Must off-grid include Internet as well?
SYDNEY, June 20 (Xinhua) — As CIA whistle-blower Edward Snowden hides out in Hong Kong over his expose of U.S. government data mining, we must prepare for the fallout of our plugged-in, wired-up world.
Technology promises to make our lives easier, linking us together and putting vast amounts of information at our fingertips, but many of us are generating data without any real idea of where it’s going or how it may be used.
Speaking at the University of Sydney last week via videolink, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange commented on the pervasiveness of technology in our everyday lives, and how data is now collected on every single person plugged into the system — regardless of whether they’ve ever committed a crime, or been innocent or guilty.
“Edward Snowden revealed something that I have been speaking about for a long time… That as the Internet has penetrated every aspect of society, riding on with it is mass surveillance,” Assange said.…