Kind: captions
Language: en
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our modern digital lives offer Limitless
convenience community and easy to access
everything the internet opens
unbelievable
opportunities but there's a tradeoff
your personal data pretty much
everything you do on the web is being
tracked and logs who you are what you're
doing and where you're going this is the
mothership can you show me what I've in
ently given up and that personal data is
worth a fortune people expect it to grow
to $400 billion to completely avoid data
collection requires you to go live in a
cave thankfully there are tools to help
maintain your privacy and security
online let's create some strong and
unique passwords everything has privacy
settings we can dial to whatever level
we feel
comfortable and some coders are
rewriting the rules of the web the
decentralized web is our antidote to the
web as we now think of it new
technologies can proliferate without
centralized control this is about
technological
self-determination secrets in your data
right now on Nova
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as an american-based supplier to the
construction industry Carl is committed
to developing a diverse workplace that
supports our employees advancement into
the next generation of leaders from the
manufacturing floor to the front office
learn more at
[Music]
car.com our world runs on data
when you're shopping online streaming
your favorite shows hosting family picks
that's all your personal data leaving
your
device what's up everyone I'm about to
head to the hospital for a night shift
I'm alo Patel a pediatrician medical
journalist and allaround social media
Enthusiast just got here at the
Children's Hospital I kind of love our
connected lives and I haven't been shy
at all about sharing mine pretty
publicly
and I know that sharing personal data
can have major upsides the media has
reported on some of the most dramatic
examples is conducting several studies
to see how far wearables can go in
detecting disease man rescued yesterday
after going missing credits to social
media post for helping save his life six
out of 10 people with Alzheimer's or
dementia will wander away from home and
that's where this little box comes
in there's no doubt our data is out
there but did you ever wonder where it
it goes and how it's used I do I want to
know what are the benefits of sharing
and the risks and what can we do to make
our connected World safer and just
generally better for
everyone first the basics I want to know
how much personal data have I've been
sharing meet Haley suyama tech
journalist and data private
Advocate you must be Haley hi nice to
meet you what is going on okay hold on
wasn't expecting this also she's already
got my whole life up on the screen so
this is a data report gathered about you
from social media posts from images of
view that may be on the internet from
publicly available information this is
like a family business that's my dad's
sell phone number why is this
available oh this is my address this is
just available just available online
okay you guys are going to blur all this
right please there's okay cool there's
my cell phone number oh this is
concerning as a medical doctor we all
have license numbers and issue dates and
expiration dates and it's literally
right here this is so weird these are
the names of my neighbors from my
childhood
home why do you have this information
like I haven't seen these names in
years not going to lie I expected some
of my data to be out there but this is
this is just creepy how was there a
report about who my neighbors were in
the
80s you could be assured that pretty
much everything you do on the web and
with a browser is being tracked and
logged where you go what you look at
what apps you use modern life has been
arranged so that every aspect of what we
do and how we live can be captured they
pick up our faces as we walk down the
street they track our key strokes while
we're at work on behalf of our
employer and AD networks use a bunch of
creepy and nefarious ways of figuring
out who you are what you're doing and
where you're going uh yeah what happened
to the web I grew up
with I came of age when the internet was
a fun and weird party and everyone was
invited remember geoc cities AOL Instant
Messenger or the dancing Shaka Huga
Shaka
baby today it's clear that innocence is
gone is the party
over to understand the present I want a
refresher on the
past so I'm visiting the Computer
History Museum in Silicon
Valley okay I'm headed straight for the
sun I'm meeting computer historian Mark
Weber what a maneuver there's a straight
line of bullets coming right right at
you who just wasted me in the cosmic
battlefield of space War one of the
first video games this is actually
really
fun this is cool ICBM computer from a
nuclear missile wow human computer
interaction now this looks fascinating I
can't tell if this is like this
universal clock apparatus or what's
happening here this is the first punched
C machine and this was an invention to
make the US Census faster it's kind of
wild but the dawn of automated personal
data collection looks like this census
info poked into humble little Punch
Cards Mark can you explain Punch Cards
to me because when I think Punch Cards
I'm thinking lottery tickets or buy nine
cups of coffee in your tent is free wow
it was the first way to record machine
readable
data okay let's make sense of the
census this kind of data collection has
been going on for centuries but starting
in 1890 data was recorded in a pattern
of holes punched into a census card so
the cards were used to collect Census
Data what exact questions were on there
so things like age gender number of
children when a card passes through the
machine the holes allow pins to make
electrical connection connections
through the card a counter keeps a
running tally in each census category as
more cards pass
through census data is how the
government allocates resources for
schools and hospitals draws the lines
for districts and decides how many
representatives each state will send to
Congress it's a reminder of the value of
collecting data but it's a far cry from
having my every move tracked on the
internet to help connect the dots Mark
shows me that next surprising step in
the evolution of data
collection I look at this and I'm almost
like oh this looks like a modern office
building to me exactly each one of those
is one of these giant terminals
here during the Cold War IBM figured out
how to hook up computers from all across
the country to monitor us airspace in
real
time so this is a terminal from
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Sage it was the first realtime networked
data system real time is just that
instantaneous and networked means
connected computers from all across the
country were hooked up to each other so
they could share data in real time sort
of like the
internet the whole point was to track
incoming Soviet bombers
and they buil arguably the first
computer network in the
world IBM soon realized that their
aircraft tracking computers could be
used
commercially so in 1960 Along Came
saber a real-time network data system
that shared personal
data The Story Goes that head of
American Airlines met with IBM and they
decided to do a partnership the key idea
being real time they could look at your
age your name financial information what
flights you'd been on before your
dietary preferences for your meal all of
this right then in real time we went
from tracking bombs to tracking butts on
planes
exactly between pong Punch Cards and
planes w w w w I could see how data
started connecting the world the
military to our airspace and companies
to their
customers but what if those customers
all over the world were linked up to
each other what would we even call that
oh yeah the worldwide web the worldwide
web is a part of our lives and getting
bigger every day but what about the man
who dreamt it all up no Millions for him
news reports opened our eyes to this
Innovation and its creator Tim burner
Lee
he simply wanted to give it away for the
benefit of
others when the web started anybody
could make a website you can make your
own style your own poems your own Vlogs
and you could link to other people the
feeling and the sense was of tremendous
empowerment some of us remember the
internet when it was managed and curated
by people where it was you know bulletin
board systems and chat
rooms in the late '90s small startups
were maturing into big tech companies
with lots of users and user
data as the web grew we ended up with a
very few companies going and doing all
of the hosting it wasn't your actual
personal computer doing it the large
platforms that have emerged are
dependent upon user generated content
and user engagement the modern internet
is a wholly commercial kind
internet and as web traffic started to
flow more and more through just a few
companies they begin to realize the
value of all this personal data piling
up on their
servers Google started to understand the
power of individuals
data they have information about not
just how the websites are interconnected
but also information about the
individuals the big technology companies
they're looking at where you are they're
wanting to to know what your gender is
what your age is you know how much you
have to spend what your political
beliefs are they have a lot of power to
determine what our privacy is that's
trillions of dollars of economic value
that's out there and there's a constant
struggle between who owns the data we
create the data but somebody else
monetizes
it as big Tech was maturing early data
collection on websites was pretty
limited so what happened to supercharge
it to create the vast tracking
infrastructure that allowed Haley to
find out so much about
me it turns out things really got going
when someone
invented
cookies a cookie is not actually a tasty
snack when you go to a website uh the
website sends a uh a small file to your
browser that small file allows the
websites to collect information about
your visit and update it every time you
come back you might have heard of
cookies because a lot of websites pop up
with messages prompting you to accept
theirs but what happens after you hit
accept that then uses cookies to track
who you are and what you're doing
including in many cases all of the other
websites that you go to cookies have the
cutest
name but they're actually really
important pieces of information about
you every time you click on a menu every
time you look at an item or put it in
your cart every time you want to buy
something and click out of the website
and come back in a cookie is what's
enabling you to do that it's a piece of
tracking
information you can impute data and
information about you from the seemingly
innocent Behavior online that's tracked
by cookies do you have certain lifestyle
conditions what age are you what gender
or race are you do you have
children okay so I'm starting to get
that these tech companies use things
like cookies to keep track of what sites
I'm on what I'm shopping for and what
I'm
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watching but do they have other ways of
learning the secrets in my
data to learn more I'm tracking down a
data security expert in his hacking
high-tech superhero layer
naturally are you Patrick Jackson my
name is Alo yes I am awesome I'm in the
right place
your phone is sending this extra data to
these people that you don't know exist
Patrick Jackson has been all over the
news for his work as a former NSA
research scientist and is now Chief Tech
officer for the Internet Security firm
disconnect and if anyone can help me
understand how my personal data is
leaking it's
him Patrick when I think about the main
control of my work Life play what I'm
doing at home when I'm on the road this
is the mother ship if I were to
relinquish control of this precious
device for a few moments can you show me
like what I've inadvertently given up
yes yeah I can show you what these data
companies know about you and what
they're
collecting using a hacking technique
called a man in the- Middle attack
Patrick can intercept the personal data
that's leaving my device essentially
eavesdropping on a conversation between
me and the websites and applications I
use contact information name phone
number number email address when you
agreed to allow them to have your
location I can see not only where you're
at on the map but also where you're at
in your house whether you're at the back
of the house or the front of the
house when you look at the data leaving
the phone every time you open an app you
send about maybe 500 kilobytes of data
to their servers that is equivalent to
about 125 pages of text that you would
print in a printer
it's one thing if the apps on my phone
are collecting data I chose to download
them your device but Patrick says that
other companies have even sneakier ways
to get my data like something as
harmless as a marketing email to
demonstrate Patrick sends me a mock
promotional
email I have an email that says Shoe
Sale it says open to view the shoe sale
and I want to open it so I'm going to
hio get ready for upcoming shoe sale I
like this graphic has like social media
icon this looks legit it turns out
emails can include a tracking pixel also
known as a spy or invisible pixel an
invisible pixel is a type of image
you're never intended to see but it
still initiates a handshake of data from
your device to these data
companies most of the emails that you
receive likely have these tracking
pixels in them most most
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this invisible pixel was actually
disguised as the banner in that email in
other cases the tracking pixel will be a
one pixel very very tiny image that you
would never see with your eyes and it's
not meant to be
seen that little pixel that little spy
see it right there it can hide in the
images embedded in an email like a
banner or even an unsubscribe button and
when you open the email it contacts a
tracking it to collect data about you it
can suck up your device model location
and even some browsing
history this is essentially a digital
fingerprint of your device
no that fingerprint would identify you
as who you are and somebody else in the
future could look at that fingerprint
make you do a new fingerprint and they
would know that this is the same
person companies are snatching copies of
my digital fingerprints wherever I go
online and by following that trail
companies are over time collecting
everything about you that's how they
they build up this this digital uh
profile about
you the internet is this data collection
machine and as we're moving through the
internet there are these companies whose
whole job is to reassemble that trail so
now I know how my digital profile is out
there but why who really cares that I
take pictures doing handstands and own
way too many
sneakers turns out there's a whole
industry devoted to selling my data it's
the data
Brokers data Brokers are companies that
are set up to collect information
repackage it and resell it or reshare it
to other companies that may want to know
information about you so what do data
Brokers want with all our personal data
why do they care that I love chicken
mole and that Cool Runnings is in my top
five movies of all time they collect all
this information and then they're really
trying to slice and dice it in ways that
are appealing to customers you know this
could be an employer who's doing um
research on you it could be a retailer
who wants to know uh what kind of
customers they can Target with
ads that kind of information is really
valuable for advertisers because they
want to Target advertising to a certain
type of person our data ends up
eventually getting compiled into reports
like these that are then sold to I know
whoever's interested
data Brokers are able to say look we
have a group of people that will fit the
audience of your product we really are
happy to serve this list of people to
you or to make a score about How likely
they might be to purchase your
product okay I know people say oh your
phones aren't listening to you but we
were just talking about retro video
games and here is an ad for home Mini
Arcade machines which looks kind of cool
but how did it know we were just talking
about that is my phone listening is it a
psychic what's happening people always
say I was talking about this product and
then I saw an ad for it Matt are they
listening through my phone and I'm like
well they didn't hear you they didn't
listen to anything the truth is actually
more frightening you talked about that
thing because they influenced you into
having this conversation it's because
the algorithm took you to this place and
that's the situation with our data there
have been some outlier examples of adte
compan listening without consent but
that's against the law for the most part
advertising algorithms know you so well
that they can predict what you would
find interesting they're so good because
they've studied all the data gathered
about you from the data Brokers there's
this kind of dossier that's being
created about you as you're wandering
around the internet and it's being used
to you know decide what ads you
see advertising fuels the economics of
the inter internet and advertising is
fueled by You Me us our personal
data so how do the algorithms actually
work you land on a web page and that web
page gets your IP address a unique
identifier is return to a data broker
that data broker looks up all the facts
that were ever gleaned about youth the
dossier that describes you and then
advertisers literally bid they bid on
you in a realtime auction based on the
only lesson I remember from econ 101
supply and demand the demand side
platform that the advertiser is on says
I have here an 18 to 34 year- old
Manchild with an Xbox in Southern
California who wants to pay to cram
something non-consensually into his
eyeballs and that takes place in a
Marketplace and you have advertisers on
the other side who have standing orders
they're like I want to advertise to 18
to 34 year- old Manchild in Southern
California who own Xboxes and the
marketplace conducts an automated
high-speed auction where it's just like
I'll pay so many fractions of a cent
I'll pay that plus
10% the high bidder gets to show you an
ad all of this happens nearly instantly
and it's possible because data Brokers
sort and call personal data into super
detailed consumer groups this is the
process that delivers relevant
personalized ads for cute shoes or that
new tea Club if you're into that sort of
thing which all the ads seem to know
about you here we have for example
soccer mom okay I might be able to
identify with that a sporting good
retailer could then go and check out a
file on what a soccer mom's online
activity is like what are the things
that they tend to spend money on um do
they like to save are there certain
times of year where they might spend
more or less with all this data about
soccer mom's consumer habits retailers
can send personalized ads with uncanny
timing some people like the results
soccer moms get deals advertisers keep
websites we love in
business but some consumer categories
can be more concerning sometimes they'll
have categories that are like this
person has erectile dysfunction this
person has a gambling problem this is a
list of kind of people that are likely
to fall for frauds so these can be
really powerful and damaging
list so this one for example diabetes oh
okay Healthcare
demographic the thing about that right
is like when you're thinking
particularly about Health Data that
indicates that you're probably in a
pretty sensitive situation I'm now
thinking about all the patients I take
care of and I shudder to think at the
targeted ads that are deliberately
targeting these
individuals data Brokers have lists
about sexual assault victims they have
lists about demen sufferers those are
some really concerning types of
categories and you could definitely see
how an advertising company could take
advantage of people on those
lists so I think a lot of people's first
reaction on seeing these data broker
reports is like where has all of this
come from there are a lot of places
where data Brokers get information most
commonly apps that you download that
have deals with data Brokers to share
information all right I knew that apps
were getting my data but I had no idea
some were sharing it with data Brokers
how is that even
legal how often have you seen a terms
and conditions screen just like this all
the time anytime I download anything
basically and I download apps all the
time for work play Life convenience I
just scroll the way down and accept I'm
over it and I think that's how most
people feel about
it by accepting these terms you allow
the platform to demonstration promotion
and are really long commercial don't
even know about
it m once did a study that said it would
take days for somebody to get through
all of the terms and conditions
exploting they actually use the word
exploiting you represent and warrant
that you own people in a really
difficult position when we're supposed
to manage our own privacy but we're also
supposed to use all these things that
are products that will make our lives
better data Brokers are a big industry
and it's about a $200 billion industry
right now I think a lot of people expect
it to grow to you know $400 billion in
the next few
years that level of data from our past
all the things we've done being used and
put into systems to help predict our
futures that's unprecedented and that's
rif with uh the potential for
discrimination for harm for
exclusion okay I know I said that I'm
not the type to log in to the look I
love being online I like sharing what
I'm up to on social media and I'm not
afraid to share my thoughts okay bugs I
don't bite you you don't bite me it's
that easy but some of this personal data
is well personal so now I need to know
what can I do to make my digital life
more private and secure privacy and
security are not the same
thing for example uh Facebook is
extremely interested in protecting your
security they want to make sure that it
is always you logging into your account
they will go through a great deal of
trouble to keep your account
secure but you enter all kinds of data
into that account you tell it where you
are located you send it all of your
pictures you send messages and Facebook
collects all of that data they don't
want you to keep it private they want
you to hand it to them so that they can
use it in order to serve you targeted
ads and make them
money my accounts are mostly secure when
I control access to them but that
doesn't mean the data I put in them
stays private far from
it privacy and security are not the same
but they are two sides of the same coin
and I have to understand both if I'm
going to protect my personal data when
your privacy is taken from you your
agency is taken from you privacy is that
whisper when you think you're whispering
to your friend but you're outing in a
crowded elevator you're robbed of
something and that's why privacy is so
important what can I do right now to
protect my privacy and my security to
learn tips and tools to preserve my data
on both fronts I'm chatting with hacker
and educator Matt Mitchell where and
cyber security expert Eva
galperin first up privacy sorry privacy
Matt is a privacy Advocate at crypto
Harlem as in cryptography the process of
hiding or coding information hey I'm
Matt thanks for coming to crypto Harlem
and crypto Harlem is anti-surveillance
workshops for the black community and
all marginalized communities around the
world and our mission is to develop
people's digital skills so they can
actually help us in the fight to push
back on digital harms privacy is not
secrecy privacy is just a door a door in
your home there's a sense of like I want
to control what can be seen what can't
be seen just for me and I want to close
that door so how do I do this even just
a little okay what do I do to make all
this safer for me what do I do who do I
talk to how do I start you have to ask
yourself is this a problem that needs to
be fixed privacy isn't a switch it's a
dial you get to control how much you
share with who and with what
let's start with the big one something I
use all the time every day and I bet you
do too have you ever used this website
called Google I've heard of it yeah well
let's check this out well if we go here
to my
activity.
google.com it'll show us all the things
that you've been doing so for example
when we go here we see all the different
Google services that you use I don't
think they make a service you don't use
these platforms are so deeply embedded
in many of our lives and for good reason
they make products that can be really
useful it's hard for me to imagine going
a single day without searching the web
or using a navigation app but they also
suck up a lot of our data it's a
tradeoff that I'm comfortable making
within reason I've used literally
everything Google has ever offered and
it knows what you've used and it records
everything you've ever used and how
you've used it every search term you've
used every uh you know shopping item
you've used but this is the dashboard to
delete it I didn't know this but I can
literally just delete huge amounts of
data that Google is storing about me and
the same is true for a lot of other
services we can dial to whatever level
we feel comfortable for example on
LinkedIn you would just click on me and
then you would go to your settings and
privacy here when we go to manage your
activity it tells you that you know you
started sharing your LinkedIn data with
a permitted
application treating privacy like a dial
means it's not all or nothing you can
have your data cake and eat it too like
now I'm thinking that I want to log into
everything all my social media my email
my LinkedIn everything regularly in look
to see who is using these exactly it is
about awareness furthermore the
companies they know how many people
actually use the Privacy controls and by
you even peing in it you're saying I
believe privacy
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matters at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation Eva shows me how I can take
my privacy game to the next
level learning some surveillance
self-defense although apparently not
that kind of
self-defense so the next step in your
privacy journey is uh fighting back
against uh types of corporate
surveillance uh and one of the things
that websites really like to do uh when
uh is not just to track what you are
doing on their website but to track all
the other websites that you go to and
they do this using cookies there's some
companies I trust and I'm like fine you
have these cookies they're chocolate
chip I know where they were made I know
what you're doing with them but then
there's these third party companies I
don't want them around me you can use a
browser extension to eat these cookies
uh and fight back against this kind of
tracking and keep those websites from
seeing where else you're going browser
extensions are add-ons for your web
browser that give it extra features and
functionality like eating
cookies I'm imagining this like digital
Cookie Monster that's eating up all
these pieces of my online activity so
that companies don't know what I'm doing
online and it reduces the amount of
privacy tracking am I understanding that
what these browser extensions do is they
get rid
of uh the tracking cookies that these
websites use to see all the other sites
that you're going to which is none of
their
business my personal digital world is
starting to feel comfy controlled and a
lot more private I've learned how to
close the doors and
blinds but still someone could open them
right back up I could get hacked how do
I lock my doors time to talk about
security the tragedy of this recent
pandemic
teaches us that we're all pretty
vulnerable and without that her immunity
without that Community response you
can't just say I'm okay and therefore I
don't have to worry about this this is
the first time that I've ever heard
someone compare data privacy to
epidemiology and her immunity all you
need is one person to make a mistake and
it's game over that's what happens to so
many other corporations businesses even
hospitals during a ransomware attack
that will freeze all machines and stop
them from working until someone pays a
bunch of hackers my one error could
compromise the security of my entire
institution human beings will make
mistakes folks won't wash their hands
sometimes right but we try to teach best
practices to prevent the worst okay Matt
you have my wheel spinning I do not want
to be patient zero in this like massive
infectious data leak what can I do to
start pulling it back and better
protecting my information well I got
something for that okay oh you have like
a bag of tricks I've got a bag I thought
you were just to say like change your
password we got to go all the way this
is a privacy screen and this will keep
people from being able to look over your
shoulder shoulder Surfers beware can't
look through that this is for like using
my computer in a public space the
airplane
everywhere this is a faraday bag we got
to keep your phone in here this blocks
RF signals it's basically a can we slow
this down a little bit you can't get
hacked when you're not attached to
anything is this really necessary a
fairday bag okay this looks a little
more complicated than I expected I guess
I just have to become Dr 007 we also
have a Wi-Fi pineapple this is a
portable access point and we also could
use it to detect and stop access points
from going bad okay Matt now you've just
gone Rogue let's say you have a hard
drive with some important files from
work in it what happens if you lose it
someone can plug that in and have access
to all your stuff not if it's an
encrypted hard
drive I understand there's more how do
you know that you're not being bu this
is nuts this is something I could use to
find out if there is a audio bug in the
room I can find Wi-Fi signals oh
something's here
right honestly I thought being a spy
would be more fun but I'm starting to
feel shaken not stirred how am I
supposed to keep track of all this stuff
I'm no hacker Genius Like
Matt What if I just left all of this
behind and just quit goodbye digital
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world you know there's breaking news
look in my eyes and tell me what are we
doing here what are we doing like I
don't even know how many steps I've
taken today because my step counter is
not on my hand technically disconnected
this isn't cheating but can someone tell
me what the sun score is uh down by 11
at the
half oh I am supposed to pick up my
daughter I only going to do this
for all right maybe it's not that easy
but there's got to be some Middle Ground
between Inspector Gadget and Fred
Flintstone that's right for
me instead of going completely off the
grid
I'm checking back in with Eva for some
more surveillance
self-defense and the best place to start
is with the
basics
passwords I'll be honest my current
password is basically a combination of
my first pet's name plus my birth date
or a favorite video game or song I don't
think any hacker is really going to
guess that but you're telling me that
there's still a vulnerability there yes
hackers can go find out information
about you from data brokers including
you know the name of the street you grew
up on or the city where you went to
college so you wouldn't want a password
like the name of your pet or password
123 well I did have a pet fish and his
name was password 123 so I guess that
kind of like hits both boxes and makes
me more vulnerable let's start by uh
creating some strong and unique
passwords for all of your uh your
different accounts and that will make
them much more hacker prooof I'm all
ears fantastic uh well we're going to
start by Rolling these five
dice there are easy ways to create
passwords that are long and strong and
easy to remember that are not based on
information that attackers can easily
find about you and the way that we do
that is we use word lists and dice word
list essentially just a long list of
dictionary words with numbers attached
pretty P so what we're going to do is
we're going to write down the numbers on
this dice
45263 my new lucky numbers and now we
are going to look up 45 263 in this book
so there are words that correlate to the
numbers that I just randomly ruled yes
okay I want a cool word like tiger the
word is preo preo pre-
Soak three 4 1 one 5 henna okay I like
this the idea behind this dice game is
that it's both random and
long hackers using fast powerful
computers and sophisticated password
cracking software are able to try many
many passwords a second a recent study
by a security firm showed that a seven
character password can be cracked in
just a few seconds but a 12 character
password with uppercase letters and
symbols is much more difficult to break
studies show it could take hackers well
over a 100 years to crack that's safe
but also more difficult to type or
remember Eva six-word random passphrase
is easier to remember than a random
string of 12 characters and practically
impossible to break stinging
ignition six is clutch clutch okay pre
soak henna stinging ignition clutch
handbrake fantastic now you have a p
phrase these six words it is long it's
Unique it's difficult to guess and it's
relatively easy to remember considering
how long it is it is a very good way of
creating random passwords but a lot of
password managers will automatically do
this for
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you once you have a passphrase you can
use this to unlock a password manager
that generates strong random passwords
and stores them
securely now I have this beautiful
random password or passphrase but what
happens if someone steals this is it
just game over efforts are gone no it is
not uh that leads us to the next step on
your surveillance self-defense journey
and that is two- Factor
authentication this may sound like a
hacker ninja term but it's just an added
layer of security requiring an
additional method of confirming your
identity most of the time it's just a
simple text message because it requires
that you have two things in order to log
into your account you will need both
your password and also this code that
the site will send you a text message
there is also an authenticator app the
site will ask you to take a photo of and
then go to uh the site in a QR code the
best way to be a security superhero is
is to find the stuff that works for you
and implement it as sort of smoothly and
seamlessly as you
can these data self-defense tweaks are
great for me and my own data but what
about everyone else I'm wondering is
there a way for all of us to share data
and get all the sweet benefits without
sacrificing privacy and
security at mit's media lab I'm meeting
up with Ramesh rasker who is working on
a way to access the benefits of personal
Health Data finally a topic I understand
without compromising our private
information at R's camera culture lab
they're building some data collecting
tools that seem straight out of a
science fiction movie love when is sence
is danger laser you know important
things are happening in here they've got
cameras that can literally see around
corners get
out we are not violating laws of
physics and cameras that can see inside
our own bodies that's about as personal
as it
gets for remesh protecting patient
privacy is Paramount but he's found a
drawback in how we do that since data is
locked up for privacy advancement in
medical science is not as fast as it
could be because think about it access
to tons of personal Health Data could
help researchers make major medical
breakthroughs you know but today
researchers have to ask for your consent
to peek at your data in order to learn
from it when we talk about consent
someone is still peaking into your data
a no peak privacy on the other hand is
where nobody can Peak at your data
no peak privacy but how could
researchers learn anything there are
many ways to create no peak privacy
first one is the notion of Smashing the
information no not literally smashing
your phone but I'm not going to
lie that was really fun smashing is
basically the idea of taking raw data
and smashing it into just the
wisdom according to remesh Smashing data
is simply the process of extracting the
useful information which he calls the
wisdom while obscuring the private data
in other words a collection of Private
health records contains two kinds of
data one kind is the personal data the
names conditions and histories the stuff
we absolutely want to protect but
collectively the records may contain
valuable information about patterns in
healthcare the wisdom
I'm thinking about examples in
healthcare and the individual data the
patient data is protecting you can't
reverse engineer it let's take a
concrete example of
Co imagine during the early days of the
pandemic we could have sent medical
experts from here in Boston to China to
Korea to Italy and embedded them in
those hospitals to understand what Co
pneumonia looks like on a chest x-ray
and they could have come back to Boston
all those medical experts and said hey
together we can figure out what this is
so the experts would return back with
just the wisdom an understanding of
covid derived from being exposed to
large data sets but they wouldn't come
back with specific patient info none of
the raw sensitive and private
data but of course that would require
initially sharing patient data a
non-starter because of privacy because
of regulations because of National
Security issues they
couldn't this is where AI artificial
intelligence comes in instead of sending
experts to each hospital rsh is working
on a way to send AI to learn instead an
AI model could be trained on patients
lung x-rays to learn what signs of covid
look like the private Health Data would
never be copied it would never leave the
hospital or the patient's file the AI
would only transmit its conclusions the
wisdom the smash data it's not enough to
just remove the name from the chest
x-ray but make sure that you don't send
any of the pixels of the chest x-ray
call the AI can learn patterns and gain
knowledge without having to keep hold of
everyone's data so the wisdom from One
hospital can be combined with the wisdom
of
others achieving privacy and benefits of
the data simultaneously it's like having
a cake and eating it too it's available
and it's just a matter of convin Ving
large companies to play along those
rules smash data is one way we can learn
to stop worrying and love sharing our
personal data but every corporate
Network would have to agree to smash our
raw
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data I'm not convinced we should wait
around for big tech companies to do
this the big technology companies they
have built the infrastructure of the
whole internet you're not just
interacting with these compan is when
you know you're interacting with
them even if it seems like you're on a
totally independent website big Tech
still sees you for example tons of
websites like some of the ones owned by
NASA fiser BMW even PBS use Amazon web
services which means Amazon gets some
data when you visit
them or when you visit any app on your
iPhone Apple
knows also every time youve been to a
web page that has a face Facebook like
button Facebook gets to gobble up your
personal data so it may seem like the
web is decentralized because it comes
from many different places but in fact
there's centralized points of
control right now for example when you
are in a social media app you're sort of
locked in right all your information is
on there it's hard to leave a social
media app because you're like all my
friends are there all my photos are
there if I move to another app I have to
rebuild that Community those social
media websites are controlled by a very
small number of companies and the rules
about using those websites who has
access to them and what kind of behavior
is acceptable on them are set by the
websites
themselves this centralized data
Monopoly how do we start to dismantle
it that's exactly what proponents of an
idea called the decentralized web want
to
do the decentralized web is sort of our
antidote the antithesis
of the web as we now think of it the
decentralized web can be seen in
contrast to the centralized web of
course instead of what has become on the
internet of a few big players kind of
controlling a lot of the web and
Internet space we're really kind of
rolling things back to kind of what the
vision of the internet was I'm wondering
what a decentralized web would look and
feel
like so I'm meeting up with coder
Christine lmer Weber who is working on
writing standards and rules for how
social media could work on a
decentralized web most people are
familiar with social networks you know
they've used you know x/ Twitter they've
used Facebook they've used Instagram the
decentralized Social Web is like that
but no one company no one gatekeeper
controls the thing we want to be able to
have all of our different social media
sites all of our different online
communication tools be able to talk to
each other a decentralized web is one
that is focused on the
self-determination of users you're not
locked
in so you find a service and you like it
and then you and they start to part ways
the art you made the stories you told
are there in a decentralized web you go
somewhere else you go somewhere else and
you don't lose any of
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that but imagine instead of having one
Facebook type company we each had our
own data live on our own devices and it
was easy to join or merge with others or
disconnect from them leaving one group
and joining another wouldn't mean
rebuilding everything from scratch
because your data moves with
you sounds like a tech fantasy but it's
actually something we've already proven
Works
online consider something you may use
every day or if you're like me every
minute
email so what a lot of people don't
realize is that they use decentralized
networks every day it doesn't matter if
somebody's on Gmail or if they're on
Hotmail they're on their University
email they don't even have to think
about it they type an email to their
friend and they send it off and it gets
there right at the heart of it that's
kind of the basics of what we're
doing in other words you can get an
email sent from Hotmail even if you have
a Gmail account or you can create your
own email server for that
matter it doesn't matter what email
service you use because the protocol the
rules are written to allow the email
servers to talk to one
another that's because there's a shared
protocol that says here's how we get the
messages from place to place social
networks could just work like email and
in fact there are plenty of
decentralized projects out there like
Mastadon and blue sky putting the user's
profile and data back into the user's
hands and the systems we're moving
towards that will be much more the case
where private communication is much more
private either by default secure in that
type of way we're building New
Foundations for the internet that allow
for healthier safer more decentralized
systems gatekeeper free that's the
vision and the future we're trying to
build no doubt there are secrets in your
data everything we touch is increasingly
datafied every dimension of Our
Lives all of this data goes into feed
algorithms and algorithms make predict
itions about how long you will live or
your health or your
lifestyle and while I learned how to
protect my personal privacy and security
there's only so much I can do
myself there are things that individuals
can do to protect their privacy
ultimately in order to avoid a huge
crisis it requires systemic
change there are limits to what we can
do as individuals there are also things
that need to be addressed through
regulation through litigation and uh and
through legislation in order to make uh
all of us safer it's comforting to know
there are techies out there trying to
protect us and our data designing new
ways to enjoy the fun and convenience of
the digital world without being
exploited new technologies new games can
proliferate without centralized points
of control that's the excitement of the
decentralized
web I can't wait for people to see this
Vision we're building for collaborative
more consensual decentralized social
networks that's going to be really
exciting the future we're building might
not look too different from the internet
of today but it could be much more
private and
secure if we get it right this is about
how technological self-determination and
regulation work together to make a world
that is more safe for human habitation
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