Tik Tok Trap.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. There is a huge amount. Much more than you imagine. And many more uses than you imagine

Raw data is one thing. But what really happens is that Big Data (like Google, Facebook, and China) correlates, sifts, connects, and infers from data. A data point correlated with thousands of other data points (out of billions) because much more significant than on its own. Google and American businesses have commercial goals. The Chinese have broader and longer term goals.

They apply large neural networks (AIs) to (in the Chinese case):

* Find expat dissidents so their "police stations" dotted across North America and Europe can pressure them and pressure their families back in China.

* Discover supply chains for critical goods they are forbidden to obtain directly.

* Figure out what honey pot and vice-baited tactics will be effective for suborning and corrupting targets, be they highly placed people or people in sensitive jobs in national security.

* Figure out where secretive work is being done and thus where to target espionage. An innocent social media post or private in-app message from an advanced materials scientist that says "I'm moving to Pahrump, Nevada but I can't tell you what I'm doing there!" gets correlated with other key people asking about finding a doctor there or exclaiming about how nice their new desert condo is.

* Running bot campaigns to influence elections, policies, and to attack institutions and people.

I'm only scratching the surface. The professionals know hundreds of techniques.