Below is a short video to introduce a few ideas about the power of symbols but there is so much to say that this is just a brief intro to a number of ideas about various symbols that greatly impact our lives.
Flags, coat of arms, numbers, words, your true name, what is your signature and more.
I look for connections in ideas to explain principles that are in play. Often when you see something it seems innocent, but in context of other things it can take on a whole new meaning, especially if what you are seeing was created with a specific intent, purpose, message that you may not have been aware of before.
Your own privacy is an issue that you need to to responsible for and sometimes its tough to maintain when the banks, corporations, government agencies all claim that your private information must be provided to them.
Ideas, evidence, conclusions about why you have to take responsibility for your privacy in order to protect yourself from those who would imply, intimidate, deceive or coerce you into providing your private info that you are under no obligation to provide.
Now why would anyone act in such a way? What will they gain by it?
If you trust they have good intent, nothing much it seems. BUT if you are wise to the ways of the world and history, you will question their intent because there is plenty of evidence that their intent is not honest, and is potentially harmful to you.
I'm probably "preaching to the choir" here but here's a great summary that should reenforce your present understanding, or lay the foundations. Either way it's a good reminder. Continue reading 'Trust Us, We Are From The Government'»
One key to maintaining your privacy is to leave no trail of paper or digital imprint. Websurfing is a minefield of date traces left on the websites you visit and also leaves a trail on your computer.
If you value your websurfing privacy you need to know a few things.
Almost every website tracks your visit and leaves at least one digital "cookie" in your computer. It's not all bad there are some vaild reasons for doing so and like all data it's what bad things that can be done with it by thrid parties that is the concern.
So, how to surf privately?
There are few services that will help you surf privately, not allowing your web ID to be captured by the sites you visit and allowing no cookies to be planted into your computer. (you can also flush all cookies put into your computer by your websurfing, check your browser options).
A free "proxy" service is available from Startpage http://startpage.com/ You can watch an overview of the problem, and their service, here:
Another service is Pagewash, although both sites DO collect data for their use, they prevent it from being collected by sites that you visit from their site. Read their Privacy Policys for the specifics: http://www.pagewash.com/
There is an ongoing confusion about whether or not you are "allowed" to audio record or video record your own conversations with other people.
Fundamentally you should be able to do it without breaking any laws. Some jurisdictions have laws claiming to prohibit such acts. I believe there is no question that yes you can, if you are a party to the interaction being recorded.. The real questions become what do you do with it and who are the other parties.
Here's a court decision from the US (again) that deals with a privacy claim in a medical records situation. The lawsuit was against the clinic, city and county.
This case really brings home that a party receiving a "legal requirement" to disclose private information has a a duty to ensure that the "legal requirement" is actually binding on them. If not, they are liable for the privacy infringement, as was the case here.
Digital Photocopiers Have Hard Drives Storing Your Copies
Did you know that all digital photocopiers have a hard drive disk?
That hard drive records everything that has been copied/faxed/printed on that machine, permanently!
Have you gone to your local Staples to photocopy your tax returns, birth certificate or other personal information? That machine still has a copy of your information hiding inside it's hard drive, unless the machine has been sold off to some unknown third party...
Anyone who has ever used a digital photocopier for personal information should watch this video.
(CBS) At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret.
Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive - like the one on your personal computer - storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.
In the process, it's turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data.
If you're in the identity theft business it seems this would be a pot of gold.
"The type of information we see on these machines with the social security numbers, birth certificates, bank records, income tax forms," John Juntunen said, "that information would be very valuable."
Buffalo Reacts to CBS News Investigation
Juntunen's Sacramento-based company Digital Copier Security developed software called "INFOSWEEP" that can scrub all the data on hard drives. He's been trying to warn people about the potential risk - with no luck.
"Nobody wants to step up and say, 'we see the problem, and we need to solve it,'" Juntunen said.
This past February, CBS News went with Juntunen to a warehouse in New Jersey, one of 25 across the country, to see how hard it would be to buy a used copier loaded with documents. It turns out ... it's pretty easy.
Juntunen picked four machines based on price and the number of pages printed. In less than two hours his selections were packed and loaded onto a truck. The cost? About $300 each.
Until we unpacked and plugged them in, we had no idea where the copiers came from or what we'd find.
We didn't even have to wait for the first one to warm up. One of the copiers had documents still on the copier glass, from the Buffalo, N.Y., Police Sex Crimes Division.
It took Juntunen just 30 minutes to pull the hard drives out of the copiers. Then, using a forensic software program available for free on the Internet, he ran a scan - downloading tens of thousands of documents in less than 12 hours.
The results were stunning: from the sex crimes unit there were detailed domestic violence complaints and a list of wanted sex offenders. On a second machine from the Buffalo Police Narcotics Unit we found a list of targets in a major drug raid.
The third machine, from a New York construction company, spit out design plans for a building near Ground Zero in Manhattan; 95 pages of pay stubs with names, addresses and social security numbers; and $40,000 in copied checks.
But it wasn't until hitting "print" on the fourth machine - from Affinity Health Plan, a New York insurance company, that we obtained the most disturbing documents: 300 pages of individual medical records. They included everything from drug prescriptions, to blood test results, to a cancer diagnosis. A potentially serious breach of federal privacy law.
"You're talking about potentially ruining someone's life," said Ira Winkler. "Where they could suffer serious social repercussions."
Winkler is a former analyst for the National Security Agency and a leading expert on digital security.
"You have to take some basic responsibility and know that these copiers are actually computers that need to be cleaned up," Winkler said.
The Buffalo Police Department and the New York construction company declined comment on our story. As for Affinity Health Plan, they issued a statement that said, in part, "we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that none of our customers' personal information remains on other previously leased copiers, and that no personal information will be released inadvertently in the future."
Ed McLaughlin is President of Sharp Imaging, the digital copier company.
"Has the industry failed, in your mind, to inform the general public of the potential risks involved with a copier?" Keteyian asked.
"Yes, in general, the industry has failed," McLaughlin said.
In 2008, Sharp commissioned a survey on copier security that found 60 percent of Americans "don't know" that copiers store images on a hard drive. Sharp tried to warn consumers about the simple act of copying.
"It's falling on deaf ears," McLaughlin said. "Or people don't feel it's important, or 'we'll take care of it later.'"
All the major manufacturers told us they offer security or encryption packages on their products. One product from Sharp automatically erases an image from the hard drive. It costs $500.
But evidence keeps piling up in warehouses that many businesses are unwilling to pay for such protection, and that the average American is completely unaware of the dangers posed by digital copiers.
The day we visited the New Jersey warehouse, two shipping containers packed with used copiers were headed overseas - loaded with secrets on their way to unknown buyers in Argentina and Singapore.
Maybe as the article below claims "we have only ourselves to blame for the shrinking of the concept of "reasonable expectation of privacy"". This, in my opinion, is a very valid view.
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Below is a short video to introduce a few ideas about the power of symbols but there is so much to say that this is just a brief intro to a number of ideas about various symbols that greatly impact our lives.
Themocracy