Fearing big business more than big government

As the media run story after story about how the U.S. Government is building systems that give it access to any and all of their electronic activity (e-mail, purchases, voip, etc.), the Pew Internet Center released a study today indicating that a whopping 86 percent have used various tools on the internet to conceal their identity.  According to the study, people have something to hide – at least from complete strangers trying to profit from knowing what they do online. They are trying to clean up their digital footprints by clearing browsing histories, deleting social media posts, using virtual networks to conceal their Internet Protocol addresses, and even, for a few, using encryption tools. Sara Kiesler, an author of the report and a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said “It’s not just a small coterie of hackers. Almost everyone has taken some action to avoid surveillance.”