Ubiquity = being everywhere.
Terry Flew p. 430 New Media: A Critical Introduction.
With the advancements of technology being used to aid, produce and even become human life, it is considered that technology is quite literally everywhere. It has become almost impossible to lead life in western society and other materially rich parts of the globe in 2012 without the use of any digital technology.
This text is being produced and evaluated through technology. The result will be given through technology. As previously mentioned, technology is in our lives, in our bodies and even in our minds. This can cause question of whether we truly have any privacy or anonymity.
Phones and the internet are the most common digital technology used in everyday life. With these two being combined, using Wifi & 3G data networks, hacking personal and professional data and information has most probably never been easier.
Other less obvious devices can track a person, such as store reward cards which can see what you've brought as well as when and which store you were in. They also usually require your personal details such as date and birth and address.
Another card which can track you even easier is the London oyster card, which shows which stations you've been in when and what time.
There are many other ways in which you can be tracked by technology in which you would never even think. Even GPS systems and SATNAV car systems can be hacked and made available for tracking.
In regards to being tracked online, social networking makes this so much easier to find someone, with many purposes of the social networking sites are to find people you may have perhaps lost contact with, such as www.friendsreunited.co.uk, as well as the more obvious examples such as Facebook and MySpace, where there is a toolbar which lets you search for a particular person, using their name and any details you may know.
Instant Messaging and E-mail logs are also kept on computer memory devices. It is simple and quite easy to access any conversation you've had. With the growing popularity of Social Networking and Instant Messaging, more and more messages were being exchanged on the internet. On each account you have mini conversation windows with other account users, simpler and quicker than E-mails. This is then saved in your conversation history and it is easy to look back at what has been said. Recently, years old Facebook posts have been appearing on people's timelines, according to a French Metro company.
Privacy is an interesting concept which can be described in many ways. Put simply, it means to have the right to keep what ever it is confidential and to have the right so converse information for yourself, what ever that maybe. It can also be used to describe 'being private' so you may have something or somewhere that is physically private to you. Privacy concerning the internet and social networking relates to keeping things confidential. With a system that's so complex however so easy to access to anyone, it'd be hard to keep much private. Particularly with search engines and word triggers, personal details such as home address or date of birth would be very easy to find if you have submitted them onto any sort of social networking sites, which usually require these details. These details would show up on any search engine as you have submitted them to the world wide web and are very unlikely to ever have them fully removed from the internet.
There are certain laws which cover surveillance on the internet. In some extreme cases, surveillance can be considered a crime and lawful action can be taken. Surveillance can cover anything from online banking details to cookies on the web to social networking. The fact is that you are watched on the internet at all times. Even when you submit personal financial details on internet banking sites, there is always someone watching and controlling that database which will see your details. If there are problems with your online banking, you would have to talk to a customer service provider which would mean your actions are being watched and details that are supposed to be kept very private are exposed and shared.
The idea that everything we do on the web is being watched is similar to the 'Big Brother' phenomenon, in that anything you do will not be kept private. To say that technology is become ubiquitous would be an entirely sensible thing to say. Almost everything we do involves being online. To submit this blog, an online service has to be used and the feedback will almost certainly be delivered electronically via the web. Technology is literally everywhere. You can pay by card almost anywhere, the initial way of communication has become via the phone or social networking, and we spend ridiculous amounts of hours online every week for all sorts of reasons.
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