The “thing” going around in the last couple days is that a data collection firm harvested 50 million “Facebook” profiles.
I do not use FaceBook. Never had a profile there. I started one and filled in a few of the initial blanks of the profile and then scrapped it. But my profiles for any internet site are all different. Yes, I lie.
I was in “I.T.” for over 40 years. Yes, before there was a word or name for the technology. I began when information technology was just beginning. When computers became commonly used and memory storage increased, I saw that “information” was going to be key. User / customer data were secure mainly because every Tom, Dick and Harry didn’t have a computer mainframe at their disposal. The “internet” was just beginning, it wasn’t even called that. Only the military, colleges and big businesses had a mainframe computer and phone lines that connected them. Things were primitive.
The most popular computer phrase was “garbage in – garbage out”. Think of that. And that information was on punch cards and later reel to reel magnetic tapes.
Today, as everyone knows, the most powerful “mainframes” fit in the palm of our hand. Access to information is everywhere, whether it is your information or your neighbors, you can get it. How do we combat that? How do we keep our information private? Frankly, we can’t. Eventually your private info will be compromised. You must understand and believe that.
In the words of Mario Savio, “we can only slow the machine, clog the levers and the gears of the machine”. Clog the machine so that the information about you at Yahoo, WordPress, Facebook, Google, Amazon and YouNameIt is unreliable, confusing, conflicted. Confuse it so information gathered, pigeon holed and categorized will be less useful or at least questioned and less valuable.
Most things are self evident and I won’t repeat them here. Other things never to disclose is your real birth date, where you were born, when you were married, where you were married, your middle initial. If it is required, input something different in all of your different accounts. Get it? And if you judge it unnecessary for the account you are signing up for, your real name. It doesn’t matter, because the deep data miners will know that by your internet provider, IP address and probably your MAC address.
On variable information, ie – your life style, fuck’em up. If you are a Dem, input Rep. Next account input Independent. Next time when asked, Dem. Clog the fucking machine. I’ve been married in Las Vegas, Belgium, Washington DC and Fargo. To name a few, I forget the others. I have used 15 different middle initials, so far. For every serious Google search, I make one or two far out ones. My dog’s name has been Old Yeller, Lassie, Ralph, Blu, Skippy and NoneUBiznes. When answering a request for a special password validation question, for gawd’s sake don’t use anything that is the truth. You don’t need to use your mother’s real maiden name in their info profile or your real dogs name or da dit da dit da. You get the picture?
If you are a conservative, visit a few Liberal sites. And visa versa. If you are “religious” check out PornHub (wait, that one may not confuse them). Turn your TV (they are harvesting data on most TVs, too, which I love, every time Trump comes on, I change stations for a few seconds) or computer to Fox News, MSNBC or CNN and leave it on two or three hours while you do yard work or detail your car. If you are checking prices on underwear on Amazon, check out guns for a minute or two also or try to find “Underwater Basket Weaving”. See how far out your random advertisements on Yahoo, Google, FaceBook and WordPress , etc can get.
Remember “garbage in – garbage out”. Definitely keep them confused on location, age, politics, education and income. And most importantly, confuse them on what your fears are.
The point that I’m trying to make here is, we are not the customers of any of the social media companies. We are their product. They sell our data. Not just data that has to do with their platforms, but anything whether public or private that we reveal to them.
The recent news that 50 or 60 million accounts and any of the accounts of friends, associates, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, grandkids and dogs, kittens and personal confession posts and emails were sold to a company that mines, sorts and collates this data to be sold to clients that uses this data for their own cause should not surprise us.
Do you want your private information helping to elect any of your political opponents? Whether republican or democrat it affects you.
Do you want your data used to decide free choice, gun ownership or gender issues? What ever your political hot spot is they can use that to sway votes, no matter which persuasion you have. They don’t care, they are selling it to the highest bidder and turn that data into what ever cause that is willing to pay.
Take Ol’ Great Uncle Nutz advice. If you can’t beat’em then confuse’em. Do what analytical and political strategy companies are doing to us, “If you can’t furnish them with facts, then buffalo them with bull-shit”. If you still want to participate in the social media machine, then clog the levers, clog the gears and stop the machine with so much inaccurate information that their collating will be of no use.
OC
I have this thing that is still bothering me. This old post may explain it.
DistantShipSmoke 