Episodio 9: Saliendo de la Matrix - Manipulación digital

We have talked about how human beings have a fascination with conspiracy theories. Scary stories we create to ease, at least a little, the anxiety of not being able to know with certainty the intentions of those who control power. Some of these stories are based at least partly on real events, to which creative people add touches of fantasy and drama. Others are completely invented myths, but in any case the price of the illusion of having uncovered the deepest secrets is very high, because fantasy gets confused with reality and we have no way of distinguishing the true conspiracies that keep us enslaved.

It's a bit like the tale of the boy who cried wolf: he cries out about a wolf that doesn't exist so many times that when the wolf really does appear, no one believes him.

Well, that's exactly what's happening: while people are distracted trying to explain that the earth isn't flat, that vaccines don't cause autism, or trying to figure out whether celebrities are making Illuminati symbols or turning into reptiles, they march on like lambs to the slaughter of the real manipulations.

The promise I made you was to keep uncovering the true Matrix, and today we're going to talk about the most powerful manipulation tool they have: the internet.

I grew up in a poor neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia, in the 1980s. At the time and in that environment, safety was the main concern for citizens in general, but especially for parents. The risks were out on the streets, near the schools and the street intersections, so it only took a bit of common sense to establish safety rules: don't talk to strangers, watch the traffic lights, walk fast, and frequently look behind you when you're walking down a deserted street.

Risks in cyberspace, on the other hand, are not so easy to understand, assess, or avoid. I've frequently heard things like "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care about online privacy," or "I don't buy anything online, so I'm safe." Both claims reflect the main problem involved in cybersecurity in all areas: we don't understand the risks, and we settle for the false sense of security that minimal protection measures like antivirus software and long passwords give us.

One of the things that get said about the internet is that it democratized knowledge. That's true in part, but what it has certainly democratized is crime. In the 1980s I had to survive risks that no child growing up in a Toronto suburb could possibly understand. Today, however, rich and poor alike face the same risks when they do business over the internet. In fact, higher-income people and those from wealthy countries are at greater risk of falling victim to fraud, theft, or manipulation online, because criminals focus their efforts where they can make the most profit.

Today, thanks to the training carried out by educational institutions, companies, and other organizations, there is a relatively high awareness of the most common types of computer crime. One example of this is phishing, which encompasses the tactics used to lure victims into revealing their private data by using a fake copy of a financial institution's login page. Another well-known modern danger is ransomware, which allows a criminal to lock all the data stored on the victim's computer until a ransom is paid.

However, other, more serious risks are very difficult to identify and even more difficult to protect against. Non-financial risks tend to be overlooked and underestimated by both users and companies. The leak of private photos is an infamous example in this category of cybercrime. The measures that should be taken to prevent it have been widely discussed in the media; the only fully effective one is not to store or share private photos and videos.

However, when it comes to online privacy, there is something just as dangerous as, if not more dangerous than, the leak of intimate photos.

In 2019, Carole Cadwalladr was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for "reporting on how Facebook and other tech companies allowed the spread of false information and failed to protect consumer privacy, which led to the theft of the private information of 50 million people by Cambridge Analytica, and this data was used to fuel Donald Trump's campaign" (Source: Pullitzer.org). Thanks to her investigation, the world became aware that we live in a time when we are no longer the sole owners of our decisions.

To be fair, media manipulation of the masses has always been present, in the form of political propaganda, indoctrination, and perhaps even the use of subliminal images hidden in advertising. However, there have never before been tools so powerful and so cheap for influencing the public directly at the individual level.

In the past, marketing professionals had to segment their audience by geography, demographics, gender, age, and maybe a couple of additional variables. Then they had to create multimillion-dollar campaigns aimed at those segments. Today, thanks to social networks and the long trail of breadcrumbs we leave behind as we navigate the internet, companies can be so specific that they can target individuals with a high potential of becoming customers, users, or voters.

Carole Cadwalladr's investigation for The Guardian showed how the British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica used advanced data-analysis techniques to process, model, and profile data from more than 50 million Facebook accounts. They could identify the Facebook users most likely to be convinced to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 elections in the U.S. and to vote "Leave" in the 2017 Brexit referendum. Those users were strategically bombarded with posts, not ads, that highlighted, generally through fake news, the dangers of choosing Hillary Clinton or remaining in the EU, respectively.

People whose Facebook posts showed unease or concern about immigration were more likely to be impacted by frightening stories of criminal immigrants or fake news about pension funds, claiming that retirees' savings would be used to take care of the immigrants. Most of the victims of this deception didn't realize they were being selected individually because of their old Facebook posts, and many believed those stories were real, and that was enough for hundreds of thousands to set aside their reservations about Trump or the Brexit and to decide their vote accordingly. (Source: The Guardian)

Cambridge Analytica was eventually forced to shut down operations in May 2018, but the technology they used is not something that can be shut down. Moreover, the technology itself cannot be made illegal, just as knives cannot be made illegal even though they are sometimes used as weapons. This means we all must be aware of what criminals can do and take measures to protect ourselves.

What I'm going to describe now is a hypothetical but possible scenario, so you can understand the gravity of the problem: XYZ Pharmaceuticals has obtained approval for its new anti-anxiety drug in country ABC. They know that anxiety is a problem that has been growing in that country, especially among middle-aged professionals, particularly those with children and financial difficulties. The company hires advanced CA2 consultants, and they promise to increase visibility of mental-health problems so that the target population in ABC is more likely to visit the psychiatrist and receive medication.

XYZ's intentions are not bad; however, after signing a profit-sharing contract, CA2 decides to go beyond an awareness campaign. They create a campaign aimed at individuals with a high probability of developing anxiety and bombard them with real and fake news of imminent dangers to their health, child safety, economic failure, and so on. People who innocently shared their worries about the future of the world, the ongoing pandemic, or possible sex offenders near their homes, who by the way were over 40 years old and had recently searched for keywords related to anxiety on Google, would become the perfect target for the "campaign."

Since you've made it this far, I assume that by now you already understand the enormous problem that protecting your privacy represents. Although there is no single product or action that can be used to be 100% protected, I'll share some specific strategies that will help you stay safe from "target hunters" and remain reasonably safe while you live your life online:

1. Stop posting and liking on Facebook: I'll say it without beating around the bush: Facebook is a data-swallowing pig. It lives and prospers by collecting and selling your data with little consideration for what is truly in your best interest. Every time you post something, you're giving away a piece of your mind. No matter how trivial your post may be, you're showing what kind of humor you like, which politician you can't stand, which brands you prefer, and so on. Every time you hit "like" on something, you're teaching Facebook (and Facebook's clients) what kinds of things you like and which ones you don't (yes, Facebook can infer this from your scrolling with the mouse).

The only way to be safe here is not to post anything. You can still use Facebook to entertain yourself by reading posts, although Facebook discovers your interests by measuring the time you spend reading certain posts. You can also use Facebook Messenger relatively safely, although you should keep in mind that the conversations there will also be scanned to find relevant clues about your mind and your wallet.

2. Stop using Google for personal searches: in general, I trust Google a lot more than Facebook. Over the years Google has been in business, it hasn't been involved in as many scandals as Facebook. However, I think its search service is the most dangerous one to rely on, for a couple of reasons: (1) what you enter there is used directly to sell ads, and (2) you're much more likely to be honest with Google than with Facebook because you believe your searches are private.

For this reason, never use Google to search for any of the following:

I'm aware that this list excludes most of what we have to search for every day, and for that reason Google is never my first stop. Instead, I use DuckDuckGo for daily searches and keep Google for more complex searches where the results are so hard to find that you have to look them up on Google. DuckDuckGo has a strict privacy-protection policy and doesn't benefit from our data. However, what is probably more important is that, since the rest of your life is probably on Google (through Google Maps, Google Photos, Android, and Gmail), being safe is about leaving the puzzle out of some key pieces.

3. Use a private browser: another habit change, a bit easier than the previous two, is to stop using Google Chrome and instead use a safe browser like Brave Browser or Mozilla Firefox. Brave is a relatively unknown browser, but it is based on the same core as Chrome, which means Chrome extensions work in Brave. Brave's big advantage is that it doesn't track your online browsing, doesn't sell your data, and directly blocks ads.

4. Don't fall into the "ecosystem" trap: one of the most successful corporate strategies the "tech giants" have created is to place you in an ecosystem where you feel comfortable and cozy. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have created a kind of virtual cities where you can do everything you need to do online, but you can also do it faster or more easily if you stay. Apple is probably the most successful in applying this concept, but on the other hand, Apple and Microsoft are the two companies on the list that don't sell your data. For all the others, you are not their customer but their product. For this reason, my approach with these ecosystems is to diversify everything that can be diversified. If you are already trapped in Apple's magical kingdom, your information is most likely safe, although your savings are not so secure. The recommendation is to view all tech giants as a necessary evil; trust them for what is strictly necessary and don't hand all your information over to a single company. Personally I stopped using WhatsApp and Facebook, but I stayed on Instagram. My mobile experience belongs to Google, but as I said, I use neither its searches nor its browser.

5. Be careful with the Internet of Things: we live in an era in which everything has become "smart": outlets, light bulbs, vacuum cleaners, doorbells, televisions, music systems, and nearly everything that uses electric power is connected to the internet today. I won't get into the discussion of which devices actually benefit or don't benefit from being "smart." What I want to focus on is just how incredibly insecure many of those devices are. It recently came out in the news that a group of hackers gained access to Amazon Ring smart doorbell cameras, stole the WiFi network keys, and in some cases stole the videos recorded by the camera. (Source: EFF).

Smart cameras are particularly sensitive if you configure them to record the interior of your home; however, the main risk with all smart home devices is that they often store the WiFi network password without encrypting it, and with this, an attacker can gain access to your internal network and, through it, to your computers, tablets, and cellphones.

6. Use a VPN: virtual private networks are services that encrypt internet traffic from your device out to the internet so that you cannot be tracked, and prevent attackers from identifying the source of the traffic. I, for example, use a VPN to connect all the smart devices I have in my home through it, so the trackers on the internet cannot see that my devices are located in my home in Toronto, but instead they appear to be in the U.S. I also use it when I want to be totally anonymous when entering a survey website or researching sensitive topics.

As you can see, protecting our privacy online can be complex, and it is something you cannot simply achieve by buying an antivirus or paying for a VPN. Instead, it requires that you learn about the risks and the stratagems that cybercriminals use to steal your data. By understanding how the value chain of privacy exploitation works, you have a perspective from which it is easier to assess your actions and make decisions.

Cambridge Analytica story: Pullitzer.org and The Guardian

6 years ago. Enabled DuckDuckGo, it's very easy and it's the best. Thanks