Apple Lisa. Personal Computing & Personal Privacy

UPDATE: iPhone is back in the News again for all the wrong reasons: a Bug that allows for Eaves-Dropping in the FaceTime App. Apple Computers is releasing a fix to that Bug today.

I can remember gaining Internet access for the first time back in 1997, in the days before GTE was bought & renamed Verizon. VERIFIED.

Can you remember the early days of dialing in to the Internet with an external modem & having to wait for the "Beep Boop Beep... You've got mail?" I can.

Now a days we all have a Personal Computer in our pockets, no dial up required.

Is there such a thing as Privacy???

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Personal Privacy is front & center now more than ever with data breaches, Russian meddling & Cambridge Analytics in the news on a seemingly daily basis. Honestly, I think the privacy ship has sailed much longer than we think. The difference is awareness.

Now, the rest of us know what the upper 1% has been doing to us behind our backs.

I think invasion of privacy has been a reality from the beginning, when Steve Jobs created the first user-friendly personal computer, the Apple Lisa, named for his daughter Lisa Brennan Jobs.

He is the person we can all thank for putting a personal computer in everyone's pocket in the form of an iPhone.

When Jobs later rolled out the Apple Macintosh, ads for the latest machine featured George Orwell's 1984, very ominously warning that "Big Brother is Watching."

30 years ago - all of us were Blissfully Unaware that this was being done to us. And me too. Here is my "Me Too Moment" when I ask in stunned disbelief, "What do you mean Big Brother is WATCHING US???"

So much for Personal PRIVACY.

Fast forward to the present. I still haven't decided what to do about Facebook. Personally, I have almost 10 years worth of stuff on there & I know for a fact this Privacy Ship has sailed.

Professionally, this news could not come at a worse time while I am still in the start-up phase of this business.

Prior to the recent revelations bringing awareness to us that our data has been breached, I was gearing up to place another Ad. I must say as far as effectiveness, Facebook is the only platform where I got ANY Return on My Investment what-so-ever, but I am still in a holding pattern with a "wait & see" attitude to see how the public responds. Will there be a mass Exodus like what happened to My Space or will Facebook weather the storm?

Business users & Political Candidates don't seem to have been phased by this news, with no slow-down in the number & frequency of Facebook Live Videos, Posts & everybody's favorite the "Selfie," so I guess I will keep my Online presence for now - don't look for me to pay for it though.