Is privacy impossible?

Interview: "It's Pretty Much Impossible" To Protect Online Privacy

https://www.schneier.com/news-148.html

April 8, 2013

This article contains a radio interview with Bruce Schneier by Radio Free Europe.  In this interview he describes the limits of privacy in the digital age. The interview starts by describing how major Internet players such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter are created detailed profiles on each person.  Not only do marketers buy this information, but government bodies are subpoenaing this information. Google publishes how many letters of request it is getting from national security agencies or other government bodies. He made an interesting quote, “So basically it's used to judge people. Either judge them for marketing purposes or judge them for political purposes.”

He stated how difficult it is to protect ones privacy against well-funded, skilled, and motivated adversaries. He expressed that there may be more danger from governments and corporations misusing the Internet than from its misuse by criminals and terrorists.  He gave an interesting example that he believed that Microsoft was allowing different governments to spy on Skype users. Businesses have to obey the law. They are primarily focused on making profit and so have little motivation to fight the government.  He sees a great danger of “those in power using the Internet to stay in power.”