Future Crimes

 Future Crimes 

By Marc Goodman 

 

Preview 

Technology is the lynchpin of our modern way of life. It has become so enmeshed with our social, financial, and personal lives that the world would come to a grinding halt without it. We increasingly rely on the internet, smartphones, and other intelligent machines to navigate our daily lives. This book provides a chilling and detailed account of how our technological marvels can also be our enemy. 

About the Author  

Marc Goodman is a veteran law enforcement officer and futurist who specialises in cybercrime and threat assessment. He had his first brush with cybercrime in 1995 while working for the LAPD and has since worked with the FBI, Interpol, and the Secret Service. He is one of the most respected experts in his field and is the head of the Future Crimes Institute, a think tank.  

 

Understand why data is the new oil and learn about the mad scramble to collect and exploit it

At no point in human history have we produced so much information daily as we do now. We post millions of photos online, spend billions buying things on the internet, and depend on automated machines to operate vital infrastructure. There is a fortune to be made in the technology business, just look at the Silicon Valley giants like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. Unfortunately, the lure of money has also attracted criminals to the digital world. 

Many of us store confidential work and personal information online, but its security is at the mercy of corporations who either do not have the resources to protect our data or just do not understand the threat. It is common to hear about the theft of millions of credit card details, or the hacking of MNC’s like Target, Sony, or Yahoo, but the threat is much more severe than most of us realise.  

Marc Goodman uncovers how our privacy is trampled over by corporations and governments which operate with no oversight. 75 percent of the time hacking home networks hardly takes more than 15 minutes. The ease with which hackers penetrate systems, be it our personal computers, industrial sensors, or sensitive databases, points to the glaring flaws in our systems.   

After reading this quid, you will learn that: 

• Criminal cartels have formed an organisational structure similar to technology companies in Silicon Valley. 
• Crime has entered the age of Moore’s law. 
• Lack of basic digital literacy costs the world hundreds of billions of dollars in easily avoidable scams and hacks.  

 

Crime has a new face 

Criminals have always been early adopters of technology, and they have fully capitalised on the digital revolution our world is undergoing. Organized crime has realised that it is much easier and safer to steal millions of credit card details than to rob a bank.  

The internet has provided criminals with a truly global reach. Physical boundaries mean nothing on the web. Hackers in countries faraway steal sensitive data or even plunge cities into darkness. We remain blissfully unaware of the presence of criminals and terrorists online because they operate in the massive but hidden part of the web, the dark web.  

The dark web is a part of the internet that cannot be indexed by search engines or visited using standard web browsers. The dark web is accessed using tools like TOR and provides layers of protection to ensure anonymity. This anonymity coupled with untraceable cryptocurrency payments is the perfect breeding ground for chaos and crime.  

The dark web is used to sell every illegal and taboo item that there is, from firearms and drugs to hitmen for hire and child pornography. Criminals are operating with impunity and have created a support network to share exploits and train future members. There even exists a database of vulnerabilities and exploits to be used by hackers called: Shodan. 

Storing a vast amount of sensitive data in a single location is an invitation to hackers. Multinational giants like Sony, Target, and T.J. Maxx, are victims of hacking, and the details of millions of customers became available to hackers in just a single stroke. Criminals are constantly changing their ways, but law enforcement has been sadly lacking in stopping and catching them.  

 

Hijacking our lives one screen at a time

The small black screens that adorn our homes, offices, and palms, have become the most trusted source of information for everyone. The little pixels on the screens are treated as gospel, but they can be tampered with to wreak havoc. Wrong information on screens can have frightening consequences, especially when these displays monitor nuclear plants, high-speed rail systems, dams, electric grids, and financial systems. 

Fake Information on our screens has real consequences as wall street learned in 2013. A Twitter handle of the Associated Press was hacked, and a report was posted about an explosion at the White House, stating that the president was injured. This report, though unverified, led to a staggering $136 billion loss of shareholder’s money within 3 minutes of the tweet.  

It is hard to comprehend how 140 characters can cost such a vast sum. Fake reviews and reports sway public opinion. This disinformation campaign sells cheap products on eBay and also wins public support for unpopular decisions. The most popular social media website Facebook has an unbelievable 140 million fake accounts. It means that we have probably come across fake people on our timelines or even be friends with them.  

We live in a filter bubble; all the opinions and views that we disagree with are filtered out. Every individual has a personalised news feed that caters to their particular taste. People see what they want to see, not what they need to see. 

Glitches in security systems have tagged innocent people as criminals at airports and have also led to the release of dangerous criminals. Criminals can rob us blind without us noticing, because guess what, our screens say otherwise. 

 

In an era of constant surveillance, Big Brother is watching you all the time. 

George Orwell in his classic book 1984, predicted a dystopian future where continuous monitoring is employed to ensure perfect compliance from the citizens. It is hard to believe that we have already taken steps towards the terrifying future of Orwell’s imagination.  

Edward Snowden, the ex-NSA employee, revealed the extensive network created by the NSA and the U.S government to monitor online activities for potential threats. The NSA can read billions of emails, monitor calls, and exploit vulnerabilities to spy on anyone they want.  

Big data analysis and machine learning models work with enormous streams of information. The algorithms then predict if you are a threat. As we have seen, data can always be monetized, and data surveillance is no exception.  

The government is not the only player in the game, companies like Acxiom, Epsilon, and Datalogix are leaders in this $150 billion business. These unknown companies are Data Brokers; they buy our data from ISP’s, credit card issuers, banks, and phone companies. They profile people based on an astounding number of traits.  

People are assigned IDs and put into clusters that are relevant to advertisers, insurers, and others. These companies sell confidential data like our medical and credit histories without any due diligence as there are no laws to regulate their activities.  

Our geocoded pictures and locations shared on social media platforms are pieced together to predict our routes. This information too is up for sale. Privacy as we know it is dead on the internet.  

Free services are free at the cost of our privacy 

It is hard to argue against the ills of a product if it is free and nobody does the free business model better than the internet. Everything from Email services to cloud storage, search engines, and a million other things that do not require a subscription fee. Most users never stop to think why these services that cost millions of dollars to develop and maintain, are given away for no apparent price. 

The answer to this is simple and disturbing; the average user is not the customer. The real customers are the companies who are willing to pay top bucks to know what people want and when. It is never explicitly stated to the users that they are the product.  

As if using unsuspecting people into an unpaid workforce was not enough, companies extract ridiculous privileges by way of Terms of Service (ToS) agreements. The Terms of Services are legally binding documents that everyone agrees to without reading. It is by design that these agreements are written in a manner that makes them difficult to read and understand. This document always absolves the service provider of any blame in case of any problems and more importantly allows them to sell private data to third parties.  

Free services cost us our privacy. Just selling our location data to retailers, media, and others is a business worth $100 billion. The information that we share online be it our search history, comments, or photographs is not owned by us anymore. The promise of free services has helped in the creation of the largest unpaid workforce in human history. A labour force that doesn’t even realise it is working for someone. 

Building a more connected world has its perils 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next big thing in the world of technology. IoT envisions a world where everyday objects such as bulbs, refrigerators, AC’s, and our homes, monitor their surroundings and collect data. The collected data will be used by the systems to act smarter to save resources and time. IoT will connect billions of new devices to the information superhighway, that is the internet, and most of these devices are and will be vulnerable to attacks. 

Metcalf’s law states that the value of a telecommunications network is the square of the total devices connected to it. In the case of IoT, the value of networks will be in trillions. Our homes will become operating systems that will manage themselves with minimal interference from us, but there is one major issue, bugs in the software.  

All pieces of code have bugs in them, rebooting a house every time it runs into problems is not going to be pleasant or practical. Even more worrisome are the plans to add human beings to the network. We already have pacemakers and hearing aids that are meant to work with our smartphones.  

In an incident that shows what attackers can do, a defibrillator was hacked, and its owner was killed by overloading the power supply and giving him a fatal shock. Bionics offer criminals the perfect opportunity to hold people hostage without a gun, they can demand a ransom to be paid, or your artificial organs fail! Moreover, the internet of things will complete the web of constant surveillance, as daily objects at our home and work can be repurposed to spy on us. Security is not at the forefront of innovations in the field of IoT, and it is not a promising sign for the future. 

 

Final Summary 

We hope you enjoyed this quid on Future Crimes. Our lives are deeply entangled with technologies like the internet, but our ignorance and complacency about its threats paint a depressing picture. The web is turning into a tool of mass surveillance and the gullible users into an unpaid labour force. 

Technology has progressed at a furious pace, and this has not given us the time to contemplate the ethical and economic implications of the tools we create. Governments have failed to enact laws that protect people online and regulate the industry. The lack of legislation has been gleefully exploited by companies and criminals alike.  

 

Standout Sections of the Book 

• The U.S.A put a wrench into Iran’s nuclear program by using a virus called Stuxnet to stop them from enriching uranium at Natanz nuclear facility. (Pg. 115, chapter 8) 
• Harvard professor George Church predicted that 4 grams of DNA could store all data humans create in a year. (Pg. 299, chapter 16) 
• A teenager in Poland hacked switches to redirect trains and turn the rail network into his toy set. (Pg. 26, chapter 2) 
• Blueprints for firearms can be bought online, and the guns can be printed using a 3D printer. (Pg. 283, chapter 15)