Digital Sheep: Why data privacy matters, by Silicon Valley Sniper

Whenever the topic of data privacy comes up, I often hear people say they don’t care because ‘I don’t have anything to hide’. If you disagree with this comment, great! Otherwise, please read on.
When someone says they have nothing to hide, I usually ask for their passwords. It’s meant to get folks thinking a bit deeper. Why bother with passwords if you don’t need privacy? That question is often shrugged off, or maybe I get an admission about watching porn. But unfortunately it’s more complicated than that.
A few years ago, a Stanford study showed how a computer could take someone’s seemingly meaningless Facebook ‘likes’ and create a detailed personality profile (https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/michal-kosinski-end-privacy). The computer didn’t care if you were liking photos of a cat or your cousin’s vacation. It just wanted your data. And with only 10 likes… the computer could predict your personality better than your co-workers. With 100 likes it knew your personality better than your family members. And with 200 likes… the computer could create a personality assessment better than your spouse.
The only reason we know about this is because it was an academic study. Big Tech never shares details about their ‘proprietary software’.
How it works is complex, but the basic idea is that your ‘meaningless’ personal data (such as Facebook likes) is used to match you with other people who have similar ‘meaningless’ data. And those other people are asked to provide detailed personality assessments. So because the computer knows the personality of the other people, it can figure out your personality after matching you to them using the ‘meaningless’ data.
Humans can’t make these sorts of connections, so it seems out of reach. But computers will effortlessly churn through massive amounts of data and find matches. If you want to go down the rabbit hole on how it’s done, take a look at Machine Learning (https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/17/103781/what-is-machine-learning-we-drew-you-another-flowchart/).
So now what? Well Big Tech says they just want to get to know you better so they can provide you with a better user experience. And I’m sure that’s true. But what else? Right now I’m less concerned if a computer determines my personality so it can suggest a new Netflix movie. The immediate problem is when the computer determines the personality of every individual in my neighborhood, or town or state… Then becomes possible to influence ‘at scale’.
So the next time you ‘like’ a stupid photo of a racoon with it’s head stuck in a jar, just remember that you might be feeding data into someone else’s algorithm. And that algorithm will eventually know your personality better than a human ever could. Or you can harden your digital footprint. The sooner the better.
Spread the love
                

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

10 Comments

  1. Joe August 17, 2020 at 05:52

    Make sure to feed crap data into your digital footprint. Like things you don’t really like, lie about your age, birthday, where you live, get a few not real friends from the social media games etc…

    When you process big volumes of data, some of it won’t correlate. In the big data world that is OK, because there is enough that does, that makes it financially worth it. The data that doesn’t’ correlate is tossed to the side, and in most cases not looked at again.

    be the chaff, not the wheat.

    • Quietus August 17, 2020 at 07:53

      “be the chaff, not the wheat.”

      Another option, is to avoid the threshing bee altogether.

    • Jim August 27, 2020 at 15:06

      There are companies that specialize at “sorting the wheat from the chaff”. They identify and link all of your different online personas and build an even better personal profile based on your attempts at obfuscation. Sorry, but big data and A.I. Make it VERY hard to hide.

  2. Alan Burquist August 17, 2020 at 08:47

    Have multiple disposable internet personas..
    Never, EVER, “synchronize” your devices..
    Use VPN, and change your IP address regularly..
    Use a signal blocker on your portable devices..
    Spend LESS time online..

    These thing may not protect you 100% But they
    will make it more difficult to correlate your info..

    Anything else???

    • Johnny Paratrooper August 17, 2020 at 10:39

      They have so much data at this point, that when someone goes off grid, they can fill in the details.

      The data they have can predict the future.

      This article is correct. Facebook knows I had a drinking problem. None of my friends and family ever knew because I wasn’t home when this happened.

      Facebook has so much data, that I called the VA hotline once, and within seconds Facebook knew the exact details of the conversation and was offering me specific treatments catered to my mood at the time.

      These are things Facebook knew BEFORE the call. They just used their data when deemed most profitable.

      • NC Scout August 17, 2020 at 11:17

        That’s why you don’t go “off the grid.”

        You just become someone who lost interest, changes his password to the maximum number of random characters to lock the account, and forgets it exists.

        • Johnny Paratrooper August 17, 2020 at 20:25

          I nuked all social media accounts except Gab.
          Permanently deleted. Unrecoverable(except for the copies they have)
          True story, no one even noticed I left.

          Locking the account was a good idea, I should have searched this site for a how to and why on social media management.

          I was heavily critical of certain groups. The police have active access to all of Facebook. Specifically, the firearms crimes divisions, special victims, missing persons, and narcotics teams.

          Facebook has their own hall monitors, but the police Departments pay extra for administrative privileges. Only the special teams though. The average cop probably doesn’t even know about this. A warrant isn’t needed because it’s “Commons”. That’s why they ruled it was a “common”. Legal terms are important, as they are bound to regulatory law. It sounds like they are teasing us using terms like that, but not to the untrained ear. When they ruled that Facebook is a commons, everything you do is considered to be done in public. Like making a drug deal in front of the police. They don’t need a warrant unless they are looking for something VERY specific and they WANT to get a conviction. But if they need to look, they have a look.

          Facebook is considered to be the same as the bulletin board at school with the camera watching it. Everything is evidence.

          They monitor in active time. It took the Firearms division two hours to locate a stolen firearm I purchased once. Didn’t know it was stolen. They didn’t care. No harm, no foul. But they were very serious people. Lost that money though. Whatever. It’s just a gun. I’m glad it was returned to its rightful owner. Who was an old lady, and it was her Deceased husband’s pistol. A 1911, if you must know. I lost some BILLS. But he got charged, hard. I signed sworn statements. He got ALL seven years Federal for dope, B&E, and a pistol . A small price to pay.

          Two Hours, knock knock. A small Tac-Team at the door. Not a big deal. Not my first time.

          Let that sink in. TWO HOURS! We still don’t know how they found the address.

    • Jim August 27, 2020 at 15:02

      Look up how to build and use a Pi Hole. It’s a home brew internet security appliance based on a cheap readily available Raspberry Pi single board computer. It blocks and deep sixes internet ads, info tracking requests, etc…. for your entire home or business network. As an added bonus it will speed up your internet browsing. Reddit has a section devoted to it with crowd sourced blacklists

  3. Anonymous August 17, 2020 at 09:12

    5

  4. D A T A Mining… | NORSE DEFENSE August 18, 2020 at 10:54

    […] Digital Sheep: Why data privacy matters, by Silicon Valley Sniper […]

Comments are closed.

GUNS N GEAR

Categories

Archives

Spread the love