Culture

A couple nights ago I was shutting down my computer when, in the process of quitting Firefox, a mysterious screen opened before my eyes with what appeared to be a galaxy of circles and triangles, interconnecting and sprouting new satellites as I watched. Closer inspection revealed it to be a graphic visualization of sites I had recently visited with all the third party sites they had notified in clusters around them. It was a moment out of War Games. Had I been hacked, I wondered?  But no, it turned out to be Lightbeam, a browser add-on that allows you to see in real time how your information is being shared on the Internet by the sites you visit, and with whom. I vaguely remember installing it a while back but I never got around to using it, hence my initial surprise when it seemingly opened itself in my browser.  But once I saw what it revealed, I was riveted.