The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

NSA Whistleblower and crypto-mathematician, William Binney was recently interviewed by Russia Today. During this interview Binney revealed that the U.S. government records the emails of almost all U.S. citizens. Binney resigned from the NSA in 2001 claiming that he no longer desired to be associated with alleged violations of the U.S. constitution.

“Domestically, they’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country and assembling that information, building communities that you have relationships with, and knowledge about you; what your activities are; what you’re doing. So the government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process.” He estimated that one telecom alone was sending the government an “average of 320 million logs every day since 2001.”he private

With Big Brother monitoring the bulk of U.S. citizens, it is more important to remain vigilant and to look toward the private sector to develop the necessary solutions to protect our privacy.

While looking through my iPhone apps this morning, I found it disturbing that I really do not know what data all these mobile apps on my phone are collecting. We should not have to browse to a mobile app site to read their privacy policies – only to find out that we have limited choices, if any at all (if we want to use their software), in restricting the personal data that they collect.

What is going on, according to experts, is that applications like Angry Birds and even more innocuous-seeming software, like that which turns your phone into a flashlight, defines words or delivers Bible quotes, are also collecting personal information, usually the user’s location and sex and the unique identification number of a smartphone. But in some cases, they cull information from contact lists and pictures from photo libraries. –NYT

Mobile apps are still in Wild Wild West mode where privacy invasion has become a runaway train. With more than 1 million mobile apps available to download, many free – at what cost to you is free? Maybe you inadvertantly allowed the app to collect your email address for marketing purposes, or gave it access to your contact list. If an app does not have settings to control your privacy or to control access to your contacts or other personal data – don’t use that app!

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently published a guide for mobile developers, Marketing your Mobile App: Get it Right From the Start - encouraging developers to understand and utilize advertising and privacy rules prior to creating a mobile app. Unfortunately, there are way too many app developers who do not respect user privacy.

The publication follows agency actions against two mobile app developers regarding information collection and product claims. In one such agency action, an app developer paid $50,000 to settle FTC charges that it failed to require parental notice and consent before collecting and disclosing children’s personal information. A second developer settled with the Commission after claiming without proper substantiation that its mobile app treated acne. Advertising claims and privacy issues both have special importance for digital health and mobile health developers because of heightened advertising and privacy concerns for products that make health or safety claims or collect medical information. –JDSupra | Legal News

Privacy dangers lurk in ubiquitous data-gathering mobile apps and the more knowledge that we gain in this area – the better informed we become in making wise app choices.

Your data makes everyone money but you… Here’s how they do it…

Conway, Arkansas is home to one of the largest processors of consumer data that you have probably never heard of, where every millisecond counts. Acxiom Corporation’s network menu sports more than 23,000 computer servers that collect, collate and analyze consumer data daily.

“It peers deeper into American life than the F.B.I. or the I.R.S., or those prying digital eyes at Facebook and Google. If you are an American adult, the odds are that it knows things like your age, race, sex, weight, height, marital status, education level, politics, buying habits, household health worries, vacation dreams — and on and on.”  (Singer, “NYT”).

Gizmodo defined Acxiom as the faceless organization that knows everything about you.

“Unsurprisingly, it makes its money by selling its information, to customers like Wells Fargo, HSBC, Toyota, Ford, and even Macy’s. In truth, it will sell data to anyone who can afford to buy it. Business seems to be booming, too: last year, it posted a profit of $77.26 million on sales of $1.13 billion”. –Gizmodo

Acxiom has a reputation of collecting data better than anyone else. They collect everything including websites, loyalty programs, retail point-of-sale data, self-reported sources, public records,  employment drug testing data, background checks, criminal histories, birth records, education data, vehicle identification numbers, driver’s licenses, marriage  licenses, and you can bet that they know what kitty litter brand you buy for your feline too.

Adding more big dogs to the data-mining mix – such as Alliance Data,BlueKai, Epsilon, EXelate, Facebook, Google, Intellidyn, RapLeaf, and Yahoo!; all profit from taking your information. The sheer scale of this data has far exceeded human sense-making capabilities.

 ”Our personal data is collected, categorized and filtered by Facebook’s interface and sold off to advertisers. Every message we send to one another is read and filed, every website we visit is recorded and every photo we post is scanned.” –Matthew Schmid

Presidential Campaigns use Big Data too

One of the hottest jobs in Presidential campaigns today is that of the Data Mining Scientist:

“…whose job it is to sort through terabytes of data and billions of behaviors tracked in voter files, consumer databases, and site logs. They’ll use the numbers to uncover hidden patterns that predict how you’ll vote, if you’ll pony up with a donation, and if you’ll influence your friends to support a candidate.” -SXSW

Buxton, [a secretive data-mining project] topped AP news this morning, revealing how presidential candidate, Mitt Romney was able to target rich republican donors across the U.S.

The Secrecy…

There is no doubt that data-mining is big business. Corporations are making tens of millions of dollars harvesting our data while dining on Beluga caviar .

Our society is literally being transformed into a technological monitoring grid.  Virtually everything we do is monitored, tracked and recorded in some way. If we are not very careful, eventually we could end up living in a society that is much more oppressive than anything George Orwell ever dreamed of. –The Economic Collapse