“The Web is a lot like the pheromonal matrix of an ant colony; popular messages get reinforced, less popular messages fade away. That creates a data trail that others can follow. That got me thinking about all this data being gathered on everyone—purchase records, calling patterns, social media, and e-mails, everything. What if the systems that these private security firms built to analyze that data—to keep us safe—actually did the opposite? What if whoever’s doing this is using that data to select targets?”
