Many years ago I took my family on our first visit to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. The this was at the infancy of the Internet and Microsoft Windows 3.1 was still on the scene.
I remember standing in line with my family at the Alien Adventure in the Magic Kingdom. I asked one of the attendants if the ride was appropriate for children. Her response was the ride didn’t move; I was curious as the ride had a reputation as being very thrilling.
Despite being there early in the morning, the line was fairly long. Once inside we were treated to the pre-show entertainment, which was a video playing on the ceiling mounted monitors. The video was describing a new transportation machine developed by a large world-wide corporation, and we were going to be part of the experiment.
At the time I was thinking about the global corporation and how such an entity could alter life, for good or bad. While there were many corporations which spanned the globe back then, I don’t think they had the impact that the new generation of corporations have. Sure they produced goods and were involved with the military, but they just didn’t have the impact to the general citizenry that the new breed of world-wide corporations have today.
Consider for a moment some of the very large businesses we have which are an integral part of the lives of so many: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Sony, Verizon, and the list goes on. While being large is not necessarily a bad thing, having tentacles which are so intertwined into our lives in so many ways, I believe is.
These large corporations have so many resources, they can influence our politicians and alter our lives in ways we may not initially (or ever) be aware of. Certainly there may be government oversight committees or Congressional hearings on the most highly publicized events, but how many issues go unreported, especially by the old main-stream media?
Just in this past week it was discovered that Apple had been tracking and storing every place an iPhone owner went if they had their iPhone with them. And if you are an Apple iPhone user, who doesn’t bring it along everywhere they go? In its default state, the information was unencrypted with an unencrypted copy stored on the user’s PC or Mac. As of this moment, Apple has not released a statement why they were tracking people and how or why the information was going to be used.
Next we have Sony and a breach of their PlayStation Network which has far reaching implications. Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked leaving users of the Qriocity streaming service very susceptible to identity theft. Through the breach, the hacker stole user’s private information including: their name and home address, the password to their account, their email addresses, and their date of birth. While I can’t speak for others, but if I was a subscriber to Qriocity, I would be angered over the issue.
It’s not just Sony though. Many of the extremely large companies have been hacked; Microsoft and Google included. Small companies have also had their systems breached, but they typically don’t have the amount of information exposure the large companies do.
Let’s not put all the blame on these world-wide behemoth’s though; part of the responsibility resides with us. Who has more at stake for our physical and financial well being then ourselves? Certainly not large corporations. The government? No. It is us. Just because we are asked for our date of birth, doesn’t mean we need to give it to everyone under the sun. Granted there are businesses who’s sole purpose is to gather information about us and our buying habits and once the information is out there, it is almost impossible to get back.
Going back to the headline of this blog, “Is Walt Disney World’s Alien Coming to Life?”; Alien may not be, but the world-wide corporations which created it certainly is. Oh, and by the way, my daughter was the one selected by the Alien!
This article was written by The Boss of HITman Services, a computer and IT company, based in Clifton Park and serving the Albany, Troy, Schenectady and Saratoga Counties of New York.
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