Key Words:
1) Multitasking – shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession.
2) Mobile mesh network – having cell phones connect directly to one another, rather than routing signals through cell phone towers.
3) Metadata – information like what numbers you called, what time you made the calls, and how long the calls were.
4) Section 215 of the Patriot Act – allows government to obtain business records that are relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation.
5) Fourth Amendment – requires search warrants to particularly describe the place to be searched.
6) Locational Privacy – the ability of an individual to move in public space with the expectation that under normal circumstances their location will not be systematically and secretly recorded for later use.
This weeks readings are a curious bunch. Every article made me feel as if we are that much closer to a Big-Brother-bound society.
We are a society whose focus is to finish tasked quickly, efficiently, and simultaneously. But can we get a job done, and get it done well, if only a fraction of our brain is focused on it? According to the reading, multitasking “can put us under a great deal of stress and actually make us less efficient.” I always felt as if multitasking was a skill, until you realize what you put into one project is not necessarily what you put into another.
“As we are required, or feel required, to do more and more things in a shorter period of time, researchers are trying to figure out how the brain changes attention from one subject to another.”
How is multitasking even a thing? Mobile technology and the ability to have access to our social networks, email, television shows, music, and more at our fingertips. But because of this, it is not only us who have easy access to things, things also have easy access to us.
Although I had knowledge of the government having access to our phone conversations and records, I guess I never particularly thought too much about it. Should we? These ideas can very well be legitimate – but if pined over could they cause us more paranoia than anything? Should we be able to trust that although this information is readily available, people are genuinely and generally good and trustworthy to not use it?
As far as security purposes go, I believe that being able to tap into phone conversations or use cell phones and a GPS as tracking devices is a clever – and in most cases effective – strategy. But what constitutes as crossing the fine line between privacy and security?
Is privacy even relevant in our lives anymore?