We live in an age where everything we interact with is becoming “smart”, be that our phones, watches, or even washing machines. The Internet of Things – where everything around us is tethered to the Internet – is changing our lives and habits in dazzling and frightening ways. This blog series will explore the interesting questions of privacy, the future of computer science and the challenges that lie ahead for our digital society.
George Orwell wasn’t lying when he said Big Brother was watching.
Although, to be fair, he was wrong about one thing: Big Brother isn’t only the government, but also almost every well known technology company in Silicon Valley.
That’s right, every household name you know is on the list: Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Uber – you name it. Each of these companies has staggering amounts of data about its customers, and that’s not just because they have a lot of customer survey responses: They are seeping into our everyday lives, watching everything we do and keeping record of it.
My data’s keeper
Your data isn’t your own.
The old saying of “anything you post on the Internet is here to stay” applies, but what everyone fails to tell you is that companies are parceling and repurposing everything you do on the internet – and they’re making billions off of it.
[Related: Read the first installment of Plugged In]
When you post a tweet, the whole world isn’t the only one watching. In the background, Twitter is keeping tabs on you about everything from your iPhone model to what you’re tweeting. When you “like” something on Facebook, your preferences are tucked away into one of its algorithms and used to give you targeted ads.
It doesn’t just stop there, though. Google – arguably the queen of data – doesn’t just record what you search in its search engine, but literally records your voice from your smartphone without your explicit permission. AT&T, which controls a hefty portion of the cellphone market, takes it a step further by collecting information about who you call and where you call them from, and sells that wealth of private data to law enforcement at head-turning, six figure prices.
While we could spend an entire blog post talking about the scary acrobatics companies are doing to gather your information, what’s blood curdling is the fact that the Internet of Things is looming in the background. With smart watches, smart refrigerators and self-driving, smart cars pervading our lives so is every other Silicon Valley tech company.
For example, the Apple Watch spells convenience, but it’s also another way for Apple, which prides itself as the protector of user privacy, to collect your location data and send you location-based iAds. Amazon’s Echo isn’t just a way to revolutionize your home, but also a way for Amazon to revolutionize how it collects data about your preferences and tastes, which all comes full circle when you go onto its website to buy more products.
What’s abundantly clear is the massive data collection occurring backstage in the Internet of Things compromises our privacy on multiple levels. And while some of us can bear to swallow that, the fact of the matter is that all this data isn’t just collected, but can also be stolen by malicious actors.
In other words, your privacy isn’t the only thing at stake. Your security is as well.
Cybersecurity and you
To quote Sein Peisert, a noted computer security expert at UC Davis, it’s not a question of if you’ll get hacked, but a question of when you will.
Malware is floating around the Internet at staggering rates, and everyone from unassuming cat video-lovers to the Democratic National Convention stands to be broken into and and have their information stolen. And tech companies are no less immune to this than the rest of us.
For example, take the recent Yahoo data breach, which resulted in over 500 million users – more than half of Yahoo’s customer base – having their email account information leaked. With everything from personal information to financial data having been stolen, it’s no wonder users are flocking to other email services.
But that’s only scratching the tip of the iceberg. With personal information – age, ethnicity, day-to-day activities – being collected by companies such as Facebook and Google, personal information security is becoming more of a concern. If malicious actors can break into Facebook’s databases and access the wealth of information it has on its users, like they have before, there’s no end to what can happen, be that identity theft or other white collar crimes.
The progression of the Internet of Things without user security in mind also contributes to the issue. With technologies like smart refrigerators and smart washers coming to the scene, developers are more concerned with the utility of their products than they are with their digital sturdiness. One only needs to consider the ramifications of an insecure refrigerator sharing a Wi-Fi connection with a computer that is regularly used for bank transactions to realize security is a major dilemma posed by the Internet of Things.
There are, of course, avenues for students and users alike to take, whether that’s using services that do not collect private user data – such as the DuckDuckGo search engine – or hardening the privacy settings on their devices and online accounts. Anonymous data services are becoming more prevalent in order to cater to those who seek increased privacy, and with the outburst of the Internet of Things, we’re all eventually going to find ourselves chasing after these services.
Until we reach that stage, however, we’ll just have to continue wrestling with the idea that Big Brother is watching us. Orwell is probably rolling in his grave knowing he called it all those years in advance.