Spying on my children!!? That’s NUTS! That’s SICK! But it’s happening. Right now. And you are letting it happen either because you are unaware or because you are lazy, or both.
I don’t want to be harsh on you but I just can’t find a better way to say it. Your non-chalent attitude towards protecting your digital life could cost your children dearly. Yes, I’m mentioning your children because you have proven for years that you don’t care about yourself. You say “I’ve got nothing to hide! Spy on me! No problem!” But how about your daughter? While she’s alone in her bedroom. How about that? Is that ok? If it is, just go ahead and close down this browser window because you are a lost cause. If it’s not ok with you and something inside of you says “I should probably learn more and take action” then read on.
This post on this blog found by my good friend inspired what I’m writing here. I am a busy person. Perhaps one of the business people I know. However, I absolutely make sure that I’m spending time learning how to improve the protection of our computers. Don’t be deceived into thinking that there is nothing you can do. You can make your digital life nearly *bulletproof* if you put in the time and learn.
I think what’s missing is community around this stuff. Randall Ross is always preaching ‘community, community, community’ for the Ubuntu world. His point is that without a tangible face-to-face community that all this stuff becomes an isolated remote experience. I agree. Unless you knew the 17 year old victim girl in that post, it would likely have not reached your priority to-do list. However, if we had a community built, we would not only know her but be able to react. Had she been part of our local Ubuntu community, she would have fared much better as she would have had a group of people she could have contacted – not just Josh.
I am not perfect. I’m far from it. However there are some basic steps we need to be making or the problem will get worse before it gets better:
-Get involved in our local Ubuntu community. If there isn’t one, start one.
-secure our computers with Ubuntu
-secure our phones with Ubuntu
-put PGP on all our email communications
-educate our friends and family and don’t be nice about it. How would you treat a drunk person about to get behind the wheel of a car with his family in the back?
-stop making excuses like ‘I’ve got nothing to hide’. You have your vulnerable daughter to hide if you don’t respect yourself enough.
