The New Gold and The New Thief

The New Gold and The New Thief

I wanted to photo blog and write a blog about data analytics, luckily the atmosphere around us gave a platform to combine both. Everyone must be well informed about the FB data leak and how Cambridge Analytica used millions of Facebook users’ data to influence one of the powerful elections in the world. That is all old story, we know Facebook is capable of even more. Let’s see what they are capable of enjoy the photo collage ahead!

Dear Facebook,

I am tired of you presenting me with my personal memories, my important moments, my life events, etc. Sometimes it feels you are much closer to me than my family and friends. Over a decade, we grew so close, I have been getting gifts and presents from you on my timeline. You remember things I forgot and would have never recalled in my entire life. I wanted to give you something, after all, relationships should be two ways, isn’t it? Take it!

We have made a timeline post – From rest of the world to all of you at Facebook😊

Aww! Well, we did not know that, we thought it is fun to share those data. I know, it was my decision to share it with you but I trusted you. Why don’t you trust me and share the same with me? But, I should say you are not alone, there is a guy called Google, you must meet him! He sends me a greeting card every month, he knows the places I go, he knows the cities I visit, he knows what I like, he knows how many miles I traveled, etc. You should see his monthly greeting card, it is so accurate and better than my memory.

Really! I thought you said you read my messages. It just sounds to me like, I have a computer and a mobile phone, I do not read my mobile phone just because I have a computer.

p.s My computer and mobile phone are different brands but owned by the same owner.

I know this is just a small piece, the big is yet to come.

Offline conversations lead to related ads! Genius!. I thought I saw these in some movies, passively linking the mobile phone cameras and mics to have an eye on the whole world, by the way, do you use the camera as well?

A guy who exposed bad data is a criminal. A guy who exposed good data is an entrepreneur.

At last, someone read it lol!

I know, you will pull it off!

Like what you did for the US? By the way, will you recommend me if I run for 2019 Indian election?

Okay, 500$ it is, price accepted. How about throwing up Facebook’s secrets and paying you guys $500 bucks? You say, we accepted agreements by signing into Facebook so there is a difference in we are using your data and you using our data. To me, it looks same.

Okay, giving away the data to someone so that they can run algorithms to find out target audience vs you running the algorithm to find out target audience. I get the difference! But what difference does it make to me?

You mean, Amazon – The guy who kills retailers, who knows what would I need every time I login, who always shows up lucrative items and make me to buy, who shows a different brand other than my preference as Amazon’s choice or bestseller and play mind games with me to make me buy it? Maybe it is true, maybe it is not, how would I know?

You mean, Apple – The guy who thinks iPhones are not mobile phones, who thinks left hand drive is the correct way to drive while the whole traffic is right-hand drive?

You mean, Google – Who collects everything else from me that you guys don’t get and does some super programming to tell me and others who I am?

You mean, Twitter – The small guy who is now the broadcaster of hot news?

You mean, Microsoft – No, I like Satya and Bill so he is not your friend, lol. Though, it makes me think if just a Facebook page running on Microsoft OS can do so much what will be the capability of Microsoft?

This is not a mistake, will you allow your employee back into Facebook if he says I did a mistake after stealing and selling data?

There you go, cool feature, isn’t it?

How about inciting WWIII?

I know, When I was in school I and my friends used to do notorious things, one gets caught, we will not give friends’ names. Be a gentleman😊

All the Images/ News Sources Above: https://www.inshorts.com/

The Data is the new gold and hot commodity with the power of computing and intellectual brains, the opportunities data analytics presents are endless. It is no different than nuclear science, you could use it to kill thousands are light up an entire city. The data science, data analytics and data mining know about you more than you think. How will you feel if a person knows

• ·         When you get up?
• ·         When you bath?
• ·         When do you eat?
• ·         When do you sleep?
• ·         How much do you walk?
• ·         What potential diseases you could have?
• ·         Who is your doctor?
• ·         Who is your boss?
• ·         Where is your office?
• ·         About your children, their school, age, interests, picture?
• ·         The phone you use, the car you have, the investments you do?
• ·         Your passwords, your pins, your account details?
• ·         Your annual dental visits and physical visits?
• ·         The last shirt you bought?
• ·         The last city you visited?
• ·         The next vacation of yours?
• ·         The wifis you connect to.

Would you panic? Then you really need to panic now, because there are search engines, algorithms, analytics, AIs better than humans in mining your data and do predictive analysis. Influencing human beings, I am not sure if it already happening or it is going to happen but the unfortunate thing seems to be certain, you are not buying what you want to, you are buying what your device and shopping platform thinks you need to buy. We are already surrendered to the underlying data world. Your Mobile phones are watching you, your computers are transmitting your data, your cars are listening to you. With the advanced devices around us, comes the advanced risks. Your data is all out there, no matter what, it is possible to be broken someday and can be used against you. A couple of years back, I did think that just not sharing data on Facebook with make me safe, I have not shared anything in quite some time but Facebook still knows what I am looking for, which car I would like to buy, which vacation spot I like to go, I wanted to close the gates and uninstall Facebook completely, wait what Facebook App is a default app for the mobile phone and I cannot uninstall it? I thought I had full control over the phone I have. Looks like it is the other way around. Do you know your average sleep time? You probably would give 8 hours but your devices will give an accurate figure. All the devices in your streets know when the street sleeps when the street is active. Imagine an advertiser approaching Google with a request on when to send his ice cream van to a street to have maximum ice creams sold? Will you be able to tell? But Google can! It is a simple cakewalk for google, probably a Google intern would do it, just collect the device's data in the street and find out what is the timeslot maximum people are at home, give it to the ice cream seller.  See the picture below to know what America does at a given time slot😊

Source: http://flowingdata.com/2015/12/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-americans/

So, what is the end to all this? Quit computer and quit mobile phones? No, not at all, there are too many positives to get rid of. I like maps getting me the directions and traffic alerts, but I don’t like someone else knowing my travel route. I like Facebook telling me tomorrow’s forecast is rain stay dry, but I don’t like someone selling me an umbrella based on that data. The best way to protect from a thief is to have your gates locked. Being cautious in sharing the data will help to certain extent. How to fight passive theft? Well, I don’t know the answer. The answer should come from both the parties involved. We have just touched the tip of the iceberg. This one fell off and we all are against Facebook, there are bigger things happening. We pay nothing for the services they offer, they take the payments in the form of our data. Hope we are not destroyed by this!

p.s Nice pictures, I need to share it on Facebook and Blogger with my friends lol.

#howsafeisyourdata, #Facebook, #Datatheft, #Analytics, #staysafe