Which Way Out of the Walled Garden?
The simple truth of the matter is that most individuals are easy targets for both the government and corporations. They either pay for software products like Pages and Office from well known manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft or download them for free from game companies like Activision, Rovio, and Zynga for use inside "reputable" mobile devices like Blackberries and iPhones.
These manufacturers jealously guard access to the software that they make available, saying that they need to have quality control. Some go even further with what is known as the "walled garden" approach, only allowing pre-approved programs on their devices. Apple's iTunes, Amazon's Kindle, and Nintendo's Wii are examples of this.
But as the Snowden revelations have helped make clear, such devices and software are vulnerable both to manufacturer's mistakes, which open exploitable backdoors into their products, and to secret deals with the NSA.
So in a world where, increasingly, nothing is private, nothing is simply yours, what is an Internet user to do? As a start, there is an alternative to most major software programs for word processing, spreadsheets, and layout and design -- the use of free and open source software like Linux and Open Office, where the underlying code is freely available to be examined for hacks and flaws. (Think of it this way: if the NSA cut a deal with Apple to copy everything on your iPhone, you would never know. If you bought an open-source phone -- not an easy thing to do -- that sort of thing would be quickly spotted.) You can also use encrypted browsers like Tor and search engines like Duck Duck Go that don't store your data.
Next, if you own and use a mobile device on a regular basis, you owe it yourself to turn off as many of the location settings and data-sharing options as you can. And last but hardly least, don't play Farmville, go out and do the real thing. As for Angry Birds and Call of Duty, honestly, instead of shooting pigs and people, it might be time to think about finding better ways to entertain yourself. Pick up a paintbrush, perhaps? Or join an activist group like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and fight back against Big Brother.
Pratap Chatterjee, a TomDispatch regular, is executive director of CorpWatch and a board member of Amnesty International USA. He is the author of Halliburton's Army and Iraq, Inc.
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Copyright 2014 Pratap Chatterjee
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