Covert agencies–as well as corporations–are searching email files for words and phrases that may reveal incipient (or ongoing) criminal activity. The 911 terrorists knew this, which is why they emailed one another in code.
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Spying has changed in the internet age–Now we leave a record of what we’re doing and what we’re interested in every time we click on a website, post on a social network or purchase something online. Homeland Security and police are tracking this information, and so are AD AGENCIES.
In the December 13th edition of the Financial Times, Emily Steel writes: "A new generation of executives, armed with millions of terabytes of data, are taking over today’s advertising world. They are schooled in creating sophisticated automated systems for buying and selling ads, searching for patterns in the data to tell stories and tapping algorithms to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing." Their goal is to target personalized ads to the right person at the right time. read more
The internet is the worldwide voice of freedom and this makes some governments and institutions nervous. But other people are still fighting to keep it free: An international meeting has been scheduled to redraft the 1988 treaty that governs the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). These delegates are trying to EXPAND the regulations that were developed for an earlier internet age, 24 years ago.
In the November 29th edition of the Financial Times, Richard Waters, Daniel Thomas and James Fontanella-Khan quote EU digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes as saying, "There is a real battle about how to govern the internet."
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Just because you’re "borrowing" your neighbor’s wifi signal because you don’t have your own doesn’t mean that the police can’t subpoena your internet files without a search warrant.
The fourth amendment of the constitution protects us against unreasonable government searches when suspects have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
In a 2011 poll, 32% of the people queried said that they had tried to get onto a wireless network that wasn’t theirs, and there’s plenty to choose from: It’s now estimated that more that 200 people now use wi-fi networks.
Police have to use special software to identify wi-fi "squatters," who use the same network as paying subscribers.
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