Creepy Tech - Is Your Stuff Spying On You?

procrastilearner (61)in #steemstem • 8 years ago

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Technology is great and it makes our lives so much more convenient but there is a catch and that is we have all basically kissed our privacy goodbye.

This post explores a few of the creepy aspects of the technology that we use on a daily basis.

Facebook

Facebook made it into the news in a big way a few months ago with the revelation that a private data firm called Cambridge Analytica had information on 87 million Facebook users profiles without the users' knowledge.

Every time you access your Facebook account it logs your IP address, your address, the browser type and device that you are using. Facebook also knows, or likely knows, your home address, your work address, where you travel and many more aspects of your personal life.

If that is not enough it has been revealed that Facebook also tries to glean information about people who don't even have Facebook accounts through non-Facebook apps and information gathered from people with Facebook accounts that you have contacted in the past.

The company keeps a very extensive profile on their users and possibly even non-users to use for massive data mining efforts to bring you targeted advertisements for products and political campaigns and who know what else?

_{Guillermo Fernandes
link
CC0 license}

Alexa

Amazon Alexa is promoted as a voice-activated digital virtual assistant that can help you set appointments, get the news and weather, control your house, send messages to people on your contact list and of course order products from Amazon.

It is basically an always-on device that is constantly listening to the conversations in your house.

This means that a private company basically has access to the goings on in your house and can do whatever they want with the information. They assure their customers that privacy is treated seriously so it all boils down to a matter of trust.

It also boils down to a matter of security that these device cannot be hacked by malicious third parties who would then be able to track the conversations near any vulnerable device.

Customers are assured that Alexa does not record your conversations until a keyword such as "Alexa" is first spoken. Even if there is no direct malicious activity the conversations that are recorded are stored indefinitely and it is uncertain how the data is used afterward.

_{Pixabay.com link
CC0 license}

Cell Phones

Cell phones are the epitome of futurist technology come true.

In one lightweight package you get a phone, a camera, a voice recorder, a music player, a flashlight, a map, a video game console, a movie player, a newspaper, a mail box, a GPS locator, a calendar, an address book, an alarm clock and more.

In that list of features you may have noticed three things: camera, voice recorder and GPS locator.

So basically if you are unfortunate to install a malicious app or if the manufacturer or cell phone distributor is malicious or unethical then you have basically purchased the perfect spy device.

Of all of your belongings, what personal device is the closest to you at all times? The cell phone of course.

If it ever gets compromised then there is a good chance that your conversations can get recorded, your surroundings can get videotaped and your GPS location will be known.

Sometimes all that is needed is for someone you know like a significant other to install a spy app on your phone and your privacy is basically gone.

Even deeper, most cell phone operating systems have embedded in them something called telemetrics which is just a technical way of saying that the cell phone is tracking your location and other activities.

Nice.

_{Google Inc. link
Public domain image.}

Google

Google knows more about you than your wife or husband, girlfriend or boyfriend. Heck, it even knows more about you than the American NSA.

It knows your home address, your skin colour, your sexual preferences, your political alignment, your education levels, your hobbies, your diseases, your financial health and even your waist size.

It is likely that there is a very large profile stored on you somewhere on a Google server right now.

Have you ever had an ad follow you around from website to website? Has this advertisement oddly been something that you were interested in and thinking of buying?

Every search that you make and the links that you click are very powerful pieces of data that over time allow companies like Google to build up a surprisingly accurate profile on you. Even if you don't use Google Search the ads on a website are also handy tools for tracking your virtual travels through the internet.

Google illegally used a wifi war-driving equipment on its Google Streetview cars to record data about the wifi routers in people's homes. This allowed them to collect wifi information and connect it to physical locations.

This activity has been stopped in many countries and it has led to fines against Google but it is a very clear illustration of the ethics of companies when it comes to data collection (there are none).

_{Steven Lilley
link
CC BY-SA 2.0 license}

Face Recognition

There are public surveillance cameras everywhere these days. At first they were used for simple security reasons to allow human operators to monitor for trespassing and theft.

Recently however more and more of these cameras are now hooked up to computers with some type of AI that is not only capable of telling the difference between what is a human and what is not but also able to recognize who you are.

The technology is reported to be imperfect at the moment but it is getting better rapidly.

These systems are reported to be able to pick out and identify every face in a large crowd like you get at a football match or a concert.

This has real downsides for countries that are run by governments that don't care about individual freedom or personal privacy. It is also a concern that companies who like collecting data on people (i.e. Google and Facebook) will use surveillance data to build an even deeper profile on you.

Even if you live in a relatively free country you may get on a government list just by attending a protest against something that you disagree with.

This could even have ramifications if one day you decide to run for office or a high government position. If your enemies or opponents get access to some private company's massive surveillance database then their is a good potential for abuse and smear campaigns against you.

_{Pixabay.com link
CC0 license}

Amazon Key

Amazon wants a key to your front door. This is a service offered by Amazon where you install a smart lock on your door and a delivery person can just open up the door to your house to drop off your orders.

Easy and convenient but you are also letting a complete stranger into your home when you are not there. What could go wrong?

This smart lock is also accompanied by a Cloud Cam which records the activities at your door when it is unlocked by the delivery person. This means that Amazon can also record the goings on in your home.

Great. Just wait until someone learns how to hack the system.

_{Mike Mozart link
CC BY 2.0 license}

Closing Words

Who needs James Bond any more when we have all of this personal tech that does a spy agency's job for them?

It is becoming obvious to more people that all of this tech that we are buying to make our lives simpler and more convenient is coming at a very real cost to our privacy.

I wonder if the year 2018 will be the high water mark for this sort of intrusiveness and if it will be the year when technology that combats this encroachment will become more popular.

Already, I tend to search the internet using DuckDuckGo, I use a VPN and I try to turn off the telemetry on all of my devices.

I somehow doubt that this is enough and I am just fooling myself.

Thank you for reading my post.

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8 years ago in #steemstem by procrastilearner (61)

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flyyingkiwi (55) 8 years ago

Expect China to continue to develop this kind of technology at light speed. It's a dream come true for autocratic regimes whose survival largely depends on their ability to monitor and control their citizens

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mobbs (69) 8 years ago

They're exporting it to Africa, too

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procrastilearner (61) 8 years ago (edited)

They're exporting it to Africa, too

Not surprising.

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beograd (50) 8 years ago (edited)

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procrastilearner (61) 8 years ago

I feel sorry for teenagers these days. There is no erasing and forgetting the stupid stuff that you do when you are young.

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agbona (62) 8 years ago

The scariest of this bunch is arguably Google because it knows so much about you, especially users of Andriod phones. It knows where you are at every point in time. Not to mention the synchronising of their other apps, with the use of your email address, like google docs, drive, home.

They are likely to become the Umbrella Corporation, or resident evil.

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