Big Brother is the new watchword..not Big Data

Increasing online presence of individuals, both as a matter of social habit, as well as due to commercial compulsions have opened up an unexpected Pandora’s box.  Inadvertently (and sometimes deliberately), a lot of our personal information is posted in electronic formats which are readily available for others to view, or manipulate not fully realizing the consequences of our action.

In an age where even Governments machineries are willing to peak into our personal world’s our continued use of the electronic media only makes us that much more vulnerable. While the electronic world has become a vital component of our daily life, sometimes we over indulge in it and unknowingly provide free fodder for the information kleptomaniacs out there. This information could be as simple as the location where are you to what you are going to this weekend or what all you shop. So it’s always better to know where to actually draw the line of making available personal/professional information on electronic media. Here are a few tips which could be useful:

1. First things first, be clear about the purpose of your transaction or post and reason it to yourself whether it is a personal or a professional interest.
2. Check out the information "visibility ". Is it open to friends or friends of friends or to the entire public? It is always better to have separate email for managing personal information and another one for public transactions.
3. Be aware that mentioning personal information, such as your phone numbers, place of work visible to the public make it vulnerable for this information to be misused by others.
4. Online transactions from public access sites are always prone to problems and can be avoided as much as is possible.
5. Online forms which require you to give information typically ask for much more information than is required.  When you provide information online, question yourself whether this information is absolutely essential to provide; fill in only mandatory information.
6. Maintaining multiple passwords is a challenge.  Yet, changing passwords at least once in 2-3 months would ensure that data theft does not happen. Rely on good old pen and paper for keeping a track of passwords.
7. Some e-commerce sites allow you to access their websites by logging in through any of the other social media logins (such as Facebook) that you may have. Be cognizant of what information they are going to take when they actually allow you to login through Facebook. While it is convenient to login through Facebook, be aware of what you actually tell them about yourself; un-check any info that you do not want to divulge to them.
8. Unless to a closed group, do not post your views, especially if you consider that they could be seen as radical.  The same goes for pictures and photographs of your home, or the place where you stay in, or photographs of your kids/friends/acquaintances in social networking sites.
9. Review the sites that you access periodically.  Unregister from the sites which you had registered, but no longer use.
10. Be aware of the kind of documents and other information that you save in public storage sites like DropBox, Google Drive, etc. These could be easily accessed by others.
11. Many applications that we download on mobile access data on your devices.  Be aware of the data being sent from your phone to online data storage sites which back up your device data.
12. Last but not the least; do not accept friendship requests from strangers. Social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin) thrive on getting you ‘linked’ to as many people as possible. The more people you are connected to, the more you propagate your information, and the more popular you tend to become.  Linking to strangers just for the sake of improving your network is the most dangerous thing that you could do. Instead, go out and socialize.

(Thanks to Raghu and Pavani for helping with this compilation)

Looking forward..looking backward

2013 is going to be very different than any of the previous years.  This is not as much a prediction, as a realization that changes are happening much faster than ever before; the world is moving at a pace which many of us are unable to keep up with.  Here are a few things which I believe are revolutionizing the way we will view our world in the coming year.

1.  People Voice vs. Political Power: Even democracies which pretended to represent its people have gradually moved away from listening to the very same people who elected them.  People all over the world have begun finding their voice, whether it is in the Jasmine Revolution in Middle East and Africa, or the Spanish people's protests, or the Anna-Kejriwal lead multiple anti-corruption morchas.  These are reminders that somewhere these voices are being muted, muzzled, lost in the wilderness.  These voices will now continue to echo again and again, until they are heeded to, Governments will need to start listening to the people.  

2.  The Power of Technology: Technology has played multiple roles – it has made the silent people audible, the invisible people visible, and the powerless suddenly having their voice heard.  It has also dramatically reduced the gap between those who have used brute power of money to gain popular voice, and those who have no money but have important messages to convey.  More and more, those who have something to say are being listened to, not because they are powerful, but because they make sense.  Whether Facebook and Twitter make commercial sense may be debatable but clearly they have changed the world for ever.

3.   Gaps, Distance, Frustration: While in the past, gaps were taken for granted, as a part of any system, this status quo has being questioned many times in the past few months.  In the coming times, gaps arising out of lack of communication, or responsiveness are likely to lead to heightened frustrations.  To top it all, there continues to be a blurring of lines between what consists correct and what incorrect.  So, in any debate one is likely to find as many people proposing, as opposing any sentiment.  The days of hand-down winning of one-sided debates are over.

4.  Economic Blues: The economic pain is here to stay.  For long, governments have  borrowed much more than they deliver, and these borrowings have traditionally hidden the inefficiencies of governance.  No matter whether one talks about the now averted fiscal cliff in the USA, or the pains of Euro Zone, or the fiscal deficits of India; all are due to over-governance with little accountability.  A floundering government has no ways of encouraging private enterprise, which is now beginning to show signs of fraying at the edges.

5.   Uncertainty, the new status quo: We are in the age of two minute titillation -   momentary pleasure, angers, frustrations, and then on to a new high or a new low, depending on ones’ choice.  Younger leaders, with smaller lifespans are causing greater energy dispersion with lesser satisfaction.  The younger generation is eager to adapt to the new, without completely understanding what the new direction is all about whereas the older generation tries to cling to its known paths of safety.  The young will prevail.  

And on this rather bright note, let us hope that the New Year brings in new hopes and renewed faith in the overall goodness of human kind.