Carole Cadwalladr introduced a new film on Netflix; The Great Hack. Some comments suggested the film was terrifying. I would suggested it was extremely disturbing.
If you use Social Media and especially Facebook or Twitter then you are in arguably the largest interest group on the planet in history. You may even consider whether the benefits of using Social Media outweigh some striking and disturbing realities.
For my sins I have bathed in these technologies since and actually before their inception. As a lead systems developer with BT and later Networks Director for their main Global competitor. My responsibility was the implementation of the networks that support the capacity and capability of the main Service Providers such as AOL, Freeserve/ Wanadoo, Easynet etc. Before leaving BT I led a number of programmes that assessed new technologies. Some of these technologies were coming from a source we are now familiar with and utilised Location Based Services and data mining. Let’s just say that I was less than impressed with the potential intrusion into people’s personal space. I certainly did not want an advert for a burger because I was in the vicinity of a MacDonald’s outlet. Let’s just say, when they are not developing covert intrusive applications for subterfuge activities they are murdering Palestinian kiddies.
The Great Hack was an extraordinarily well researched documentary. My knowledge of the capabilities of certain platforms caused me to pay attention to the presentation and think hard about it afterwards.
Before I go on let me give you a little taster of where I am coming from. We are surely all aware of the great phone hacking scandal? Utter bullshit. The main culprits were never even questioned. This was not hacking in the true sense. This was pushing on an open door. When mobile phones burst on to the scene we were introduced to every new user, nerd if you will, on public transport torturing our eardrums with their attempts to find the most unusual, annoying or cool ring tone. The cognoscenti even set up an annoying voice message for when they were not available – by my reasoning that would be forever. Had they spent a bit more time listening to the options rather than honing their stupid ‘hi, you’re through to the sexiest guy on the planet, leave you number and measurements and …’ they may have spotted an invitation to reset their default voice message recovery pass code. Generally they never did get that far. They were too busy imagining the long list of lovelies queuing for attention. The most popular of these factory set default pass codes was 3333 and it was not time stamped, at least not originally. If you did not change it the default pass code remained. I found this out by accident and alerted my staff to reset their pass code. Somebody somewhere discovered this little faux pas and told their mates – in the press. All you needed to do was to phone someone of interest at the time they were clearly not about to answer; perhaps 3AM. When their mobile went to answer you interrupt the message with #3333 and bingo you are listening to their voice messages – you actually have full control of their voice message service – you could actually lock them out from remote interrogation of their own message facility. Was this hacking in the sense we imaging some nerdish code breaker? what about a security guy selling a list of celebrity mobile phone numbers? could that be possible? Not so much hacking as snooping?
Ok, if you are still with me I would like to offer a simple or analogous version of a danger exposed by The Great Hack.
You set out for work one day. You are stopped by a market researcher and agree to take a short survey. Your name and address gives a little info about you and your social class. There follows a number of questions about preferences where you vary from totally agree to totally disagree and all points between. You even give a few comments then off you go. You are stopped again and again by various market researchers and by the end of the day you have taken about 30 such surveys. How do you feel. You are exhausted but you also feel a sense of intrusion. You have given out way too much information – far too much info and you begin to feel used. This has been an extraordinary day for sure. Never to be repeated!!! or so you thought.
Every day when you use Social Media; Facebook or Twitter you see comments. This may be from the entire community or within the group you have worked hard to expand. You are invited to read the comment, like the comment, retweet the comment, retweet the comment and add your own personal spin on the comment. You may not realise this but you have just conducted an esoteric and covert survey. In fact these are the most honest surveys because you were not aware you were doing a survey and you felt you were in a trusted environment. You only thought that – it is not, was not and in fact never was a trusted environment. How do you feel. Every time you use Social Media you contribute to the vast study the vast storage about you, your friends and family and acquaintances, their likes, dislike, views, opinions preferences. Your entire environment is sitting in this gigantic store of (not data) information waiting to be mined. Mined by whom, for what purpose, with your knowledge? If George Orwell could see this he would be blown away by the magnitude of his under-estimate of the future.
Have you ever tried to search for an obscure word. The search engine takes ages to find it – sometimes as long as half a second? Today’s search engines are incredibly powerful. I am not sure what techniques but I am sure it would be much more powerful with the binomial seven step search back in the day. Let us just accept that any piece of information, if in the store, will be found to all intents and purposes instantly.
Every single action you take on Social Media is captured into the most gigantic data store. Data mining is the capability whereby you can dive into a vast mine of information and run a report that retrieves very specific information about a very specific topic. Remember ever single thing you have said or responded to or liked or commented on or hated is in this data mine. A cleverly crafted report on Jeremy Corbyn can identify who likes him, who hates him who is indifferent. It will also retrieve comments that may even embellish your views. This may be an enormous report but you can report on the report on the report and refine your search until you have very very specific information. This could be the very information that identifies an area where Jeremy Corbyn is viewed in a rather neutral manner. This could be very much a swing area and one where anti Corbyn voters may wish to target with negative anti Corbyn propaganda.
How do you feel now. They wouldn’t do that, they wouldn’t dare, they couldn’t possibly, they wouldn’t get away with that. Oh yes they can and they do.
Therefor, The Great Hack is really an account of exactly this. The elite recognise that we have one single form of power – the ballot box. They pay to understand who we are, what we are about what are our likes and dislikes and how can they manipulate us to their way of thinking for their benefit. They do this by getting into our minds, under our skin to the point they know us in a sense better than we know ourselves; because normal humans do not think that way. Shazam – I have just defined democracy, British style. They are not only controlling the people
THEY ARE ACTUALLY CONTROLLING THE VERY DEMOCRACY AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO AND SAY!
So when somebody tells us about our proud tradition of democracy, we will know that:
BRITISH DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST THAT MONEY CAN BUY!