[GPSCC-chat] Privacy and Anonymity in a World of Interconnected Data

[John Thielking]

Maintaining privacy takes many forms these days.  I have started paying cash for everything that I can. (Remember that the PATRIOT Act allows the govt to access your financial records.)  I take the battery out of my cell phone when I am not using it. (The battery drains like crazy when I put tin foil over the phone when it is off so I KNOW that the cell tower is being pinged to reveal my location even when it is off when the battery is in it.) There is a company called Caged Ideas LLC (see them on Facebook) that is making a special case that can be used to block different apps from accessing your phone. This gives you a finer level of control than just taking the battery out, plus it makes it possible to have this level of control over an iPhone, where it is not an easy task to take the battery out. The govt probably will make this company install a back door in their device eventually, so using a phone that allows you to take the battery out
 easily is probably still the best option if you don't like being tracked.  I also stopped looking up my travel plans online. Instead, I just go to the train station and pay cash for my ticket while keeping the dates and times in my head.  If I look up ticket availabilty online I soon find that every ad displayed is showing "come to (my destination city) on (travel dates) for a great deal on a hotel" or something like that.  It is clear to me that such info is not private at all and the cops are probably tapping into that.  I have to show ID when I get my ticket anyway, so the info is available if they really want it.  But why make it any easier for them than it should be?
 
John Thielking

From: Tian Harter <tnharter at aceweb.com>
To: Post South SF Bay discus <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org> 
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 12:37 PM
Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Privacy and Anonymity in a World of Interconnected Data

> Arvind Narayanan
>
> speaking on
>
> Privacy and Anonymity in a World of Interconnected Data
>
> Arvind Narayanan is a post-doctoral computer science researcher at
> Stanford University and a junior affiliate scholar at the Center for
> Internet and Society, housed at Stanford Law School and a part of
> the Law, Science and Technology Program. Arvind completed his Ph.D,
> which exposed the problems with data anonymization, at the University
> of Texas, and now studies privacy from a multidisciplinary perspective
> focusing on the intersection between technology, law and policy.
>
> Arvind will describe the issues around the privacy and anonymity of
> online consumers in this age of massive data collection from internet
> sites and mobile applications. His doctoral thesis, in a sentence,
> is that the level of anonymity that consumers expect—and companies
> claim to provide—in published or outsourced databases is fundamentally
> unrealizable.

Arvind began by explaining that when fingerprints were discovered about
100 years ago it was a huge breakthrough in criminal justice. No longer
was it possible for a criminal to escape because they couldn't be proven
to have been there. The idea that everybody could be uniquely identified
took on a life of its own in the public imagination. Since then the field
of privacy law has developed a lot.

Arvind showed us pictures of many other things that also now are known
to have unique fingerprints. Computers have unique ID's from manufacturing
requirements. Old typewriters have unique ID's because life has worn
their keys in individual ways. Digital cameras have unique ID's because
every camera is just slightly less than perfect in a different way, and
the differences can be spotted by sophisticated computers with the right
test algorithms. Even a blank piece of paper can be uniquely identified
by its grain.

Arvind explained that such information is important to know about.
Consider a blogger that is providing information about an awful regime.
If their identity isn't known they are relatively safe. If their camera
gives them away they could be apprehended. Then he explained that
pictures can be "derezed" to hide such information by reducing the
detail level to less than 70% of that in the original shot.

Online there are also digital footprints to be watched out for. It turns
out that 87% of us can be uniquely identified just by our zip codes,
birthday, and sex. Any anonymous database that holds those clues can be
at least partly broken into by comparing those characteristics with
public information. Arvind talked about a couple of major data dumps
that had simply released too much information about individual people
for their privacy to be guaranteed by the companies that promised it.

During Q&A the following came up:

Arvind is a big fan of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
He recommends giving them money, because it will be well spent.

He doesn't know if the spy drone that was captured by the Iranians
was "hacked out of the sky" by a computer attack or if it was jammed
or simply fell because of equipment failure or whatever.

Deleting cookies from your browser is an important part of data privacy.


-- Tian
http://tian.greens.org
Latest change: US National debt now $15 Trillion plus.
The 5 actions 1 world pin is on a Colorado quarter.
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