From Frank C

The Mozilla Foundation (they make the Firefox browser and are very concerned about all things Internet) just sent me an email talking about a new company call Shadow Dragon. Here is what they had to say:

What happens when a surveillance company connects all the little data points you leave across the internet — from neighborhood chats to travel reviews, job history to dating profiles?
You get a tool like ShadowDragon’s SocialNet.
This surveillance technology pulls seemingly harmless data from hundreds of sites — like Instagram, Etsy, LinkedIn, Duolingo, and Tinder. Harmless posts become the building blocks of invasive profiles. They can reveal who you know, what you care about, even where you live and work.
ShadowDragon then sells this tool to law enforcement and government agencies (including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). It gives them powerful investigative powers — built entirely from personal data people never thought could be weaponized.1

So, now, all those little posts you made on all those social media and other public sites have been combined, analyzed, massaged, and collated, and Voila: “we know who you are and what you think and feel”!!

I am not a criminal, nor planning anything against our laws, and not on any social media. But what about every one else who uses social media. What about your gardener who is talking to their mother in Mexico, or the Canadian tourist who is communicating with friends back home while visiting the US in the winter… Will ICE use this information to throw them in jail because they were stating a point of view that did not align with the current government or dictator?

As I teach in my Security course: you cannot have security unless you have privacy, and you cannot have privacy unless you have anonymity!!

Be careful of what you say out there friends!!!