December News Digest: Chapter Release this Winter at Patreon

MOTIVATIONAL MOMENTS

“When you’re going through hell, keep going…”

– Winston Churchill

THE BAD NEWS - YOU STILL LIVE ON A HACKED PLANET

Privacy is a battered area across many forays in our society. I managed to catch the Congressional hearings on the Equifax breach. I heard the head of Equifax (US) say to Congress, “I wonder what are we trying to protect anymore?”

I think that became the most challenging moment for me in 2017, both as consumer and personal data protection advocate.   I realized demoralizing the privacy interests of every individual was someone’s goal. If your opponent couldn’t lawfully achieve that, as if you had no legal recourse or protection from their infringements, they still seek to bombard you, networks and infrastructures with smaller privacy breaches, to desensitize you to the negative effects. Why? To break down your resistance with frustration and demotivation, so you fail to fight back over your personal data property and your privacy.  

Americans are in a double bind, of sorts. We are held underneath a public-private mass surveillance aperture; which won’t relinquish much power back to the individual.  Part of the infrastructure capitalizes on voter information brokerage.  Another part forces or incentivizes private social media to do government surveillance work on the people who feel compelled to use it.  You have an opportunity to use your voice, to direct Congressional leaders to Sunset Section 702 of the warrantless surveillance act, FISA. A bill to renew it has been filed.  There is a lot of fight for you and US privacy rights in that fight.

Every day you wake up you are the Data Owner, not merely the Data Subject, a victim of theft or a serf in someone’s digital fiefdom. 

Grasp this and you have a future to self determine your privacy.

THE GOOD NEWS -PUBLISHING IS HAPPENING!

IEEE is releasing 2nd edition of Ethically Aligned Design, Ethics in Action  12/12/2017.  I contributed to the Consent section.  I also have joined other IEEE data ethics subgroup P7003 –(Addressing)Bias producing content, curating research and being helpful to ethical data standards development.  You can read the ethics production from end-t0-end here. [Updated 2/22/2018] 

'REBALANCE PRIVACY' SLUG-MARATHON 2018.

Yes. So slow.  Good solutions take time.

I have finally found my self-publishing house to produce chapters; which include privacy-accountability hacks, letters and templates to stay organized and to fight back.  The plan is to produce the initiate select chapter around February.  You can purchase directly from this website or my Patreon page.  There is a placeholder live under the 'Authoring' tab for the 2018 release.

Please tell all of your friends. (If your friends have great publishers market skills, send them my way!)

Do you have news or a personal story of how you overcame a privacy infringement?  Please write to me.  I would like to do a feature on you and demonstrate your talent.

Happy Holidays and warm wishes of confidentiality in 2018.

 

Politicized Social Media Platforms [or Why I Dumped Twitter]

“Some” social media accounts are more American than US citizens?

By Sheila Dean

On October 18th, 2017 Twitter joined a small league of American social media companies who decided to monitor naturalized US citizens.  In 2013, Twitter distanced itself from National Security agencies, denouncing NSA PRISM program surveillance of its social media accounts.  So what changed? 

Come to think of it, not much has changed at all. We should readily realize virtually no single social media platform or US media company has consistent integrity conforming to US public Constitutional protections. The general rule is if you have to agree to a Terms of Service agreement to do anything online you are paying with your private data; which may used with or without your consent.

For instance, Comcast believes it has the right to demand the last four of your SSN#. If they never overtly asked you for permission to use the last-4 of your Social Security Number via a customer service rep in the Philippines or Latin America; they have zero right to ask you for it for account verification purposes. If a company asks for the last 4 of your SSN and you never gave it to them in the first place for credit approvals, treat it like a phishing attack.  Hang up the phone and visit a store in person to administrate your account.  

Companies may ask for verification of identity, but they never have the right to use your personal information without your permission. There has to be a specific purpose for the use of your information. For that purpose, they need documented consent. They’re not in a position to really make demands for government mandated identity.

The SSN# is especially sensitive information. It is even more so now due to the Equifax breach. You can ask for a passcode or 2-factor authentication number to be generated for your online accounts.  I have also included an example letter to  help request your SSN removal for customer authorization purposes at the end of this blog. 

CONVENIENCE VS. PERSONAL SOVEREIGNTY

You are in the drivers seat.  If convenience is more important than privacy - keep doing what you’re doing. Just know you are developing media companies’ private data sales kiosk of You; which they do in fact readily sell to any paying government customer who will purchase your information. Media companies like Twitter and Xfinity aren’t picky.

When DHS or the NSA won’t obey US agency legal compliance, neither will media companies.  You can enter in a civil suit to sue both.  You might lose; but you also might win. They brought the Constitutional fight to you.  You didn’t beg Twitter, a social media company, to treat your citizenship like a subjective matter and as a personal speech surveillance tool.

I think the messages from US media companies are pretty clear: US citizens don’t have any observable rights we need to care about.  They may as well be China, Russia or any other totalitarian regime on earth completely forfeited from the value of US Constitutional protections.  We all know there is no US Embassy in Cyberspace. 

Actions at Twitter now work to exclude naturalized US citizens from those who would have lawful protections under the US government.  Both Bush and Obama presidencies put unsecured access to mass surveillance ahead of domestic information security interests.  Trump, who is only informed by precedent, thinks readily some citizens are more protected than others.

When citizens aren’t really citizens in the United States for personal rights in protected speech and 4th Amendment limits, either we are not living in America or America isn’t really a Constitutional Republic with equal protections under the law.  In reality, both of these ideas are parasitic falsehoods hooked up by corrupt interests to siphon off resources of your labor, your money, your family and your freedom.

When a US soldier dies for US Constitutional freedoms and guaranteed rights, they don’t get to pick which citizens get the benefit of their sacrifice.  So no social media company should decide whose US citizenship rights and protections are denied. You are either a US citizen or you are not. If you are, it definitely means more than having someone parse your rights from a corrupt legal ivory tower in Silicon Valley.

So I scheduled deletion of all of my Twitter accounts.

Certain media denizens will decry it’s a “chilling effect”. They think far too much of global online services. Twitter only has the information power you give it. They need you to farm information.  If you stop giving them information, they will develop similar problems to Facebook's “news shortage”.  

US identity is only for approved use by the worthy.

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When No-Platform crosses the Insider Threat threshold

As written today to the administrative staff at Squarespace.... 

I have a personal concern that was not raised during the process of my consumer request. 

While I respect Squarespace honors the ideals of diversity in its employee makeup, you should always be aware of insider threats posed by those who operate from within engineering, hacking and development communities.  Some of these groups will and have inserted their personal policy and political beliefs from the administrative PaaS, as No-Platform unionists, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Platform .

What online collectivists decide personally does not suit their political preferences changes along with the preferences of their leadership. It isn't based on fact, reality or grounded legal principle.  It's more often based on list serve anarchy where it can, and does, get very petty. If they feel you have spurned their hierarchy or objectives, rejected their doctrine or refused their invitations to obey the orders of the collective you can become a target of their campaign activity. 

I certainly don't care what anyone believes politically if they're doing their job and honoring the Terms of Service put forward in contract with paying users. However, No-Platform Union admins deliberately use their employed position as platform or cloud service admins to deliver lower-level DDOS 'attacks' to paying or contracted users to infringe upon or strategically block their messaging and their speech.  It's denial of service from the admins desk. 

While it would be shameful for these people to abuse their position at a platform, like Squarespace.com, you bear the risk if the company is in breach of contract based on their misbehavior. Allowing the threat of their personal obstruction to prevail unchecked in an agnostic service environment is the very definition of an insider threat.  I would encourage you to seek out the services of a risk investigation and insider threat evaluations firm. 

Frankly, if they are not brave enough to confront perceived infractions in the clean public light of debate, they are cowards. You don't owe them any host opportunity to oppress your patrons or steal precious man hours undoing their damage to your customer environment.  

Please consider and heed my warning.  I will post this to my restored blog site environment; which is and will continue to be a professional site where important views are shared.  

Thank you for the work you have performed with me on your beautiful platform. I hope you will be brave enough to audit the actions of your staff before it impacts customer fulfillment obligations.

Sincerely,

Sheila Dean