An interesting story has popped up recently that demonstrates just how careful people need to be when using privacy-enabling technologies. In Pakistan, a gentleman called Nadeem James has been sentenced to death for sending a message to his friend that contained a joke about the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
Sadly for Mr James (who is himself a Christian) his friend didn't find the joke funny and decided to tell the government. Mr James was later found guilty of blasphemy and will now be put to his death (unless his appeal is successful).
This is where the story gets interesting, and where it has an important digital privacy lesson THAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW!
When we use encryption services such as Whatsapp or Virtual Private Networks our data is protected from the eyes of ISPs and the government (If you don't know what a VPN is then please comment below and I'll make another post that covers it).
Encryption securely scrambles all the data so that only the sender and the recipient are privy to the information.
However, the recipient of any message ultimately has the power to disclose that data to third parties. In the case of Mr James, his private joke (which he no doubt meant in an innocent way to his personal friend) wound up in the hands of the government and has now probably cost him his life.
Admittedly, this is an extreme case. However, it does highlight an incredibly important issue for all people that use digital privacy-enabling services.
Your data, information, or opinions, are only secure as long as whoever you share them with also keeps them private. For this reason, privacy-enabling technologies must be used with caution. They do not give you the safety to say anything you want - anytime you want - unless you can be absolutely certain of the discretion of the recipient.
If you want to read the full story please look here: https://www.bestvpn.com/privacy-news/private-messengers-not-foolproof/
Image credit: Denys Prykhodov/Shutterstock.com