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