Cyber Knob
imagine
it’s summer it’s summer and you’re
sitting in your room
sipping a cup of cold coffee with
netflix
on your tv screen along with the remote
in one hand
and your mobile phone in the other
you’re casually flipping between two
apps
one is helping you watch movies and the
other
has given you the opportunity to shop
the convenience associated with just
adding shopping items into our carts
is extraordinary and weird at the same
time
in a way you can say that you’re
multitasking
i’m pretty sure each one of you from
teachers to students
and to parents can relate to this we
undoubtedly enjoy
what modern technology has to offer us
we have been appreciating the changes in
technology
since a very long time now
i want all of you to imagine again
imagine
that it’s still summer and you’re
sitting in your room
with your fan running at the speed of
two
but you continue to feel the heat
what do you do you increase the speed of
the fan right
and how do you do that you turn
the control knob to a speed that is
suitable or convenient for
you same thing when you say boiling
water
if you want the water to boil faster you
just turn the gas knob
to a suitable flame that is again
convenient
for you
we have all kinds of knobs in our lives
that make our work easier and give us
a little more control over our life
we have volume knobs knobs on mixtures
and even knobs in cars now
the question is do you have
a knob to control your privacy
when you’re online surfing or using any
internet application
the question is do you have
a cyber knob and the answer to this
question
currently is a big no
a few years back when i was introduced
to internet and social media
i was amazed to see how google was
suggesting me on things that i wanted to
search
how amazon was suggesting me to buy more
recommended items based on my previous
purchases
and how youtube was continuously playing
videos
and recommending me at the same time
and surprisingly i had interest in all
of them and so i kept clicking
i was mesmerized by seeing the extent to
which
technology had gone it made me believe
how technology had simplified all my
tasks
i thought how cool it was that youtube
was suggesting me videos that i liked
without having me to search for them and
how anyone
could now watch any movie in any part of
the world
without having to go to the theaters by
just paying for a 199 rupees
subscription
on netflix now you also might be aware
of how the messaging system has evolved
over the years
from the age of pigeons to the age
of handwritten males until now
in the age of what’s up an
app by which texting has not only become
easier but also free
at that point i really couldn’t
understand how this company was earning
money
and what their revenue model was because
the app was free
at that point i was only looking at one
side of the flipped coin
until recently when i watched a movie
called
the social dilemma seeing that movie
made me realize
that there is more to internet
applications than what
meets our eyes there
is a dark side of the internet i’m sure
that this might sound a surprise
coming from a teenager’s mouth but yes i
do agree with it
later on my dad also enlightened me on
what exactly happens behind the scenes
of any website or apps
we use almost daily now i’m pretty sure
many of you might have done this
while you enter your email passwords or
unlock your phones
you tend to hide your phone or cover
your keypad from a friend or a colleague
peeking over your shoulders
or when you parents and teachers when
you’re withdrawing money from the atms
you don’t want anyone else to be there
while you enter your pin right
now if i ask you why do you do this what
will you say
you might say that you do this for the
sake of privacy and security right
but even after doing all of these things
you still cannot guarantee hundred
percent of your privacy
let me share you an incident of mine so
one day me and my dad
were listening to songs on the ghana app
from my dad’s playlist
while driving on a scenic route and when
one of the songs ended
a new song started which was not in my
dad’s playlist
but was composed by the same artist
so did you see what happened here ghana
was trying to be over smart
by recommending and playing videos
similar to those of my dad’s likes
but my dad he didn’t like this feature
he felt that the software was trying to
know more about
him than he himself
now you might say that there are some
apps that give you control over your
privacy
but unfortunately what many privacy and
security companies offer today
are solutions so complex and so
cumbersome
that most consumers and even some iti
administrators
find them too complicated to use
now if a five-year-old can figure out
how to watch a video on an ipad
or make a phone call on an iphone then
why can’t a 25 year old
figure out how to use a security
software is it just a coincidence
of course not it is made to be let that
way
at first i used to think that why should
i worry about privacy and security
i’m not a law breaker i’ve got nothing
to hide
i’m just a 14 year old what could they
possibly get
by stealing my data i used to believe
that the internet is much more secure
and that my personal information
was only available to me but
it turns out i was quite wrong later my
dad told me how these big companies
like google facebook and pinterest they
take your data
and then they further sell that data to
advertisement companies
this was their revenue model to simplify
this let me show you another quick story
of mine
so one day i wanted to buy a smart watch
for me and so i was going through a
shopping site
you know because everyone in my class
had one and
even though having decided on what type
of watch i wanted
i still couldn’t decide with the color
so i pushed the task for the next day
further that day i was reminded of a
cricket match that was going on between
india and england
and me being a big cricket fan i was
eager to know the score
and so i opened a cricket site and
while i was analyzing the score my site
fell upon a pop-up ad
that came up on the screen and to my
surprise
the ad was about a sale on smart watches
at first i thought that might have been
a coincidence but then later i realized
how my data was sold to the cricket site
who had then showed me an ad of a
product that they knew i would be
interested in buying
so did you see how my data was exposed
and how my privacy was compromised
but then later i also figured that you
can choose not to accept the cookies
or block the ads through browser
settings or you even use incognito mode
for the matter of fact
but even after doing this the sites
will continue to persuade you to unblock
the ad control to view their content
this exposure of data right here can
also land in the wrong hands and can
be misused by hackers
so now how do you ensure
your privacy let me tell you a thing
see privacy is not about keeping things
private
it’s not about secrets either
rather privacy is all about choice
the choice about what we tell other
people about
ourselves a series of circumstances
has led us to a place where the content
on the internet
appears to be free but
it’s not we are just paying for it in
different ways which reminds me of a
quote from the movie that i was talking
about earlier
and that is if anything is free
then you are the product your thoughts
and actions they are the product
and trust me when i say that this is not
good for mankind
so now the only question left to answer
is what’s the solution
do we just accept the fact that our
privacy will be violated
or that the people who are genuinely
concerned about this problem
should stop using such services
or is it that we must clear our
government to adopt stricter laws
i ask you again what’s the solution
the solution can be being granted
the access to a cyber knob
a knob that will help you control your
privacy level
while you perform tasks online
a knob that will allow my father to
listen to songs without having to listen
to a second preference
a knob that will allow me to visit any
site i want
without having to be stalked by an ad
company
a knob that will allow me to decide what
i want to share
when i want to share and with whom i
want to share
my personal information online
in this ever so changing world of
technology
all that we users need is a cyberknob
this is a controller of privacy
and even if it means that this knob
might come with a price
i most certainly believe that it’s a
price we should be willing to pay
so before i conclude i would only like
to state that
if we cannot protect ourselves
ultimately
we cannot be ourselves re-emphasizing on
don’t be the product thank you
you