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The Valley's secretive culture sprang up from its Pentagon contracts and the cult of intellectual property. Acolytes of Whole Earth Catalog publisher Stewart Brand may remember his assertion that information wants to be free while dropping their annual 2CB on the playa — but it's far more rarely acknowledged that he prefaced that aphorism with the maxim that information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. And what's the most valuable information you can have? Information you can use against someone. While bosses are tasty game for a hungry underling, it's far easier for management to hunt their minions, since they have the keys to the Exchange server and outbound HTTP request logs. Having been logged, filtered and background-checked on Google at more than a few well-known local heavyweights myself, I present at least five ways you're being watched not by the NSA, but by the local, private sector — especially the paranoid executives at Apple.

  • Web surfing: You might beat the company porn filters for a couple of days using Google Translate as a defacto proxy, but eventually that avenue for NSFW browsing will get shut down, and your IP and cubicle address logged in the process. I say flip 'em the bird and browse Fleshbot anyway — at least it's funny and classy.
  • Private public records: Have a credit card? A mortgage? Vote early and often? Then you've generated reams of consumer data that companies can access for a nominal fee to see if you were the type to blow through Discover card cash advances on hookers and blow.
  • Geolocation: Why do you think Sprint, which at the turn of the century focused on enterprise instead of consumer business, was one of the first American carriers to offer phones with GPS? Think tracking your delivery van as you take a lunch detour to an in-call professional. And those RFID keycards are quite handy at logging exactly where every carefree, anonymous blogger of an employee is on campus at all times.
  • Personal email and IM: While I'd hate to scare our invaluable tipsters away, you might want to think twice before logging into Meebo or Gmail to send us tips, especially if you're communiques are routed through a proxy. The VPN plus SSL layer is a thin veil at best, and a port 80, XSS-comprimised gold mine of intercepted gossip-mongering at worst.
  • Built-in videocams: If you're at a company that prides itself on security, then you might want to put a band-aid over your iSight lens. Because Mac OS X isn't immune to severe pwnage, and a leet hacker with a grudge or just a perverse interest can watch and record everything you do in front of your MacBook, from hookers to blow.

(Photo by Amparo Torres)