Do Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft want internet to be insecured?
Bruce Schneier, an online security expert, in his new book, ‘Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a HyperConnected World’ points out that flaws in technology are not the only reason of having an insecure internet. The main reason is that the internet’s most powerful architects have manipulated the network to make it serve their own interests.
According to him, the internet’s dominant business model, in which online behaviour is used to market things is based on non-stop surveillance. The surveillance capitalism can have an illusion of security, provided pledge to live within one company’s ecosystem. For example Google is willing to give security, as long as it can use the information it collects to sell ads. Facebook offers users a similar deal: a secure social network, as long as it can monitor everything they do for marketing purposes.
Surveillance itself is easy because computers create a transaction record of everything users do, be it browsing or saying something in the same room as Amazon’s Alexa. But users don’t have the controls to confine this data for its intended use.
As long as companies are free to gather as much data about users as they can, they will not sufficiently secure systems. As long as they buy, sell, trade and store that data, it’s at risk of being stolen. And as long as they use it, users risk it being used against them.
Internet insecurity is also needed for controlling user behaviour in an emerging business model that requires to pay for each individual feature of a service (add-ons in games), subscribe to services that could buy outright (Microsoft Office is an everyday example) and use only particular accessories (printer cartridges and coffee pods come to mind.
Schneier gives an instance of feudal situation where with the ‘ Internet of Things’ coming, companies also want to be able to control the temperature of houses and the lights in it. He compares this situation with feudal lords, these companies protect users from outside threats, and they also have surprisingly complete control over what users can see and do.
To control users, the tech giants have to constantly step up surveillance. They monitor everything users are doing but decline to share that data with them. As they build systems aimed to remotely control them, the internet goes on becoming less secure. This will eventually lead to tension between companies and their customers.
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