Online Privacy in today's world
A lot of privacy related news and topics have been floating around, not just surrounding the launch of Windows 10, but also in general for the past several years. And there are many groups out there with many different thoughts on the matter. And now, I guess there will be one more from me.
I'm not writing this to praise or condemn any particular entity, though I may use some names as examples. I'm writing this to illustrate my thoughts on the topic in general, and many of those thoughts will extend to many different entities.
Personal information has recently become popular as an alternative to currency. But it has done so without people really noticing. Most things you think to be free come with this cost. And nowhere is this more true than online services. In most cases, metadata is all that is collected, which is to say, nothing specifically identifying is collected, and then this data is used to help sell advertising. This is clearly not the only case. A lot of different data is collected and that data can be used in an infinite number of ways. That data can also, on occasion be intercepted and used in ways other than it was intended. All of these are things people should be considering when using any service, or anything which claims to be free.
Having said that, you can draw the conclusion that there are two broader threats to privacy. How the data is intended to be used, and how the data could be used is the entity holding it were to be compromised.
You should always be aware of the former. This isn't speculative. This IS how your information will be used. The latter is more of an unknown. Even if the data can be tied back to you directly, does it matter if it is compromised? Are you likely to be a target of anything? The potential threat goes up based on the types of information gathered and the variety as well. Sometimes it doesn't take much at all. The Ashley Madison hacks are a good example. Simply having an email that traces back to you implies infidelity, which is something many don't want others finding out about.
But, that is a rare case. Perhaps the most common case is Email. Most email providers just provide email. They don't do anything with it. But, that doesn't apply to all providers. Google does gather metadata about you for advertising purposes, and while they don't disseminate the personal information, they also use that to help target ads, that your metadata helped sell, to you. All in all, rather harmless. And a decent price to pay for a decent service.
It is that second topic which is crucial for email providers. If your email accounts were hacked... you likely have tons of personal information in there; website/service newsletters and confirmations, events, flights, conversations with friends and family, etc.... And, to top it off, the biggest email providers also offer a ton of other services. Online storage, contacts, calendars, billing services and personal information needed to create the account. If Microsoft or Google were ever hacked and that data made accessible it would automatically be the largest data breach in history.
Online isn't the only place we likely unknowingly give up our privacy. Have a rewards card? Rewards cards allow a retailer to track habits, and even track them back to you directly even if you pay cash. Again, most people will consider this harmless, and most rewards programs... well, reward you for using them. And, if you didn't find the rewards valuable, you likely wouldn't use the program. It also allows retailers to better predict sales, better position new products and better stock their stores... which in theory benefits you indirectly as well. In other words, you do pay for rewards programs, just not with cash.
I'm not saying that nothing is free. But, in most cases, especially any widespread practice, you can almost guarantee that you're trading something. Even credit cards with rewards aren't free. They charge the vendors to cover the costs of the loyalty programs and the vendor increase the costs of the goods. You don't see the cost, but you pay it. In addition, they may even have higher annual fees to reap even more benefit from these programs.
Back to online... not every trade off is directly to benefit the service provider either. Many types of services NEED personal data to be of any use. In many cases, this data isn't stored anywhere long term. This is usually done by bigger companies trying to tie you into their eco-systems where they plan to make money elsewhere, either directly or by exploiting your data. But the point is, there ARE services out there where your data is used but you could still largely call it "free". There is still a chance that the data is intercepted along the way, scrubbed out of memory or otherwise hacked, but for which there is no malicious intent by the provider or even attempt to monetize the data.
Windows 10 is a huge pit for this sort of data. It tracks what you type to improve predictive text. It sends what you say to Cortana to process it, and to help return useful results. It syncs data into the cloud so that you can have multiple devices using the same services but remain in sync. I'm sure Siri is the same. The data in many cases is thrown out once processed. Some of it may be stored for analysis and some metadata may be stored as well.
So, what can you do with a computer? Many say "choose Linux". I'm sorry, that is absurd. It isn't going to happen. And it won't matter if it does. The kinds of things "harvesting" user data are things that are becoming more and more important and are things which are, by their nature, going to need to send your data off somewhere if they are to be useful. If enough people switch to Linux, you'll simply see Linux ports of these sorts of software.
Switching to Linux also does nothing to stop people from accessing your data. Do you have a hosted email account? Use other online services? You're still giving up your personal information. If you use weather software, the service provider knows where you are. Over time, if they wanted, they could probably use that data to determine where you live, work etc...
By and large, whether the data is monetized or not, the data which is being collected is almost always the data that makes those products or services useful. Google doesn't also scrub your mic feed while you look at email. Likewise Cortana doesn't scan your hard drive while she is busy processing your voice commands. And the same is true almost everywhere.
And, as long as that remains true, you can also infer that the data which people are largely giving up they would continue to give up regardless of platform or operating system. Those services have value to people, those who provide them will go where the people go, and the people will continue to subscribe to them.
Believing anything else is foolish, idealistic nonsense. It is the same sort of drivel people believed when they bought Macs because "they don't get viruses". The second enough people took the plunge however, the malware producers started targeting Macs and viruses started appearing. In the same vein, Linux is a safe haven right now. But only because the Linux market is too small for most profiteering companies to pursue. If people went to Linux distros in volume, you'd start to see distro's created by these companies, and repos containing the same sorts of apps and functionality people fled from.
That doesn't justify a thing. But then... it doesn't need too. It turns out that people aren't any better with managing their personal data as a currency than they are their real money. Most people give up more than they have to in order to get what they think they want or need. Capitalism as it applies to privacy is all we are seeing. As with real money, you can "spend" it wisely or not. Instead of just signing up for the most popular services, where possible you can always try and find one that uses your data in a way that makes you comfortable in exchanging it for the service provided. In our "I'll take what they're having" culture, it simply doesn't happen often enough to make a difference. If there is a problem, it lies there.
I'm not writing this to praise or condemn any particular entity, though I may use some names as examples. I'm writing this to illustrate my thoughts on the topic in general, and many of those thoughts will extend to many different entities.
Personal information has recently become popular as an alternative to currency. But it has done so without people really noticing. Most things you think to be free come with this cost. And nowhere is this more true than online services. In most cases, metadata is all that is collected, which is to say, nothing specifically identifying is collected, and then this data is used to help sell advertising. This is clearly not the only case. A lot of different data is collected and that data can be used in an infinite number of ways. That data can also, on occasion be intercepted and used in ways other than it was intended. All of these are things people should be considering when using any service, or anything which claims to be free.
Having said that, you can draw the conclusion that there are two broader threats to privacy. How the data is intended to be used, and how the data could be used is the entity holding it were to be compromised.
You should always be aware of the former. This isn't speculative. This IS how your information will be used. The latter is more of an unknown. Even if the data can be tied back to you directly, does it matter if it is compromised? Are you likely to be a target of anything? The potential threat goes up based on the types of information gathered and the variety as well. Sometimes it doesn't take much at all. The Ashley Madison hacks are a good example. Simply having an email that traces back to you implies infidelity, which is something many don't want others finding out about.
But, that is a rare case. Perhaps the most common case is Email. Most email providers just provide email. They don't do anything with it. But, that doesn't apply to all providers. Google does gather metadata about you for advertising purposes, and while they don't disseminate the personal information, they also use that to help target ads, that your metadata helped sell, to you. All in all, rather harmless. And a decent price to pay for a decent service.
It is that second topic which is crucial for email providers. If your email accounts were hacked... you likely have tons of personal information in there; website/service newsletters and confirmations, events, flights, conversations with friends and family, etc.... And, to top it off, the biggest email providers also offer a ton of other services. Online storage, contacts, calendars, billing services and personal information needed to create the account. If Microsoft or Google were ever hacked and that data made accessible it would automatically be the largest data breach in history.
Online isn't the only place we likely unknowingly give up our privacy. Have a rewards card? Rewards cards allow a retailer to track habits, and even track them back to you directly even if you pay cash. Again, most people will consider this harmless, and most rewards programs... well, reward you for using them. And, if you didn't find the rewards valuable, you likely wouldn't use the program. It also allows retailers to better predict sales, better position new products and better stock their stores... which in theory benefits you indirectly as well. In other words, you do pay for rewards programs, just not with cash.
I'm not saying that nothing is free. But, in most cases, especially any widespread practice, you can almost guarantee that you're trading something. Even credit cards with rewards aren't free. They charge the vendors to cover the costs of the loyalty programs and the vendor increase the costs of the goods. You don't see the cost, but you pay it. In addition, they may even have higher annual fees to reap even more benefit from these programs.
Back to online... not every trade off is directly to benefit the service provider either. Many types of services NEED personal data to be of any use. In many cases, this data isn't stored anywhere long term. This is usually done by bigger companies trying to tie you into their eco-systems where they plan to make money elsewhere, either directly or by exploiting your data. But the point is, there ARE services out there where your data is used but you could still largely call it "free". There is still a chance that the data is intercepted along the way, scrubbed out of memory or otherwise hacked, but for which there is no malicious intent by the provider or even attempt to monetize the data.
Windows 10 is a huge pit for this sort of data. It tracks what you type to improve predictive text. It sends what you say to Cortana to process it, and to help return useful results. It syncs data into the cloud so that you can have multiple devices using the same services but remain in sync. I'm sure Siri is the same. The data in many cases is thrown out once processed. Some of it may be stored for analysis and some metadata may be stored as well.
So, what can you do with a computer? Many say "choose Linux". I'm sorry, that is absurd. It isn't going to happen. And it won't matter if it does. The kinds of things "harvesting" user data are things that are becoming more and more important and are things which are, by their nature, going to need to send your data off somewhere if they are to be useful. If enough people switch to Linux, you'll simply see Linux ports of these sorts of software.
Switching to Linux also does nothing to stop people from accessing your data. Do you have a hosted email account? Use other online services? You're still giving up your personal information. If you use weather software, the service provider knows where you are. Over time, if they wanted, they could probably use that data to determine where you live, work etc...
By and large, whether the data is monetized or not, the data which is being collected is almost always the data that makes those products or services useful. Google doesn't also scrub your mic feed while you look at email. Likewise Cortana doesn't scan your hard drive while she is busy processing your voice commands. And the same is true almost everywhere.
And, as long as that remains true, you can also infer that the data which people are largely giving up they would continue to give up regardless of platform or operating system. Those services have value to people, those who provide them will go where the people go, and the people will continue to subscribe to them.
Believing anything else is foolish, idealistic nonsense. It is the same sort of drivel people believed when they bought Macs because "they don't get viruses". The second enough people took the plunge however, the malware producers started targeting Macs and viruses started appearing. In the same vein, Linux is a safe haven right now. But only because the Linux market is too small for most profiteering companies to pursue. If people went to Linux distros in volume, you'd start to see distro's created by these companies, and repos containing the same sorts of apps and functionality people fled from.
That doesn't justify a thing. But then... it doesn't need too. It turns out that people aren't any better with managing their personal data as a currency than they are their real money. Most people give up more than they have to in order to get what they think they want or need. Capitalism as it applies to privacy is all we are seeing. As with real money, you can "spend" it wisely or not. Instead of just signing up for the most popular services, where possible you can always try and find one that uses your data in a way that makes you comfortable in exchanging it for the service provided. In our "I'll take what they're having" culture, it simply doesn't happen often enough to make a difference. If there is a problem, it lies there.
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