Big Data Archives - John Sileo, Cyber Security Training

Posts tagged "Big Data"

Does the NSA or Google Spy More on You? [Burning Questions Ep. 4]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsezLe4l4fE&rel=0]

Today’s Burning Question for online privacy expert John Sileo:

“Who is the bigger spy, the NSA or Google?”

I thought that was a really fascinating question. Of course, it comes because in the last couple of months the NSA has been outed by Edward Snowden, the former NSA employee. The NSA (National Security Agency) has been spying on our phone calls- who we’re calling and when, our emails- who we’re emailing and what about, and even our social media posts.

The latest scandal is called “Muscular”. Somehow, the NSA has gotten between the transmissions of Google and Yahoo. In other words, the NSA has been “sniffing” the emails going back and forth between the two largest email providers in the US and this has angered the tech giants like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.

Talking Surveillance Once Again–Know Your Phone Carrier More Precisely

When you log onto the Verizon Precision Market Insights website, the giant catch phrase that jumps out at you in bold red letters is:

“Know your audience more precisely.

Drive your business more effectively.”

Verizon is pulling no punches when it comes to letting advertisers know that they have valuable data- OUR data- and they’re willing to share it. For a price of course. Phone carriers, who see a continued decline in contract subscriber growth and voice calls, are hoping to generate new sources of revenue by selling the data they collect about us. They already collect information about user location and Web surfing and application use (which informs them about such things as travels, interests and demographics) to adjust their networks to handle traffic better. Now they have begun to sell this data.