If you have browsed Richard Stallman’s personal webpage or have watched some of his lectures, you will know Stallman doesn’t use Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Eventbrite, Snapchat, Amazon, Microsoft Windows, Skype and many other software platforms. The founder of the Free Software Foundation claims he doesn’t want to live a life of convenience compromising his freedom and privacy. In the eyes of Stallman, Facebook, Snapchat or even a cellphone are the ways through which the “big brother” can conduct mass surveillance on people.
Legendary computer scientist Don Knuth says, “Email is for someone who wants to be on top of things. I want to be at the bottom.”
The author of the Art of Computer Programming series claims to have given up emails since 1990. In his personal webpage, Knuth argues, “I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime.”
In the age of the internet, it is easy to get trapped in the fantasy of the virtual world. On one hand, the internet has improved our lives by providing us easy access to worldly information.
On the other hand, it has pushed our private space into the digital arena and has compromised our privacy. Our personal information is no longer limited within us. Big players of the internet ecosystem know our choice and preference better than us.
I agree that the internet has decentralized the mode of communication, but still the giant stakeholders such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter etc. have a greater impact on the existing information.
For example, if Facebook wants, it can delete our profile. And if Google wants, it can also remove the files we have stored in our Google drive. We have freedom, but our freedom is bound within the mercy of the bigger players.
In 2016, after the San Bernardino attack, there was a lengthy legal tussle between Apple and the FBI on whether Apple should use its backdoor to unlock the suspected iPhone. Apple denied the presence of such backdoor and declined to help the FBI in unlocking the device. The FBI ultimately found a third party to unlock the device and was able to access the content of the phone.
It is still a debate whether Apple has a secret backdoor for all the devices they sell. Stallman argues that most of the proprietary software have such backdoors which they can use to spy on the users if they want to. If his argument is true, it is a big threat to our privacy and freedom.
It is not possible for us to live like Stallman. It is also not easy to give up social media and emails. Unlike Knuth, many of us still want to be “on top of things.”
Convenience always comes at a price, but there are still many things under our control which we often tend to ignore. It is always up to us to decide what sort of information we want to make public in the internet space. There is always a room for the minimization of the privacy violation.
We have our limitations and constraints, but a better awareness of the Internet ecosystem and a good knowledge of the privacy settings can make us far more secure than we are today. Complete freedom and privacy can be imagined only in an ideal world.
