A Privacy Lesson, Courtesy of Zuckerberg

[question everything]

Mark Zuckerberg created a stir over an Instagram post this summer of him at his desk. If you look closely, you’ll see tape covering the Facebook CEO’s laptop camera and microphone jack. Does he know something we don’t? Well, yes.

Hackers are virtually (pun intended) everywhere. Mr. Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were hacked in early June, before the photo was taken. The Democratic National Committee had 20,000 emails released on WikiLeaks right before the party’s July convention. The Federal Reserve recently admitted it’s had more than 50 cyberbreaches over the past five years. In August the National Security Agency, which says its role is to “lead the U.S. Government in cryptology” got, you guessed it, hacked.

(snip)

So, is privacy dead? Not really. Any financial company that gets hacked is not doing its job and you should drop it. Security tools are getting better though more expensive. While they are a burden on customers and employees—extra time and passwords to remember—it’s better than losing money or having your dirty laundry aired. Ask Sony.

Don’t trust institutions—you have to protect yourself. Encrypt everything. A phone with fingerprint access is a must. Keep valuable information offline—“air gap” by unplugging the Ethernet cable. Use multifactor or two-step authentication. With two-step, when you log in to your email from a new device, you’re asked for a six-digit code that gets texted to your phone. Unless they have your phone, no one in China or Estonia is going to steal your email, even if they know your password. Mine is Bosco.

OK, I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Remember the CEO of LifeLock who shared his Social Security number in 2007, claiming he couldn’t be hacked? It wasn’t long before someone successfully took out a loan in his name. Now where is that duct tape for my laptop?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-privacy-lesson-courtesy-of-zuckerberg-1473808798

[SusanCalvin]

1. Exactly. nt

[Egnever]

2. To be fair zuck has a huge Target on his back

Including people within his own Network. For someone like him that level of paranoia makes sense. For most folks not so much.

Air gapping your computer when almost everything you do on them is internet based is not a realistic solution even though it is the only guaranteed solution.

Nothing wrong with being aware of and implementing good security but there is absolutely no need to be so paranoid as to put tape on your camera. The vast majority of us have heard immunity just because there are way too many targets.

If you are someone in the public eye or very wealthy maybe but even then imho this article is overkill.

[astral]

3. We are not 'way too many targets.'

The 'herd immunity' idea would apply if the real problem was that human beings are spying on each other to gain an advantage for some reason. That is not however what surveillance is all about. It is done by the devices we use not by humans. our smartphones and computers' primary purpose is just that: information gathering.

There are hackers who trade their access information with each other, kind of a sick hobby of voyeurism, which includes added-value if their subject is good-looking, and there are perverts, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The information being gathered on ALL OF US is being saved, like in a dossier, about each person.

For instance the Chromium browser has installed a code that turns on the microphone, set up by Google, supposedly in error. You know about apps if you're an android user, 'needing' access to your files, pics, music, and microphone and camera, regardless of whether the is needed for their function.

Now its not just our computers and smartphones, but also our 'smart' devices, many now have voice-recognition software installed. Anything voice-activated.

I may be labeled as a kook, but there is plenty of information out there on this topic now, we can just accept that we live in a surveillance state or we can let it bother us and see what we can do go protect our privacy to any extent possible.