Fragged by Your Fridge: The Wired World Is Dangerous in More Ways Than One

The prospect of hanging the eighteenthcentury essayist and biographer Samuel Johnson wrote wonderfully concentrates the mind So should the exploding pagers and walkietalkies that blew through Hezbollahamp8217s ranks in Lebanon two weeks agoAn attack by their webenabled garage door opener or kitchen fridge however isnamp8217t what should worry Americans Rather itamp8217s the countryamp8217s mounting vulnerabilities as their online personal information and activities from texts emails and scrolling habits to wired homes cars and toys transform their lives into an open bookConnecting remote controlled assassinations in Beirut and say a cosmetics marketer using social media posts to target amp8216tweensamp8217 in Buffalo isnamp8217t an analytical stretch Surveillance Harvard Business Schoolamp8217s Bruce Schneier wrote in 2014 is the business model of the internet Like the battlefield in business its value lies in exploiting what youamp8217ve found outBig techamp8217s oligarchs couldnamp8217t agree more They claim their empires would wither if government even trifled with their model of surveillance capitalism whatever its consequences in exposing personal data on the web Unfortunately events suggest the Silicon Valley eliteamp8217s attitude toward protecting national security is no less cavalier than its disregard for the privacy of Americansamp8217 livesThe Federal Trade Commissionamp8217s FTC report this month on the practices of social media and video streaming companies laid out their approach to personal privacy As Samuel Levine the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau director observed in its preface the amount of data collected by large tech companies is simply staggeringamp8220They track what we read what websites we visit whether we are married and have children our educational level and income bracket our location our purchasing habits our personal interests and in some cases even our health conditions and religious faith They track what we do on and off their platformsamp8221 Levine emphasizedAnd thatamp8217s not allamp8220The companies often combine their own information with enormous data sets purchased through the largely unregulated consumer data marketamp8221 Levine wrote When queried for the FTC report the companies said they amp8220collected so much data that they couldnamp8217t even identify all of it or who they shared it withamp8221 Without action he concluded amp8220the commercial surveillance ecosystem will only get worseamp8221Meta Alphabet and Amazon obviously deserve the spotlight but theyamp8217re not alone Add Comcast Verizon and the rest of the internet service providers ISPs Netflix and other video streamers thousands of sales sites and the data brokers who collate and resell Americansamp8217 digital resumes Their motherlode can only bring smiles to cybercriminals and foreign adversaries working to up their gameMany Americans are concerned That said by their own admission theyamp8217re poorly informed and confused about online privacy According to a Pew Research Centeramp8217s poll last October 81 percent worry about what companies collect but 67 percent also say they donamp8217t understand what happens to their data The vast majority queried also feel impotent while 77 percent told Pew they distrust social media twothirds believe they canamp8217t do much if anything to protect their presence onlineHowever much or little Americans may understand their own risks when it comes to the national security implications of surveillance capitalism itamp8217s a good bet they grasp even less Take ransomware attacks that encrypt information systems or their data or exfiltrate sensitive information that can only be retrieved for a price For anyone who falls for a phishing email and downloads a tainted file itamp8217s an upcloseandpersonal danger and if people havenamp8217t been extorted many know others who haveRansomware crooks of course prey most aggressively on businesses After all thatamp8217s where the money is Not surprisingly companies often try to avoid revealing the extortion fearing the reputational as well as financial consequences A recent analysis by VPN Networks a security consultancy does a good job of explaining the threat and its scope Its report lays out the types of attacks their characteristics and also prescribes what companies should do when they strikeVPN Networks cites several noteworthy cases the shutdown of US operations of Chinaamp8217s ICBC Bank the disruption of government services in Fulton County Georgiaamp8217s largest and the victimizing of CDK Global and the thousands of auto dealers whose CDKrun backoffice systems went dead The companies are only a sample of victims but they testify to the exposure of financial institutions government at all levels and industries nationwide to ransomwareamp8217s attacksWhat the VPN Networksamp8217 report doesnamp8217t address is where sensitive personal information such as the files ransomware crooks often target fits into a growing national vulnerability the volume of personal data vacuumed up on the web combined with foreign adversariesamp8217 not just criminalsamp8217 increasingly sophisticated attacks A Wall Street Journal news story last week that presents the sinister synergy is a case in pointUS officials quoted in the Journalamp8217s report say China was behind the monthslong hacking attack on a halfdozen American ISPs According to official sources Beijing was trying to disrupt their broadband networks and gain access to other targets that depend on them FBI Director Christopher Wray sized up Chinaamp8217s ambitions earlier this year amp8220Its hacking program is larger than every other major nation combinedamp8221Wray could have added that the ISPamp8217s own versions of surveillance capitalism couldnamp8217t do more if they tried to give Beijing a handTake recent news stories on the Chinese effort to influence the November election Chinaamp8217s political warfare tactics reportedly cover the spectrum spam spread to sow discord and social divisions fake social media accounts and doctored TikTok videosamp160 Who knows whether election meddling is one of the reasons behind Chinaamp8217s effort to burrow into the ISPs The fact is the communications giants havenamp8217t been shy in advertising whatamp8217s available if Chinese hackers want to give it a tryEffectv is an example The division of Comcast describes itself as helping businesses reach audiences across TV streaming and video using amp8220household level dataamp8221 The translation of the advertising copywriteramp8217s euphemism Comcast uses the personal information it acquires to enable its clients to deliver their ads tailored to the recipientsamp8217 beliefs likes dislikes and behavior and directly to their preferred digital device And Comcast obviously isnamp8217t aloneEffectv and its competitors are providing powerful tools for the 2024 campaigns allowing them to reach potential voters not just by ZIP code but right down to their IP addresses For a campaign manager who wants to communicate to one of his candidateamp8217s loyal amp8220baseamp8221 while delivering another pitch to the undecided neighbor next door the value is obvious Suffice it to say itamp8217s not unreasonable to assume that Effectvamp8217s marketing message not to mention its trove of Americansamp8217 personal data almost certainly isnamp8217t lost on BeijingIn sum Americans troubled by their nonexistent online privacy should be and for their countryamp8217s sake as well as their own Thatamp8217s a message from at least one of Silicon Valleyamp8217s glitterati Craig Newmark Craigslistamp8217s founder is pledging 100 million to bolster the nationamp8217s cybersecurity Newmark is dedicating half of his latest philanthropy to educating the public about the importance of online securityDemocrat or Republican liberal activist or election denier independently wealthy or threejob working stiff when it comes to Americansamp8217 lives online and off privacy is a quaint concept that simply doesnamp8217t applyFor Chinese political warriors charged with roiling 2024amp8217s election waters With comrades in the hacking department just down the hall burrowing into Comcastamp8217s or Verizonamp8217s or ATTamp8217s data whatamp8217s not to likeThis column was published previously in amp8220First and Second Thoughtsamp8221 on SubstackcomPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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Fragged by Your Fridge: The Wired World Is Dangerous in More Ways Than One

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Kent M. Harrington

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Fragged by Your Fridge: The Wired World Is Dangerous in More Ways Than One

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