Category: Cyberinfrastructure

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Latest Read: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff rocked Silicon Valley and beyond. Shoshana is Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and a former Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

Shoshana has delivered a critically important book not to be missed. This is a “once in a decade book” that digs deep into digital surveillance by Google and Facebook.

So, before you ask about recent US Senate votes to continue warrantless access to your internet search and browser history, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are harvesting just about all of your personal data.

So, the term ‘surveillance capitalism’ is new for many who only recently see this term added to our societal lexicon. The ability for Google and Facebook to simply take your data, mash it up, and sell it (without your knowledge) may indeed surprise many. But the depth of their reach Shoshana reveals may shock you.

You may not yet realize how Google and Facebook have already tuned their artificial intelligence platforms to data mining you even deeper than you may realize. Actually, think you with nothing to hide? Think again.

Google and Facebook lead in data harvesting

There is a common understanding that ‘free’ is just that. A ‘free’ email account and ‘free’ social media platforms? Nothing short of a lie. And the misdirection that ‘you become the product’ is no longer accurate. Shoshana refocuses this misdirection to convey Google and Facebook have so much of your private data, they now simply harvest your daily input toward their behavioral capitalism.

For Google this data mining includes all products and services including the acquired Nest thermostat. This is not new by the way. The LA Times reported back in May 2008 a plan by Charter to track customer web habits. These messages remind me of 2009’s The Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain.

How Google Maps harvested your personal data

Today the question is not how, but rather how much you use and rely upon Google Maps. When Google’s StreetView cars drove past your house (and mine) taking photographs — their cars had surveillance tools that downloaded your home’s WiFi payload data.

Wait, what? Oh yes, they did.
As a result, Attorneys General from 38 states sued Google. 12 other countries, mainly from Europe also sued.

So, just how sensitive was the data collected by Maps? Technical experts in Canada, France, and the Netherlands discovered that StreetView’s data harvesting included:

names
telephone numbers
credit card information
passwords (Yes Google harvested your passwords)
e-mails (full text)
chat transcripts
dating site data
pornography site data
browsing behavior
medical data
location data

In addition, Shoshana reveals how Google, forced to concede that it had intercepted and stored “payload data” the personal information grabbed from unencrypted Wi-Fi transmissions. In some instances your entire email message, URLs and passwords were harvested.

John Hanke, Vice President for Google Maps previously directed Keyhole, a CIA-satellite mapping company. After Google purchased Keyhole, Hanke directed the upgrade of Google Earth. The full 25 page legal filing for your reading pleasure: In the Matter of Google, Inc.: Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, File No.: EB-10-IH-4055, NAL/Acct. No.: 201232080020, FRNs: 0010119691, 0014720239, Federal Communications Commission, April 13, 2012, 12–13.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Globalization Network

Zoom out (wider)

Zoom video conferencing has no role on a college campus. The pandemic, as noted previously pushed many colleges to deploy a video conferencing solution under a less than workable timeframe.

Fair to suggest no risk assessment was completed. Some colleges hold a campus-wide license agreement while smaller schools have more limited host deployments.

Colleges need only review their mission and organizational goals to confirm a change from Zoom is needed. Many colleges have adopted strong mission and vision language to promote student learning and inclusiveness.

Truly accepting your College’s mission, vision and language is essential to understanding why Zoom violates their lives. Many do not seem to care or understand the true security and privacy vulnerabilities.

My initial post just scratched the surface. The cool factor juicing up your background image may in fact be more important than security and privacy of students.

Yea, its a videoconferencing app and during a pandemic — how bad can it be?

Enter hate groups

In addition to the racist Zoombombing at California State University Long Beach in late March, hate groups have begun hacking Zoom meetings.

As widely reported Jewish groups, teachers and families are being Zoombombed by white supremacists. The Verge reported White supremacists are targeting Jewish groups on Zoom

University of Colorado Bolder:
An online biology lecture was hijacked and anti-semitic messages were displayed. One professor is Jewish. A news article by Colorado public radio addressed this source: a student enrolled in the class posted the lecture’s Zoom ID number to reddit, an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Hate groups then entered the Zoom meeting.

University of Washington:
Students, instructors face threats and hateful speech as Zoom meetings get ‘bombed’

Binghampton University:
Racist interruptions affect Zoom classes at BU

Arizona State University and The University of Southern California:
‘Zoombombing’ Attacks Disrupt Classes Online Zoom classes were disrupted by individuals spewing racist, misogynistic or vulgar content.

University of Texas:
Virtual meeting of black UT students interrupted with racist slurs, students say

Just imagine a racist zoombombing during your next online class, campus event, Dean’s meeting, or public art performance. And the damage to your College brand becomes front and center in a social media world.

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Latest Read: Scorecasting

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim may be the closest thing to a sports version of Freakonomics.

Moskowitz was a Booth Professor of Finance at time of publication. Today he teaches at the Yale School of Management. Jon Wertheim holds a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is Executive Editor at Sports Illustrated

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won by L. Jon Wertheim and Tobias Moskowitz

As we headed into the Easter weekend, the NFL virtual draft was the only sports headline. Coronavirus shut down all sports recently.

Scorecasting it’s worth noting, reveals the recent NFL draft number one picks, turn out equal to a number ten pick regarding rookie performance.

Yet the money NFL teams waste on top picks should change. Scorecasting reviewed the signing bonuses of Ryan Leaf and Sam Bradford, top busts from the NFL draft. Actually the Leaf vs. Payton Manning draft reversal remains popular with sports fans even today.

For all the cable sports hype regarding player performance leading up to the draft, Moskowitz and Wertheim separate the signal to noise ratio very efficiently.

The hours (upon hours) of endless player and coaching interviews, season hi-lights showcasing how each team should draft the data reveals is only good for … selling commercials. Actually fans should wise up and gain some hours back in their lives.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Globalization Network

Zoom out

How quickly the ground shifted on Zoom. Since March 30th the video conferencing app has been exposed by gaping security and privacy vulnerabilities. The impact on higher education is immense and must be addressed swiftly.

Zoom’s security and privacy vulnerabilities are deal breakers for higher education. Why? The online journal Inside Higher Ed shared shocking news: Dissertation Defense on Zoom Interrupted by Racist Attack. Yes, the ’N word’ was zoombombed at Cal State Long Beach during a dissertation defense. Educause links to multiple zoombombing articles.

Stunningly, multiple campus zoombombings quickly followed prompting the FBI to issue this warning: Teleconferencing and Online Classroom Hijacking During COVID-19 Pandemic addressing concerns across higher education. Yet, The Chronicle of Higher Education returns NO articles about Zoombombing.

These two events instantly change any campus conversation that all is well using Zoom. A Zoom cool factor was going viral just as Coronavirus closed down all higher education colleges. Students can sway easily via online trends.

Look at Zoom’s March 18th Collection of your Personal Data privacy statement:

Zoom gathers and sells to data brokers very personal information of your students and colleagues. Add the orange hi-lighted scraping of your campus network data and asset information.

Remember when an app is free many times you become the product. Zoom (NASDAQ) has been operating for nine years.

I know what you are thinking — how did this happened?
Many colleges had no idea Zoom was reckless with the data security and privacy of our students. Prior to coronavirus Zoom had about 12 million users. By late March this jumped to over 100 million. Instant capacity issues.

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Latest Read: The Perfect Weapon

The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David E. Sanger is an amazing read. To be frank this book is very quite unnerving, yet should be certainly mandatory reading. We have been at war for a couple of years on an electronic battlefield. This seems to be acting as a deterrent to actual war on a global scale.

Above all, we live today in a more complex world now regarding COVID-19. Recent cyber attacks and the flattening of attack tools is unquestionably changing the world right in-front of our eyes.

Sanger’s book will help you see it even more clearly: today a perfect storm is forming across the internet.

Therefore, The Perfect Weapon reveals so much in the opening chapters regarding successful Russian attacks upon US military and government networks.

On the contrary, the previous generation was driven by nuclear mutually assured destruction. In contrast, cyberwar or ‘cyber conflict’ is very different.

Russia’s penetration of the Pentagon’s secret network in 2008 in fact, is very upsetting reading. Sanger recalls how NSA’s Debora Plunkett discovered rogue USB sticks, left scattered across a US military base parking lot in the Middle East provided Moscow’s entry into the Pentagon networks.

WannaCry ransomware

North Korea is the boldest example of this book’s theme: A backwards third world country hacking Sony? Yes. In addition, North Korea launched the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack. On the other hand, their ransomware was unleashed across global hospitals and schools. Can you imagine WannaCry 3.0 locking down hospitals in the mist of stopping coronavirus?

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