Category: oliverwjones

Seeing is no longer believing. Welcome to the world of deepfakes.

Video-editing software has advanced to the point that it’s no longer just the movie studios who can make the impossible seem real (think Luke Skywalker’s recent Mandalorian cameos).

Made with equipment available to the general public, deepfakes can appear to the casual observer to be an actual recording of a real person and event. In truth, it’s a manipulated—or, in some cases, entirely fabricated—digital movie file. A series of ones and zeros designed to deceive.

With a deepfake video, it’s possible to portray someone doing or saying something that never happened. The implications are obvious and troubling. It’s easy to imagine a deepfake video sullying someone’s reputation at work or school. In the hands of a bully, a phony video could expose a classmate to embarrassment and ridicule. We are in an era in which you can no longer believe your eyes.

What you need to know

Deepfakes are made by capturing photos or videos of someone and then grafting that person’s face or body onto another video. Artificial intelligence stitches the pieces together in ways that are becoming increasingly smooth and convincing. The more video footage of yourself and your loved ones you put out there, the more material you’re providing to would-be deepfakers.

It really does happen

The Washington Post reported on a mother in Pennsylvania who used deepfake technology to generate false videos of three high school cheerleaders, making it appear that they were naked and using drugs and alcohol. Her goal was to get the girls kicked off the Victory Vipers team because they were competing against her daughter.

To protect yourself and your children, only post images and videos in private social networks that you control. You might also consider adding a digital watermark to your videos to make them less appealing to deepfakers.

The extent to which the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has gone to gather information will shock you. Driver’s license data, utility records and facial recognition technology are all fair game in their efforts to manage detention and deportation. Read the entire article here.

Only a few years ago “Musk” was a bad perfume (and some would say it still is). It’s now almost impossible to list the innovations associated with the name “Musk”. But like the laundry list of other brands that have transformed from “good” too “bad”, Elon and his Twitter purchase risk a similar fate. Yet again, he never ceases to surprise… And you can ask a lot of institutional investors, it can be costly to bet against him.

So what to make of this Twitter purchase? Dorsey seems on board. Is it a caprice of the ultra-wealthy? The mainstream media seems to think so. Is there some innovative vision behind the purchase? His fan club is on-board. Are there integration possibilities, us commoners refuse to see? A Twitter-SpaceX-Boring Phone? Maybe more profoundly, what impact will his purchase have on privacy and ultimately free speech?

The response to this question is more clear. Instead of leaving the rules for this public-square moderation in the hands of a “corporation”, they’re moving firmly into the hands of an “individual”. One thing that would dull the fear of so much influence resting in the hands of Musk, would be to open-source the algorithms that drive’s Twitter’s success.

Blockchain has become a household name and a pop-culture staple. And yet, for many, it’s still a mystery.

In its simplest form, blockchain is a digital ledger. It keeps track of transactions and creates a permanent record of digital activity, leaving no dispute as to who owns something or to whom ownership has been transferred in the past. But blockchain isn’t the item, but it is an essential part of the package because it acts as a certificate of authenticity. Are you understanding blockchain yet? Stick with us.

Blockchain is in its relative infancy, but it’s risen to prominence in popular culture because of its association with cryptocurrency and NFTs. In these technologies, blockchain is the system through which ownership history is documented. But blockchain has applications beyond crypto and nifties. Blockchain can be used to document the history and ownership of any digital asset, including applications that don’t currently exist. For example, if the nature of digital music distribution changes in the future, blockchain might have a role to play.

While blockchain is often spoken about in rosy terms in the media, the reality is less clear. The ability to document digital assets is necessary, especially as the world becomes more digital than ever, but convenience comes at a cost. Free isn’t free, after all. It’s undeniable that blockchain is a major drain on energy, largely because of the massive power consumption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Additionally, blockchain possesses a significant privacy risk. Though it’s clear that nothing on the Internet is ever truly private, unalterable ledgers like blockchain make it impossible to erase mistakes or regrettable purchases. The applications for this level of tracking may spill over into areas of online record keeping beyond blockchain.

Another concern with blockchain is its security. Despite the reputation of blockchain records being unalterable, the popularity of blockchain makes it a popular target for hackers. This is done through conventional hacking techniques such as phishing, but also through threats that are less well-known. Routing attacks involve intercepting data in real-time. In this scenario, hackers intercept data as it’s being transferred, giving them access to private data without the blockchain knowing it’s been hacked. In another type of attack, a group that is able to obtain more than 50% of a blockchain’s mining power essentially takes control of that blockchain, giving that group the ability to manipulate the ledger as it sees fit.

In spite of the valid concerns that are associated with blockchain, the popularity of digital assets like NFTs and cryptocurrency means that blockchain is here to stay. Understanding blockchain, therefore, is a wise move. Those who invest in digital assets, including those who aren’t generally associated with blockchain, need to understand the security issues, permanence and energy usage associated with blockchain. Parents should also consider how blockchain’s record keeping could negatively impact family members. Blockchain aims to be a positive part of the Internet by bringing order and reliability to digital transactions, but it does come with some strings attached.

Marco Bellin, CEO and founder of Datacappy, weighs in here on The American Innovation and Choice Online Act in MarketWatch’s latest feature on the bipartisan bill aimed at curtailing Big Tech’s massive power.

Protect your phone number and protect yourself. If a form on a website asks for it, think twice before typing it in. The more widely distributed your phone number is, the easier it is for companies to track your behavior online and serve up ads to you. And because your phone number is so closely tied to your identity, it’s a prize for hackers, too. Keep it close and protect yourself. If your kids have phones, they need to keep those numbers closer.

It seems innocuous. At the end of a transaction, a company asks for personal information such as your phone number or email address. While federal regulations prohibit soliciting phone numbers via autodialers, loopholes remain. Experts say if you give your phone number out, it will inevitably end up in a database of some sort—just another bit of their vast data collection efforts. Once that happens, an untold number of companies can use it to track you across the internet.

What Will They Do With My Number? 

Even if your number is on the Do Not Call list, businesses have the right to call you for 180 days after your transaction due to a “business relationship” exemption. (In this case, it must be a human calling rather than an automated machine which is more costly for the company.)  Additionally, there is no restriction on the number of times a business can text you even if you’re on the Do Not Call list. Lastly, companies outside the United States are not bound by these federal laws against automated calls and messages. This means that a company in India is free to call and text you frequently if you give their company your number.  The better option: Don’t let them have it. Protect your phone number.

Hacking’s Worse Than Tracking

That’s annoying. Worse, though, is when a hacker finds your phone number. Because banks and billing services use your phone number to verify your identity, it’s a useful valuable piece of information. In some ways, it’s a key. One of several, usually, but an important one. For that reason, too, you want to avoid sharing your number online.

There are instances in which can’t avoid it. If you pay bills online, you’ll likely have to enter your phone number. Not ideal, but if it’s a secure site that has your number, it’s probably not worth worrying about now. More worrisome are the single-use forms, services, quizzes and games that seem to fill the internet. If there’s any way you can, protect your phone number.

Here’s a hard truth for parents: Big Tech knows more about your kids than you do. 

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter and so many more are vacuuming up countless bits of digital information about users. The details, when aggregated, paint a portrait of each person online that ordinary humans are unable to put together themselves.

These organizations may not know more about your kids’ personality than you do. But if  your children are online, the people behind the websites they visit know an astonishing amount about their interests, taste, relationships and the things they desire and want to buy.

That’s true if your children have their own smartphone, tablet or laptop computer, but it even applies to information about your kids that you put online yourself. Across platforms and with no regard to the age of the users, Big Tech is tracking you.

What Big Tech Knows and How

As the Associated Press put it, “The companies gather vast data on what users read and like and leverage it to help advertisers target their messages to the individuals they want to reach.” For context, Facebook earned 99% of its money from ads in the previous year and Google’s corporate parent Alphabet saw 85% of revenue from ads, per the AP. 

Meanwhile, Amazon records the details of not only each product you purchase, but also about what items you browsed for and compared before making a decision. If your kids are shopping online, Amazon has all that information about them, too. Though you and your family bear the cost, it’s a windfall for Amazon. AP noted that Amazon uses the user data it collects to boost the value of its ads. Ad sales revenue surpassed $10 billion in 2018 representing more than twice the earnings from the previous year (the latest statistics available). There is a huge financial incentive for Big Tech to know more about your kids than you.

In addition to boosting advertising and marketing for goods and services, the information collected by Big Tech about you and your family can include a whole range of other sensitive details. Think political affiliation, sexual preference and detailed geographical updates about where you live, work and vacation.

No Age Restrictions on Tracking

Big Tech companies track your whereabouts based on details from your smartphone as you are out and about. They know how old you are and where you spend time (shopping malls, churches, bars, and so on) to learn about demographics in your area and to target you even more precisely. If your kids have smartphones, Big Tech is tracking them in the same way. There are no age restrictions when it comes to tracking.

The information is used to predict as well as influence what you might be most interested in buying or which candidate you seem to favor for elected office. All the while, you’re presented with advertisements and “news” is fed to you in a curated, tailor-made experience.

Remember that it’s not just kids’ own online activity that Big Tech is tracking. These companies are also gathering information about the products that parents just like you are buying for their kids. They record what programs parents enroll their children in, what movies they watch and the photos that parents post online. All of this data is valuable to advertisers, which is why they take such pains to collect it on a massive scale.

What You Can Do

What are concerned parents to do under these circumstances? Part of your New Year’s resolutions could be to sit down and have a family discussion about the negative consequences that come from revealing so much information about ourselves.

The goal should be to emphasize security online and to protect your privacy from those who have no business snooping around your personal information. 

Take steps to limit companies tracking  you. Delete cookies when closing a web browser. Restricting how many personal details are posted online. Ask yourself if it’s really worth it to reveal your information to a new company by signing in using your Facebook credentials.

Maybe you’ll be less inclined to give up information to Big Brother when you consider just how much technology companies stand to benefit while you have so much to lose.

Reprinted with permission: privacyparent.com

Purchasing online with a little extra protection this holiday season makes a lot of sense. According to Marco Bellin, CEO of Privacy Parent, using a VPN and Private Browser might be the smartest gift to give. I stumbled on this article in “Women Love Tech” and they make a few really good points: 1) You don’t really know what you’re giving up 2) add in predictive analytics and say goodbye to any control you think you might have had and 3) we’re talking about your children’s’ data here!

Power rests with those who have the most information, the most detailed information, and the most up-to-date information. Amazon’s public-policy department is an army of lobbyists swatting at and gutting any privacy legislation showing up on a state’s docket. The power Amazon has to manipulate outcomes is akin to manipulating the human genome, but on a world wide scale. Please read the 3rd article in a series by Reuters “The Amazon lobbyists who kill U.S. consumer privacy protections”. You’ll leave saddened by how they take advantage of your data to manipulate you (and local protections) to add to their bottom line.

Read this!

The Amazon lobbyists who kill U.S. consumer privacy protections (reuters.com)