes it's hard not to. And in practice, as critical infrastructure security adviser Steve Hunt puts it, Americans are notoriously willing to give up privacy in many instances.
"Privacy is not something we protect, exactly," Hunt said. "It is something that seems to have no value at all when we are the ones sharing personal information. We proudly post the entire genealogies of our children on Facebook ... However, we bristle at the thought of someone knowing something about us that we haven't knowingly shared. I don't think Big Brother is the government or, more precisely, the NSA. Big Brother is us. We are the ones installing cameras and scanning equipment to protect our private sector homes, businesses, and neighborhoods. We are the ones making our lives visible and digitally recorded," he said.
