Thin line between privacy and security
Family and friends have questioned why I refuse to use WhatsApp or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn. They claim that is weird but I chuckle to myself knowing that I am better off keeping details of myself offline and out of hackers domain.
I know it seems strange in this our so called connected world (although I would argue with the premise as we are less connected in the physical form despite the illusion that we are connected through the virtual space). I have had people insinuate that I must have something to hide or that I would not have friends. Addressing the latter, I have real flesh and blood friends (those are difficult to come by in this illusory age of filters and plastic surgeries) and to the former, “having something to hide” allegation I retort, yes I would like to hide more and why not? I believe that scarcity/absence makes the heart grow fonder. Thus, I pride myself in making myself hard to access and be acquired by every tom, dick and harry.
Anyone that gets into this sort of conversation will frequently hear the above statement. Another way to go about it would be to ask in reply, if your interlocutor has curtains on windows in his/her house and why the need to hide oneself, or if they have a password on their phone or email password. Why then protect relevant information? It goes deeper, as it conjures up trust. Trust of corporate institutions or authority or government apparatus. The question is why would I trust a company that operates as a monopoly? or One that censors, tracks, targets, and sells your data to the highest bidder. Or a company like Facebook (owner of Instagram and WhatsApp) with its recent revelations of cover ups, choosing growth over safety, a company that failed to tackle the human trafficking problem on their site, or giving preferential treatments to many dictatorial governments and institutions all over the world.
Many do not want to address the elephant in the room as it will highlight personal responsibilities to be taken, force many to the realization that we all live in a new resource extraction era and we are slaves to technology. We are the new resource rich countries/lands that are to be exploited and mined for profit/gain. Many have heard of the saying that “Data is the new oil”, and while Forbes magazine explains why its a good thing, we are getting the bad end of the deal.
The issue of privacy vs security is a slippery slope that gets very murky as it is one that calls for a nuanced perspective with clear distinctions. According to American government HIV.gov;
“Security refers to protection against the unauthorized access of data. We put security controls in place to limit who can access the information.
Privacy is harder to define, in part because user-specific details can also be secure data.”
For example, Security is using a secure system to communicate within a company about clients and financial information or using a secure system to check your balance of your account with a specific bank. This type of data transmission is an example of security. While on the other hand, privacy provisions will limit who has access (secretary, HR, etc) and what information can be accessed. Privacy can also stipulate when it can be accessed.
As you are well aware, privacy and security can be quite enmeshed together and difficult to separate. There is a thin line between privacy and security and one which gets blurry as to which will take precedence or priority. It can be used against you or for your protection, so its one to handle with great care and caution. One sure thing is that it is “possible to have security without privacy, but impossible to have privacy without security.”
With a growing number of cyber threats and cyber attacks on the rise like the Colonial Pipeline hack, or the LinkedIn phishing attack, or the Twitch cyber attack (these and many more happened in 2021 alone!). There are growing concerns about the continuous rise of cyber attacks. A report in 2017 detailed that Cybercrime costs the global economy $450 billion, and this is only fraction of what is to come.
See you tomorrow!
- Ope