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Welcome to the privacy and security section of the Brainstorm Project. Feel free to join the chat room or leave a comment below. You can also make suggestions for innovative ideas to add to this page. This section is for both topics because privacy and security go hand-in-hand. A lack of privacy can lead to security breaches.
Privacy entails keeping information or activities private. That information could either be an embarrassing chat, or sensitive information that could be used to commit identity theft. Unfortunately, chats may contain sensitive information, therefore, they need to be private.
Some say that privacy is dead, but that isn’t true (although it is headed in that direction). People chat about private things openly in comment sections on social media, surveillance is conducted, our locations are available to many apps and social media services, and even some streaming services are digging like crazy through virtually all of your personal data (even irrelevant data). However, certain conversations still have to be private, and companies such as Google and Facebook have enabled encryption by default on some of their products and services (Android Lollipop and Whatsapp).
You shouldn’t send passwords or other personal information over the airwaves. Remember that your date of birth, pets’ names, mother’s maiden name, among other things can be used to answer security questions, and it’s likely that some of these things have already been mentioned via chat.
- Off-grid communication: Some developers, such as Open Garden, have been working on off-grid communication apps such as FireChat. Some say this is tricky and is hard to make reliable. What are your thoughts?
- Encrypted communication: Whatsapp the first mainstream chat service to be encrypted by default. What impact do you think this will have?
This is a tricky thing. I think privacy is important, but as we all continue to live in public (great documentary, we live in public) i think people will slowly realize that it’s better to just be open and honest. This might lead to less lying, and more truth. Although, everyone has stuff the don’t want out due to social stigma. I do believe that everything should be encrypted, no one should have access to your info unless you personally give them access.