Taking Time to Guard the Borders
I was in the midst of building up a better OOP approach to pages when I felt an overwhelming need to check traffic in and out of my home-office network. These past few months has proven that the enemy is not just cyber-criminals, but also big-tech companies. But the scope of concern is still greater! Even Open Source software (Chromium, Thunderbird, Firefox, apps packaged with Chromium, ...) make requests across the Internet I never asked them to make. So what's up with them? What are they saying? Who are they contacting? Is there some software on my network I'm not aware of? Are there more things I should be blocking?
Being very concerned with the state of affairs, in the world of digital, I chose to take some time out and inspect my network's traffic. And although I just started I've already spotted some alarming activity. I'm not going to dive into the details here as they don't really pertain to this site. But I am going to post project details on my personal page as time permits and as I make progress.
This is going to be an interesting project not only in the techniques I use to counter cyber-thugs and big-tech surveillance but in the things I find and the direction they take me. I think this is a project that many others should undertake and hopefully contribute too, as I get the software on this site written. But its obvious to me that we all need to be aware of what's going on with our devices. Big-tech in every nation and the ever increasingly potent cyber-thug community are out to steal from us in every way imaginable.
I imagine to many this makes me seem like a crack pot. But I've been working with the personal computer since its inception, even before the IBM juggernaut created theirs. Ignore my concerns at your own peril. But don't be up-in-arms about privacy if you don't feel this same concern.
Alexa, are you listening? ... umm... no
