If you lose your phone, what privacy will you lose as well?

          In Syria security forces have quickly suppressed demonstrations by grabbing mobile/cellphones from dissenters and then tracking down all the contacts in that suspect's network. A twitter, or a mobile net, can be a tool for disseminating information or it can be a web that traps dissenters. Without a means of quickly erasing or deleting information on the phone, the contents can become a tattle-tale implicating relatives and friends—without security that prevents unauthorized access to a phone's contents a person's privacy is easily violated, even from such a simple event as losing the device.

          Alexis Madrigal in his piece in the Atlantic, What Does Your Phone Know About You? More Than You Think, says that 'Figuring that I've got nothing to hide or steal, I'd always privileged convenience over any privacy and security protocols. Not anymore. Immediately after trying out Lantern, I enabled the iPhone's passcode and set it to erase all data on the phone after 10 failed attempts. This thing remembers more about where I've been and what I've said than I do, and I'm damn sure I don't want it falling into anyone's hands.'


           It's worth taking a moment and thinking about all the information the little chip on your phone contains and what would happen if it became available to someone without your best interests at heart tomorrow.