Home Computer Privacy

A good way to keep personal information private is just that, keep it private. They hope for telephone and modem manufactures to design their products so that only “infected” telephones and modems can communicate with other “infected” telephones and modems thus forcing the public to by their products. This information often gets sold to large companies and data brokers. Any user can send communications to them by using their public key to encrypt it. They want every user to have two “keys,” a public key and a private key. People need to understand that, unlike the real world, the Internet can be “shut off”. As long as necessary precautions are taken and users watch the information they give out and to whom they give it to, there really is no threat of Big Brother or anyone else invading home computer privacy. They get their information from phone directories; birth, marriage, divorce, death, property tax and driver’s license records; credit bureaus; and other assorted databases. Most sites tell what information is required and most do not require an address or Email address (Mannix 76). They also want to do this with the Internet and Email.

It is looking like there will be many changes in privacy in the near future. Users also need to stay informed about protection and privacy threat issues.