TECHNOLOGY AND YOUR PRIVACY

    Smartphone market is on the rise like never before and new brands are coming out at a frequency higher than ever. While the market in the US is dominated hugely by Apple's iPhone models, the rest of the world looks to be more than just infatuated with smartphones running Google's very own Android operating system. While the comfort of Google's Android is irreplaceable by today's terms, aren't we actually compromising on our privacy to a multi-million dollar corporation? Let us take a look at the privacy challenges that the technology oriented lifestyle poses us.

    Google is one of the firms known very well for recording the search terms of its users. Every search term entered via Google is stored to a separate storage space, each for an individual user. These terms are used practically in predicting the users' tastes and during further searches, the results are optimized for the user, based on their previous search history, location, etc.. On the positive side of things, this looks as a very comfortable option of internet usage, for everything is personalized to suit our taste and internet habits. And personally, I, myself has loved this feature as it greatly enhances the usability of the internet for me. But, the thought that we might actually be feeding them information, that too, about us, sometimes very personal, for they will be recording them at someplace certainly, sent me shivers down my spine.

    Just think about this. You wake up. You grab the newspaper(or, do you really? Nah, I am old-school anyway). You find something interesting and start reading that article. Suddenly, you find an acronym for which there is given no explanation. What do you do? You take up the phone. And obviously as the next step, you would google it. Also note that this search might be either by text, or voice(who strains to type now-a-days, eh? Anyway, we are busy sending rockets to Mars via Instagram). Now, this search of yours is recorded. Let us say that the article was something about cars. Therefore, your interest in cars is noted down. Your search regarding the acronym is also noted down. Now, any term related to the acronym you search is gathered from various sources, ie., websites, and added to your interests. Just imagine the above scenario for about half a dozen of times a day. And that's just you for one day. The estimates for the number of Android users in 2018 is estimated at a whopping 2.7 billion people. To be put straight, it is more than eight times the population in the US.

    The magnitude of the information we feed to a private concern should be clear by now. The company has tracks of where you went, what you ate, what you listened, whom you called, what you know and more. Let us try seeing the things under direct bright light. The firm doesn't use this information against you. And yes, why should it? It makes a profit uncountable everyday. The annual revenue of Alphabet Inc.(Google's parent company) in 2018 is about 110 million dollars. But, before you make any judgements, there is no assurance that your information won't be used else-how.

    Take this scenario for instance. Google fails. Just plainly, it fails. Goes bankrupt, loses its market share to some new company. Just like how other tech companies that played monopoly a decade ago fell sometime back. It loses all its legitimate sources of revenue(though it is a very hypothetical concept, just imagine. None can assure against the fall anyways.). Its security factor becomes weak obviously and all its data suddenly becomes vulnerable, waiting for somebody to attack. All the information you shared with Google during its peak time in the market would still be with the firm unfortunately. A simple attack on its data grounds would lead to a massive plunder. It would be the case of information mismanagement of the century. Now, some other individual or a group or a corporate firm(yes, it is possible) will now have more information about you than your government has. Get the point now? Though a private firm is playing monopoly now, there is no guarantee that it always will.

    Your communication with Google is of two layers now(nothing technical here, just a concept).  You, as the user, and Google, as your utility. You ask, it gives. On the side-way, it stores. Hence the company knows who exactly is asking what, when it is asked, from where it gets asked, etc.. What can be done to protect and defend against the up-told disaster? What we propose is a third layer in the total communication with any private firm or service. And this layer should be a layer of the governments of the respective countries from where the request is sent and this layer goes directly into the middle of the existing two layers.

    The major function this middle layer is to get the information from the user layer and send it to the service layer anonymously, so that the identity of the user is not revealed to a particular private firm. By this way, the governments of the countries have more command over the information that is fed to these private companies and has accurate information about its citizens. What really sets me laugh is the fact that, today, people are more concerned and worried about giving their information up to the government than they are about giving up information to a private firm, run by some individuals they don't know at all. And until this mindset of the people change, until government intervenes and helps mask and protect the identity of each citizen of it, issues like the one with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook won't stop occurring.

RELIGIONS AND TERRORISM

    Terrorism and Islam go hand in hand. Does it really? We are always confronted by this question on our faces everytime we see a news pop up on terrorism. And I can't tell you that you are completely wrong by any means. After all, even I, at times had to encounter that question in my head. Here, in this article I try to decipher some common myths(can I say so?) relating terrorism to Islam.

    Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and you name it. Almost any organisation that makes headlines for all the wrong reasons is muslim(I am terribly sorry). And I am feel really sorry to put this down in words and it is one of the deepest pities in my heart to accuse an entire social group for a particular number of individuals or organisations that relate to that social group in some way or another.

    But, inspite of people who don't belong to Islam feeling that the religion as a whole should not be blamed for the activities of a certain number of people, and people that are Muslim that oppose terrorism under their name, we are in need of examination of some kind to just make things somewhat more clear than it is. Islam's holy script, the Holy Quran, at places, emphasises on the concept of making  wars inorder to defend the pride of the religion.

    After all, the story of the holy wars, namely,'The Crusades' is something we have all read about in our history lessons. Unfortunately, islam was involved in the holy wars too. Today, the concept of offering oneselves to protect the pride of the religion has turned and taken some more lethal forms,say for instance, 'jihad'. Apparently, 'jihad' means ' a fight against the enemies of Islam'. Thus, it sometimes makes way for a particular question to be raised,"Does Islam promote violence just inorder to save an abstract attribute of an abstract entity whose only objective of inception was only to promote peace and integrity?".

    Indeed, I am one of those whose heads raised the question within itself. But going by the recent occurences of the unforgivable and unaccpetable acts of terrorism and the people involved in those acts using the term 'jihad', it makes us question that if that was the true meaning behind the word 'jihad'.

    I am indeed writing this article with a heavy heart for my fellow humans that were massacred cowardly by the suicide bombers, that too, at a few churches in Srilanka. Also, it makes me lose hope that a few weeks ago, in Newzealand, several people were killed in the shooting that took place in a mosque of NZ. This time, it was an attack against the muslims, not in the name of them. A person, allegedly a christian, went into the mosque with a gun and shot evreyone that he saw. Acts like these are some of the rare occurrences of violence against muslims by non muslim individuals or groups.

    I fall in line with the muslim brothers and sisters of Srilanka, who are indeed sorry for whatever gory act of violence that used their name. They aren't denying the fact that their religion was involved in the attacks. They feel sorry for the people that were killed and strongly condemn acts like these under their name. Apparently, 'jihad' isn't for everyone that is muslim and people who are not muslim should also acknowledge that fact. If most people had come to that conclusion, attacks like the one on Kiwi soil, wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't have had so much of blood spilled on our hands.

    After all, it is the same human blood and the pain that people undergo are the same, irrespective of their religion. People like us, collectively as the human tribe, undivided by religions should join hands against any act  of violence or mass destruction. Religions and tribes are just a shield used by the people that create and carry on with their created turbulence. When Hitler was a destructing all day, he used a separate ideology and grouped people with similar interests, brainwashed some, all just to focus his destructive works on a particular religion or a group of people. Nevertheless, it led somewhere else, which is not something we will be discussing now.

    Terrorism is for fools; for the brainwashed; for the weak who can't put their problems to a solution by rational and non-violent means. Religion, any, after all, shouldn't be the motive behind any terror act, and it is a shame that people use religions or any group for their ghastly and sinful purposes.
 
  STAND AGAINST TERROR! STAY UNDIVIDED BY RELIGIONS!