This is more about awareness and hopefully those reading will discern and to go read and search for themselves about privacy and issues that will and could affect them. Please read on if you’re interested.
Lately the news isn’t very friendly towards consumers. Governments and companies have taken up the idea that’s it’s up to them to reveal or label folks as trustworthy or not. I’m not sure if it’s obvious that consumers are nothing more than an asset that needs micromanagement and cohesion as directed by a power other than ourselves. But, just a thought.
The headlines dealing with privacy alone should give you pause. The bad actors are out there and want you, your data, your friend’s data and all data that can be correlated to your existence. Harsh? Perhaps, but if consumers don’t wake up and take action with their own privacy. Shame on us.
- We’re living in a sci-fi reality or some of us are, as it doesn’t’ seem there is a valid defense against protecting our privacy. Are we all marked people?
- When logging into google to read mail and that’s the only time I actually log in which is just as bad.
- Don’t get this wrong. OK. As this is being done in China too. With IOS12, giving out trust ratings, won’t be long before this happens to you without you knowing they’re gathering this data.
- All, cloud services have some issues and most reserve the right to scan for “WHAT THEY DEEM” as objectionable content. Wow, not only will AI monitor, but people could eventually look at your “SECURE DOCUMENTS” as well.
Yes bad actors are always looking for ways to steal data, and they will use any means necessary to do so. They may try to trick you into giving them your data, or they may try to hack into your devices or accounts. Once they have your data, they can use it to commit identity theft, fraud, or other crimes. They can also use your data to target you with advertising or to manipulate you in other ways. And the entire process could be automated very easy with AI CHA BOTS.
It is important to be aware of the risks and to take steps to protect your data. Here are some tips:
- Be careful about what information you share online.
- Use strong passwords and change them regularly.
- Keep your software up to date.
- Be careful about opening emails from unknown senders.
- Install a security software on your devices.
By taking these steps, you can help to protect yourself from bad actors and keep your data safe.
Here are some additional tips to protect your data:
- Use a password manager to generate and store strong passwords for all of your online accounts.
- Enable two-factor authentication for all of your online accounts that offer it.
- Be careful about what information you share on social media.
- Be aware of the risks of using public Wi-Fi networks.
- Back up your data regularly.
By following these tips, you can help to protect your data from bad actors.
Router Login
Here is something to be aware of. Have you logged into your router from a mobile device or home computer? That would be a crazy question but I’m sure you have. Well, those devices most likely have sent those passwords and router id to a server on the web some place, on someone else’s computer. By the vary nature of your mobile devices Phone>Router>Internet>provider…
By logging into your router and saving that too a cloud drive (Apple, OneDrive, Google Apps, etc) passwords could be saved on a unprotected or hacked world/cloud server.
Granted you as a user/consumer of the device must know and authorize the backup and restoration of such things like data, passwords, including Wi-Fi passwords.
- Amazon offers this for devices
- Even Apple
I suppose that those companies could have been beached in one fashion or another. Oh WAIT some have then it’s possible that WI-FI passwords could have leaked?? Great question.
Do Your Homework
Please do you own homework. Our privacy is as good as you give it out. Alexa, Siri, Cortana and all other access points are how you give away what should not be given away.
I must add that the bad actors with your privacy are those very same companies that you use free email services from. AOL (still around), Google, Microsoft. Pictures uploaded to free sites are used to help train AI machine learning facial recognition software and can assist with plagiarized images. Most correlate with your information to multiple sources so that direct targeted ads can be presented to you.
One such case for testing and making you aware is that Google has had for a very long time tools for facial recognition and doesn’t offer any thanks to us for using our images to train and learn from us humans. https://cloud.google.com/vision/. Try uploading an image that you have. It will be analysed for multiple areas that you can see here.
My image from this page https://josephkravis.com/2019/01/04/3dart-life-on-the-farm/ was used for this import for testing.
Using the vision tool is very fast, often taking just seconds to import and analysis. On first import if you have an item with a face on it, will highlight the points on a face and with initial determination gives probability if image is happy, sad, or etc.
You can review, labels, Web Information, Document Properties, Safe Search and the returned JSON, if you actually subscribe to the service. Or as in this case manually.
The information is most telling if you think about how this could be used to narrow searches, make assumptions and make classifications against people who view these images or web pages on the internet. This is a simple image and what is alarming is that image appears as being listed as “Racy”. Any girl on the beach in a bikini would be considered “RACY”. Sooner or later these classifications could be used against you for newly deemed “automatic group consensus” community guidelines. and not allow you to post.
Now here is an image that I downloaded for a different test. For example, if you were wondering where your images might have been used or if someone else downloaded your image and just wanted to see if your images were being used someplace.
I won’t show all the same tabs here for this image. But, I’ll show the labels, web and safe search tabs.
If you noticed the WEB TAB has URL listed where it found an image that either correctly identifies the image or where you can go see similar images. If you were using such an API for monitoring stolen images or to scan the web for other types of activity, much can be garnered from having a search like this in the cloud. For this test image, I did not download from shutterstock or the foreign site potosearch. But, the search above found this image on many sites.
So back to the original question and comment. “What are we giving up?”
Tons, most without our permissions. The ones we give permissions too would be all those free sites where our information is sold to the highest bidder. And, it is sold. Yeah, this may seem like a hell bent rant. But, it is true. I’ve worked for some of those big companies. We’re giving up way too much for way too little benefit for ourselves. Even sites we subscribe to and perhaps purchase, share and sell your information.
MY ASS IS MY OWN ASSET. And, these are my own thoughts, ideas and insights.
Thank you for engaging with this post – a blend of human insight and AI innovation. Your time and thoughts are greatly valued. If this blend of technology and personal reflection sparked any thoughts or ideas, please share them in the comments. Let’s continue the conversation!
Thoughts & Ideas, Joseph Kravis 🙂
Categories: Automation, Technology
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