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Would you like to always wear a tracking device around your ankle? Or a web cam on your head?
In less than half a generation, many computer users have become addicted. Despite the many benefits of the world wide web, there is a dark observation. Most computer technology with Internet access is a privacy disaster. Surveillance, tracking, and data mining are now a full blown world wide disease. An epidemic. A sickness.
Many people might be shocked or dismayed to learn how much personal information is easily available online. For example:
- House address.
- Land line phone number.
- Past addresses.
- Public events.
- Marriages and divorces.
- Family members.
- School yearbooks.
All of the large web site owners track visitors. Not just on their own web sites but as visitors travel around the entire web. This data is used to create profiles of visitors and members.
The equivalent of a tracking device around your ankle and a web cam on your head.
This surveillance attitude began long before the world wide web — with cable and satellite TV. Viewing habits of subscribers of these services have long been tracked. This information is collated and sold. The world wide web has exasperated this tracking.
Online tracking and data mining are forms of stalking. Stalking is privacy invasion and a crime in most places in the world. Yet stalking is accepted on the web.
Privacy is a fundamental expectation of human existence. Privacy is not about hiding but respect and dignity. There is a reason people do not live within glass walls.
A challenge today is protecting privacy while enjoying the conveniences and comforts of technology. Like many decisions in life, there is no easy answer for each person. Each person is different. There is a tension between convenience and security and privacy. At one end of the spectrum is a desire for optimal security and privacy. At the other end of the spectrum is a desire only for convenience without concern for security and privacy.
“I have nothing to hide,” is a naive and dangerous approach. Everybody has something to hide. People not believing this fact of life are welcome to install video cameras in their bedrooms and bathrooms and display the videos live on the web for all the world to view and watch. History reveals otherwise too. Innocent people always have something to hide when malicious and authoritarian people are involved.
There are people who believe they should have access to any information they want. Notable for this belief are the GAFA folks running Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
Death by a thousand paper cuts describes what happens to privacy through this epidemic of tracking people. In the daily walk of life people have identities. Everybody is somebody. Sharing those identities is managed through a simple concept of need to know. When another person does not need to know, then generally many people disclose little information about themselves. This is part of the principle of privacy.
With web browsing and online services, everybody is treated as a product — something to be sold and manipulated. This effort has become surreal. Most people have no idea about this Faustian deal with the devil or how they are tracked and packaged.
Many of the privacy invasions are unknowingly self-inflicted. People use popular web services and never read the license agreements or privacy policies. These agreements and policies reduce to a simple exchange: users get access to free services. The owners of these services monitor, track, and record everything users do online. Understand that free is not really free — the price of free usage is intrusive data mining and tracking.
The stalking is not limited to web browsing. Email and text messages are exchanged in plain text and easily searched. By design, cell phones are trackable. Customer loyalty cards are trackable. Automobiles, activity “wearables,” smart phones, smart TVs, smart thermostats, cameras inside refrigerators — all are designed to track and send data. There is even an Internet-enabled rectal thermometer designed to collect and send data.
Modern computer technology challenges the concept of privacy. Much of anything done on the web is trackable. Data mining now is the norm rather than the exception and has become an obsession. There are people running businesses today that do nothing but track, aggregate, and sell this data. The GAFA folks are obvious examples, but many more exist behind the scenes. People working under the legal fiction of spy agencies believe that no person has an expectation of privacy and everybody is trackable.
Much of this data is retained in perpetuity.
Almost daily there is a news story about a computer data breach. Each data breach reveals personal and private information. People with malicious intentions use this data to steal from or harm exposed people.
Many people might need a bucket of ice-cold water poured over the head to appreciate this adhesion contract relationship.
Outside of these one-sided agreements and policies that few people read is the fact that much of the data is collected without consent.
The world wide web no longer belongs to the world but to those who collect data.
The goal of the people who do this tracking? To influence and manipulate people’s behavior and make a cheap buck. Online surveillance stalking is now big business. This is becoming a fight for the soul. This is becoming a fight for human dignity.
This cat is not going back into the bag. Big Data is the new norm.
What to do?
Defying or circumventing this tracking is not magical or insurmountable, but does require learning and adapting.
Short of a large-scale social revolt, the only possible solution is individual action. Or at least, minimizing the amount of tracking. Add some monkey-wrenching to obfuscate the data being collected.
Always presume that every web site visited is designed to collect information about each visitor. Use that presumption to act proactively and defensively.
Always presume that any free online service tracks members and visitors. Services are touted as a benefit to users but each user is treated as a commodity. “Free” does not pay the bills. Collecting and selling data about visitors pays the bills.
Remember that storing data online in the “cloud” is marketing lingo. That data is being stored on a distant computer not owned or controlled by the user. There is no way to prove the data is encrypted or secure. There is no way to know how the data is used.
Be aware that most online web site providers and merchants operate their business on a presumed “opt-in” basis. Visitors. members, and customers need to configure their account to “opt-out” of much of this tracking.
Reveal and store as little personal information as possible. When using online vendors, do not permanently store credit card numbers anywhere on the computer. Always retype the number. Always log out of the vendor’s web site when finished.
Do not reveal personal and private information through social media. Malicious people are very good at collating such information and using to their advantage. Mentioning a pet in social media might be all the clue such people need to guess passwords.
More nitty gritty details next time.
Technical tip: All web browsers support a feature called third party cookies. There is no need for allowing third-party cookies. Learn to disable third-party cookies. Preventing third-party cookies helps reduce online tracking.
Next issue: Online Security and Privacy – Part 2
Let’s get high.
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