Q: What do a disgraced basketball team owner, a crack cocaine smoking mayor and the Heartbleed bug have in common?
A: They are all manifestations of the Post-Privacy Age.
Let’s assume for a moment that there are things about you that you do not wish others to know. Of course, a few people will know some of those things, many more will know less and a select few will know more. Your privacy hinders on your ability to control what people know about you.
Now, let’s also assume that you have access to a device with internet connectivity: a computer, a cell phone, a tablet, a phablet or any other piece of hardware that bridges the gap between you and the World Wide Web.
At this point, we stop assuming and acknowledge that there are facts about you that you cannot change. These include, but are not limited to: your date of birth, your mother’s maiden name, your social insurance number, the high school you went to, the name of your first cat, the name of your first employer, your blood type, the person who took your virginity, whether or not you have inhaled cannabis, your greatest fear, your worst enemy, that you posted personal information on a social media platforms that is, now and forever, available to marketers, stalkers, hackers and your friends.
Since we’re on the topic of facts, when I was thirteen, I went to Space Camp. At the time, many of the kids my age could hack into people’s personal computers and activate their webcams. They enjoyed the thrill of secretly watching unsuspecting strangers. They also enjoyed hacking into corporate surveillance systems and watching the night guards struggle to stay awake during the graveyard shift.
This was fun for them. This was child play. This was fifteen years ago.
Look around. There’s probably a camera eye looking at you. If there is, there’s also a microphone. Both are connected or integrated in a piece of hardware with internet connectivity. The software it’s running probably has applications installed such as an email client, an address book and perhaps even a password manager.
Now, we can stop assuming.
We both know that “personal information” and “privacy” are anachronisms that will seem antiquated and incomprehensible to the children of the 21st century.
And why shouldn’t they be? Good people have nothing to hide, right?
There are at least two people who know you well: the taxman and your mother.
And CSIS. Ok, 3.
And your ISP. Ok, 4.
And Facebook. Ummm… 453?
Plus the admins of every online contest, survey, newsletter, store, auction house, photo share, microblog and discount club you’ve ever been associated with.
So far, everyone’s had easy, legal and/or contractual access to a whole bunch of fun facts about you.
That wasn’t so bad. All these people wanted to do was collect taxes, ensure national security, provide you with internet access, stay in touch, sell you stuff and follow your witty tweets.
While you’ve openly shared quite a bit, it isn’t quite monetizable until someone with a computer and questionable morality puts it all together into a tight little identity package for wholesale on the open online market.
Once the facts about you are for sale, you can relax. You are now one of us.
By us, I mean citizens of the information age.
Sure, you may have purchased the best antivirus, firewall and password encryption. You may even keep your passwords in a physical book, concealed in a bookshelf amongst other innocent looking books. Better yet, you may use complicated passwords with capital letters, numbers and symbols that you change frequently. You may have access to the entire cyber defensive power of the federal government (pretty badass if you do, btw).
It doesn’t matter in the long run. Someone, somewhere, if hoovering up every single packet that travels over the interwebs. It might be the CIA, it might the legion of Chinese military hackers and it might be a thirteen year old kid who’s figured out your network password…
If it’s 123456 or any variation of that:
- Frowny face 😦
- You should start looking for someone to buy your identity. You might as well be the one to get retail value for it.
Time isn’t on your side. The facts about you are, well… facts. They don’t change. At some point, they’ve traveled over the web as bits and bytes.
“But the information was encrypted?!”
You’re darn right it was. It was encrypted in a way that, without the key, it would take so long to decipher with the top commercial computing power available today that it would be impractical to do so because the value of your information wouldn’t make up for the cost of the electricity used to decrypt it.
TODAY. The top computing power TODAY.
If I collect everything you send over the internet, store it and wait. Ten years from now, I could cut through your encryption with off-the-shelf hardware. Exponential growth of processing power (Moore’s law) is my friend and your privacy’s executioner.
Technology improves, but facts about you don’t change.
Why this matters
We’ve all heard of the Heartbleed bug, the Windows XP vulnerability and government ties with telecommunication companies. Imagine what we haven’t heard of.
We started by assuming that you value your privacy. Now, I’ll ask you to make one last assumption:
You no longer control what others know about you. Any digitized information pertaining to you can be aggregated, traded, sold and used in a variety of nefarious ways.
Sound scary? Don’t worry. Someone already knows that you value your privacy and will find ways to sell you some.
My recommendation
Every time you digitize information about you, whatever the type, consider the worst case scenario use of that information. If it’s fraud, meh. You’re probably covered. If it’s blackmail, think about the worst things you would do, if asked, to prevent that information from being distributed. Then imagine your life after that.
Don’t live in fear over losing control over your private information. Enjoy the certainty of knowing that someone has appraised the value of your information and there are probably people worth more. Like any heard, as we graze in the digital plains, we’ll enjoy relative safety in numbers…
in the Post-Privacy Age.
#NOW 