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  3. The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We’re constantly monitored, sometimes by corporations wanting to sell

The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We’re constantly monitored, sometimes by corporations wanting to sell

admin2021-09-17  93
问题    The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We’re constantly monitored, sometimes by corporations wanting to sell us stuff and sometimes by governments wanting to keep an eye on us. Momentary conversation is over. Wholesale surveillance is the norm.
   It’s about to get worse, though. The Internet of Things refers to a world where much more than our computers and cell phones is Internet-enabled. Soon there will be Internet-connected modules on our cars and home appliances. In its extreme, everything can be connected to the Internet. It’s true that the "Internet of Things" will make a lot of wonderful things possible, but it also gives the governments and corporations that follow our every move something they don’t yet have: eyes and ears.
   In the near term, the sheer volume of data will limit the sorts of conclusions that can be drawn. The invasiveness of "Internet of Things" new technologies depends on asking the right questions. For example, if a private investigator is watching you in the physical world, she or he might observe odd behaviour and investigate further based on that. Such occasional observations are harder to achieve when you’re filtering databases based on pre-programmed queries. These analytical limitations also mean that companies like Google and Facebook will benefit more from the Internet of Things than individuals—not only because they have access to more data, but also because they have more sophisticated query technology.
   In the longer term, the Internet of Things means ubiquitous surveillance. If an object "knows" you have purchased it, and communicates via either Wi-Fi or the mobile network, then whoever or whatever it is communicating with will know where you are. Your car will know who is in it, who is driving, and what traffic laws that driver is following or ignoring. Fast food restaurants will know what you usually order, and exactly how to entice you to order more.
   Will you know any of this? It depends. Lots of devices have, and will have, privacy settings. But these settings are remarkable not in how much privacy they afford, but in how much they deny. You’d think that your privacy settings would keep random strangers from learning everything about you, but it only keeps random strangers who don’t pay for the privilege—or don’t work for the government and have the ability to demand the data. Power is what matters here: you’ll be able to keep the powerless from invading your privacy, but you’ll have no ability to prevent the powerful from doing it again and again.
   
The first two paragraphs mainly discuss______.
选项 A、the uses of personal data collection
B、the beneficial aspects of surveillance
C、an emerging large-scale threat to privacy
D、an unknown side of governments and corporations
答案C
解析 主旨题。根据题干定位至本文前两段，第一段指出“互联网已转变为巨型监控工具”以及这一科技带来的负面情况，第二段指出该负面问题正在进一步发展，即物联网将使一切处于联网状态，个人数据的获得变得容易；段末的eyes and ears为借代用法，指物联网发展为权力机构提供的监控工具，暗指人类隐私面临巨大威胁。其中，monitor，keep an eye on，surveillance等词也反映出段落主旨，因此C项正确。
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