During this pandemic, we’ve turned to video-conferencing tools and social media to keep in touch with family and to facilitate working from home. In doing so, we have exposed our data to even more threats, setting ourselves up for more extensive tracking, monitoring, and analysis. “Data is the new gold”, and data mining is a process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods used by computers. The data they collect needs refining to get the most out of it, like gold. Data is refined by algorithms. Algorithms have learned our likes and dislikes; they tell us what to watch, what to read, and who to date, and who to vote for. And all the while, they have the hidden power to slowly and subtly change how we live as humans. Already algorithms know more about what you buy than you know yourself. Algorithms are everywhere. They decide what results you see in an internet and what adverts appear next to them. Algorithms provide an elegant and efficient way to get things done---even to make the world a better place, and are, by and large, there to help you. Social media algorithms are becoming central to everything you do. Government by algorithm is an alternative form of government or social ordering, where the usage of computer algorithms, especially of artificial intelligence and blockchain, is applied to regulations, law enforcement, and generally any aspect of everyday life such as transportation or land registration. But algorithms are developing a more sinister side. Today, political parties across the world leverage technology to game the system. In political campaigns, targeted messaging is the difference between winning and losing elections. Issues and even candidates are manufactured to garnered the most votes. In places like China and USA about 2% of the population controls selection of election candidates, hence government. Big business and large corporations can use extremely powerful computers which are about to get a lot more powerful. For example they can try millions of times per second to break your passwords. High tech clusters are evolving in India, Russia and other poorly regulated places where all sorts of tech scams are hatched. Scammers gain access to your confidential information, like social security numbers, date of birth and then use it to apply for credit cards, loans and financial accounts. Typically, the victim receives an email that appears to be from a credible, real bank or credit card company, with links to a website and a request to update account information. Here are some ideas and tips about how to best protect your privacy online and retain control over your financial and personal information. Beware this is a dynamic topic and info is rapidly changing. 1. Always use at least two email addresses.
Only give the real one to thouse you want to hear from. The second one
(or more) uses a cyber habdle (fake name). This address is used as much
as possible.
2. In fact you should develop and carefully keep record of a complete cyber persona with name, birth date, and other details that appear real. Obviously you cannot use this for any illegal purpose. Just as you never should give personal info on a phone, you should never give it online when avoidable. Bad guys are expert at fooling people. 3. Stay strictly away from Google, Facebook, and other social media because they gather your info and sell it. Actually remove these from your computer. DuckDuckGo is offering is the most intuitive, well laid out, secure and quick browser. Make it your default browser. Don't use Google email either. Every website you visit uses cookies. They are now obliged to notify users about it, so we have to click on “Ok” “Accept” or “Agree” in order to continue. Cookies store a certain amount of data specific to a particular client and website. With this information, server can deliver a specially tailored page for the mentioned user. The smartphones era brought even bigger privacy issues. Smartphones are based on apps and almost every app out there wants access to your entire phone – contacts, texts, emails, notifications, storage etc. Many people don’t think about it or consider such information sharing dangerous but as technology continues to advance and becomes inevitable in everyday life, we are becoming less independent and more prone to be either victimized in some way or simply used as a plain consumer to buy stuff. Facebook recently announced they are now able to trace even non-users. With the help of “Like” buttons, which are now on every website. They will display ads to people that are not part of this global social network. Using cookies stored in like buttons and other plugins, they can display relevant ads for non-users as well. There’s no way to be completely out of it, but there are several things we can do to avoid complete transparency.
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