[pb]Mindf*ck:Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America, 5 stars MUST READ

[NancyJ]

This is an important book. I think everyone should read it. This will definitely make my top 10. It's the best non-fiction book I've read in a long time. I thought I knew a little about how the world, politics, and technology were changing, but I didn't have a clue. This is bigger than just dirty politics. There are forces at work waging a culture war. Trump isn't leading it, he's just the clown out front distracting us with his crazy antics.

Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie is even better than Targeted: My Inside Story of Cambridge Analytica and How Trump and Facebook Broke Democracy, which I reviewed at great length earlier this month. This book is written by a whistleblower who was complicit in the technology side (Kaiser was on the sales side) of Cambridge and SCL. He was so excited by what the technology could do, he didn't understand the damage it did until it was too late. No one thought Trump really had a chance after all.

[Holly R W]

I had first learned of Cambridge Analytica through reading Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. The company not only enabled Trump to win the last election, but also aided and enabled the Brexit vote.

Last night, I watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix. It dovetails nicely with all this. C.A. was not mentioned. Instead, it shows interviews with brilliant people, all of whom were architects of the tech industry. They have all since left their jobs, due to their fears about what tech has unleashed. Not a single one of them will allow their own children anywhere near a cell phone or social media account.

[NancyJ]

Holly R W wrote: "I had first learned of Cambridge Analytica through reading Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. The company not only enabled Trump to win the last election, but also aided..."

I didn't read that one, but I was already avoiding Facebook at that point. I don't trust it at all. I don't trust Google very much either, either but it's harder to avoid. They used to have a policy - don't be evil - but I haven't heard that lately.

Wow. The Social Dilemma sounds really interesting - like a horror movie - they created a monster and now they're hiding from it. I just had a flash of the Terminator relentlessly following them even while it's falling apart. I can't even get Netflix now without a device that can listen in on our conversations!

[Holly R W]

It's interesting that you mention the Terminator, as the film showed Arnold S. in his iconic role... We had Alexa here for awhile, before we were disenchanted due to our conversations being taped.

Here we are on a social media site owned by a major corporation which certainly has a monetary interest in our discussing books. Whether Amazon uses it for other reasons than to just sell books, we don't yet know.

[NancyJ]

Holly R W wrote: "It's interesting that you mention the Terminator, as the film showed Arnold S. in his iconic role... We had Alexa here for awhile, before we were disenchanted due to our conversations being taped.
..."

Well I know for sure that some of the targeted advertising on this site is based on private medical information. I thought my personal information was only available to doctors that I designated. Apparently it's available to any pharmaceutical company that is willing to pay for it.

[Holly R W]

That's frightening in itself. What happened to HIPPA?

[Nicole R]

HIPPA only applies to health care providers, and so many people and places that get your health data are not “covered entities” (I.e., are not subject to HIPPA).

Even then, covered entities CAN share your health data SO LONG AS they deidentify it by taking out all the PII (personal identifying information). But can anything ever really be deidentified?!

This is one of the reasons that things like 23 and Me drive me insane. They are NOT covered by HIPPA and participants authorize them to freaking sequence their DNA then sell off all that information. It is atrocious.

[Nicole R]

Also, this site isn’t getting medical information from your doctors. Using cookies google tracks every single click you make on the internet, how long you hover on a specific area of a webpage, and so much more.

They then target the ads based on your browsing, and it is probably not hard to piece together what ailments someone has based on their web searches.

Oh, and your cell phone listens to you, so there is that.

[NancyJ]

When you click on the targeted ads here, they provide a list of data providers, and one of them is a medical database. You can opt out of some of the options, but not that one. That really surprised me.

The only advantage to targeted ads is that I no longer have to see emails or ads about male enhancement products or viagra. In the early days of the Internet, you couldn't get away from them. Oops, maybe I shouldn't have typed those words!

[Holly R W]

Nicole R wrote: "Also, this site isn’t getting medical information from your doctors. Using cookies google tracks every single click you make on the internet, how long you hover on a specific area of a webpage, and..."

Nicole, I had not known that a cell phone can listen to us. Can you explain this further? Thanks. I thought that my phone conversations were private.

[Nicole R]

Holly R W wrote: "Nicole R wrote: "Also, this site isn’t getting medical information from your doctors. Using cookies google tracks every single click you make on the internet, how long you hover on a specific area ..."

Technically, certain apps that you have downloaded to your phone have access to your microphone and then will "listen" to what you say. They often pick up key words for targeted ads or make a huge database of words and sell them to companies who mine the data for research.

They don't record your full conversations or anything like that. At least not yet.

Same thing for apps that track your GPS. They can track you while you are using the app AND when you are not using the app if you do not change your settings. This is how Google Maps recommends how long it will take you to get "home" even if you haven't set a home.

You can google it and find any number of articles on this topic. Here are a couple to get you started: https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/wj...

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12...

And for those of you who use an Alexa or Google Home: god speed.

[Holly R W]

Wow, thanks for explaining. We used to joke and say, "Watch out, big brother is watching," but that seems so quaint compared to what's going on today. Our privacy seems up for grabs!

[NancyJ]

Holly we joke about the same thing all the time, especially when discussing politics. We were shocked to discover that our TV set also has some capability to listen to us, even without Alexa.

I was going into a client meeting, and before the meeting started, someone collected everyone's phones to take them out of the room. If I had my phone nearby (without even being connected to someone) there are some people (with the skills and tech) who could listen in on the whole meeting.

I believe that if the NSA is investigating someone, they can get permission to listen in on that person's calls, and listen in on the conversations that are occurring nearby when they're not on a call. The NSA will also seek to listen in on their associates, and anyone they speak to. They can listen to conversations that take place around a whole chain of people.

If I had a leadership coaching session with someone whose company is under investigation, I could conceivably be in that chain of people. Right now, they would be awfully bored listening in on my life. There was really only one time when I had to be super careful. We were working on a pending merger, and I had to sign non-disclosure agreements. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone (even my husband, or any employees in the company) what I was working on.

There are people without legal authority who could do the same thing as the NSA as long as they had the right skills and tech.