Search engines and social networks – a personal study of their dark side.
Search engines and social networks – a personal study of their dark side.
Whenever you fill a website form, or when you write about you and your family : Are you concerned about your privacy? Theses information one way or another will end up being publicly readable. Of course, one would have to be interested in you. A few tools are at disposal – to cite just a few:
– Google
– Social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and G+. (To cite just a few)
– web.archive.org (search the past of the web)
– Wolfram Aplha (Statistical informations)
Most social networks try to improve their privacy features (Facebook the first), but as you could notice, one simple bug could expose Facebook’s founder as well as 800 millions of other people personal pictures for a short time. These pictures now are still findable with a few well-placed searches.
Back in 2010, during an “gambling” compliance application for one of my clients, i have been summoned over the French gambling police (Police des jeux) for an interview (Most of the less-connected actors in that sector have to go through this.) The interview quickly became nasty when one police detective began to asking me about a “.com” poker room that was operating illegally on the French market back in 2005, I indeed participated to the creation of the website for the poker room, by over viewing the creation of their CMS (content management system, for the profane). On Linkedin (social professional network) I later on mentioned it (Very good for finding new clients.). It seems that the police officers accessed the public information by querying my name, and began to think that i was an actual employee of the Poker Room. This lead to 2 hours of non-understandable questions and quite a battering: leading to a nice trauma about authority figures ! Meaning, in my opinion, that writing even the slightest information can sometimes get you in a very interesting movie-like interrogation room! I, of course afterwards completely changed my Linkedin profile to my hobbies (photography, writing …) so that might not happen again.
Later, just before Christmas 2011 I was coming back from Harrods in London, using a black cab. One of my sons found a credit card on the floor of the taxi. Of course he wanted to keep it, as he like these shiny plastic rectangles, yet powerless, but synonym of money! I took it from him, noticing that the VISA (begins by digit 4) card was owned by “Renaud H.” at some French bank. As my intentions were to help a fellow French citizen, i forced myself not to look at any other details of the card (number and secure code to be precise.). I swiftly asked the cab driver if he drove any French people around – Of course, the answer was yes. I gave him the card, and began thinking that poor Renaud would never find it back. Using my Blackberry, i googled the first and last name of Renaud and found out, thanks to Linkedin about his work, job title and email address. Even better, due to an ad posted by him in France, i even found out his phone number. Now what are the chances of this guy not having any doubles ? (At least 5 people in France are using my name and first name.). Well luck I guess. I wrote him an email about his card, and rang the French phone number that was giving me a british tone. No answer, so i left him a message.
Just before getting out of the cab, Renaud called me and mailed me back. He seemed a bit troubled that i found his phone number, which i explained later on in a reply. Anyways, the man was quite happy that his card was safe –I sent the cab down to his address. Renaud later thanked me, when he retrieved his card.
Now, I would have warned him that he should check for suspicious transactions in the next few weeks or months on his card, because after all i could have written down all his details, and even his address – but moreover, so could have the driver. I then remembered 2010, when i was about to be arrested just for writing about a “.com” gambling website. Sometimes, the less said, the better – Hopefully, bank’s fraud detection system will take care of any suspicious activities.
Suspicious activities on my own card made me confident in these systems. AMEX called me a few weeks prior to the “Christmas event” about myself being in Switzerland and trying to buy an expensive jumper in a luxury shop. Being in London, i wondered at first that if it was one of my online shopping sessions. I “googled” the shop’s name and quickly found it’s contact details : phone, owner and address (KNEUBUEHLER CREATION AG). Calling them, the staff told me that I was physically in the shop, with an American Express card in my name and trying to speak some French. I guess this might have been why they got suspicious and refused to let the buyer get away with the loot. Details were however a bit shady as the shop staff didn’t really know how i got to them so fast. They told me to just call my bank and didn’t want to have anything else to do with me. It suddenly came to me! As i rarely use this particular credit card : I, in fact used it at River bank Park Plaza hotel’s restaurant : Chino Latino a few weeks back and the pretty waitress (with a nice eastern Europe accent) went away with the it for about one minute. She came back with the credit card billing device.
Yes, my card had been skimmed – cloned!
Again, most of my information being available on Google: Address, phone number, email, nationality – It was then pretty easy job to use it to buy goods.
To finish on the vigilante note, I then told Park Plaza that i knew one of their shareholders (Thank you again, Google !), and i got their accounting officer investigating and reviewing their billing procedures. Pretty small victory, but it felt good.
Some countries use the “Super injunction” (Gag order), so that anyone revealing one’s secret is illegal. These are mostly for wealthy and well-connected people. The example of AMM versus HXW was to prevent the news that Jeremy Clarkson (English journalist) was having an affair. Of course, twitter being twitter: Uncontrollable live news and gossips, a few hundred thousand people were illegally talking publicly about Jeremy. He then lifted and I guess had to come up clean to his wife.
Another fact (mostly seen in cases of cyber-bullying) is that these same tools can be used against one to spread rumour, and have, depending of the target devastating effects. As seen in the Lori Drew case (US 2006), where a teenager committed suicide, confronted to rumours and cruel messages.
Search engines and social networks are a very powerful tool: Both used for curiosity, helping others, recruitment, vigilantism, crime, and of course intelligence. The main issue is that these are not controllable (a bit like human beings), and that it seems morals are less regarded online that in real life. It’s easier to lie on the internet, than it is face to face. It is also easier to take your information online, than breaking into your home. Of course, to hope to ever reverse this trend and make this online world “perfect”, a full proof privacy system is needed, that would be based on an identity verification system. It would just completely remove the actual freedom of the internet, which in itself is completely inacceptable. This question is likely to be asked more and more, as the search algorithms will become more efficient and precise, and as the internet population continue to increase. Maybe for now, so that an individual can understand the risks of posting online: proper warning should be displayed directly within the web browser when you are about to fill a form, so that you think twice about the content of your message. Maybe Renaud should have had his information hidden even at the cost of losing his credit card.
Submitted in: business, general |