Privacy – Page 4 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Profiling the politics of the GDPR

When looking up the definition of ‘politics’, no-one can escape the notion that it regards something-choice or in any form the application of power to make decisions applying to all members of a group.
When looking up what leeways for profiling there is in the GDPR, even when so completely fellow-traveller-like as e.g., here [apart from the many, many more errors of logical reasoning, of thought, and of morality and ethics in that piece], the special category of data immediately springs to mind … that is about political opinion – representing the individuals’ autonomy in matters of choice. As any behaviour in public of said individuals is a matter of display of preference qua conduct in social affairs. As hence anything that has to do with profiling [even if only for the mundane making decisions of what ads to show to certain groups or not; abstracting even from the right (…) to have a human in the loop, seriously], has to do with political preferences.

Where is the field of study, by the way [not so much; rather a both parallel and intertwined track], of metadata and inference being special² categories of data, not requiring consent but should’ve been outlawed per se ..?

Plus:

[Artful bars, but suppressing; Brittas Museum London]

Generate some positivity, please

Something I believe(d) in for a long time already. Being, that I don’t belong. Nor do you, or anyone, to some dreamt-up category of whatever dimension. Didn’t I refer to this (at 0:30) over and over and over again ..?
To change the tack of the posts of late, let’s take a more positive attitude. E.g., by reading Brian Solis’ story here, and elsewhere: There exists no typical generation of any characterisation. Which leaves you free to pursue your own Happiness, in whatever way you’d want — with the caveat of not inroading of the freedom of others, and respecting the Commons in various directions.

Also, contra profiling, filter bubbles, echo chambers, social isolation, shallows, etc. Contra the dark side, who wouldn’t want that ..?
Pro the eternal fact that any average is, except for rare and particular cases, unequal to about all elements over which you took the avg. Even more so when talking multidimensional elements, and hoomans are possibly infinite in that.

So, be Free(d). And:
[Spread that word! Riga]

Predictable consequences

Dutch police start with ‘predicting’ crime.

For graduation, at kindergarten level:

Can you prevent bias?

What happens to accidental bypassers?

What will be the effect on Free society?

How many years in prison will the police chiefs get for this outright attempt to overthrow (the core principles of freedom of movement, innocent until proven guilty, etc.etc., of) the constitution and the UDHR whilst failing to fulfill the duties, to protect and serve [whatever variation] those?

Remember, this is at kindergarten level. Have fun, kids! Plus:
[Is this still a thing? Yoga at Briant Park, NY]

Having fun with voice synth

In particular, having fun the wrong way.
Remember, we wrote about how voice synth improvements, lately, will destroy non-repudiation? There’s another twist. Not only as noted, contra voice authentication for mere authentication (banks, of all, would they really have been in the lead, here, without back-up-double auth?), but in particular now that your voice has also become much more important again [after voice had dwindled in use for any sorts of comms, giving way to socmed typed even when with pixels posts of ephemeral or persistent kinds; who actually calls anyone anymore ..?], we see all sorts of Problems surfacing.

Like, mail order fraud. When hardly anyone still goes on a shopping spree through dozens of stores before buying something in store but rather orders online, of course Alexa / Home/Assistant / Siri / Echo / Cortana are all the rage. For a while; for a short while as people will find out that there was something more to shopping than getting something — but recognising the equilibrium that’ll turn out, may be in favour of on-line business, with physical delivery either at home, or at the mall.
The big ‘breakthrough’ currently being of course some half-way threshold / innovation speed bump overcome, with the home assistant gadgets that were intended to be much more butler first, (even-more-) mall destructor second. But that second … How about some fun and pranking, by catuyrig just some voice snippets from your target, even when just in line behind ’em at Wallmart, and then synthesizing just about any text? When a break-in on the backside of your home assistant (very doable; the intelligence is too complex and voluminous to sit in the front-end device anyway [Is it …!? Haven’t seen anything on this!] so at least there’s some half-way intelligent link at the back) may be feasible per principle but doing a MiM on the comms to some back-end server would be much more easy even, and much easier to obfuscate (certainly qua location, attribution), a ‘re’play of just any message is feasible.

Like, a ‘re’play of ordering substances that would still be suspicious even when for ‘medicinal purposes’. Or only embarassing, like ordering tools from the sort of fun-tools shop you wouldn’t want to see your parents order from. Of course, the joke is at delivery time [be that couriers, DEA/cops, or just non-plain packages] — oh wait we could just have the goods delivered to / picked up at, any address of our liking and have the felons/embarressed only feel that part plus non-repudiability.

This may be a C-rated-movie plot scenario, hence it will happen somewhere, a couple of times at least. Or become an epidemic. And:
[No mall, but a fun place to shop anyway; Gran Vía Madrid]

Golden Newie Pic of the Day

Hey that’s a new category yes it is; no Throwback Thur but Forward-looking Friday.
With …
your GDPR compliance program in one picture!
[After Wednesday’s post …]

Decision time for informational priv

When discussing Privacy, a lot of attention goes to informational privacy, easily tautologised with person-possibly-indentifying data.
If that reads mixed-up, it’s because it is.
But that’s for another session series. Of series.

What today’s post title is about, is the distinction between the two sides of the house; informational privacy (which is about information about you, or which you generate) versus decisional privacy (commonly defined in terms of your right to freely decide over your body’s integrity). As you read that, clearly the latter needs an update; a heck of a long KBxyzuvw article attached.
Because both the

Outright choice limitation through covert or overt profiling and covert or overt automated decision making, sometimes limiting your choice to none when you get rejected (from the ability to even decide) for something, or get no service proposition at all, a.k.a. the Hobson’s choice of socmed,
Covert choice limitation through filter bubbles – which would more accurately be called filter fish-trap,

can result from a lack of informational privacy. But both aren’t well covered in the definition of decisional priv whereas that infamous thing with The Freedom of the Pursuit of Happiness or whatsitcalled I don’t care you get it, Freedom, should be guaranteed.
So tightly coupled with all sorts of metaphysics, ontology, and topology of Privacy. Like, the feeling and understanding y’all have when you hear that word. It’s not only ‘bugger off nothing of your interest here’ privacy but also ‘get off my back‘ privacy; no weighing down.

Oh well. This being among my interests but not really my training, so I’ll go read up the latest qua this all. Pointers appreciated. And:
[For no reason whatsoever, totally unconnected; Riga Jugendstil]

Note to self: GDPR scrum with or without the r

Just to remind myself, and you for your contributions, that it’s seriously time to write up a post on Agile development methods [OK, okay, I mean Scrum, as the majority side of the house]; how one is supposed to integrate GDPR requirements into that.
Like, we’re approaching the stage where the Waterfall model of security implementation, will be Done for most organisations. Not Well Done, rather Rare or Pittsburg Rare, at your firm [not Firm …]. But then, we’ll have to make the wholesale change to Maintenance, short-term and long-term. And meanwhile, waterfall has been ditched for a long time already in core development work, hence we have a backlog (huh; the real kind) qua security integration (sic; the bolt-on kind doesn’t work anyway) into all these Agile Development methods of which word has it everyone and their m/br-other seems to make use these latter days.

But then, the world has managed to slip security into that. Which is praiseworthy, and needs more Spread The Word.

And then, there’s the GDPR. May we suggest to include it in ‘security’ as requirements flow into the agile development processes ..?
As said, I’ll expand on this l8r.
If only later, since we need to find a way to keep the DPOs out of this; the vast majority (sic) of them, with all due [which hence may be severely limited] respect, will not understand to a profound level they’ll try to derail your development even without the most basic capability to self-assess they do it, in ways that are excruciatingly hard to pinpoint, lay your finger on.

But as written, that’s for another time. In the meantime, I’d love to see your contributions (if/when serious) overflowing my mailbox… Plus:
[Lawyers lurking next door…; Zuid-As Ams]

Nutty cryptofails

Considering the vengeance with which cryptobackdoors, or other forms of regulation into tautological-fail limitations, are pursued over and over again (case in point: The soon luckily carved out surrender (to Monay) monkeys [case in point: anyone who has seriously tried an invasion, succeeded handsomely]), it may be worthwhile to re-consider what the current situation is. As depicted in the following:

In which D is what governments et al can’t stand. Yes, it’s that big; pushing all other categories into corners.
Where C is also small, and probably shrinking fast. And B is known; maybe not empty but through its character and the knowledge of it as cracked-all-around part, hardly used if ever, by n00bs only.
And A is what governments want for themselves, but know they can’t have or it will quickly move to B — probably without governments’ knowing of this shift…

And all, vulnerable to the XKCD ‘hack’:

Against which no backdoor-for-governments-only policy will help.
I’ll rest.

What you said, doesn’t matter anymore

Yet another proof class busted: Voice being (allegedly) so pretty perfectly synthesizable, that it loses its value as proof (of identity). Because beyond reasonable doubt isn’t beyond anymore, and anyone venturing to bring voice-based evidence, will not be able to prove (beyond…) that the sound heard, isn’t tampered with i.e. generated. Under the precept of “whoever posits, proofs”, the mere remark that no madam Judge we honestly did not doctor this evidence, is insufficient and there can be no requirement for positive disproof for dismissal from the defense as that side is not the one doing the positing. What about entrapment, et al.?

So, technological progress brings us closer to chaos. “Things don’t move so fast”-believers must be disbarred for their demonstrated gross incapacity — things have moved fast and will do so, ever faster. Or what ..?

Well, or Privacy. Must the above ‘innovator’ be sanctioned severely for violation of privacy of original-content-sound producers ..? Their (end) product(s) is sold/leased to generate false identity or doctored proof, either for or against the subject at hand, <whatever> party would profit thereof. Like an equipment maker whose products are targeted at burglars, or worse e.g., guns. Wouldn’t these be seriously curfewed, handcuffed ..?

[Edited to add, after drafting this five days ago: Already, Bruce is onto this, too. Thanks. (Not my perspective, but still)]

Oh, or:
[Apparently so secure(d), ‘stormed’ and taken practically overnight (read the story of); Casa Loma, Toronto]