Users complain Palm is spying on them, but this isn’t something new: Part II

 

 

     Hey Readers, if you read my previous blog, I stated that I would be going more in-depth on the “Big Brother” fear today. I decided to take a look into not only which other phones were sending and receiving its users data but also the far reaching consequences of information sharing. My search results are rather disturbing.

   I mentioned yesterday that the Palm Pre had received many complaints  about it’s info sharing, but a lot of phones are transferring it’s users information, Palm Pre just got caught. Our obsession with convenience has now turned into a crisis of privacy. The technology age has now met with the “microwave generation” which has effectively wiped away our former guard of personal boundaries. We share passwords, credit card numbers, family pictures, home and business addresses and personal conversations daily over multiple avenues most often via our cell phones. Most of us don’t blink when prompted by our phone to enter our email password or user name, as long as it makes reading, sending, and receiving our emails faster, easier, and more convenient. We don’t stop to think about what is in our emails, what personal data our handy communications device has just gained access to. Let me not be misunderstood, I am self described cellaholic, I don’t go anywhere without my phone. I could never be the person to tell anyone to “rage against the machine” and “burn all cell phones”, because I wouldn’t last a day without mine, but I will say that maybe we should all become a little more conscience of how much we share. Which leads me into my next point.

   For most of us, using our phones as a mobile office, home phone, emergency life-line, as well as an entertainment hub is the norm. We “Share” information through email, tweets, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook and many other social networking media, and if you have a phone which has “Apps” you probably have an app for each one of the previously mentioned networks. We share a summary of who we are as people with just a click of a button or in some cases a swipe of a finger and that’s just in the “About Me” section. So how can we be surprised by our cellphone companies gathering information about us, when they feel that they have given us warning that they will? On the other hand we have seemingly been desensitized about sharing our personal information. Being inundated with the ever present question “What are you doing?” , or “What’s on your mind?” and repeatedly answering can and has had an effect on our psyche. So to have our phones gather more information from us seems to be the logical ending. But this cellphone spying can become quite radical, even dangerous.

   In my search for insight for this blog I found myself plastered with sites offering products, software, and simple spying accounts. All with the sole purpose of spying through a cellphone. I was disturbed to find that not only can your calls be monitored while your on them, but also your text messages, emails, and you can even listen to someones conversation if the phone is off with out the person knowing! The software is virtually undetectable and relatively low priced. This has far reaching consequences for anyone concerned about their privacy! I was shocked to find that the easiest and best phone for the software to work on is the iPhone. This may not seem shocking at first glance but if you do a little research you’ll find that Apple based it’s early marketing on revolting against “Big Brother”. One of their most well known commercials, which you can watch via YouTube, is their attempt to showcase themselves as heroes against conformity and the ever present surveillance and domination of a Big Brother-like villain.  This is was startling revelation for me since they too collect information from their cellphone users now.

Now in all honesty I don’t fully disagree with cellphones having access to some information especially GPS, since in some cases it can be used to save lives. But I do believe that we should all take a good look at the way we freely share information about ourselves via Internet and cellphones. But who am I to judge, I’ve checked email from my phone six times and tweeted twice since I began writing this. The decision, at the end of the day, is yours.