{"id":6584,"date":"2016-11-30T01:13:14","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T06:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/?p=6584"},"modified":"2020-12-25T22:07:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T16:37:15","slug":"free-your-digital-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/6584\/","title":{"rendered":"Free your digital life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to our recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-attachment-survey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">survey<\/a>, more than 70% of active Internet users have considered quitting their social networks, primarily, they say, because they waste too much time on them. I think it\u2019s something more: that people feel they have become mere commodities to the digital corporations that not only feed them content, but also more and more often tell them what to do, what to buy, what to watch and listen to \u2014 and the list goes on.<\/p>\n<p>Do we really own our digital lives? Many of you already know the bitter truth: We don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The individual user of a digital device can do a bit to control their digital shadow \u2014 the data and metadata that is generated automatically about users as they visit websites. VPNs, anonymizers, and filtering can help shrink the shadow, but what about the more visible part of the digital life? The photos, videos, fleeting thoughts, and other things that we post on purpose and consider our own \u2014 our digital footprints \u2014 effectively belong to the IT corporations that run our social networks and multimedia hosting platforms.<\/p>\n<p>That video you made yesterday with or for your friends or family? The moment you uploaded it, the hosting service (i.e., the site where you\u2019re sharing it) gained effective ownership rights over it. Depending on the legislation of your country, you may be able to prohibit further sharing or demand the removal of your personal content, but you can never be perfectly sure that it has not been cached somewhere \u2014 that\u2019s why I said \u201ceffectively\u201d before \u201cownership rights\u201d \u2014 no matter what the site\u2019s terms and conditions may say.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, what goes on the Internet stays there forever, regardless of your state of mind when posting or future ability to access your account. Someone hacked your account and changed your password? Sorry!<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"390\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LyOgVtNtEb4?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;start=14&amp;wmode=transparent\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Many people I know actually find it convenient. They like to live in a bubble of \u201ctailored content,\u201d \u201cspecial offers,\u201d and \u201cenjoyable friend feeds.\u201d But I also have many friends who would prefer to stop paying for that stuff by giving up their freedom to be irrational, inexplicable, unpredictable, and, most of all, <em>invisible<\/em> to digital tools. That\u2019s my preference as well.<\/p>\n<p>That said, let me ask you a question: When was the last time you sat with your closest friends or family, looking at photos together and enjoying the memories? It\u2019s been a while, hasn\u2019t it? We\u2019ve become so addicted to social networks that when we get together, we no longer pore over photo albums \u2014 they don\u2019t even exist anymore! Albums\u2019 digital successors, photo frames, never took off; why bother when you can just post a picture on Instagram or Facebook?<\/p>\n<p>So, instead of getting cozy with friends around a book of photos, we see people at the table with a fork in one hand and their phone in the other. Besides ruining the atmosphere of family dinners, our addiction to instant sharing has also externalized an important part of ourselves \u2014 and, as I mentioned earlier, given control over it to corporations. If I may wax philosophical for a moment, if we don\u2019t have a tangible past, does that mean that we don\u2019t have a future?<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, regaining ownership of digital memories is no easy feat. IT giants will do everything they can to keep you on the hook. And who has left digital footprints on only one service? Most people have scattered their memories through at least a few.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Have you ever felt trapped in social networks? What if I told you there was a solution? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fUM1oqFuiD\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/fUM1oqFuiD<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/socme?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#socme<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/socialmedia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#socialmedia<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UPXZUTG44s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/UPXZUTG44s<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kaspersky (@kaspersky) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kaspersky\/status\/798546366741909506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">November 15, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed\"><\/div>\n<p>While working on the FFForget concept, which we plan to open to the public in 2017, we tested the APIs of four key social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+, and found out that it is possible (for now) for users to take their stuff back, making a copy of their digital moments from these networks and storing it safely in an impenetrable, encrypted vault. Once they have the personal content back, users can do whatever they want with it and with their accounts: another step toward independence from big IT corporations.<\/p>\n<p>I firmly believe taking back personal digital content is a step toward a future in which the current model is no longer valid. In this future, ownership rights will belong fully to the users, and users will be in full control of their content. That\u2019s the kind of future I want to live in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to our recent survey, more than 70% of active Internet users have considered quitting their social networks, primarily, they say, because they waste too much time on them. I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[20,1920,22,739,43,98,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-6584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-products","9":"tag-facebook","10":"tag-ffforget","11":"tag-google","12":"tag-instagram","13":"tag-privacy","14":"tag-social-networks","15":"tag-twitter"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/6584\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/10516\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/8030\/"},{"hreflang":"es-mx","url":"https:\/\/latam.kaspersky.com\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/8047\/"},{"hreflang":"es","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.es\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/9616\/"},{"hreflang":"it","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.it\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/9421\/"},{"hreflang":"ru","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.ru\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/13657\/"},{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/13533\/"},{"hreflang":"fr","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.fr\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/6366\/"},{"hreflang":"pt-br","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.br\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/6786\/"},{"hreflang":"pl","url":"https:\/\/plblog.kaspersky.com\/free-your-digital-life\/5772\/"},{"hreflang":"de","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.de\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/9295\/"},{"hreflang":"ja","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.co.jp\/free-your-digital-life\/13338\/"},{"hreflang":"ru-kz","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.kz\/free-your-digital-life\/13657\/"},{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/13533\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/free-your-digital-life\/13533\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/tag\/facebook\/","name":"Facebook"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6584"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22361,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584\/revisions\/22361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}