PRIVACY MATTERS: THE COUNTERVEILLANCE IMPERATIVE OF 2016

National Security, Corporate Security and Consumer Privacy Go Hand in Hand

Today, US Customs and DHS wants foreign nationals to reveal their social media handles. Travelers looking to enter the United States will be asked by US Customs for their social media IDs under a new proposal. The proposal said the field would be added to Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) forms and Form I-94 that is used as a record for arrival and departure at a cost of nearly $300 million dollars. Allegedly the information request is ‘optional’ and what would stop someone from putting in false information? However, with all the data collection going on now, in the USA, maybe a facial recognition will connect to your real social media account and fraudulently answering the question might send you back to where you came from or worse, into a federal prison? Could this be an overreaction or a prediction of what’s to come?

Thirty-two years ago (January 1984), Apple Computer aired its historic TV commercial concluding that with the introduction of the Macintosh “you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984”. Ironically, 32 years later, while Macs and other personal computers gave birth to the knowledge revolution that transformed how information is created and shared worldwide, in many ways…2016 IS very much like “1984”. In the late 1940s, when George Orwell wrote his dystopian novel “1984,” he warned of a future world in which “Big Brother is Watching You”…Oh brother, if only it were Big Brother watching us today!

As the Snowden scandal and other NSA revelations have revealed government surveillance is omnipresent, covert and practiced on a global scale that Orwell might never have imagined. Last week John McAfee @OfficialMcAfee exposed the FBI’s plans to potentially eavesdrop on all American’s emails and browser histories, even if they have to deploy malware to pull it off.

Beyond government spying, what’s surprising is that new digital technologies that were intended to improve how we communicate have now giving others highly efficient tools to snoop and steal from others. In the first decade of the 21st century, through these ‘liberating’ new technologies threats to individual, family and organizational privacy are greater and more diverse than ever:

•Unsecured smartphones and tablets whose open data ports allow cyber-crooks and creeps to infiltrate our devices for illicit purposes.

•GPS technologies, that allow cyber-snoops, mobile carriers and advertisers to know exactly where we are.

•Search engines and social networks that capture personal information (who we are, who and what we like etc.) and use that knowledge to target ads and sales pitches to us

•Malware that leaves phones and computers open to criminal theft of corporate data, credit card and other personally identifiable information

On top of this we have the ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI, of which I’ve already written much about. It’s really about making back-doors that weaken security and encryption in the name of safety and National Security. In reality, National Security for any nation state, especially the USA, is greater, when products from these countries are HARDENED not WEAKENED. As I’ve said before, when you buy a car, you probably choose a Volvo because it’s hardened to protect you and your family in a crash. It's the opposite of the 1976 Ford Pinto that had a major weakness where when you hit the rear bumper the car would catch fire and possibly explode. It’s hard to wake up folks in the US government to understand that GDP, revenues, taxes and overall citizen happiness increase, when productivity and export sales increase but who would want to buy a vulnerable phone or a weakened firewall or router because FBI, CIA, NSA or some other three letter agency asked for back-doors, keys and weakness in the encryption.

Could it be that National Security, Corporate Security and Consumer Privacy actually go hand in hand? Does the British exit from the EU even hint to this fact? Think about it – they want less red tape, less paperwork, they want to build better products, control their borders and increase their jobs. Their National Security in the UK will get stronger, not weaker, as a result. The same holds true with ENCRYPTION – encryption is a STRONG BORDER. Should you remove the BORDER, remove the ENCRYPTION and go “BORDERLESS” what do you get? We all lose our privacy, corporations continue to hemorrhage data at a cost of billions and National Security remains at risk because it’s easier for the ‘bad guys’ to cross the removed borders and steal the data, mangle the data and worst case cause a horrific cyber terrorism event such as shutting down a weak and unencrypted power grid or cause unencrypted airline control systems to crash airplanes.

It's time to reconsider our approach to national security. If our own government were to defend its networks with strong encryption, we wouldn’t see breaches like OPM.gov losing 22m personally identifiable information (PII) records to other nation states such as China. Our government should start leading the charge believing that strong encryption is good for the country. It requires more trust of corporations and citizens – because they too deserve to reclaim their privacy and not be victimized by the bad guys, in the name of a false sense of security.

This means we need to all practice counter-surveillance or ‘counterveillance’ – many years ago the US Government had posters out there saying that ‘loose lips sink ships’ which means data leakage and data theft is a bad thing.

Which actually means that STRONG ENCRYPTION is a good thing. Build a strong ship so it won’t sink. Don’t purposefully make or share weaknesses so the ship doesn’t sink. I offer you a free course on Counterveillance to help you realize and understand how and why you are under surveillance and why surveillance weakens National Security. Encryption Strengthens it. I implore you to join me in this philosophy by joining https://www.savecrypto.org/ and stand up for no backdoors. Stand up for strong security.

About the Author:

Gary S. Miliefsky is the co-founder and CEO of SnoopWall, Inc. and is a breach prevention expert who has appeared on Good Morning America, the Today Show, CNN, FOX New, CTV and network programming across North America. SnoopWall, Inc. the leader in network breach prevention, is also ranked as the top mobile device security company by Cyber security 500 and one of the top 50 Most Valuable Tech Companies in Insight Success.