Privacy+&+Anonymity

 Privacy & Anonymity by Aamir Kanjer

//Defintion from the ITGS guide //  Privacy is the ability of individuals and groups to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about themselves is shared with others. At its extreme, privacy becomes anonymity when, for instance, a person uses it to conceal his or her true identity in order to cyber bully someone else. Conversely,excessive privacy could also conceal the perpetrators of criminal, terrorist or computer hacking acts from law enforcement agencies.

**Privacy** Privacy in terms of technology means that the user can keep his/her information in a way that is personal to them and cannot be viewed by any other person or organisation. Some place where privacy may be violated is Facebook, where your information is uploaded onto Facebook's database and other Facebook users can view them. You would say that the people viewing your page are your friends! But do you know that organisations may employ hackers to access your information

It has been reported that many people lose their jobs because most employers view the candidates online, like Facebook, video sharing websites etc.They lost their jobs because the information they uploaded on the internet had no privacy and was up for anyone to view. For furtherinformation on such incidents please refer to the link below @http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?_r=2&ref=technology

Another way of interpreting Privacy, is how technology can breach your privacy, not just digital but physical privacy. London, the most watched city on the planet, CCTV camera on every street, looking at every person on the street. Is that violating your privacy? People looking into houses, watching you do your daily work, but in my opinion I think its necessary to have such a system in place because it is better to be safe than sorry. Furthermore, CCTV cameras give you more privacy than you think. Here is a short video on CCTV cameras in london. (stop at 3:55) media type="youtube" key="WklVqQWRgNs?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Anonymity
On the other hand, giving the public too much privacy can cause a lot of problems. Let’s take an example from the latest piece of news, where telecom providers in India, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E have decided to ban Blackberry Messenger. You all might be quite angry that you can use Blackberry Messenger anymore as it saved you a lot of money. This action was taken by the government of India because RIM gave privacy to users and all the texts sent between Blackberries could not be interpreted by the Government because the text was encrypted. You would say that it is fair because you don't want others to know about what you say to your friend, but have you ever thought of Blackberry Messenger being used by terrorists. The recent attacks on the city of Mumbai were co ordinate by terrorists using Blackberry Messenger, and because the messages were encrypted the government could not interpret the data, therefore failing to know about the terrorist’s plans and falling prey to the terrorists. For more information you may click on the link below.

@http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/1077/bye-bye-blackberry/

Another example would be cyber bullying this is when anonymous people cause damage to your name and reputation and make you feel depressed, this is a crime in many states in America and can lead to serious penalties against the person harassing innocent people. Below is a link to a website against cyber bullying but it gives good information on what cyber bullying is.

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