Who knows what

When we blog, we put our thoughts and pictures out for the world to see.  And someone looks, people you know and people you don't.  Take a look at the stats for your bog, how many people do you know in Russia or China?  No big surprise, someone there is looking at every word and every picture, but who?  Undoubtedly some of it is governments. Following the news, it becomes clear that our government tracks everything that it public and more, why shouldn't we think that others are doing the same.  When I turn on my GPS enabled phone, my phone company knows within 50 feet or so, where my phone is on the face of the earth.  I like doing searches and getting results for Starbucks, directing me to the nearest store and not store one in Seattle (unless I happen to be in the Pikes Place Market.)  Who else knows where my phone is? Anyone who can figure out how to access the phone data, and I don't expect that it is as protected as my tax data.  Even if you turn the GPS off on your phone, the phone company at a minimum knows what tower(s) you are closest to, that is how cell phone work.  I like apps on my phone and I know that some apps capture things like location and transmit them to the app creator.  I know that my office keeps copies off all of my work emails for 5 years, even the one that says, "I am running late, LOVE YOU!" The warning on my office computer each morning, says that someone may be monitoring what I look at on my office computer. Once in five years, I have heard of someone being fired for improper use of the office network.  For my personal email I use Gmail, Google acknowledges that they use scanning software to target advertising based on content transmitted through their system.  Hey I get a lot of service from them, they have to pay for it somehow, and they pay for it by watching what I do and targeting advertising based on it.  I'd sooner see advertising for cruises, then family vacations, so scan and target.  It has come out that NSA has the capacity to record and store 30 days of phone conversations in some countries,  no big surprise.  How many of us knew that the NSA existed until they hit the news. The joke is that NSA stands for No Such Agency.  Few people admit to working there.  And there are even more obscure agencies, one that has 200 workers who show up each day at a 2,000 square foot warehouse supposedly filled with used office furniture.  Who is listening, governments and business, what are they watching and listening to, everything they can get their eyes or ears on.