When we sign on to any electronic device, we have the ability to find information or to create or to be curious about any subject or many other descriptive ideals that can or could bring the world closer to each other. Those are valuable ideas, but there is also organizations generally governments which only want us to go so far and then they monitor us. The internet has two sides one open and free the other all the issues of surveillance, privacy and the dark side of the internet. In a book called Black Code published by Signal – a division of Penguin Random House, Toronto, 2013 the author Ronald Deibert takes the reader into the darker side of the internet. The world of the internet can be a friendly place, but it has many attributes of carefully watching and in some instances acting on your concerns. In the world of Big Data, the individual is not focused on because it is trying to figure out the patterns of many people. In the aspect of surveillance and privacy the individual is focused on, typically the government of the day can easily find what words and when you are using words which they do not want you to use. Mr. Deibert and others focus on what the government is following. In some cases – China – it focus on those having too friendly relations with countries they consider to be there territory. In some cases – China – it focuses on gathering data which can be used by state companies. In some cases – Russia – there is a the fraud aspect. In some cases – Syria, with the internal war going on, the internet is used to pinpoint where the opposition is (there is a old movie Independence Day where to defeat the alien enemy morse code is used, if you are going to be in a war zone learn morse code). There are many methods which the internet can be used in the dark side.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while these companies earn profits which pay dividends the threat is fraud and draining banking accounts. All companies have information on the internet and use the pipelines of the net. What happens if something goes wrong? Part of the internet network is based on trust, and if you are easily looking trust can be broken for a price, how does the company protect your investment?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.