NSA

It is no secret that the NSA is, or is at least capable of, tracking your every move. Many people also realize that advertisers have a lot more access to tracking you than you’d think (or like), but most people do not.

Your phone is constantly connected to cellular towers, scanning for WiFi, and in some cases searching for Bluetooth. To make wireless connections, a handshake of sorts has to take place. This handshake includes some indentifiers to tell the source who you are. This information isn’t your name or email address, but a MAC address is unique enough to pretty easily trace you as an individual.

There is no doubt that privacy is getting more visibility than ever with the NSA leaks of late. A lot of people are opting for more secure services, apps, and hardware. This often comes at a price as these services are harder to engineer and maintain, they’re not usually given away for free. The exception is Kim Dotcom’s MEGA service with 50GB of free ultra secure cloud storage.

AT&T announced sponsored data plans today that allow providers to pay for the data that you use on your mobile device while using their services. Imagine streaming Netflix without it counting toward your 2GB data cap, seems neat right? Well the financial savings represent the most obvious upside, the privacy issue presents the largest down side. Your data and your usage are now bought and paid for by someone else, meaning they own it.

Apple has declined to have any knowledge of the newest NSA leak regarding the DROPOUTJEEP program. I am inclined to believe them for one main reason - they aren’t stupid. At the rate the leaks are coming, it is obvious we’re not finished. Neither the NSA nor Apple knows how much more will be leaked, so for them to deny knowledge now would guarantee their demise should the truth come out any differently.

ArsTechnica: Federal judge finds NSA spying unconstitutional

Not sure there are too many people that would disagree with the ruling. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Edward Snowden. The law agrees that what he exposed was in fact illegal, however how he exposed said information is also illegal. With that being said, it seems unlikely it could have been exposed any other way (realistically, that is).

Gizmodo: FBI Can Turn on Webcams Without the Indicator Light

I can’t say I am surprised, but what happens next? As much as I’d like to think change is possible, there are a lot of stagnant voters out there. That being said there are a lot of good people doing good things out there at the same time.