Since the breaking of the NSA’s PRISM
program, there has been a lot of talk about ‘dots’, or data points to be more
precise, but what are these dots and what do they mean to you?
In my last few articles I discussed how
giving your personal information away for a little bit of gain is a bad idea.
But, it seems that these same stores that we willingly hand over our personal
data, could be involved in the exact same practices as the NSA and this program
is not an opt-in system.
Let me explain.
Some of the same companies that ask you to
give them your personal information in exchange for a ‘reward’ could be tapping
into your cell phone the minute (or before) you walk in their store. You see,
most modern cell phones constantly search for a Wi-Fi access point to connect
to as you are moving around through your daily life. Your smart phone sends out
a ping every so often waiting for a reply from a Wi-Fi hotspot. This ping
contains the mac address of your phone, thereby, using available technology,
they are able to locate your position in their store so they can track what
aisle you’re on, how long you are at a particular position, pretty much tracing
every move you make throughout your entire trip through their store.
This practice is very close to the metadata
that the NSA is collecting on practically everyone in the country, except that
these are private corporations collecting this data without your permission.
Those pesky little dots… This information is collected in real time and
normally sent to a cloud server to be processed and analyzed. The developers
that sell these services advertise ease of installation, accurate data
collection and reporting, just what corporations are looking for to gain a
competitive edge in today’s tightening economy. Anything to gain an edge, and
you don’t even have to sign up for it, it comes free of charge just for
shopping in their store.
Now the companies that are collecting this
data are not collecting personal information from you, as, from what I
understand, obtaining you mac address does not give them any more information
other than you location in their store, so no number, no name, nothing really. But,
make no mistake, you are being tracked and it’s just a matter of time before
someone will figure out how to delve deeper into this data to make it even more
meaningful.
Just as a thought, consider this; if they can
track you by your mac address, then they could possibly extrapolate what you
might be purchasing, they could also possibly know when you are in the checkout
line and, if they know that (as long as the positing system is accurate), they
could possibly time stamp your location versus the person checking out,
thereby, connecting the dots. Now this is just my conjecture, but there are a
lot of smart, savvy people out there and where there is opportunity, there is
ingenuity. So even if these corporations can claim that they are not collecting
personal data during this tracking process, it is theoretically possible to
combine the two different systems into one, more intrusive, meaningful
dataset.
As I have said in my last few articles on
this subject, it is our responsibility to take control of our personal data to
make sure the only people that have access to this data, are the people we
specifically grant permission. Security is just not some good locks and a gun,
none of those things will protect you from corporations and people that are targeting
your personal information, for whatever use they wish. Take interest in defending yourself in the
cyber-world, just as you would the ‘real’ world, which is just as important.
Here is just one of the many companies that
provide this service and how they do it:
A really technical, but great analysis of
what phones can do:
And here is a more in depth story concerning
your (our) security:
No comments:
Post a Comment