I’m currently scouring the news and seeing lots of privacy concerns and security issues with pretty much every major operating system, mobile or otherwise. My initial reaction to the panic was that perhaps it was overblown. Then I realized something. This is kind of a milestone in technology and computers – in a good way.
It used to be that Internet concerns and computer security were limited to a special class of people, “nerds.” What’s happened in the past five years or so has been an explosion in personal devices. Laptops can handle the needs of many. With smartphones and tablets, people are using connected electronic devices much more than they used to.
Now the concerns of the “normal person” come in to play because it’s not just nerds who are connected all the time. So while it may appear that any time a phone sends data to a server that people are freaking out – it’s really the general public learning how these systems work.
The days where a person would have to bring their device to their nerdy friend to figure something out – those days are ending. Knowing where your settings are on your phone or Facebook is slowly becoming the norm. Bring on the security concerns and privacy panic because it’s actually a mass education – and that’s a good thing.
I tend to agree. They knee jerk reaction from nerds like me is usually an exasperated, "Well, duh! Why do we keep talking about things that every should know about already."Problem is that everybody does *not* know about this stuff already.It also seems like you also have to communicate to the extreme to make sure the message penetrates the consciousness of the "normals".What’s the alternative? Ignore privacy concerns until after something bad has happened? Probably not the greatest plan. Like most things, the best answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.That’s not to say that I’ll stop my initial eye-rolling when I come across these stories. But assuming my eyes roll back into place, that’s a small price to pay for what will amount to be the greater good.