4 ms·

Let me share this thought experiment. - most companies are really bad at security - most people do not care about the security of their data, passwords, etc.

by K0SM0S 7y ago

Let me share this thought experiment. - most companies are really bad at security - most people do not care about the security of their data, passwords, etc. Based on these facts, I've been operating for a decade now under the assumption that one day within my lifetime, all of our logged online activity may become public after some hack. All of it that's logged somewhere. Chats, pics, posts, history, notes, cloud drives... It may be slightly paranoid, but better safe than sorry. I should add that I live "normally", I don't care about my pics or discussions becoming public when it happens to everyone else too. I just remain cognizant that there's high probability here. As outlandish as this assumption might be, the opposite (that security holds and most of our stuff never gets hacked) seems even more implausible to me. Educated guess, you know, which speaks less of tech/security than it does of human nature (carelessness or laziness, until a real crash happens). Hopefully this is very Western-centric and other cultures are better at long-term wisdom and planning.

solotronics 7y ago
I think this is actually by design. My theory is they built a panopticon intended to move humanity towards being more cooperative and docile. A feature of this is that people become self policing much like in the USSR. You yourself just admitted to what is equivalent to thought policing.
- mindfulhack 7y ago
  Instead of downvoting, I'll reply with my own logic: 1. Science and clear thinking demonstrates more often than not that the world is chaotic and random. 2. Conspiracy thought like yours can be a psychological attempt to quell one's unease from seeing such chaos by insisting that everything is controlled, so that you gain an emotional feeling of control and security once more. Like 9/11, I think what you speak of (people's increasing self censorship as a result of draconian dragnet surveillance) is more pure accident - not design - but it's then taken advantage of by opportunists (where in the case of 9/11, it was warmongers and American oil barons).
  - solotronics 7y ago
    https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... Both Facebook and Google were nurtured by In-Q-Tel and Highlands Forum members. I don't think this is wrong or bad. Just like Huawei and ZTE are highly correlated with the Chinese government, our biggest tech companies are interwoven with our national defense organizations.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Why — store everything you don't want to ever be public (like your private documents allowing for ID theft, medical records, business plans, nudes of yourself, etc) encrypted, and be the only one to know the key. Those are not many. Use SpiderOak, or Tarsnap, or any backup program that does this. Anything you share with others, online or not, has a fair chance to become more widely known; just keep it in mind. This has always been si, afaict.
  - geofft 7y ago
    What's the point of having identity documents, medical records, business plans, or nudes of yourself that you don't share with anyone?
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Identity documents should be public information, if they lack an irrefutable connection to you (e.g. photo ID unless you've got an identical twin) they're bad identity documents. But there may be accompanying information you should keep private, for example it's not unheard of for passport authorities to provide an additional document that helps them if your passport is lost or damaged, no need to let anybody else have that. Medical records it certainly can make sense for you to keep documents that medics don't need right now but might be relevant later. If you've got them, somebody else can't lose them. Business plans ought to be obvious. You won't get far telling everybody what your plans are, keep them to yourself. And nudes while it seems lots of people do send them to somebody else - perhaps much better looking people than me - if you've got nude images of yourself for some other reason then it's better to keep them private than risk some outfit accidentally losing them. For example I had images of my penis from when I had surgery done on it to fix a problem, I was tracking the healing process because I was interested in how the stitches behave. No reason to put those photos in the Clown or whatever where they're one fat finger away from being available to anybody curious.
pmontra 7y ago
> I've been operating for a decade now under the assumption that one day within my lifetime, all of our logged online activity may become public after some hack. Unfortunately we can't control which information about ourselves other people exchange in conversations with us or between them. Anything they know about us could be stored and hacked later on, even if we never went online or used a computer or phone.
tetha 7y ago
The danger of these kinds of threats is not limited to exposure of personal information, though. For example, take a look at Norsk Hydro. A ransomware situation took down the control systems of an aluminum plant. The company mostly got lucky - they still had senior engineers around who could control the system by pen and paper. Otherwise, you'd have a lot of half-processed slag solidify inside the line. At that point, there's little to do besides ripping all of it out and rebuilding the line in a newfound empty factory building. And at that point, there are two scary areas to research: Industrial control networks which are abused in a wide area scenario. And the industrial ability to recover from these kinds of outages, if rebuilding a factory takes years. And I guess the security practices and budgets in that sector.
chousuke 7y ago
I think most people do care about security, they just don't understand it. People will just assume that they're secure instead of actually figuring out the true state of things, and then they'll be surprised when something happens. This kind of "not my problem" mentality is common across everything humans do, and while it can be due to laziness, a lot of it is just ignorance.

by K0SM0S 7y ago

solotronics 7y ago

I think this is actually by design. My theory is they built a panopticon intended to move humanity towards being more cooperative and docile. A feature of this is that people become self policing much like in the USSR. You yourself just admitted to what is equivalent to thought policing.

mindfulhack 7y ago
Instead of downvoting, I'll reply with my own logic: 1. Science and clear thinking demonstrates more often than not that the world is chaotic and random. 2. Conspiracy thought like yours can be a psychological attempt to quell one's unease from seeing such chaos by insisting that everything is controlled, so that you gain an emotional feeling of control and security once more. Like 9/11, I think what you speak of (people's increasing self censorship as a result of draconian dragnet surveillance) is more pure accident - not design - but it's then taken advantage of by opportunists (where in the case of 9/11, it was warmongers and American oil barons).
- solotronics 7y ago
  https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... Both Facebook and Google were nurtured by In-Q-Tel and Highlands Forum members. I don't think this is wrong or bad. Just like Huawei and ZTE are highly correlated with the Chinese government, our biggest tech companies are interwoven with our national defense organizations.
nine_k 7y ago
Why — store everything you don't want to ever be public (like your private documents allowing for ID theft, medical records, business plans, nudes of yourself, etc) encrypted, and be the only one to know the key. Those are not many. Use SpiderOak, or Tarsnap, or any backup program that does this. Anything you share with others, online or not, has a fair chance to become more widely known; just keep it in mind. This has always been si, afaict.
- geofft 7y ago
  What's the point of having identity documents, medical records, business plans, or nudes of yourself that you don't share with anyone?
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Identity documents should be public information, if they lack an irrefutable connection to you (e.g. photo ID unless you've got an identical twin) they're bad identity documents. But there may be accompanying information you should keep private, for example it's not unheard of for passport authorities to provide an additional document that helps them if your passport is lost or damaged, no need to let anybody else have that. Medical records it certainly can make sense for you to keep documents that medics don't need right now but might be relevant later. If you've got them, somebody else can't lose them. Business plans ought to be obvious. You won't get far telling everybody what your plans are, keep them to yourself. And nudes while it seems lots of people do send them to somebody else - perhaps much better looking people than me - if you've got nude images of yourself for some other reason then it's better to keep them private than risk some outfit accidentally losing them. For example I had images of my penis from when I had surgery done on it to fix a problem, I was tracking the healing process because I was interested in how the stitches behave. No reason to put those photos in the Clown or whatever where they're one fat finger away from being available to anybody curious.

pmontra 7y ago

> I've been operating for a decade now under the assumption that one day within my lifetime, all of our logged online activity may become public after some hack. Unfortunately we can't control which information about ourselves other people exchange in conversations with us or between them. Anything they know about us could be stored and hacked later on, even if we never went online or used a computer or phone.

tetha 7y ago

The danger of these kinds of threats is not limited to exposure of personal information, though. For example, take a look at Norsk Hydro. A ransomware situation took down the control systems of an aluminum plant. The company mostly got lucky - they still had senior engineers around who could control the system by pen and paper. Otherwise, you'd have a lot of half-processed slag solidify inside the line. At that point, there's little to do besides ripping all of it out and rebuilding the line in a newfound empty factory building. And at that point, there are two scary areas to research: Industrial control networks which are abused in a wide area scenario. And the industrial ability to recover from these kinds of outages, if rebuilding a factory takes years. And I guess the security practices and budgets in that sector.

chousuke 7y ago

I think most people do care about security, they just don't understand it. People will just assume that they're secure instead of actually figuring out the true state of things, and then they'll be surprised when something happens. This kind of "not my problem" mentality is common across everything humans do, and while it can be due to laziness, a lot of it is just ignorance.