#DataLife
This was published more than 4 years ago
Attitudes and opinions change and evolve.
You know that feeling you get when you stumble upon something you wrote in the distant past and it's terrible? There are many cringe-worthy bits of immature writing on this website (and I'm probably still creating more).
As well as the mere cringe-worthy, there are also opinions and attitudes expressed that I no longer hold and am, frankly, embarrassed by. (Please don't go looking, they're deliberately hard to find, but left for the sake of posterity.)
I hope if you've stumbled across some here, you'll give me the benefit of the doubt.
The pervasive and growing level of digital surveillance that comes prepackaged with your ticket to living in a modern world is overwhelming if you think too much about it.
In the second half of 2018, I did a project for ABC News which took a deeper dive into how, and with who, the devices in my life are sharing data about me. Like many people before me who have started paying attention it has left me even more uneasy about where technology is headed, how the tech companies make their money and unsure about what I can or should do to reclaim some privacy.
- My phone is spying on me, so I decided to spy on it
- Do you need a virtual private network to protect your privacy online?
- Do you know what your phone is up to while you sleep?
- When I searched ‘vasectomy’, I didn’t think quite so many companies would hear about it
- If you’re worried about online data trackers, try this before you chuck your phone away
Reporting
If you want a look under the hood on how I collected the data to report these stories, I’ve also published all the code used for intercepting and recording the connections my phone and my computer made.