Category: Privacy

This could potentially be my most contentious blog yet, but the very thing I am railing against [somewhat] is the very thing that allows me to post this in the first place; human rights, as enforced by my country’s laws and/or societal norms. MY society anyway.

My issue is not with human rights per se, they are a concept that should only become more important as the world gets smaller. Shared information available to an enormous distribution of mobile devices will, in theory, help combat the rampant ignorance across the globe, often enforced by oppressive government entities themselves. Just look at the ridiculous Twitter ban in Turkey for one of the milder examples. When everyone on the planet knows that they shouldn’t have to live under any totalitarian regime, human rights will provide the long-term road map for progress towards the freedom most of us take for granted.

My issue with human rights is the equal enforcement of them. As an extreme; why does someone convicted of multiple homicides have the same rights as someone who spends their whole life helping others? Yes, the killer may lose their freedom, but their rights as a human being are still in full effect. You take from someone everything they will ever have, and in my opinion, you are giving up some – and potentially all (depending on your crime(s)) – of your rights to be treated equally AS a human.

No, this is NOT a case for capital punishment, that’s too specific a judgment, this is about the fact that as species, there is no way we human beings will EVER reach a 100% consensus on anything, and we need to stop pretending that we can. The majority opinion must rule, as long as it’s not MOB rule, and the losing minority needs to abide by the prevailing decision. Criminals of every sort ALL have an opinion different from the majority, and it’s one they have likely acted upon. They think they are somehow exempt from doing the right thing, and in most ‘civilised’ nations those right things are instilled from childhood and reflect an accepted standard of ‘common decency’.

Do NOT steal, do NOT kill, do NOT take anyone by force and so on, but what about those countries where the established norms – if not the actual laws – are different? Can anyone reading this blog POSSIBLY justify the murder of the 11 people working for Charlie Hebdo just because they printed satirical matter and images related to their deity? Or any of the hundreds of terrorist attacks perpetrated for religious or political reasons across the globe? These things are REAL, but what makes US right? What makes US the arbiters of that common decency?

We’re the majority, that’s what gives us the right to condemn their actions. Anything other than treating everyone as you would wish to be treated yourself should be unacceptable in any society.

So we clearly need to stop pretending that as a species we are that evolved OR that civilised, and neither religion nor government should have the final say in what’s right and what’s wrong. We are all born with rights, but from that point forward they become a privilege every individual has the responsibility to maintain. All of our freedoms and all of our rights come at a cost, we must all be prepared to pay those costs.

In the end, humans are just another mammal, the attribution of instincts above layer 4 of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is admirable, and certainly an aspiration, but fighting a sociopath with rules is no different than making a wish by blowing out candles on a birthday cake. I will live my life by a simple set of self-imposed laws, and would hope everyone around me does the same;

The 5 Laws of Human Rights:

  • Everyone starts out in life with the same rights;
  • Everyone may utilise their rights to their own unqualified ends as long as those actions do not infringe on the rights of others;
  • Infringement of the rights of others will result in a loss of your rights equal to that inflicted on the other party(ies);
  • Use of rights for one’s own benefit comes with a risk of loss, everyone will accept personal responsibility for this loss; and
  • No-one shall take their rights for granted.

We need to stop pandering to those living outside the globally accepted norms of common decency, they have no place here with the rest of us.

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For those looking for a considered, well researched, and unbiased post on the ACTUAL evolution of privacy, you will be disappointed. This is an opinion piece based on my own theory of WHY people want privacy as much as they do, and whether or not they truly understand its implications. Well, my interpretation of those implications anyway.

I do not believe human beings to be either civilised, or that intelligent. We’re heading in that direction, but need to get out of our own way first. From a continued reliance on religious dogma, to a universally accepted misunderstanding that we are more than just another mammal, to the overwhelming prevalence of ignorance, we are no closer to any form of enlightenment than were the people ~1,000 years ago in what we call The Dark Ages. 1,000 years from NOW we will be seen as The Dark Ages – Part II, and you just have to read the news each day for a hundred examples of why.

So what are the benefits of privacy? Why did we evolve the concept of privacy to the point now where it’s a Human Right ratified by the UN as Article 12; “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

As far as I’m concerned, the only reason for this is that NOT having privacy puts you or yours at some kind of risk. Regardless of our sentience, we ARE just animals, and subject to the exact same primal urges as every other mammal. The need for food, water, sex etc. are at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but security of body, family and property is only just above them.

If we had truly evolved as a society to the point where these basic needs are provided, there would be little need for privacy. If we didn’t go through life knowing that our ‘secrets’ could be the cause of ridicule, alienation, resource loss, or even physical harm, then the requirement to keep-it-all-to-ourselves would be unnecessary. But we are still in the position where the bad outweighs the good, and the ignorance perpetuated through religion, sex / sexual orientation / colour biases, and political doctrines ensures that these fears are far from unfounded.

The challenge we face is that privacy is one of the biggest reasons we HAVE a perpetuation of ignorance. Human nature does not fall on the side of trust, what we don’t know scares us. At its mildest form, this mistrust keeps us from having as many friends as we’d like, at its extreme, we end up trying to destroy what don’t understand.

All human interaction is based on one thing; trust, and no-one trusts words, only actions. For example, if I was to open my life up to detailed scrutiny, then recorded the results of that scrutiny in a way that’s irrefutable, everyone who ever met me, for any reason, would know exactly with whom they were dealing. My values, level of integrity, likes, dislikes, aspirations, biases and so on would be my permanent and openly available CV/resume. Business partners, employers, potential friends, ANYONE would be able to make a fairly immediate decision as to whether they wanted to proceed. Even if they didn’t LIKE what they see, which is entirely possible, they’d still know enough about me not to be scared of the unknown.

If nothing else, it would save a great deal of time never talking to someone with whom we fundamentally disagree, or whose personality is one we would find offensive.

Finally, if we all have the right to privacy, then NO-ONE has the right to complain about those with bad intentions using it to cause harm. Until Human Rights are a currency – which they should be – our evolution as a species will be stunted by fear, uncertainty and ignorance.

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In the near future, most of us will want to:

  1. be able to walk into the supermarket, collect our stuff, and walk straight out with the payment already processed in the background
  2. receive instant coupons, or 2-for-1 offers, or other value add services WHILE shopping
  3. receive a warning if an item contains something to which we are allergic
  4. receive a reminder from your fridge / freezer / cabinets that you are low on certain products while you are walking down the relevant aisle
  5. …and so on.

However, you cannot have any of these things unless you made the necessary information available to the supermarket chain you are in. And they will not make these things available TO you unless they have good assurance that you, are in fact, you.

To enable just those 4 things listed above, you had to release a significant amount of personal data, all of which can have privacy implications:

  1. requires a number of things – from biometrics (facial recognition for example) to financial account access
  2. requires a comprehensive and always growing record of your choices, preferences, and habits
  3. requires details of certain bits of medical data
  4. requires your entire kitchen / bathroom / bedroom to be enabled for the Internet of Things, as well as a highly detailed geolocation on your whereabouts
  5. …and so on.

Are you OK with that?

I am, but I know many who are not, and I also know that as the generations progress, there will be less and less concern over these ‘conveniences’, as they will have become common place. I will go as far as to say that within the next 10 years, any supermarket NOT providing some of all of these services will not be able to compete, and possibly become Internet-Free corner stores where you’ll find the world’s ‘privacy paranoid’ shopping for their tin-foil helmets and electronic cloaking devices.

The bottom line is that the concept of privacy itself is changing. The generation of kids in secondary schools today has never known life without the Internet, and in most industrialised nations, every kid has a mobile phone. They are always plugged in, always connected, and, as never before, a vast majority of their lives is recorded somewhere online. They are active on social media, SMS, chat, email, and every other technology designed to stay in touch 24/7.

Our idea of privacy is not theirs, and everything from racial prejudice to the stigma attached to nudity will standardise and globalise, and I cannot help but think for the better. Your children’s education will no longer be tied entirely to the doctrines of the previous generations, and self perpetuating ignorance has no place in a time when every piece of knowledge is at your fingertips. Not that this will stop those determined to be an arse.

I’m certainly not talking about some utopia here, ignorance in all its forms will never go away, but if the vast majority of your life is an open and available book, your complete identity becomes an ultimate form of authentication, and the security OF your identity only gets better as your life progresses.

The current ability to authenticate only against static data will no longer suffice (passwords, secret questions etc.), and the coming methods of identity management and authentication will completely change the face of privacy.

I see this as a good thing, but I’ll leave it to the folks hiding away in Faraday cages to make sure that Big Brother doesn’t get everything his way.

 

Why, in the face of threats, do we humans either spend an inordinate amount of time blaming others, or insist on patching the symptoms instead of solving the root cause?

  • Target: I had my credit card data stolen, so let me buy millions of dollars of new PEDs
  • ICO: The NHS lost some data, so let’s fine them.
  • Rest of the World: The NSA is reading our emails, so let’s encrypt them.

Every one of these reactions has completely missed the point, and are the definitive closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

Question: Do you tell your deepest secrets to your loved ones in a very loud voice in the middle of a room crowded with strangers? Or do you wait until you’re alone, and even then talk quietly just in case?

And yet you think you should have privacy on the Internet?  You could not yell any louder than that. Forget your RIGHT to privacy, focus on YOUR ability to KEEP things private.

Even with encryption, who has the best equipment and expertise; you, or the NSA? Or worse; you, or organised crime? They are extremes, so let’s bring it closer to home; you, or your IT admin? How about; you, or your children?

So now, instead of solving the problem, security vendors are going to inundate you with offers to encrypt your data, encrypt your communications, encrypt your very identity, and they will all fail. 2014 should be the Year of Identity Management & Authentication, or to put it more facetiously; The Year of Only You Being You.

Here’s a ridiculously long and complicated analogy of your identity;

Imagine that you are a 1,000 piece puzzle, and when all of the pieces are together, only then can you see the full picture. As the puzzle is broken up and distributed across many hundreds of separate locations, the picture fades from each piece until it’s just plain white. Anyone stealing even a couple of hundred pieces will never be able to re-create you, never know what the picture is, or even where to find the rest of it.

Now, image that access to your most private information was tied to the complete picture, would that not be infinitely better than a username and password, or a 4 digit PIN?

Your true identity, the everything that is you, is made of things that cannot be put into a mechanism for authentication. Yet all we have right now is 3 factors: something you know (password), something you have (physical token), and something you are (biometrics). What about your likes and dislikes? Your future plans? Your everyday interactions?

All of theses things and infinitely more make up your true identity, and until we can come up with a way to get a whole bunch of them into a practical and seamless method of authentication, your data will be at risk, regardless of encryption. Yes, encryption may add a layer of security, somewhat akin to building your fence higher than your neighbours, but any commercial encryption product that will be pushed for home PC or mobile users will be practically useless.

Instead, privacy will come from the exact same source as identity managements’ will; very wide distribution of data with extremely limited ability to piece it all together. Some may disagree with my previous blog on the benefits of ‘profiling’, but you cannot have a robust identity without it. Bitcoin has proved that you do not need single databases/sources of storage for this stuff, the interconnectivity of the Internet’s individual systems can provide that with the right front end.

So, bottom line; don’t waste your money on expensive encryption solutions unless those solutions are performing the above distribution (bitcloud for example), but then it’s not encryption as we know it, it’s the next generation of privacy.

My rather unusual theory; that too much privacy might actually reduce your security, stems from a few things:

1) Security is all about baselines, and anything that falls outside of those baselines should be prevented, or at least investigated;

2) Everything you do in life is based around one thing; your identity. Relationships, work, and everything you do over the Internet is a direct reflection of all the things that make you, you. It’s the AUTHENTICATION of your identity that enables your everyday actions online. It also exposes your data, and;

3) The one thing that has no place in pro-active security; Big Data, actually has an enormous role to play in your privacy and the security of your identity. Somewhat counterintuitively, it’s the big data that provides the baseline from which your identity can be protected.

Most of us know that your spending patterns are what the banks / card brands use to detect potential fraud, but this data is only a small part of your identity, the sum of which includes (but is not limited to); your location, work history, financial history, family and friends, likes and dislikes, and pretty much everything you’ve ever posted online.

What if your identity could be profiled? Not in the negative way used to profile ‘possible terrorists’, but in a way that prevents someone else from being you. For example:

1) Why would you buy an international airline ticket if you don’t have a passport, or if you have never previously left your own country?;

2) Would someone start posting hate filled messages on FB /Twitter etc. if all they’ve posted previously are funny cat stories?;

3) Would someone change address and order new credit cards if nothing in their ‘profile’ suggested they were moving?;

4) Would someone go on a spending spree, when their ‘profile’ suggests a lifetime of frugality?;

…and so on.

The answer to all of these questions, is maybe, and except for 2., they most certainly should not be stopped from performing these legitimate actions, but there COULD be a greater degree of due diligence on the part of the organisations fulfilling these requests to confirm identity first. This is only possible if they have access to a profile from which to make these necessary decisions.

The profile does not have to contain all of your deepest darkest secrets, but enough of your identity has to be available for organisations to make judgment calls. Yes, this could be used for targeted marketing (not everyone is covered by the GDPR), and yes, bad people will always find ways of using a ‘profile’ for more nefarious reasons, but we already HAVE many forms of profiling that we take for granted; credit scores, CV/resumes, social media content, circle of friends, clubs / associations and so on.

The use of these existing profiles for good and bad is not so much in the individual components, it’s in the whole, and it’s one of the rare instances where the whole is in fact greater than the sum of its parts. However, the more information that’s out there should lead to a safer profile due to numerous overlapping and cross-referenced checks and balances, all of which report back to you.

Of course, there will always be those who instantly assume this will become an Orwellian dystopia and move to a cabin in the woods, and there will be those who see it as a utopia and jump in head first. The answers for the rest of us lie somewhere in-between, and will evolve over time.

This generation is already making it happen in my opinion, with the prevalence of social media entire lives are being documented online, and the apparent lack of common sense when it comes to posting compromising selfies suggests that our idea of what’s ‘private’, is not theirs. What my generation cares about, cannot be forced upon the next, and our values cannot dictate how the next generation leads their lives, but what we CAN do is design an identity framework that turns privacy into what it’s always been; a form of ‘currency’ for which YOU need to take full responsibility.

Spend too much and you’ll have no identity to call your own, spend too little and you’ll be left behind.

What you want, and what we don’t currently have, is a choice.

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