Ever been paranoid about a government monitoring your internet activity? Well, I have some good and bad news for you. New York – an American family house was raided by the CIA after authorities discovered the family had run a Google search for the keywords “Backpack” and “Pressure cooker”, and it certainly didn’t help that the smallest child in the family had also been running a few searches related to the tragic Boston bombing. The mother had been searching for a new pressure cooker, the husband had been looking for a new back pack; and it all seems like a legitimate false positive (source: http://www.news.com.au/technology/american-family-raided-after-searching-backpacks-and-pressure-cookers-on-google/story-e6frfro0-1226690035517). However, this has now raised major worldwide concern. The good news is authorities can use this technology to stop terrorists well before their plans are executed. The bad news is every single person on the internet is now subject to screening.
Facebook has to be the best example of privacy invasion in modern history. The most recent Facebook features may be exposing your privacy, and the biggest problem is that people understand very little about the consequences. Facial recognition is a wonderful tool to help your friend’s auto tag you in photos from when you were at the pub at 3AM; and considering 80% of the population carry a smart phone, the photo would also be geo-tagged. So not only does Facebook (and everyone else privy to your privacy settings) know where you were last night, at exactly what time; but it also knows what you look like.
Facial recognition goes back to the early 60s, a team of American computer scientists were funded by an “unknown source”, to develop technology to identify human faces. There were mixed results, but technology has come a very long way since then. From a security standpoint, biometric identification is very reliable, and is much stronger than username and passwords as a form of authentication; however this adds complexity and complexity is kryptonite to any security model.
If you run a Google search on your name, what are the results? More than likely it’ll contain at least one picture from your LinkedIn or Facebook account; and if the results surprise you, then what other personal identifiable information is floating around the internet. Some of you may be familiar with the term “Google bomb” or “Googlewashing”, for those of you who are not; it’s effectively the practice of manipulating Google’s search-rank algorithm and flooding a search result with multiple links, causing a keyword result to return a desired website. Typically used for business, political or comedic purposes, the most famous Google bomb, occurred in 2007; when searching for the keyword “miserable failure” it would return results for George W. Bush.
My personal favorite, in terms of failed privacy are hash tags. I find them very annoying, and unnecessary; and regardless of my personal opinion, hash tags are incredibly dangerous. Hash tags are a data mining and marketing golden nugget, and effectively provides a very accurate pattern in assessing interest. Some of you may have Facebook friends who often share a status accompanied by a hash tag, examples include: #eatingsteak #needaholiday #enjoyingadrink. This then creates a channel (or thread) in which others who also use the same hash tag can view the shared information. Facebook has recently enabled clickable hash tags, making it even easier for other Facebook users to collaborate; however the shared hash tag is linked to an actually account, and this means strangers can personally identify who you are.
If there are any concern you are now feeling as a result of reading this article, I would strongly suggest you review your own and other family members’ social networking privacy settings. I would also encourage everyone to think twice when checking into locations; remember that others who also checked into the same location can also see that you are currently there. With the changes to the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 in 2014, businesses should be very concerned about ensuring they are compliant, as heavy penalties apply for a privacy breach. Contact your trusted reputable security vendor and have a conversation about improving your security posture and privacy protection readiness.
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