Consumers sacrificing Privacy for Convenience

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It’s hard to believe that, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, most Americans aren’t too upset that the government can track their e-mails and phone calls. There’s too much of a blasé attitude, it seems, with people thinking, “I don’t care if I’m monitored; I have nothing to hide.”

2PThis blows it for those of us who actually DO mind that the government is snooping around in our communications, even if we’re as innocent as a butterfly.

Privacy experts believe that governmental monitoring of online activities is just such a fixed part of Americans’ lives that we’ve come to accept it. But privacy experts are pushing for an increased awareness of the importance of digital privacy, and this begins with the U.S. masses putting out some demands for privacy.

An article on arcamax.com points out that as long as Americans are sitting pretty with cheap and easy-to-use Internet experiences, nothing much will change. “People are very willing to sacrifice privacy for convenience,” states Aaron Deacon, as quoted in the article. He manages a group that explores issues pertaining to Internet use.

The article says that Pew’s research reveals that since the NSA revelation, 20 percent of Americans have become more privacy-conscious in a variety of easy ways like using a private web browser.

But most Americans shy away from the more complicated privacy protection methods. Furthermore, some people don’t even know of the extent of governmental monitoring.

Nevertheless, ease of use has made people complacent. Who wants to hassle around with encryption, decoding, coding, etc.? This stuff is great for techy people but not the average user.

The good news is that there is somewhat of a revolution geared towards making privacy methods less intimidating to Joe and Jane User. It just won’t happen overnight, but the market is “emerging,” says Deacon in the article.

Theoretically, if everyone turned techy overnight or privacy protection instantly became as easy as two plus two, this would make unhappy campers out of the businesses that flourish from tracking users’ online habits. The government wouldn’t be smiling, either, as it always wants to have fast access (e.g., “backdoor”) to electronic communications: the first communication choice of terrorists.

Thus far it seems that people have two choices: a fast, easy, cheap Internet experience that gives up privacy, or a techy, expensive, confusing experience that ensures privacy. The first choice is currently winning by miles.

Forewarned is forearmed. Pay attention. This is getting real.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to TheBestCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention.

How the Internet of Things is further killing Privacy

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Privacy used to mean changing clothes behind a partition. Nowadays, say “privacy” and people are likely to think in terms of cyberspace. Stay connected, and you risk losing your privacy.

2PEven if you’re not connected, don’t even own a computer or smartphone, information about you can still be out there on the Internet, such as a listing for your address and phone number or a way for someone to get it with a small fee if you live in owner-occupied property.

An article on wired.com points out that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a privacy killer. But it’s also more than that. The evolution of technology forces us to redefine how we perceive our lives, says the article. Even an invention as primitive as the steam engine caused a rethinking among people. But whereas the steam engine was a slap, the IoT is a sledgehammer.

And the Internet of Things is only just beginning. Wired.com notes that the combination of the World Wide Web, big data, social identity, the cloud and more are all poised to erupt into something huge, and it won’t give us time to prepare.

The IoT will infiltrate the tiniest and most remote pockets of the planet, inescapable, impacting all who have a pulse, literally. It’s not like the steam engine in which, soon after its invention, many people were afraid to ride the train because they believed that God did not intend for humans to travel so fast, and thus, these folks easily avoided boarding the train.

We won’t be able to avoid the IoT. It won’t be a station we walk up to and then decide we don’t want to get on. We will be, as wired.com says, living inside the Internet. We’re too addicted to technology not to. Kids can’t imagine living without their smartphones. When their grandparents were kids, the only thing they felt needy for was an umbrella on a rainy day. You don’t miss what you can’t conceive of.

With the IoT slowly dissolving us, like a snake swallowing a giant rat and slowly dissolving it (certainly you’ve seen those unsightly images—you know what I’m talking about), our privacy will be dissolved along with us.

Strangers already can figure out what things we like to shop for without ever communicating to us. Your health habits, eating habits, dating habits…all the data that makes you YOU is continuously being shagged by Big Data. “Privacy” may one day become one of those words, like “oil lamp,” that’s no longer in use because by then, it will be such a far-removed concept.

Imagine living in a house made entirely of see-through structures, so that no matter where you are in it, people on the outside can see what you’re doing. There’s no brick, no aluminum, drywall or wood—just all some transparent material. That’s the Internet of Things.

Ways to shield your privacy:

Use a browser that has an “incognito” mode or privacy plug-in.

Use a VPN to mask your IP address and encrypt your data. Knowledge of where you’ve visited can be used against you by insurance companies and lawyers, to say the least; you just never know what can happen when something out there knows your every online move.

Turn of GPS location for photos. iPhone and other devices saves the location where you took the shots, which is no secret once you post the photos on FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Shutting down location based apps will help here too.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures.

What is private Information and what is not?

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Data Privacy Day was Wednesday, January 28, and these days the concept of “privacy” can be ambiguous, generic or confusing. What you might think of as private actually isn’t. The definition of personal identifying information, by the U.S. privacy law and information security, is that of data that can be used to contact, identify or locate an individual, or identify him in context.

1PThis means that your name and address aren’t private, which is why they can be found on the Internet (though a small fee may be required for the address, but not always). Even your phone and e-mail aren’t private. What you post on Facebook isn’t private, either.

So what’s private, then? An argument with your best friend. A bad joke that you texted. Your personal journal. These kinds of things are not meant for public use. What about vacation photos that you stored in a cloud service? Well…they’re supposed to be private, but really, they’re at significant risk and shouldn’t be considered totally private.

And it’s not just people on an individual scale that should worry about privacy. It’s businesses also. Companies are always worrying about privacy, which includes how to protect customers’ sensitive information and company trade secrets.

But even if the company’s IT team came up with the most foolproof security in the world against hacking…it still wouldn’t protect 100 percent. Somewhere, somehow, there will be a leak—some careless employee, for instance, who gets lured by a phishing e-mail on their mobile phone…clicks the link, gives out sensitive company information and just like that a hacker has found his way in.

Even when employees are trained in security awareness, this kind of risk will always exist. An insider could be the bad guy who visually hacks sensitive data on the computer screen of an employee who was called away for a brief moment by another employee.

Tips for Training Employees on Security Savvy

  • Make it fun. Give giant chocolate bars, gifts and prizes out to employees for good security behaviors.
  • Post fun photos with funny captions on signage touting content from the company’s security policy document. It’s more likely to be read in this context than simply handed to them straight.
  • Show management is invested. Behavior changes start from the top down,
  • Get other departments involved. Even if they’re small, such as HR, legal and marketing, they will benefit from security training.
  • Stop visual hackers. Equip employees with a 3M Privacy Filter and an ePrivacy Filter which helps bar snooping eyes from being able to see what’s on the user’s screen from virtually every angle.
  • Don’t forbid everything that’s potential trouble. Rather than say, “Don’t go on social media,” say, “Here’s what not do to when you’re on social media.”
  • Make it personal. Inform workers how data breaches could damage them, not just the company. A little shock to their system will motivate them to be more careful.

Robert Siciliano is a Privacy Consultant to 3M discussing Identity Theft and Privacy on YouTube. Disclosures.

Having the Privacy Talk with your Kids

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Years ago, having “the talk” with your kids meant telling them where babies come from. Nowadays, “the talk” has a whole new meaning. Your kids may be able to explain in detail how a baby is created, but may be clueless (because so many adults are) about something called “data permanence.”

2PDon’t beat around the bush. Tell your kid outright, “If you post any racy images of yourself online—it will be there for the next million years for anyone to see. And it can be used against you.” Give this same warning about comments your child might post to an article. Things that your kids put online can come back to bite them many years later when they’re applying for employment. Tell them that.

Of course, warning your adolescent that something they post could come back to haunt them 20 years from now might not have much of an impact on them—kind of like telling your kid—who has endless energy—that smoking could cause heart disease 20 years from now. So how can you get through to your kids?

  • The more open the lines of communication are between parent and child, the more likely your message will get through about data permanence. Don’t make communication one-sided.
  • When your kids ask you how things work, even if it’s not related to cyber space, never act annoyed. Never make them feel it was a silly question. Never show impatience or judgment. If you don’t know the answer to their techy question, say, “I don’t know; let’s find out.” Don’t fudge a half-baked answer in an attempt to sound smart. Admit when you don’t know an answer, then hunt it down.
  • If you think it’s time to have “the talk” with your child, it is.
  • There’s never a perfect time to have “the talk.” Stop putting it off. Stop saying, “I’ll have it when…” Just do it.
  • Emphasize that raunchy images or nasty comments can come back to bite them in the near For example, they might have a crush on someone in a few years. What if that person googles them? What might they find? Ask your child, “What would you like them NOT to discover?”
  • Don’t be all lecture. Get your child thinking and talking opportunities. Ask them open-ended questions, such as the example in the previous bullet point. Get their brain cells working.
  • The privacy talk should be a process, not an event. That is, it should be a work in progress, ongoing, rather than a single event.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention.

Spy on your Kids yes or no

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It’s one thing to bust into your kid’s diary and read it, but if your kids want the privilege of engaging in the cyber world, they need to understand that parents are justified in “spying” on them. Or are they? Depends on whom you ask and how far they go at “spying” on their kids.

2WFrankly It’s not spying at all and both kids and parents should get over it. It’s called parenting. My kids are still young, but as they get older there will be hardly a thing they do online that I won’t be aware of. The internet isn’t a right, it’s a privilege to someone under age. No 13 or even 17 year old of mine will be on it without being supervised. Same goes for passwords. I’ll have access to all of them. This may be far-reaching to some, akin to the ancient form of spying: listening in on the extension phone to a phone conversation between your kid and his buddy. But really, it’s simply being a parent.

Spying can also be a life saver. Kids are being bullied today like never before. And as a result, they are hurting themselves. And then there are all the illegal things they may be doing. These same acts can get them killed. In this case, knowledge is definitely power to keep your kids safe.

Parent believe and they are right that spying is “an invasion of privacy and a violation of trust.” If you get caught, your relationship could be sabotaged, this is true. So spy openly and honestly. Tell them. Show them. Remind them. If kids know you are watching, they are often less likely to do things they aren’t supposed to.

The element of surprise, however, may be a factor. It makes a world of a difference if, from an early age, the parent establishes with their children that there will be “spying,” vs. never discussing this concept with the kids, and then one day you get busted.

Don’t use the word “spy,” either. Instead say “monitor” and let your kids know

How do you balance protecting your kids and maintaining trust? Team up with your kids. Make family agreements and contracts that show transparency. This will go far is keeping a close eye on their safety and security.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention.

Use an ePrivacy Filter to prevent Visual Hacking

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In an average year I’ll tally 75,000 airline miles. In an average week while waiting for the plane to board or while in flight I’ll see multiple laptop screens flipped open with an over the shoulder view of emails being sent and received, PowerPoint presentations being tweaked, proposals being written and various client and employee records being crawled through. The fact is, I’m a good guy with no bad intentions, but I can’t help seeing what I see, it’s distracting. The screens are bright and propped right in my face. If I was a bad guy, this would be considered “visual hacking”.

2PHacking can be done without viruses: with just one’s eyes. The visual hacker prowls the public, seeking out computer screens displaying sensitive data. The company 3M now offers the ePrivacy Filter. This software, when paired with a traditional 3M Privacy Filter, which blacks out content that can be viewed from side angles where hackers can lurk, alerts the user to snoops peering over their shoulders from just about every angle. I’m seeing more and more of these in flight. Which frankly, is nice, and less distracting.

More people will merely state that they prize visual privacy than will actually do something to protect this, according to a recent 3M study. The study revealed that 80 percent of the professionals who responded believed that prying eyes posed at least some threat to their employers.

Strangely, most of these workers opted not to give their visual privacy any protection when they were accessing information with an unprotected computer in a public location of high traffic.

Employees have a funny way of asserting a belief but acting otherwise. This shows that businesses need to educate employees on the risks of data leaking out to visual hackers.

The fact is employees more mobile than ever. And with corporate secrets being Wikileaked, “Snowdened”, and just plain hacked, customers require more assurance than ever that their data is protected.

An ePrivacy Filter, coupled with a laptop or desktop privacy filter helps protect visual privacy from virtually every angle. Compatible with devices that use Windows operating systems, the ePrivacy Filter will alert the user to an over-the-shoulder snooper with a pop-up image of his or her face, identifying the privacy offender. However, you don’t have to worry about your data if you step or look away briefly. The screen will be blurred and will only unlock when you return thanks to its intelligent facial recognition feature.

Please, stop hijacking my attention and get a privacy filter.

Robert Siciliano is a Privacy Consultant to 3M discussing Identity Theft and Privacy on YouTube. Disclosures.

The Right to Privacy

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The more technological advanced we become, the higher the degree the potential exists for an invasion of our privacy. Imagine how difficult it must have been for people’s personal information to get stolen—10,000 years ago.

2PWe now live in a world where someone half-way around it from you can nab your most personal information in seconds.

Our right to privacy is just as strong now as it ever was, despite the ease at which criminals and snoops can get your personal data.

Famed attorney and associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court Louis Brandeis was a champion of a person’s right to privacy, and defined the right of a person “to be let alone” as “the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.”

To keep up with the increasing ease of stealing a person’s data, legal remedies and privacy enabling software have been developed.

The Internet is infested with spammers, scammers, and hackers. Do you know that these spammers and hackers can easily monitor your online activities and steal your personal data like credit card information and passwords?

Even your Internet Service Provider (ISP) spies on you! They monitor, track, and keep a record of all your web activities. The websites you visit, the software you download, your online purchases, and everything else are recorded and saved by your ISP.

If this bothers you, you now have options available to protect your privacy and identity. Just download and use Hotspot Shield software. It acts as an IP hider to mask or change your IP address and protect your privacy, while securing your Web browsing session at the same time.

“THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY,” by Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, appeared in the Harvard Law Review in December of 1890.

From that are derived six applicable limitations:

1. “The right to privacy does not prohibit any publication of matter which is of public or general interest.” Warren and Brandeis give elaboration on this exception to the right to privacy by stating:

In general, then, the matters of which the publication should be repressed may be described as those which concern the private life, habits, acts, and relations of an individual, and have no legitimate connection with his fitness for a public office which he seeks or for which he is suggested, . . . and have no legitimate relation to or bearing upon any act done by him in a public or quasi public capacity.

2. The right to privacy does not prohibit the communication of any matter, though in its nature private, when the publication is made under circumstances which would render it a privileged communication according to the law of slander and libel.

3. The law would probably not grant any redress for the invasion of privacy by oral publication in the absence of special damage.

4. The right to privacy ceases upon the publication of the facts by the individual, or with his consent.

5. The truth of the matter published does not afford a defense. Obviously this branch of the law should have no concern with the truth or falsehood or the matters published.

6. The absence of “malice” in the publisher does not afford a defense.

With regard to remedies, a plaintiff may institute an action for tort damages as compensation for injury or, alternatively, request an injunction.

A closing point to make is that Warren and Brandeis recommend that criminal penalties be imposed for violations of the right to privacy, but they decline to elaborate further on the matter, deferring rather to the authority of the legislature.

Source: http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/Brandeisprivacy.htm

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures.

Recognize Your Willingness to give up your Privacy

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If a stranger stopped you on the street and requested your e-mail address and birthdate, would you give it to that person? A rational person would never give up this information.

1PThis is the same guard you should have when giving out your personal information to set up an online account, setting up a social account or to get some bargain or great deal on a product or service. Most people will give up all their data for 10% off at a shoe store.

Many people blindly give out personal information online or in person to get that bargain. Sometimes, these choices are made by people who claim to value their privacy.

Those same people may not know that every time you log into free unencrypted WiFi you are most likely revealing everything you communicate on a PC, laptop or mobile? This is why an encrypted connection like one provided with Hotspot Shield is very necessary.

A study from Carnegie Mellon University, conducted by Alessandro Acquisti, turned up some very interesting results.

He sent some graduate students to a shopping mall near Pittsburgh. The students were instructed to offer a $10 discount card, with an extra $2 discount to shoppers in exchange for their shopping information. Half turned down the extra offer. The $2 wasn’t enough to get them to reveal their shopping cart items.

Another group of shoppers was offered a $12 discount and the choice to exchange it for $10 if they desired to keep their shopping data private. Ninety percent decided to keep the $12 discount, which meant they were willing to reveal their shopping data.

What gives?

It looks as though if people already have ownership of private data from the get-go, they’re more likely to value it. If it’s yet to be acquired, however, the value placed on it is less.

So getting back to cyber space then, have you ever wondered if the data, that the online advertising industry collects on you, is truly scrambled so that it’s not possible to identify individuals?

Acquisti conducted another experiment. With a webcam he took snapshots of about 100 campus students. It took only minutes for him to identify about 30 percent of these nameless students by using facial recognition software.

He then went a step further and gathered enough information on about a quarter of the identified students via Facebook to guess a portion of their Social Security numbers.

Acquisti showed how simple it is to identify people from scratch because they leave a data trail in cyber space—and this includes photos. This shows how easy it is for criminals to use Facebook to steal a person’s identity.

Though it would violate Facebook’s terms of service to register a fake birthdate, the user needs to be aware of the tradeoff: Identity thieves love to find birthdates.

Facebook says that the user can control who sees personal information. So you just have to weigh the pros and cons. Is receiving well wishes on your birthday worth the risk of a thief using your basic information to steal your identity?

And by the way, thieves can use your Facebook profile photo to help steal your identity. Maybe this is why some people use their baby’s or dog’s photo for their Facebook photo?

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures.

Can your Privacy Policy be Read by a 5th Grader?

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Zero. The number of people who have ever read word for word—and understood—a website’s privacy policy.

2PWell, maybe not zero, but the actual number is pretty close to it. And this excludes the lawyers who compose these thick walls of tiny text that are filled with legalese.

How many people even open the link to the privacy policy? After all, it’s almost always at the bottom of the site page, called “Privacy Policy,” in a font that doesn’t even stand out.

It’s time that the privacy policy (aka transparency statement) be short, sweet and simple, with an attractive graphic to catch the visitor’s attention. The purpose of a privacy policy seems to be to inform the website visitor/user just how that person’s data will be used by the business or enterprise that the site is for.

But more accurately, the purpose is for the statement to protect the business in the event of a dispute.

Why don’t businesses introduce a short, in-plain-English statement with the sole purpose of explaining privacy and data protocols; right to the point, no legalese filler fluff? And easy to access while they’re at it. The larger, complicated privacy policy could back up the short, simple transparency statement. Over time, the way the big, and the little, statements work in tandem could be refined.

With this upgrade in the “privacy policy,” visitors to sites will be able to make better choices and have a firmer grip on how the site manages their data.

Just think how much smoother things would be if every website had a link titled “Transparency Statement” that took you to a one-page document with a friendly font size and no legalese. Better yet, why not call the “transparency statement” something like, “How we handle your private information.”

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.

Your Customers’ High Cost of Privacy

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This writer has said numerous times that privacy is waning and dying. Partly because we have allowed it with our bazillion posts to social and partly because of the shift from print advertising to digital. During that shift, lots of creative types figured out how to figure you out and get inside your digital head. But all at a cost of your privacy.

1PArwa Mahdawi in the Gurdian brilliantly posed “Privacy isn’t dead, but it’s getting very expensive.” So true.

Ask yourself: as a decision maker for your business or employer, when it comes to protecting your organization’s customers’ or clients’ personal data, how proactive are you? And even if you’re proactive, are you aware of just what is involved on the part of the customer/client to ensure that their personal information doesn’t get into the wrong hands?

Or perhaps you’re not very active in this realm at all, figuring that it’s “up to the customer” to figure out how to secure their data, or that it’s the responsibility of the banks and credit card companies.

I contend that businesses who collect valuable data from customers and profit from it – from email addresses, to credit cards to SSNs – have the responsibility to protect the data collected. Otherwise customers inclined to do so must pay a fee to have their personal information protected. That business is booming.

It’s fair to speculate that if businesses, such as retailers and healthcare organizations, had an excellent history of keeping customers’ data airtight, the protection of privacy wouldn’t have become something that people must pay for.

Of course, there are ways that consumers can protect their privacy without paying for it, such as giving up the use of credit and debit cards, always remembering to disconnect their mobile device in public when they don’t need to be online, never seeing doctors, disabling their cookies, etc.

But let’s face it, these free approaches are impractical or even impossible. How many Internet users even know how to disable their cookies, or even what a cyber cookie is? How many know what a VPN is?

Consumers should not have to be tech savvy or have a lot of money or make impractical lifestyle changes in order for their private information to be leak-proof.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.