Unprotected Sets

The other day I was talking about how the best defense for Finland against attack from Russia, is probably not to keep expanding military to repel them, but to make the value of people in the country so high, that if they attack, they get nothing but land. For some, this seems controversial, but I think that there is a crossover point where so much is being spent on military, that the people in the country suffer to the point that they might even welcome attack from some foreign power to save them from their own government.

But currently, and perhaps always, the most valuable thing in the world isn't land, it is information. Yet, we generally go about protecting our information in the same way we protect our land, with fences and defenses. We try to keep the abuse out, but as we can, see it is a losing game.

And the reason that the information is so valuable, is because it is physically disconnected from the value of people. That sounds a bit weird perhaps, but the information is a bit like a currency, it represents us, but it isn't us. For example, if someone steals your credit card information and uses it to buy goods online, they are using your money, but in actual fact, it isn't yours at all. It isn't physical, you never held it, there is no serial number on those notes, but for some reason, it is your because some amount was credited to you in the bank account with a number, and that account is tied to access numbers that allow for debiting the account.

If nothing really exists, what is being stolen?

The data is only really valuable because it is tied to a human, which is why the social media data sets are so valuable to collect and sell, as they can be used to target individual users, or group sets. The digital profile they assign us through all of our interaction, becomes a proxy for our physical selves, meaning that we can be targeted and have our lives turned upside down, without ever having to leave the safety of our home.

Nowhere is safe.

The headline above about the data breach is indicative of the problem, because it really doesn't matter how the data is locked up and protected, eventually it is going to be leaked through some level of failure or incompetence. The biggest risk factor is of course human error, but even with the various tech solutions, there are things like outdated software or hardware, or various oversights in the security nets. The longer the fence is up, the more likely an attack will penetrate, because like a physical fence that degrades in the elements, digital defenses degrade also.

What is the solution?

At a technical level, there is security in anonymity, but anonymity itself is inconvenient, as it makes it impossible to live an ordinary life in an ordinary community, unless everything becomes physical again for trade. And while that might be possible too, it is also very inconvenient, because it means that all the benefits of global trade end also, so only local trade is possible. We are accustomed to a life of plentiful skill access, but if we only have access to what is available locally, we lose a lot of the richness we are used to.

So, then there is the randomization of the information, so that if a pool of data was stolen, it doesn't get tied to any particular individual, making it rather useless, other than to collect some generalized statistics. But again, if everything is completely random, then it is also useless to those who create it, so a hybrid approach is needed, where for instance, in order to use certain bits of information, a physical key is required to unlock the box. Without that key, the data is useless. But again, this can become unwieldly for the enduser also.

Which leaves us with decentralization of information.

The biggest reason that these data breaches happen and are so crippling, is because the value is stored in a centralized way, where essentially all the pieces of information required to leverage, are stared in the same location, under the same set of rules. If however that same set of information was scattered across multiple repositories and protocols, and the only way to unify it was through an owner initiated process, then even if one repository or even several are compromised, it is still useless information that can't grant access to anything.

The current issue is largely because someone is able to appear as me through the digital information that has been collected in a million ways to be my proxy self - my digital profile. However, it should be very very difficult for this to happen, let alone happen at scale, if all that information was scattered and without the key, seemed unrelated to other pieces.

They would need me.

What we have done is devalued ourselves by making digital versions of ourselves that can act as us, and buy and sell resources as if they are our physical being. This devaluation means that we aren't important in the process, we just happen to be a conduit for funneling assets into our digital self through our skills and activity. But, once that value is digitized, we are no longer owners of the value we have generated, because anyone with the right information can pretend to be us and use it.

People don't matter.

If the only resources of value in a country is the land, than it is possible to slaughter everyone at scale in that country without it losing value. But, if the value of the land is intrinsically tied to the value of the people, than to keep the value, the people also have to be preserved. The value of data at the moment is that it is valuable because it is tied to individuals in name only, not in practice. A data set can be stolen and without anyone granting permission to the thief, it can be used, making the "owner" obsolete in the process.

But here is the problem with decentralization.

Those with the power don't want to lose control.

Even though they are incapable of providing protections.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]