{"id":25988,"date":"2014-05-27T13:15:12","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T18:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=25988"},"modified":"2014-05-27T13:17:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T18:17:07","slug":"internet-privacy-advice-for-kids-who-are-not-digital-natives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/05\/27\/internet-privacy-advice-for-kids-who-are-not-digital-natives\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet privacy advice for kids (who are not<\/em> “Digital Natives”)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cory Doctorow<\/a> sympathizes with young people who have literally grown up with the internet:<\/p>\n

The problem with being a \u201cdigital native\u201d is that it transforms all of your screw-ups into revealed deep truths about how humans are supposed to use the Internet. So if you make mistakes with your Internet privacy, not only do the companies who set the stage for those mistakes (and profited from them) get off Scot-free, but everyone else who raises privacy concerns is dismissed out of hand. After all, if the \u201cdigital natives\u201d supposedly don\u2019t care about their privacy, then anyone who does is a laughable, dinosauric idiot, who isn\u2019t Down With the Kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrivacy\u201d doesn\u2019t mean that no one in the world knows about your business. It means that you get to choose<\/em> who knows about your business.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s difficult to explain to people just how open their online “secrets” really are … and that’s not even covering the folks who are specifically targets of active surveillance … just being on Facebook<\/em> or other social media sites hands over a lot of your personal details without your direct knowledge or (informed) consent. But you can start to take back some of your own privacy online:<\/p>\n

If you start using computers when you\u2019re a little kid, you\u2019ll have a certain fluency with them that older people have to work harder to attain. As Douglas Adams wrote:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Anything that is in the world when you\u2019re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.<\/li>\n
  2. Anything that\u2019s invented between when you\u2019re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.<\/li>\n
  3. Anything invented after you\u2019re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If I was a kid today, I\u2019d be all about the opsec \u2014 the operational security. I\u2019d learn how to use tools that kept my business between me and the people I explicitly shared it with. I\u2019d make it my habit, and get my friends into the habit too (after all, it doesn\u2019t matter if all your email is encrypted if you send it to some dorkface who keeps it all on Google\u2019s servers in unscrambled form where the NSA can snaffle it up).<\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s some opsec links to get you started:<\/p>\n