This is stolen, uhm borrowed. from NPR. But it is really scary. I have been cheering how modern communication made the protests in Tehran possible. I never thought of it being a double edged sword.
NPR, July 13, 2009
"A scary anecdote from Iran. A trusted colleague - who is married to an Iranian-American and would thus prefer to stay anonymous - has told me of a very disturbing episode that happened to her friend, another Iranian-American, as she was flying to Iran last week. On passing through the immigration control at the airport in Tehran, she was asked by the officers if she has a Facebook account. When she said "no", the officers pulled up a laptop and searched for her name on Facebook. They found her account and noted down the names of her Facebook friends.
This is very disturbing. For once, it means that the Iranian authorities are paying very close attention to what's going on Facebook and Twitter (which, in my opinion, also explains why they decided not to take those web-sites down entirely - they are useful tools of intelligence gathering)."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Pat Hansbury
ReplyDeleteThe Grand Ayatollah Khamenei requests to be your face book friend
I personally have been a facebook friend of President Ahmadinejad for years now.
ReplyDeleteLet me check what he's doing now...
Says Mahmoud is currently at the store still trying to find the right tie to match his suit.
Wow, that's insane. This is a true example of Facebook stalking!
ReplyDeleteIt would not surprise me if Khamenei wants to be my Facebook friend. He is probably won over by my Phillie Phanatic profile photo. I would suggest that color green for Ahmadinejad. It says style and Islam all in one. Do you think the Phanatic could be a secret Islamist. Shh. Don't tell Dick Cheney
ReplyDeleteI agree, Angel. It does give stalking a new dimension. 1984?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about stalking, but anything you post on the internet can be traced back to you. College admissions and future employers will be looking at what you are posting on Face book today when making dicsions about your future. I heard that NFL teams were sending requests to become Facebook friends with players they were considering drafting posing as college girls to get access to try Face book and get a better idea about the player before making a multi-million dollar investment.
ReplyDeleteAs an employer, everybody looks good in their resume and their references always give glowing reccomendations. We try to gather as much other first hand information ("A" level intelligence) as we can get. We haven't used the internet yet, but if I had two equal candidates for a position, I would consider using Facebook information to help me choose. Is that stalking or just making a wise decision? Similarly I hope the US customs is checking the internet to make sure this "college student" trying to obtain a visa into the US isn't an active participant on the Al Quaida web site/Facebook
It is scary, though. I think what the NFL is doing is unethical if not outright fraud. At least, the Iranian immigration officials were open about it. But, creating a false identity to get access to a Facebook page?? That is so underhanded. Has Big Brother really arrived?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Ms. Hansbury. But at the same time... that is why you don't friend people you don't know, and it's also why you put you security settings all the way up. It's not as though facebook is the only way to check someone out these days, it's just the easiest and cheapest. If someone wants to find out what kind of person you are, or check your closet for skeletons, they'll do it.
ReplyDeleteIt is a double edged sword. It is great to be able to get in touch and keep in touch with people so easily, but it does take away so much of our privacy. I guess we have to decide if the trade off is worth it.
ReplyDeleteThat is stalking. To get a better idea about a person, you could follow them around for a day to get a better idea of what they're like and whether you want to invest in them. And it would be called stalking (albeit not for ... the usual reasons people stalk).
ReplyDeleteIt is a strange thing though. We're all used to think of Facebook as, "oh, that's something teenagers use". And now governments are using it for security reasons. We've entered into a whole new world. You never can predict what they future will be like, can you?
I wonder what would happen if the North Koreans had facebook...
North Koreans and Facebook! That does not compute. I originally thought that teens would abandon Facebook for some other site after adults began to embrace it so enthusiastically. But, now governments and the NFL using it...? Where do we go from here?
ReplyDeleteMs. Hansbury, from here we go to somewhere worse...
ReplyDeleteCertain Web 3.0 companies are sprouting all over the place and they have the technology and the brainpower to be able to access data that you would never think was possible! In fact, there are companies that can mine for data even without you making it public. Even without it being indexed on google.
It is absolutely mind-boggling how easy it is to collect and store online data. Most companies would sell it to advertisers, but who says that Iran or [Insert anyone here} cannot use this technology for their purposes?
Now, I am not a computer scientist in the least, and I usually don't like to be hyper-terrified about Big Brother, but the fact still remains - anything one posts on the net is subject to loss of privacy.
-Vera
Very scary, Vera. Even George Orwell would not have foreseen this.
ReplyDelete