Data Intelligence

Personal Data Intelligence

The goal of this page is to provide customers with security awareness that will lead to privacy solutions to personal data security issues encountered using electronic devices. At first the page was called data security but the focus is really a combination of security guided by awareness. The key is not to erase all public data but to focus efforts on places of vulnerability. When ATM cards first came out people were afraid to use them because of the exposure and vulnerability they perceived. Of course they are no more vulnerable than credit cards, but somehow the perception was different. There are people who live in this extreme fear of the unknown and try to avoid getting birth certificates for their children and try to erase any connection to society. This information is not intended for people who are that extreme. We will focus on the range of people who live in society and take advantage of the opportunities of community. This page is focused on individuals rather than corporations. We try to raise awareness and moderate exposure. Some devices we use are business devices and corporations take measures to deal with data security. The focus here is on personal data and personal devices.

We live in a world where our personal transactions are recorded by corporations and government. The data from our personal transactions is accumulated among these entities and the power of our data can leveraged against us. This is a threat to our peace of mind and financial security. My effort here is to raise awareness, and with it quell some of the fear that is associated with data security. There are no absolutes in this endeavor beyond awareness. You need to know what information you're sharing - especially that information you're sharing that you're not aware of.

There are some solutions that I will recommend, but some data must be sacrificed because our society requires it. The solutions include settings on devices as well as password schemes, etc. There are usually several solutions to any given IT problem. We'll talk in some depth about data sharing, levels of sharing, choices in what we share, and our cognizance of data. We'll also speak briefly of vulnerabilities of cookies, value of encryption and other security issues and options. Security is a very personal issue. There are many choices we make in life that impact our security choices and many security choices have an impact on our lives.

Please click here if you are interested in further info

Phishing/aliases in email and web addresses
So I received one of a million friend requests with a profile pic of a sexy young woman seemingly daily bombarding us all. I want to share a little of my IT knowledge in regards to a message in her profile. It had a link to https://web.facebook.com/php?u= blah blah blah. The way the code worked is the real link php was referring me to was clck.ru/..... which is a website in Russia. This sort of aliasing can be done with web addresses and emails. You'll get the same kind of phishing emails and deceptions with email where the email says it's Verizon or Amazon.

The blue highlighted text above is deceptive as are a lot of the email addresses that spam us. You can actually find out the real email address by hovering over the URL in Facebook and looking at the corner of your screen to see the destination. I won't say that the location Russia is bad, only that the deception of where they're sending you is a bad sign.

With a deceptive email it's a little harder to discern what the correct one is. If you want some help with that please reach out to me. I'd love to help

Some data we are REQUIRED to provide.
It's almost impossible to navigate our world without providing certain information. The government requires hospitals to provide birth records. We are assigned a social security number that tracks our lives. If we want to get a job we share our government number with the corporation we intend to work for. That link provides the government with a list of employers we work for throughout our lives. In order to get to work most of us drive a motor vehicle. That links our movements to the government. Now employers are requiring direct deposit so that we have to use a bank to hold our resources. So corporations and government require us to provide data in order to fulfill our daily functioning.

Some data we provide so that we can BENEFIT FROM SERVICES.
Some examples follow of data we voluntarily provide. If we want an apartment we give our government number to the landlord so that they can access our financial record. That government number provides a link for the government to know where we live. If we want mail delivered to our address we must register with the post office by having bills and documents delivered there. We regularly provide our email address which is a great identifier for businesses and government that links very personal about our personal relationships, our thoughts and feelings, our business (literally) and our finances.

There is also data WE CONTROL that WE'RE NOT AWARE of providing
We turn on our cell phone and instantly it is sharing your information. Each time it pings off a cell phone tower it is providing information to the world. The critical piece is that a pattern develops of who you visit, where you go with family, who our friends are, every move you make (literally). Data is accumulated on your traffic habits even. Mine would show that I like to bicycle. All that data is available simply by turning on our phone. The phone is not worth much shut off from the world. What we're probably most unaware of is how that accumulated data compiles with other to reveal way more than we would like.

Personal data consumers - corporate

Yelp=location, shopping habits, interests
email=ties together events, location, interests, personal business, employment
maps/GPS=location, routes traveled, mode of transport
credit/debit cards=spending habits, personal choices, preferences, credit score
calls/texting apps=friends, family
music=location, music preference, helps build a profile
banking=spending habits, location, travel, friends, family, loans, credit
cars=location, speed, routes
credit=spending habits, creditworthiness
exercise=personal abilities, disabilities, fitness, location
health data=history of care, illness, surgeries, medications, mental health, gender, sexual history
social media=friends, interests, opinions, age, birthday, location
academic data=achievements, location, career choice, age
search engines=interests, location, computer details, history, time spent on the computer

Categories of vulnerability

cookies-what are they and how to delete them
passwords=using the same one, how to create a good one
GPS-this one is insidious
create alternate ID- your social media does not need to be accurate
profile-photo? location? age? what can we avoid sharing?
habits-where do we shop? when do we travel? where do we bank?
electronic transactions-each tells a part of your story
cars-can we disable the tracking system? do we want to?
cloud-what is it good for? what are the risks?
personal storage-that spreadsheet of passwords, list of personal financial info, budgets, other PII

Our concerns tie in with our values:
We need to understand our values to see what data makes us most vulnerable. Maybe we want people to see us as successful, maybe we have secrets, maybe we value a portrayal of ourselves that is not accurate like weight, health, gender identity, financial status. People may have different online identities that they want to keep separate. If you're not into honesty data security and siloing is crucial. Values would determine the difference between caring for family versus honesty with the public, for instance. When we're balancing our data decisions we've got to discern our values of state versus individual needs. Maybe for you financial gain is top priority, or maybe it's privacy that is the top concern. There's not necessarily a right and wrong in these continuums but a value system.

7/22/2020 - A tool for consideration:
I found a tool that is helpful in bypassing security to get articles that are behind paywalls. Paywalls are the login screen that allow you to access news sites. Newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times require a subscription if you want to read more than three articles a month or so. Usually you get to the page and it will show the first paragraph and ask you to log in to see the rest. Outline helps you bypass that and read the article without the ads too. Nice stuff.