Is Anything We Say or Do Private Anymore?

Being an online hermit is difficult today – imagine not buying things online, communicating by email, ordering food, paying bills, looking for a job, completing online applications, making complaints, selling things we don’t need, and all the many ways we go online to get information and to live our lives.  You can buy a car or sell your home.

If you’ve ever entered your name into a search engine, you might be shocked at just how much sensitive information crops up. People-search sites, like Intelius, Truthfinder, InstantCheckmate, PeopleFinders, US Search, Spokeo, Pipl, and Zoominfo scour through public records, commercial sources, and social media to accumulate a dizzying amount of information about people. It can include past and present addresses, any criminal records or bankruptcies, and even where your relatives live.

It’s now well-known that whatever we post online can be used by possible employers. Even private records have been accessed and stolen by hackers and thieves. Some of the most known breaches have been on Facebook, AdultFriendFinder, Health Net, Equifax, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Marriot Hotels, First American Financial Corp., MySpace, Twitter, Experian, Adobe, eBay, Canva, evite, Capitol One, Dropbox, Tumblr, Home Depot, Bonobos, and Zoom.   

What The Big Tech Companies Know About You

 

Amazon’s Alexa collects more of your data than any other Smart Assistant. Bixby does the same thing. You’re likely aware that companies watch your online activity with varying levels of surveillance.  As you move from website to website, trackers on those sites report on your digital movements to advertisers and other interested parties. They can even track your actual IRL moves and who you’re with, based on your phone’s networks and location. HGTV, Salon, New Your Daily News employ the most trackers when you use these sites. 

Clearview AI is the company best known for its facial recognition system is obtaining 1.5 billion photos a month, according to the Washington Post. At this rate, they will have photos of everyone in the world and be able to detect someone’s location from a photo.

The conflicting numbers that follow reflect how divided our nation is. Note the inconsistencies in these numbers:

Upward of 60 percent of Americans believe their social media activity and physical location information is not secure online.

94% of malware is delivered by email. Hackers attack every 39 seconds, on average 2,244 times a day. Data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records in the first half of 2021 alone.

43% of cyber attacks target individuals & small businesses. Here are the industries most likely targetted:

Nearly three-quarters of Americans want the federal government to establish national data privacy standards. Only 23 percent of Americans surveyed said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the federal government’s current efforts to protect their privacy and personal data online.

Another survey shows that 50% of people are “very concerned” and 30% were “somewhat” concerned that government might violate their personal privacy.

Yet another survey showed that 56 percent of people think the private sector can do a better job of improving online data privacy and security than the federal government.

Still another survey found 52% of respondents report that they have “very little” or “no confidence at all” that private companies won’t misuse use personal information.

Experian tracked a 20% increase in online consumer transactions over the past year as consumers adapted to the pandemic.  55% of people surveyed rankied security as “the most important aspect of their online experience.”

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MeriTalk

 The accounts people are most worried about being breached are:

Facebook -54%

Instagram – 43%

Financial – 33%

Amazon – 28%

Email – 24%

Twitter – 24%

So people are becoming concerned about the loss of privacy, but most of us don’t know what we can do about it. We know cyber thieves are penetrating more and more companies and institutions and many if not most of them come from Russia where our law enforcement officials are unable to police.  ‘ Russian-speaking cybercriminal group is disproportionately using ransomware attacks to target hospitals and health care groups across North America as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Microsoft’s annual Digital Defense Report tracked threat activity from a number of countries but found that 58 percent of attacks originated in Russia, followed by North Korea at 23 percent.

Organizations have seen successful phishing attempts skyrocket; Google registered over 2 million phishing websites since the start of 2020 when the pandemic began – a 19.91% increase compared with 2019.

 Technology that listens to you

If you have  Amazon Echo, Google Home, or Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant, they’re listening and recording everything said. Cortana has some privacy controls. I had Amazon’s Echo until my computer consultant pointed out it was listening to everything said in my office.

What kind of things can be stolen? Most of the information we put online like:

• Email addresses
• Full names
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Sexual orientation 
• Personal and professional experience
• Chat transcripts
• Email correspondence transcripts
• Password hashes
• IP addresses
• Payment logs
• Geolocation records
• Username and profile URLs
• Genders
• Social media accounts and details
• What you search for online

Mobile phones can be used as bugging devices. They can be programmed not to vibrate, ring or not show any outward signs that they are being called. They then auto-answer and the person who programmed the phone can listen in to conversations within a room.

Here are apps that can be used:

With Crowdpilot, you can invite people to listen in on your phone calls. Though listeners can’t say anything, they can text you with advice on how you should proceed in your conversation. This is an app you install on your own phone.

Telenitrox is used to access other people’s phones. It is installed on your phone. You do not need to have access to the target phone. Someone can monitor your cell phone’s activity without ever even touching it All you need is a target phone number and you have access to text messages, recording, and monitoring phone calls.

If someone gives you a phone, there’s an old saying about “looking a gift horse in the mouth”, the phone could come loaded with Spyera, TheOneSpy, FlexiSpy, mSpy, and Highster Mobile. 

These apps enable the giver of the phone the ability to monitor your phone calls and use the phone’s microphone to listen to everything else that’s happening near the smartphone. It can record what it hears as it’s happening and store it. It tracks your messages and texts, downloads copies of the photos you take, see what you do on Skype, Viber, WeChat, etc. as well as log everything you type. Your camera can be used to spy on you physically.

• Using Spyera costs almost $400 a year.
• Highster Mobile has the ability to access messages and data that has been deleted as well as lock a targeted phone which means you lose control of your phone. Its cost is a one-time fee of $70.
• All of the data collected by TheOneSpy is encrypted which is then sent to a web portal where a spy can review it. Purchasing 30 days of monitoring only costs around $18 – so someone could be spying on you for less than $20.
• FlexiSpy can spy on your GPS location, passwords, and other apps.
• mSpy can also monitor desktops as well as any device you use. It costs less than $20 a month.

There are ways to manipulate your phone to prevent being spied upon.

1. You can turn on “Airplane Mode” which turns off the cellular and Wi-Fi radios on your phone.
2. Disable the GPS radio setting on your phone
3. Shut the phone down completely and remove the battery.

 Technology That Can Find You and Watch You

Today the only privacy we can expect is within the confines of our own homes. Even that can be compromised. What you can do if is someone is intent on spying on you?

Drones can spy on you from above. Drones are capable of highly advanced surveillance, and drones are in use by law enforcement. Drones can have listening and recording capabilities and can be equipped with infrared and heat sensors. The CIA built a robot dragonfly with these capabilities, called by the CIA the “insectothopter.”  It could fly around a city, casually listening to your tunes, while recording evidence of radioactivity — scanning for smuggled or stolen uranium, for instance, or evidence of a dirty bomb development program.

Using artificial intelligence facial recognition software is being used by about 2,000 law-enforcement agencies using billions of photos gathered from websites,  Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to identify people.

You may have seen it on television now.  Cameras can be mounted in buildings and on lamp posts. Facebook is making sunglasses with tiny cameras that take video and photos. Ray-Ban Stories can take photos and videos with a touch of a button and send them to your phone.

Anyone with a pair of these or similar glasses can watch anyone. These glasses do NOT stream to Facebook or post directly to your Facebook or Instagram. They take photos and short videos and send those to a special app on your phone (iOS or Android) that connects to the glasses over Bluetooth.

From that app, called View, you can see all the videos and images, and from there, you can do whatever you want with the — download to your phone’s camera roll, upload to Facebook, and send over text or anywhere else through your phone’s standard image-sharing options.

Clearview has collected billions of photos from across websites that include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and uses AI to identify a particular person in images. Police and government agents have used the company’s face database to help identify suspects in photos by tying them to online profiles.

A new French startup called Stoik combines a software tool that monitors exposure to cyber-attacks cybersecurity software with insurance. 

Monitoring tools provide small business owners with a cybersecurity score and tips for reducing exposure.

Photographing people without their knowledge is unnerving, to say the least, but can be used by vengeful lovers or jealous partners to threaten, blackmail, or embarrass someone.  We see this on true crime TV shows as well as in real life. Even your car may be misidentified as one having been involved in a crime.

Think of the Web as a Three Layer Cake

The World Wide Web has three levels.

You use the Surface Web when you use Google or another search engine (Bing, Firefox, DucktoGo, Yahoo, Ask.com, etc.) to search for information.

Searches access:

• Corporate and personal websites
• YouTube videos
•  Blog posts
•  Social Media

All this content comprises only 4% of all the content on the internet.

The Deep Web contains more than 90% of the information on the internet.  The deep web requires credentials to access and is chiefly used for legitimate purposes. It contains data like:

• Retail accounts
• Member-only sites
• Internal school or company websites

The information on the deep web is not indexed by search engines. Think of it as one layer below the public web.   

Beneath the surface of the internet is the Dark Web. The dark web is a hidden layer of the internet, typically databases and content that isn’t readily accessible but can be legitimate.   It also is not accessible or indexed by search engines. So the dark web is mainly anonymous and known as a haven for illegal activities.

Using the dark web requires specific software. You can download and install the free Tor browser – Tor can also be used to browse the surface and deep web.

Just using Tor is legal. Tor is short for “The Onion Router.” It bounces information through a series of encrypted layers (like an onion) that offers users more anonymity. Page addresses end “in.onion.” Services can be found on the Tor network. The Tor network is one of the largest and most well-known darknets, and it’s what most people are referring to when they discuss the dark web.

One may be able to find information that is not accessible by normal internet browsers like Google. But having access to the browser is only the first step. Dark web addresses are hard to remember and you may not find what you’re looking for.

Who Uses Dark Web?

The dark web isn’t intrinsically bad, illegal, or dangerous. Whistleblowers, journalists, activists, and law enforcement officers use the dark web to gather and share information without revealing their identity. People all around the world user may use Tor or the dark web to evade government censorship and surveillance.

The Tor network makes it easier to hide your identity and allows people to anonymously create and host onion services. As a result, criminals often use the dark web to buy and sell illicit goods and services, including drugs, weapons, and hacking software because they can remain anonymous and untraceable.

Identity thieves and hacking groups make money selling the information they steal on the dark web. Full profiles, or “fullz”, may come with a name, Social Security number, date of birth and account numbers and can cost around $8 to $30 each. Complete medical records can be particularly valuable to identity thieves and may go for up to $1,000. This is also where stolen credentials and leaked data are bought and sold Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are the preferred means of payment as they also help keep buyers and sellers anonymous.

Two examples of legitimate organizations that have sites on the dark web are the

The Central Intelligence Agency has an onion address: ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion.

The nonprofit newsroom ProPublica’s also had an onion address propub3r6espa33w.onion.

The dark web is best known for the illegal activity that takes place there, and if you’re the victim of identity theft or affected by a data loss from a company, your information may be sold on the dark web. The stolen information, such as bank account numbers, Social Security Numbers credit card numbers are sold using auctions and through private sales. This enables identity theft. Valid bank account numbers are sold for under 5% of the money in an account. So an account with $24,000 might sell for $1100.

How to Protect Yourself from the Dark Web

 Most people have no use for the dark web. So, recognize that if use it, you don’t know where a .onion address will take you and information you could wind up on a site that tries to install malware on your device.

Be mindful of what you share on social media and close unused accounts and avoiding phishing attacks.

To help you keep your information off the dark web, use unique and different passwords for your all accounts.  

 If you suspect your account information may have been compromised like being notified of a charge you did not make, change your password immediately.

Regularly change your passwords even in the absence of a problem can also make your account information less useful. For an extra measure of safety,  encrypt your login credentials.

Lock or freeze your credit reports. Locking or freezing your credit reports can keep someone from opening an account in your name, even if they have your personal information.

 Some people use password manager software to create and store passwords.

You can sign up for dark web monitoring. A dark web monitoring service will look for your information on the dark web and inform you if it finds anything. These warning will let you know if your information is compromised and give you a chance to take steps to secure your identity and accounts.

Experian offers a free, one-time dark web scan for your Social Security number, email and phone number. If you want ongoing dark web surveillance, it’s one of the benefits included with an Experian IdentityWorksSM subscription.

Don’t Get Scammed by Scareware

Scareware masquerades as real security protection and then frightens you into paying to clean up the infections it pretends to detect. Scareware is sold over the phone, through email, and through unwanted software, you download on your computer.

The federal government violates our privacy. Two reports released in February by the CIA provided evidence that the agency has most likely been collecting bulk data about Americans without oversight from a congressional committee or a court.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect in 2020. Under the California Consumers Protection Act (CCPA), you have more control over the personal info and data you provide to companies.  It gave state residents the right to ask companies to not sell their data, to provide a copy of that data to them, or to delete that data. Virginia and Colorado have also passed consumer privacy laws, which go into effect in 2023.  That means you have the right to know, access, and delete your data.

Additional bills have been passed:

• Senate Bill 41 reins in companies that are harvesting your genetic information collected from those popular DNA tests on the market. This new law makes sure you get the right to control the collection, use, and sharing of your personal genetic data.
• Assembly Bill 825 will help prevent and address data breaches of genetic information by allowing consumers to sue for significant damages if a negligent breach occurs.
• Senate Bill 4/Assembly Bill 14 will expand access to quality, affordable broadband internet by designating funds for new infrastructure in areas where internet access is sparse or expensive.
• With the passage of the “Delete” Act, Senators want a ‘Do Not Call’ List for data brokers.

The figurative curtains that have protected our privacy are being replaced by increasingly invasive technologies. The metaverse wants to harvest new, uncharted personal information, even to the point of noting and analyzing where your eyes go on a screen and how long you gaze at certain products. Data privacy advocates want to protect consumers from this incessant cherry-picking.

• About 70 million Americans who have filed for unemployment insurance, pandemic assistance grants, child tax credit payments, or other services have had their faces scanned by a McLean, Va.-based company, which says its client list includes 540 companies; 30 states, including California, Florida, New York, and Texas; and 10 federal agencies, including Social Security, Labor, and Veterans Affairs.
• IRS is scrapping the use of facial recognition software.  The General Services Administration, which oversees federal offices and technology, says the face-scanning technology has too many problems to justify its use as an identity verification service. It has been shown in federal tests to work less accurately for people with darker skin. 
• Facebook plans to make money from the metaverse by harvesting your micro-expressions then selling that data to advertisers. T
• Voice cloning technology is getting so good, that it’s virtually impossible to distinguish real voices from synthetic ones.

Some people have reported frustrating glitches and hours-long delays that have kept them from important benefits, and researchers have argued the company has overstated the accuracy of face-scanning technology that will not wrongly flag people as frauds.

For more information about privacy, you can ask questions of the Help Desk of the Washington Post. The staff answers questions about personal technology.