The web should be called the pit.
4
I have worked in information technology for 33+ yeas, of which the last 20 were spent specializing in an esoteric branch of information security. The advice below can help anyone protect their privacy. As with all security practices, it is not fool-proof, but much as good health depends on many factors - most of which are in one's control - every action helps. Many may find this advice anachronistic, but if you care about your privacy, please take this seriously.
1. For less than $10, get yourself a FIDO U2F Security Key. It is a new, and the strongest, authentication technology on the market. It can be used on websites to protect your account from being hacked. Ask the websites you visit to enable FIDO2 and eliminate passwords. (@NYT, please enable FIDO2 instead of the archaic passwords on your site; also, please stop using Google and Facebook to authenticate users - you are enabling the sale of user information when you do so).
2. As difficult as it may be, delete your accounts on social media sites. YOU are their product, and as long as you use them, do not expect ANY social media site to stop selling your information;
3. Turn OFF Location Tracking and WiFi on your phone, until you absolutely need it, or at home. If you haven't used an app for 3 months, delete it;
4. Use cash for most purchases;
5. Find a privacy-focused mail service provider and pay for your e-mail service;
6. Use DuckDuckGo as your default search engine.
Hard? Not if privacy matters to you.
8
@Arshad Noor Thank you for advice with FIDO. With the rest - we try to do it in most cases (minimum SM, maximum cash). Such life is healthier and more productive btw. with cash, I started spending less money on things I don't really need. Without SM i have more time for work and real rest. I feel healthier. That's another benefit of the Privacy Project.
1
The irony is that the poor are worth surveilling.
What's the point besides harassment?
The poor lack resources to do much to affect the wealthier tranches of society. But nonetheless, they fear the poor because if the wealthier folks' money was to go somewhere, they think it would go down into the vacuum of the poor. Of course this is nonsense, the only place money goes in this society is up into the rich, which is why we have so many poor.
It is a false fear the poor pose a risk, but the wealthier people think they do. The real truth is that the wealthier folks are afraid of being poor, of falling themselves back down into poverty -- that is what they fear, and so they irrationally attack and surveil and harass the poor incessantly thinking somehow that makes them safe.
7
Now I feel guilty for working like a fool all my life not to be poor. How inconsiderate of me. Always with the, “disadvantaged groups,” like that’s all we who aren’t have sought to do unto others so that they are. Yesterday my wife was totally distraught over some email scam regarding Qatar Airways booking phishing scheme that was on her iPhone and ready to cancel all our credit cards out of fear all of them had been hacked. I’m sorry for the poor but I guess I should be glad they can still share in the same technological suffering as me, for whatever consolation that’s worth.
It used to be illegal for blacks to be served in a whites only restaurant and I am sure there some good people, as trump would say, who still maintain it is illegal. We should look at immigration for what it is, a means to maintain white supremacy. Just being present without papers does not make you a criminal just as being black is not a crime.
2
@ Dominic MinneapolisApril 25
In post WW 2 the US was the only economy left standing. It used her position to her advantage.
Sometimes ruthlessly.
Now, pay check to pay check workers face that they have to work at near Mexican wages or the company will move to Mexico or China
Read up in the NY Times on Becoming a Steel Worker liberated her, then her Job moved to Mexico.
Get used to it.
2
Become a voting block and this will change.
1
Wow! This puts a new spin on William Gibson's comment that "The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed." The technological dystopia is already here for people of color and the poor.
3
"This kind of targeting may take the form of warrantless cellphone location tracking that results in wrongful arrests or pervasive networks of cameras and sensors that monitor all of the public activity in low-income neighborhoods in a constant search for suspicious activity."
Have said techniques been proven statistically to reduce criminal activity in said crime-ridden communities? Ask the right questions...
3
The poor in the US are among the most fortunate people to have ever lived.
According to the US Census Bureau, most people living below the poverty line in the US have: A TV, cell phone, frost-free refrigerator, microwave, air conditioning, and cable and internet service. And the cell phone may be the very same one used by Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.
My father was a UAW member working for Ford. Growing up in the 1950s, my family had none of the conveniences I listed above.
This is not to say that the poor don’t have disadvantages. Of course they do. That’s been the case since the beginning of time and always will be.
The point is to count our blessings instead of our grievances. In this land of opportunity, the best way to help the poor is not to be one.
7
@Johnny Stark "According to the US Census Bureau, most people living below the poverty line in the US have: A TV, cell phone, frost-free refrigerator, microwave, air conditioning, and cable and internet service. And the cell phone may be the very same one used by Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple."
Things these people don't have: health and dental insurance, access to quality food, job security, higher education, home ownership.
When is the last time you have met or spoken to a poor person? I had classmates in university in Europe who were from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds -- not one of them would trade their university degree, insulin or housing for a "frost free refrigerator".
15
@J Williams
More than one billion people on this planet are still without electricity. No electricity doesn't just mean no lighting. It means no indoor plumbing and no clean water. It means high childhood mortality. Those people make the US poor seem fabulously prosperous.
When is the last time you have met or spoken to person who lives without electricty?
5
@Johnny Stark
Could we PLEASE stop with the 'poor have it better today than the royalty in the past' nonsense? Or the 1950's? We don't live in the past, we are living today. Everything you listed is cheap: a microwave cost so little college students take them to their dorms and then toss them in the trash after the year ends, cells phones can be as little as $20 and a $30 monthly fee, I got my last TV (a smart one) for less than $300 and it should last 8 years ($37.00 a year). The most expensive thing in your list is the cable/internet (basic about $75 a month). Refrigerators usually come with the apartment. Your arguments is nonsense.
9
A few less-than-sympathetic observations. First, surveillance leading the deportation of people who are here illegally is the government's job. That they are fearful of seeking benefits is one of the reasonable, foreseeable consequences of breaking and entering into a foreign country. Try sneaking into the UK, or France or, God forbid, China or Japan or Vietnam and apply for "benefits."
It is also time to dispense with the phrase "income inequality." There is no such thing, anywhere There is a gap, and the gap is of concern, but it has nothing to do with "equality."
A final note: believe it or not, there have always been disadvantages to being poor. That is why, for over 150 years, good parents have begged, coerced and forced their kids to get a good education. That these people deserve true sympathy is uncontested. That the terrible consequences of early mistakes in life, or bad luck, inflict the poor more than others is a part of life that cannot be easily changed.
And this article certainly has no solutions, other than virtue signaling. Though the latter is, after all what the Times op-eds are all about anyway.
24
Thank you so much for writing an article that highlights how the current conversation around privacy and data is heavily biased towards educated, white, American viewpoints. We need more work like this showing that privacy looks different, and has different effects/risks, in different communities and parts of the world.
8
Being poor and being Hispanic, especially if one is either undocumented or in DACA, are particularly difficult. Not only are they subject to the smallest whims of law enforcement, but they suffer consequences disproprotionately to their numbers and their status.
A DACA recipient explained yesterday that his brother's dreams of being a doctor were dashed because he lives in SC, which has a law against undocumented and/or DACA recipients attending state schools of higher education.
We waste the talent of these people who came to this country as children and have no other identity than as Americans when we choose to vilify them for their presence here. We are all losers in this approach.
But the poor lose more, because they had less to begin with.
13
-----"For instance, they may be unfairly targeted by predictive policing tools designed with biased training data or unfairly excluded from hiring algorithms that scour social media networks to make determinations about potential candidates. "
Not only the poor, but this applies to all outliers in society. The elderly, the disabled (one lives in my household), minorities.
10
...And those over 40.
2
"More recently, the ongoing government tracking of the foreign-born Hispanic population — which is also among the poorest and least-educated group of adults in the country — has resulted in raids and deportations that have separated family members and created a climate of widespread fear. "
Wow. Really? "foreign-born Hispanic population"?
Illegally entering a country - a wholesale and ugly breach of a society's rules and laws and norms - needs to be called out as just that: ILLEGAL.
People who commit crimes, for whatever reason, create their own "climate of widespread fear".
35
@lowereastside that buzz word illegal chills me. All the right has to hear are buzz words like the one mentioned and they become vicious beasts ready to destroy families, adbandon children and any other way they can to pursecute. There is such a thing as compassion, nuance and an understanding of those dangerous places that many people are trying to escape. To me it is a moral issue. Do you have a heart?
18
@lowereastside
Just because a person is Hispanic and foreign-born, that does not automatically imply that they are here illegally. There is such a thing as a green card. We have many naturalized citizens of Hispanic origin, and others who are here on legitimate visas for various reasons.
29
@lowereastside
Warrarnt-less invasive information gathering for the purpose of surveillance of "foreign born Hispanics" who are here LEGALLY and have done nothing wrong except having a name that "sounded Latino" IS illegal.
23
This is really not just about being poor. This is an issue with all people who have not been brought up in the digital age. "Old Age" could substitute for the word "Poor" in this article.
For all of the wonderful things technology brings us, I am no happier now (in my 80's) than when we only had radio for entertainment and we played outdoors whenever we had free time as children.
Yes! I have somewhat mastered my smart phone and computer, except for ... Passwords. What a pain as I have to recheck them almost on a daily basis. Like it or not, the aged or poor have to move on with their lives, work harder, study harder, and make more money just to stay even.
Whining and making excuses for one's condition doesn't cut it. Go to community college and learn what's necessary to function in today's economy. And, we have choices. I know people who have as little to do with the new technology as possible. Indeed, my wife and I go off in our van for months at a time partly to get away from newspapers and 24-hour news. What used to be middle class is slowly creeping into the edges of being classed as poor. Sometimes, it better to be poor and devoid of all the stuff in our consumer society.
9
@David Michael -----"Sometimes, it better to be poor and devoid of all the stuff in our consumer society."
No it is not. Being poor can be devastating and psychologically, not being able to meet basic needs creates an unhappy and depressed population.
I am 60 and love modernity. And I am happier than I ever have been, but probably would have been regardless of our technological advances.
Being computer literature is a necessity in today's world. Classes can be helpful too
6
@David Michael while you are correct that this issue moves beyond being poor, i.e. ageism, etc., your assumption that anyone has “choices” both unveils a position of privilege that doesn’t take into account the nuanced realities of other people’s circumstances and shows that you haven’t actually read the article.
@David Michael
In your 80's I hope you realize all the choices you have.
You can go away for months to get away from technology and 24 hours news.
OR you can turn off the tv. Just listen to music.
You HAVE choices. Choose the options that make your life happier. If you have a yard - garden. Small scale or shrubs and plants and flowers that you plant once and they bloom forever.
A small veggie garden. Tomatoes are planted once and offer a season of delicious salads.
Then books. Great new technology called audible books that are enjoyed for hours and weeks and forever. Classics you never quite got around to.
Getting away is wonderful. New sights and adventures.
Don't fear technology and don't be a slave to it.
Enjoy your life!
1
This article makes no sense to me. Basically it's saying that because poor people rely on smart phones for their computing needs instead of traditional desktop computers and laptops, they're more vulnerable to security breaches, but there's no rationale behind that. Protecting a smartphone is no different from protecting a desktop computer. Just get Norton antivirus or whatever. Yes, it costs some money but then so does brushing your teeth. It's something everybody should do.
14
@Alan Falleur
I agree with Alan. I have access to a smart phone and computer but try not to use them very often. I rely on my iPad to read due to vision difficulties. Modern technology is wonderful but we have become too reliant on it in our daily lives. There are people out there who can't afford the former. They use public transport, write letters, use ordinary phones and actually give time to people. Some of us are lucky to have the choice of convenience but there is a price to be paid for the lack of connection to our communities.
6
@Mimi Tell me all about it. Last week I was trying to navigate public transport in a foreign city right when my smartphone decided to kick the bucket. Nightmare.
I have not replaced it since that trip and this week, back home, has been quite harrowing, thank you. I never realized how dependent one gets on these things. I can’t call my wife since I do not even know her number
3
Local governments and social service agencies are all going digital and leaving the poor in the dust. Unable to communicate with or access information from sich agencies the poor and elderly are left in the dark.. Getting a hard copy of important information is now prohibitive because “it’s all on the web”!
It’s all on the web Isa refrain used to counter most requests for information and I’ve even had officials say well we thought it was. If it’s not that because the programmers didn’t think it was important what can we do? It’s another smoke screen to avoid accountability.
17
Now, it looks like SCOTUS may be on the verge of allowing a question on nationality in the census. This is going to drive more people 'underground' even those here legally. You can almost then hear the cry for 'law & order' -- i.e., more surveillance and other privacy intrusions -- and another opportunity for the right to whip up mass hysteria as companies line up at the trough for lucrative contracts to provide the equipment and monitoring services.
I am simply shocked at the meanness and lack of understanding in many of the comments. Crying about the poor?! Get an education?! Regressive policies and state budgets disproportionately funded by the bottom rungs of society (through sales taxes, fees, penalties, fines, etc.) are a way of life in Republican-controlled states. which are also home to the highest number of poor: 22 states in which 42 percent of America lives (versus 14 states and 34 percent of Americans under Dem control, the rest mixed). This has less to do with education than the perpetuation of a class system.
13
What this article is telling me is this: the internet is now being used the same way every other new invention has been used, to keep people in their place, to deprive them of their rights, and to terrorize them.
23
Of course any issue is more damaging to the poor. Thus they should stay out of the internet, not have large responsibilities and live simply.
1
@vulcanalex how are they supposed to do that? Having a cellphone is cheaper than having a computer. We can no longer apply for jobs in person. We have to apply online. We no longer receive forms from government to pay our taxes. We have to rely on libraries or download them or go to someone to have them file them electronically. Or we do it online ourselves if we can.
We need to have email addresses for any number of things now. We need to set up accounts with our health insurance, to receive other notifications (especially if we don't have a place to live), and in some cases to pay bills or to buy things online.
In other words the internet, whether you understand it or not, is now functioning like a public utility and needs to be regulated as such.
49
@vulcanalex not having computer skills or access is akin to not knowing how to read. It does not allow you to fully participate in society.
12
@Mary
I agree with you, Mary. Not having access or not been trained to use modern technology is the same as being illiterate in the past. As a result a portion of society becomes trapped in poverty. Equality of access to opportunity to a basic education is denied those who most need it.
4
This seems more like a complaint about the government enforcing laws the author doesn't like (mainly immigration but also apparently other laws broken in low-income areas where there are cameras) than about anything particularly to do with digital privacy.
I am sympathetic on some of those, but it does seem like a bit of a shoehorn.
9
This seems like another attempt to highlight supposedly new but essentially redundant negative aspects of being low income. Intersectionalism is steadily growing into a real mess for progressives, threatening to outdo diversity as a contrived distraction from the real problems and potential solutions.
It is hard to be poor. Nearly everything in life is more difficult. There is no doubt about that. But adding a new faux angle on the pain of poverty does nothing to make things better. And how about some assessment of how the digital age may be benefiting the poor?
Finally, claiming that the poor are especially burdened by a greater police and security presence in their neighborhoods is just silly. If I were unfortunate enough to live in a poor and high-crime area, I would welcome all attempts to control crime.
23
It baffles me that the United States is such a brutal oligarchy and Americans are ok with that. Americans elect corrupt, right-wing politicians who work non-stop to destroy what little social safety net there is and who enjoy stomping on the poor. I pray for Bernie Sanders to be elected POTUS and for a Democratic supermajority.
8
@Eugene Debs Not quite sure how Sanders will fix matters. But I can tell you with certainty that if you nominate Sanders you will get Trump. Does Bernie still look good to you?
12
@publius you and the Democrats haven't learned anything from the last election where debbie Wasserman-schultz decided Hillary was the nominee this handing the win to ...you who.
3
@Eugene Debs We still won't have the Senate in 2020. But I suppose, in a planet where Sanders can win a primary (and not lose by over 3 million votes), maybe he would have a supermajority.
Surveillance cameras in the poor and high crime regions are for protecting law-abiding innocent people who are living there. Criminals might not be happy about it, but innocent people welcome it and thank police efforts.
Who do you represent for?
21
This article suggest that America is without upward mobility, if you are poor.... GO GET AN EDUCATION. The government is loaning money for you to better yourself. Quit cry bullying about being poor and victims.... take some responsibility and better yourself.
9
@Mystery Lits For MOST people going back to school costs a lot of money, AND you have to support yourself while doing school. One tends to rack up huge debt just to GET that education, and the Job Market has Not made allowances to pay people for their education time, just their time on the work floor.
Too many people end up well educated, but so far in debt that they HAVE to take a substandard job, often out of their training, due to that being the Only job available in the area or their debt keeps them from getting the house, car and clothes and the stability that those items show, so they can get that more stable, higher paying job.
For most More School just means More Debt, and if you start with nothing, you are going to be loath to add debt to your overhead, and if you do not get the job you trained for, or if the job market is artificially depressed by businesses refusing to pay living wages, then one is hampered by the debt.
For the rich it is just a part of doing business and expected, but when your parents can pay for the full college run, that is the same as staying home and living on your folks until 26 or so.
Most of the remaining middle class cannot do that.
9
@Mystery Lits While I absolutely understand the poverty trap, a clean shirt and a haircut go far. For real.
6
@B. Honest No.... If you end up $80,000 in debt with a worthless degree that is your fault. It is quite easy to graduate with a degree for $20k-30k and go into a job that pays $60k-$100k.
Or trade school and you can come out of school and get a job that pays about the same.
15
This has been a rising issue due to more common occurrences of detainment of undocumented immigrants. To highlight the names of guests that “sounded Latino” to target them for questioning, detainment and deportation is the most absurd tactic I have heard by the way, I have a very atypical Latino Name and they would never suspect. To target individuals on a trivial component such as your name should be something unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy. Can’t even be a child of hard working immigrants with a “Latino sounding name” and live a life freely and without feeling criminalized either in a real or virtual world. Let us live.
6
you don't need to be poor to be a victim of online fraud half our country was violated via the Experian breech where they got off free while half the country has to fend for themselves and of course the media will never cover this ongoing story
8
@joe Hall yes and don't forget the Office Of Personnel Management 2015 data breach where 21.5 million people who had worked for the US government from 1999 forward (15 years) had their security clearance personnel data compromised - to include fingerprints, ssn, family data, etc. And most of this data was gathered before social media existed at critical mass.
4
Criminal predators have always been the secret attack dogs of the rich, prisons their temporary kennels and training programs. Do you think our masters really care, in their castles and gated communities, about rampant crime? Or the cheapness with which a protester, agent provocateur, hit man, burglar, hacker, or saboteur can be hired to harm a competitor (with the added bonus that the criminal's "independent wildman" disguise can also discredit an additional enemy)? These are the knights they send out, and as in the middle ages it's mostly peasants that get hacked up and burned out.
3
Another way low income people are more vulnerable to online privacy breaches is that they cannot afford protection services that can monitor and intervene if a problem is detected. My employer offers discounted rates to a credit protection service, as well as other legal services, that can resolve any problems should a credit breach or fraud occur with a minimum of cost and hassle to me. Not everyone is in a job that affords such coverage.
10
This might be the most important piece in today's paper, under the Privacy Project.
We have seen , in recent articles, what China does to potential dissidents; we can only imagine what the Nazis would have done with technology that could track everyone, everywhere.
The issue of the disappearance of privacy, and vulnerability to intrusions and theft of personal data affecting the ability to survive in today's world do provide a political concern that the middle class, such as it may be, can share with the poor. How do we afford people a way to defend themselves? How will laws and regulation have to be changed to ensure that we are a "free" society? The price of justice - and of simply living undisturbed - keeps rising.
5
Oh boo-hoo, it doesn’t matter what your financial status is, I feel just as bad for the wealthy person who has his identity stolen as a poor person, it’s something we all have to deal with and no one is any more or less of a victim.
8
"...and in particular, foreign-born Hispanic adults" really - this is where we have arrived at?
From illegal aliens to undocumented immigrants to foreign-born Hispanic adults.
From the Trumpster to Pew Research, we are an inflection point where everyone from the trickster to researcher just makes up terms.
Nietzsche would be laughing and laughing at all of us.
"The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real."
~ Nietzsche: On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
7
@SteveRR
Those terms are not the same. A foreign born Hispanic adult may or may not be an undocumented/illegal immigrant. He or she may be a naturalized citizen, or may be here on a legitimate visa. The problem with what INS was doing is that it was that it was likely to sweep people up in its web who were doing nothing wrong.
5
All the problems poor people in this country face have the same root: a political system that values money over people. No one is looking out for the middle class because they can't afford to lobby; forget about poor people (literally)! Politicians are in the game to enrich themselves and they couldn't care less about their constituents.
Why help poor people getting railroaded by payday lenders when the poor people can't help you but the payday lenders getting rich off of them can? Just one example of many.
This country is sick.
14
...With a hacking cough and not enough vaccine.
1
Self-parody at its finest. The horrible deprivation of letting your smartphone battery run down and al the consequences that flow from that? Most amusing.
2
Too bad, I was hoping this article had more to do with the particular concerns poor people have with regard to fraud, as the title suggested it would. Not another jeremiad complaining about the enforcement of our immigration laws.
13
Readers, please bear in mind most poor people do not subscribe to the NYT much less speak out here in this forum. Most of us here think we know "poor" but it is mostly an academic observation.
23
Doing the census on-line is about the most stupid of all the stupid things this government has done since Trump took office.
Hackers should have a field day getting the info that we put into that census.
11
@Sajwert it is going to happen.
https://www.brennancenter.org/digitizing-2020-census
I watched my parents scrimp and save. They also taught me how to watch my money and invest. Being poor in the digital age isn't that different from what it was like before. Choosing the wrong parents is always a big mistake.
19
"This kind of targeting may take the form of . . . pervasive networks of cameras and sensors that monitor all of the public activity in low-income neighborhoods in a constant search for suspicious activity." Just a few weeks ago, there was an article about the citizens in a Baltimore community being upset because the police didn't have a greater presence. . . .
8
We are the richest country in the world, even though many, many millions of our fellow men and women live in virtual poverty and privation, to say nothing of the constant fear of illness, and it's even more difficult if they have children. A rich country like hours should be able to come up with a way to see that all of us can live in security and dignity. In a country as wealthy as ours there should be no one living in poverty or from rotten salary to rotten salary.
Every able bodied man and woman should be able to get a full time job paying at least $25 an hour. That's $1000 a week, not much in a city like NY. In addition, everyone, children or adult, should have government paid health care, with only co-pays to worry about. No income taxes should be changed on income under 52,000 a year, but ALL money over that amount, including investments, should be taxed.
All academic courses at all levels in all public schools should also be free. Physical education classes that teach activities which can be used for a lifetime - such as tennis, rowing, swimming, biking, etc. - should also be free.
We now have a country of haves and have nots. This must end. Poor people must have a fair chance at a decent life or we are not the country we think we are.
37
@W. Michael O'Shea:" No income taxes should be changed on income under 52,000 a year, but ALL money over that amount, including investments, should be taxed. "
Who will complain the loudest? Hint: Krugman lives there and the city has one of the most racially segregated public school systems in the country.
7
The same applies to old people.
Let's set aside online fraud, just doing the basics could become difficult with constant technological change.
Having been caretaker of older folks, I have firsthand experience in seeing their struggle with technology.
20
@Say What also the same applies to intellectually disabled people too who may not possess the skills to navigate the internet.
4
As a teacher of low income students I see a lot of resilience in both students and families. They absolutely have to have a phone with Internet access to navigate life. Indeed the students often need it to do homework. I teach English language learners. Through a partnership with the public library system they are able to use English learning interactive programs for no cost at home and over the summer. Naive at first I suggested the home computer. Believe me no one has one. In more affluent schools they often send a dedicated school purchased Chromebook home with students-but of course one must have household connectivity. But most people can get a family phone plan with unlimited minutes albeit this is a big chunk of their income. In many cases it is the students who have after school jobs who are paying the family phone bill. And people lose their phones due to economic ups and downs.
We teach personal financial literacy as a high school graduation requirement. " You don't need the most expensive phone. Compare plans". I hope that the upcoming younger generation will be more tuned in. And I'm an older person who limits my own tuning in by preference. Privacy is a concern for all of us. But my Hispanic students are heavy phone users for social reasons and national research backs this up. We do have curriculum about " watch what you post " but they are teenagers. I think our society needs to give teenagers a pass about indiscretions when it comes time for adult job hunting.
18
"Safeguards and protections" for "vulnerable communities"?
Do you know who is President?
I am only praying that Stephen Miller doesn't read the NYT, because this opinion piece provides him a road map on how to further harass and victimize foreign-born Hispanic adults.
13
You make no mention of people who are living independently but are in one way or another cognitively impaired and cannot navigate the complexities of the digital world. They are often low income folks who have even greater challenges in this age of information technology.
8
This shows how a technology that could, and should, improve our lives, can be used to exploit, even destroy, susceptible individuals, without a scintilla of ethics nor humanity. This is one more reason we all, if this country is to remain a democracy, need to participate and tell the powers to be to keep their abusive surveillance away from us. As things get more sophisticated and our privacy is assaulted, constant alertness is of the essence, and the need to speak up for those unable to; it is called solidarity, as no chain can possibly be stronger than it's weakest link.
4
I think "market" generated paranoia is harmful to this population too. There is heavy marketing to the poor to beware of, and buy expensive products to avoid, identity theft. Many of the people I see in my work think they have had their identity stolen and I think I found evidence of it in the case of only one individual. So they spend money on what I consider scam ID theft prevention products.
10
I didn't really see anything in this article regarding privacy that doesn't also apply to middle-class people. Poor people are more vulnerable to everything because they're poor. They also tend to be less well-educated, which means they are more often victimized by con artists, which happens both online and in person.
9
Has there ever been a time when being relatively poor or sickly had advantages? Conservatives think and claim those conditions build character and inspire creativity in others. Has there ever been a time when being relatively poor or sickly had advantages?
40
@stewart bolinger Yes, but we won't discuss it publicly. I had to quit formal school when I was 13 due to an auto-immune disease. At 19 I had recuperated to the point that I was able to enter a community college (sans HS diploma) and did well enough for myself. The NYT highlights the travails the poor with gusto on a daily basis Never mentioned are the stories of the poor and disabled who improvised, adapted, and overcame.
20
@stewart bolinger
The only advantage is being a punching bag which isn't much of one.
2
@Yoandel Most of what you say is correct. However poor men abuse women regularly.
2
So technology to enhance policing in high crime areas should not be used? The poor are disproportionate victims of crime, police are not, contrary to popular rhetoric of the left, the problem they are the last option to deal with the effects of poverty turning young men toward criminal behavior. Start addressing the underlying social causes instead of blaming the police, cameras are better than stop and frisk, being policed is a right to ensure that one does not live in terror and chaos. Technology is the answer not the problem as this essay suggests, otherwise the digital divide will just grow far worse and with it systemic poverty for those unfortunate enough to be born into it. Body cameras on police are the perfect example of progress that this essay overlooks.
22
@michaelf I got that the author was warning about abuses of surveillance. This leads to many innocents getting snared and that should always be a concern.
6
There is a load of technologies to make motherboards in PC an laptop secure through their chipsets but motherboard manufacturers prefer not to include them, even while these chipsets cost is near nothing. They are in modems, routers and switches among many other devices for over two decades. They could apply to cell phone as well.
But... it is too important for them not to include such... so they can sell millions of new ones when hacked.
People are the second culprits of their own misery. I never, repeat... NEVER... leave my credentials to any sites. I used the name Myky Mouse with the Epcot center as an address with a bogus date of birth etc...
Try to find me on internet... good luck... or I may say good lock :).
Though it is too late for everybody whom taught it would make them important to be recognized in some ways but the only importance they reached so far is being scapegoats of of corporations and their lucrative intents.
There is quite a difference between "having values" and "having a price". Values against corporations is a mirage.
And... do not ever think that a government such as USA will do anything against them because USA runs on corporate money tickets with many representatives and senators whom will never dare to even say anything against them.
Before the 90's, primary education students only needed pencils and paper while now, they need a computer, so it leaves millions of them behind. It is a shame, Americans will live with, for decades.
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@Wentworth Roger
Are you suggesting all internet activities been done with anonymity then? This is exactly the reason toxic behavior persists online, since people can hide behind fake personas like "Myky Mouse" and can't be held personally accountable for their actions and words.
Rather than decrying the shame that we no longer use pencils in school, why don't be figure out how to get everyone a computer and teach them about being mindful and responsible with their personal information online?
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@Nick
My name and credentials are with corp I can trust and make business. I do not see why a "little sniffing dogs" could follow me while being on internet.
I do not use "social network" except youtube, so you will never see anything from me other than short blog as this one.
In relation to schooling, you have a way with words which do not translate the intention at all. Who are you to judge ? After all, I do not live in a dream or should I say "cloud" where each and every student will be able to afford a computer, at least and especially in the USA.
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My sister, age 66, lives in poverty. She is so concerned about identity theft that she doesn’t have a checkbook, although she has an account. When she needs cash, she walks to the bank to get it, then walks to the mini-mall nearby to pay her bills (for which she pays a fee). She doesn’t do anything online. I tried to get her to start an email account at the local library, so that I could send her photos, but she found it too confusing.
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@Anne
With what money? You're probably right that there could be mental health issues here, but good luck finding these practitioners without ready cash, which this person doesn't have.
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So she was supposed to walk to the library and wait for computer access so she could look at your pictures. I don't even want to address what's wrong with your thinking.
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@Diane Your sister needs to see a psychiatrist and a neurologist.
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How in the world did so many of us who followed the Greatest Generation, regardless of our poverty, leave poverty behind?
It wasn't more unfeeling government programs or hand-outs that saw us through. It was striving with our own commitment to better our lives. We got training. We went to school. We worked hard. It worked.
For far too many today, it's more handouts than hands-up. The benefits of a job and a career have given way to our own "laissez faire." Handsome is as handsome does has given way to "as handsome sits."
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@Lake Woebegoner
I think you forget that those of us who prospered also had some luck on our side. Comparing myself to my sister, I was lucky to have chosen to leave our hometown, which is still economically depressed. Also lucky not to fall into drug addiction, which ruined my sister’s life.
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@Diane
I do feel empathy for your sister, but moving and not doing drugs are choices - not luck. I believe that's the point Lake is trying to make; people have to choose to help themselvs.
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@Esq
I think you would find it tougher these days to get ahead. Things have changed. Income inequality has not increased because young people these days are less hard working. There are bigger forces at work.
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It is one thing to criticize the poor for not competing viciously to reach the top of the ladder but quite another to make them object of study, experiment, tests and surveys without ever compensating them. I wrote several articles and papers on this issue but unfortunately my first few attempts were tagged as suicidal, so I had to rest my case. It is unfortunate that intelligentsia suffer from the same bias that they criticize so viciously on public forums.
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EQUAL ACCESS UNDER THE LAW Is a Constitutional guarantee too often unattainable, especially for disenfranchised groups. It is terrifying for persons of color who are wrongly singled out. Many agreements they must sign to get cell phones and software may each contain more words than the Constitution. Regulations requiring a simplified summary of the contract must be mandated, just as they are mandated for articles published in scholarly journals. Such resources exist; we must expand their use. With the ubiquitous availability of online translation software which can be highly accurate, there is no excuse for the government and employers NOT to use the software to provide information that employees can understand. I also believe that it is necessary to expand the scope of the article to include other groups such as minors and seniors. Minors may be permitted to use parents' credit cards without being able to understand the commitments they make with them online. There must be verification of the adult owner of the credit card's understanding and agreeing to purchases. Seniors have long been the target of unscrupulous vendors of goods and services, who rely upon the typical changes in memory and other cognitive functions to deceive unsuspecting persons who can join AARP at 50 years of age, for example. With more seniors aging in place, it is essential for them to be encouraged to have designees to assist in managing their affairs, to protect them from exploitation.
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Wait, what part of the Census is going to be carried out online? Seriously, people thing that the Citizenship Question is the biggest impediment of an accurate count, when they're going to be conducting some part of the Census online? This article documents the multiplicity of things that can go wrong online, and that's with stuff that actually has gone on online. The Census has never been done online. I'm reminded of the words of that great American philosopher Donald Rumsfeld "The unknown unknowns..."
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@Richard Mclaughlin. Agree. I haven't heard Anything about the census being done online.
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@Richard Mclaughlin it is going to be largely online.
Read this:
https://www.brennancenter.org/digitizing-2020-census
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@Richard Mclaughlin Every time the 2020 Census has been discussed on NPR they mention it will be available to fill out online.
No, it hasn't been done that way in the past. But it will be offered that way in 2020.
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