The Evolution of Privacy

Desire for privacy and the effort behind obtaining it have changed over the course of time.  The events chronicled by Cliff Stoll in his book The Cuckoo's Egg took place in a much different time than ours.  The internet was in its infancy as was the mentality for keeping networks secure. The hacker Stoll hunted successfully entered networks largely because administrators figuratively left their back door unlocked.  As Stoll tried to stop the hacker he was bounced back and forth between federal agencies, none of which though the threat serious enough to take charge.

Times have changed since then.  There was an uproar when Edward Snowden revealed that the government was spying not just on foreigners but on US citizens.  Similar headlines were made when a breach in Apples' iCloud service lead to leaked celebrity photos.  Since then it seems not a week goes by without a new company being hacked.  Interest in protecting privacy has reached the point that Apple and Google encrypt users' data by default much to the Federal Government's chagrin.

But the more things change the more things stay the same.  People may want privacy but they have to sacrifice convenience for it.  Stoll's hacker got in because people were lazy with passwords.  Have people improved at choosing safe ones?  I doubt it.  The average computer user probably uses one or a handful of the same passwords for the ever-increasing number of logins required today.  If true privacy and protection are desired then there must be effort expended to match.