Computer surveillance is the act of performing surveillance of computer activity, and of data stored on a hard drive or being transferred over the Internet.
Computer surveillance programs are widespread today, and almost all Internet traffic is closely monitored for clues of illegal activity.
Supporters say that watching all Internet traffic is important, because by knowing everything that everyone is reading and writing, they can identify terrorists and criminals, and protect society from them.
Critics cite concerns over privacy and the possibility of a totalitarian state where political dissent is impossible and opponents of state policy are removed in COINTELPRO-like purges. Such a state may be referred to as an Electronic Police State, in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens. The hacktivist group Anonymous has hacked into government websites in protest of what it considers "draconian surveillance".
Read more about Computer Surveillance: Network Surveillance, Corporate Surveillance, Malicious Software, Social Network Analysis, Emanations, Policeware
Famous quotes containing the word computer:
“What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”
—Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)