I was cleaning my kitchen tonight grumbling to myself because Walmart forgot a bag of potatoes in my pickup order, and my son really likes fresh fries with his grilled chicken. (I’m a little under the weather and don’t want to go back to the grocery tonight).
Then something hit me. I can pull up my Walmart receipts not only for online orders, but anything I’ve purchased with any of my credit cards. They’ve tied them all back to me. So, Bentonville knows how much toilet paper I’ve purchased. And how much propane. And rice. And beans. And I’m sure that they know there’s only one of me living here. It’s pretty easy to create a profile based on that information that indicates I’m of a certain mindset. And, they can easily predict that I’m sitting on a lot more than a bunch of TP, especially if they’re sharing information with 3rd parties. They can probably tell you things I own that I don’t even remember purchasing, and they probably can predict how I’m going to behave better than I can.
For many of you, this isn’t news. For some of you it is. I’m completely aware of how much information is out there about all of us, and how it can be correlated. But, sometimes I have “hey, wait a minute…” moments when I realize how it could be used. Since corporate America and the government are becoming less and less distinguishable as separate entities, that’s something else into take into consideration. The detained, personally-identifiable demographic and psychometric profiles that have been built for us is discomforting, and the entities that have created them or have access to them is disturbing.
I’m not paranoid about this. Right now, they probably don’t care all that much and I’m not going to lose any sleep. But, it could change in the (near-ish) future, especially as big data and machine learning techniques are applied more and more pervasively. It will require less and less effort to use this data for nefarious purposes.
It’s likely far too late for me. I have the online radar cross-section of an Iowa class battleship. But, I should still use cash more often, and shop with companies that aren’t likely to be involved in this sort of thing if for no other reason than to encourage them. But it’s hard. Big retailers have pretty much paved the planet with big box stores and Amazons.
I’ve been buying a 4 pack of 1 lb. bottles of propane twice a month for the last 2 1/2 months. It’s not a lot, but it’s anomalous for a single guy who’s only dependent is here half-time. (Perhaps this isn’t the best example. It alone doesn’t paint much of a picture.)
I bought those all with a debit card. I also bought firearms (the sort that people who are prepping buy) with that same debit card. Several of them. While, by law, the government can’t track that (ha), I bought them from a corporate chain. That’s valuable marketing data. And they’re required to keep it, anyway. When I go to the gun range, I use that same debit card. They know I practice. I buy everything with that card. I used it for the down-payment on my vehicle. I use a card for the purchase of tons of ham radio stuff, too. I look like I’m preparing for the end of the world…and plan to take pictures of it…and broadcast it…and publish a song about it.
Those cards are attached to my name and can easily be tied back to my username here and elsewhere which I’ve used for 20+ years. (Lots of things can.) Even if it wasn’t, my habits on various sites could tie that card back to e-mail addresses which can be tied back to usernames.
I don’t use that username on porn sites. I use a unique name. Same with dating sites. I also have a few Reddit aliases. I have a blog that doesn’t use my real name or any of my usernames. But, there’s no doubt in my mind that those could be tied back to me and there’s a database out there that doesn’t belong to PornHub, OkCupid, Tinder or Reddit where that data lives.
No one piece of data there says much of anything. However, all of those pieces of data tied together and correlated with other data (for instance, how many people stockpile propane and rice, own an AR-15, go to the gun range regularly, post on r/preppers, etc. a certain set of views, certain habits, etc.) paint a very, very detailed picture of who I am, how I think, what I do, etc. Even if you go download your Facebook data it shows you in a basic category. Mine is “established adult life.”
Mix that in with facial recognition, Stingray systems that know in real time who you’re calling and feed network maps of your associates. The FBI and DHS know what kind of people are associating and where and why, and who’s likely to riot. It’s being used during the ongoing rebellion that is happening right now in this country.
I am far from the only person who’s realizes how dangerous this can be.
This is what Cambridge Analytica did to profile people ahead of the 2016 election. Big data won the 2016 election. It’s what Palintr does. (Palintr is owned by Peter Thiel who was a big investor in Facebook.)
It’s what law enforcement is increasingly doing. What happens when you tie that data into an arrest record, a criminal record? Basically, they’re basically, they’re creating the Department of Pre-Crime using AI instead of precogs.
The Chinese Communist Party is using this technology to build their social credit system. Why wouldn’t the government and corporations want to deploy a system like that here? What’s really going to stop them when our senators and representatives are bought and paid for by dark corporate money and tend to lean authoritarian anyway?
Right now, I’m not particularly worried, but it’s only a matter of time before this stuff is used by the US government and corporations in really intrusive and chilling ways. There have been reports that social media activity is already being used for credit scoring.
Of course, most people will say, “well, if you haven’t done anything bad, what do you have to worry about?” And Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun, famously said in 20+ years ago, “you have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” People just accept it.
“Who cares,” you say? Computers care. And they’ll tattle on you to the humans.
And I’m not that worried right now. But scope creep worries me. The inevitable authoritarian takeover of the government worries me. What if they can build a list of the 500,000 people in the US most likely to get involved in a violent rebellion? People who don’t belong to militias. What if they decide to go after people who are just going about their lives thinking they might have to defend themselves or their country or their belief systems. The wacky things the political Right has been claiming might happen are now technologically possible. They’re still nutters, nobody is coming for them and they never were. People who’ve now been dehumanized or don’t want to play nicely with the authoritarians? Well, you decide.
Don’t give me any bullshit about the Constitution. Nobody cares about that anymore, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green…it’s about raw power and ego. Those are the only people insane and self-absorbed enough to enter politics now. Mr. Smith ain’t going to Washington.
What if they want to deny credit to people who simply don’t agree with the regime?
What if they decide that all people who prep must be just plain insane or otherwise mentally-ill like hoarders and correlate that with your medical records and inform your healthcare providers? Or maybe even your employer? You know, we can’t have people out there thinking for themselves and preparing to live while the rest of the proles die! We’ve got to bash that right out of their heads with threats of job loss and therapy and drugs.
What if you have bad genes? What if you support causes that threaten them? What if you have a lineage that they don’t like but isn’t immediately obvious? What amount of Jewish blood did it take for the Nazis to consider you a Jew? What amount of African blood did it take for the Jim Crow South to consider you black? Are you a third-generation Mexican immigrant? They might not like that…
That’s a long rant. But I’m passionate that we all understand the breadth and depth of what’s going on with your data. (I think that most of the links in this comment could merit their own post.) The possibilities once it’s aggregated, correlated and analyzed are both mind-bending and terrifying.