The Internet, Big Data and Loss of Privacy

In my perpetual quest to make Cyber Security more accessible and less ponderous, I am experimenting with a new approach – a video parody of a Bond villain exposition, summarizing his nefarious plan:  Small Version: http://youtu.be/gi9sIHF2XBs

• Dr. Big Data is Blofeld and his supercilious Persian cat. There are several scenes in Bond movies where all you see is Blofeld’s cat on his lap.
• The cat is named CATananga after the villain Kananga (AKA Mr. Big).
• The plot exposition is derived from the movie featuring Kananga:
  http://www.empireonline.com/Kananga Monologue

For those of you without the patience to watch a video, I have included the script:

Ideal Devil Net
By
Dr. Big Data and featuring CATananga

First, we created lots of free websites using techno-jargon and complexity to imply security through obscurity.

Then, we flooded the world with free offerings: games, news, mail, messaging, video, adult entertainment, Internet phones, social networks, video conferencing, blogs, shopping, banking, trading…

We created massive new markets of online junkies.

People are addicted to networked devices: desktops, laptops, tablets, smart phones, mp3 players, e-books, game consoles, navigators, mini-tablets, smart appliances, smart homes, universal remotes, web cameras, nanobots, Skynet …

When the number of devices exceeds the human population of the world and you are flashing your life all over the Internet, we will own you.

We will know everything about you:
Where you live and work; what you eat and drink; your interests, vices, secrets, finances, friend, enemies, who you have linked and friended; what you’ve liked, your pets, debts, allergies, ailments, challenges, medications, recreational drugs…

With this plethora of data, we will wreak havoc: manipulate and blackmail you; steal from you; acquire your identity and biometrics; frame you for unspeakable crimes.

We will bankrupt you, your employer, banks and country.
We will start wars, exploit natural disasters and mimic terrorist attacks.

By the time you realize you have lost your dignity, privacy, security, wealth and freedom, it will be too late.

You will work for us, pay us and fear us.

We will bleed you slowly. Never to death.

Well – Some attrition will be acceptable: disappearances, exceptional evanescence, and extraordinary excision…

Except for Cats. Cats will have the best of everything.
They have served us well on the Internet.

References

Cisco Visual Networking Index Cisco VNI: 2012-2017: 
Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update
“By the end of 2013, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2017 there will be nearly 1.4 mobile devices per capita. There will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices in 2017, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules-exceeding the world’s population at that time (7.6 billion).”

MIT Technology Review: Has Big Data Made Anonymity Impossible?
By Patrick Tucker on May 7, 2013
“What modern data science is finding is that nearly any type of data can be used, much like a fingerprint, to identify the person who created it: your choice of movies on Netflix, the location signals emitted by your cell phone, even your pattern of walking as recorded by a surveillance camera. In effect, the more data there is, the less any of it can be said to be private. We are coming to the point that if the commercial incentives to mine the data are in place, anonymity of any kind may be “algorithmically impossible,” says Princeton University computer scientist Arvind Narayanan.”

Credits

Music is from http://freemusicarchive.org by VELIBOR NIKOLIĆ

VELIBOR_NIKOLIC, “Rain III: Rainplucks at the Top of Androids Skull”                              Mix by Tearpalm

Thanks to Patrick Tucker of the World Future Society (wfs.org) for allowing use of a quote from his MIT Technology Article.

Nuclear Mushroom Cloud photo from freeinfocsociety.com
http://www.freeinfosociety.com/media.php?id=5082

Additional References

For more about M2M modules see:
MIT Technology Review: The-Internet-of-things – Ant-sized-computers

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
By Malcolm Gladwell (see http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/)
ISBN 0-316-31696-2

A tipping point is the time at which incremental changes, however small, add up to the extent that they can effect a significant, revolutionary, disastrous or irreversible development. For example, scientific tipping points include:
• Critical mass in an atomic explosion (nuclear fission),
• The boiling point of water and
• Escape velocity of a rocket