Reading Response #5

The first article, “Why have we given up our privacy to Facebook and other sites so

willingly?” is addressing the epidemic of people choosing to give up their privacy. The author

claims that Facebook is said to be more of an analytics firm than it is a social media platform.

Facebook boasts about how much information it holds on its users, which makes it more of a

medium to collect information about people than it is a simple social website. Facebook users

may try and limit the amount of personal information they put onto the internet about

themselves, but this social media platform contains a lot more than user are aware of. The author

mentions the issue with consent to give up privacy on these social media websites. People who

make these accounts do not read the policy’s that they’re agreeing to, and this is because they’re

made to do that. The companies write extensive policy’s from which the users must agree to, but

they are doing this to manipulate users. The author gives the opinions of Richard Stallman, who

finds this epidemic to be dangerous and outrageous. Stallman says that there needs to be laws

implemented to stop this invasion of privacy, and stop these businesses from collecting data in an

unethical way. This article talks about an issue that has been very relevant lately. Social media

has become so largely accepted that we feel the need to create these accounts and give up all of

our personal information, and for what? There’s something about these social media websites

that draw people in so quickly and we become addicted, and these third parties are taking

advantage of it. Though I am a Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and snapchat user, I think about this

problem every day. What do these people know about me that I have never even put out on the

internet?

Will Hurd addresses a similar issue in the article, “Quantum Computing is the Next Big

Security Risk.” He explains that technology has advanced, and this is something the U.S. needs
to be prepared for. Quantum computing is an advancement that can be a potential harm to the

world, and this may be used to unlock important, secretive information. The author explains that

this may happen within the next decade and the U.S. and their allies need to be prepared in the

case of the discovery of extremely important information. The U.S. needs to be caught up on this

technology and have preparations for any sort of security breaches to avoid a disastrous situation.

This article reveals just how greatly technology is advancing, and it is a scary reality. People can

now not only view our personal information through social media, but now even bigger and more

important information is at risk. The time period we live in is frightening, and technology is the

culprit.