For those that haven't heard, Optus, an Australian Telco operator, is going through "a bit" of a hack debacle, where personal information from a suspected 10 million people has been exposed. One of the problems is going to be - They have less than 6 million customers, which means that they have lost the collected information from past customers too.
And, there is a lot of information, like passport and driver's license data - with the latter being particularly problematic, as the driver license number can't be changed, unless it has already been used in identity fraud. So, millions who already know they are compromised, can't do anything about it until after the fact - which seems like a "bit of a problem" in cases like this, where there are millions of known people involved.
Wouldn't it make more sense to issue them all with new documents pre-fraud? Not only would it make it easier if there is suddenly a flood of theft, but it gives a chance of actually tracking perpetrators, as they would be using old details.
Governments.
But, this is part of the problem with the world of centralized data security, because eventually, like every other central authority, they all fail.
All of them.
In this case, they are currently saying it is through human error, where an API was opened up for access that shouldn't have been connected to the wider internet and, the data was gone. Humans are fallible, as is code, because it is pretty much only as good as the humans who created it and no matter how secure, other humans are creating code to find weakness. It is all a big game and defenses can only be set up to counter past attacks and try to preempt for the future, but that is always going to be a losing battle, especially when there is money on the table.
And, as we should know by now, there is money in our data, which is why the largest data collecting companies on earth are also the wealthiest. While a criminal might use that data in one way, a data collector will be selling that data to be used in another, and the wider the range of information they have, the wider their potential customer base of potential buyers. This incentivizes them to not only collect more information on us, but also analyze and make sense of the information to better predict and influence our behaviors.
And, while a lot of people say that "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear", the warning from these kinds of common hacks should be evidence enough that centrally collected data is a problem.
You might be doing nothing wrong, it doesn't mean that "wrong" isn't going to be done to you.
And, it is easy to see when there are nefarious hackers who are going to be using that information to drain bank accounts and order porn online - but the more profound effect of the data is when it is used to manipulate the way we think and act, because rather than targeting individual wallets, it is targeting demand culture, which is what drives supply and of course, generates wealth.
As the entire economy is now "data-driven" in some way, those with access to the best data also have access to the purse strings, affecting behavior to draw the majority of wealth to them, while leaving crumbs for others - just enough to give the sense that there is still hope.
Assuming that all centralized code is eventually going to fail and be exploited, there is essentially no safe haven. But, if instead a lot of this data was transparent, it wouldn't be usable as secure documentation for things like approval. But, look at for example the amount of election fraud that happens, or could happen, where the numbers don't add up or questions can be raised to validity - how is that still a problem in this day and age, where we have networks like Hive that has handled hundreds of millions of votes, and never made a mistake?
What most are trying to do is better protect their data, but that is a losing battle, because all protection will inevitably fail. What is likely the more practical and possible solution is to devalue data by opening it up and making secrecy irrelevant and no longer valuable. This of course doesn't mean nothing is hidden, but if Splinterlands can hide a battle prior to playing, I am sure there are ways to protect information similarly.
However, there is always going to be a push against devaluing data, because that information is used by companies and governments to make money and control us - this is what centralized authorities do by nature, because it is in their best interest to hold, wield and protect their power. Data is the crucial step in the process, where we are constantly "confessing" to the things we do, like good Catholics to a priest. Expecting them not to misuse what they now know, is as naïve as giving out account numbers to someone who asks for them over the phone, or sending crypto to a random person on Discord who promises high returns on an investment.
Resistance is futile.
At last in regards to being protected by a central entity, because there is far too much incentive working for their failure, combined with far too much incompetence at scale. The bigger they are, the more space between joints and the slower they move - kneecapping and hamstringing becomes easier with a larger target. Everyone should realize by now, no matter what the current conditions might say -
Nothing is too big to fail.
Time and time again this has been proven through history, but, time and time again decentralization has been proven effective as a survival mechanism. It is the way of nature itself and is protected because it keeps evolving in numerous ways simultaneously, creating many different alternatives, so that no single point of failure threatens the entire ecosystem.
This is not just in data protection either, it is also in the economic structures, where through globalization, we have become more intertwined and reliant on each other as a coordinated whole. But, due to the size and difficulty in management, all of the alignment that generates massive profits for some, is also a structural weakness when things go wrong. Because, the incentive is still there for part entities to maximize, but they can do so in a way that influences the entire system. It is like parts of the body choosing to maximize their desired behavior, without coordinating with other parts. Ultimately, all parts are going to suffer catastrophic failure, so no parts can function at all.
But, decentralize the economy into separate, but interactive parts where there is incentive to find balance and no one entity can control too much, and then failure of multiple points can cause disruption, but not be cataclysmic to the system. Failure can be absorbed by other pieces and can even result in their increased antifragility. But, if any individual entity starts to get too powerful, the checks and balances will ensure that they will be trimmed before the problem gets too large.
This can happen as long as there is enough distribution of not only the markers of wealth, but the processes of wealth creation. This is one of the largest problems in the current economy as essentially, markers of wealth can be used to buy into the mechanisms of wealth creation and there is no limiting factor on how much. As this keeps happening, more of the wealth markers are held in fewer hands, and those fewer hands own a greater percentage of the mechanisms to generate an unassailable gap, until failure.
It should be remembered that centralized economies are designed to fail, because of the way they are designed to continuously monopolize wealth. Eventually, one way or another, the Roman empire will fall due its own success - but Rome the city continues on functioning. Decentralization of activity is like building cities, not states. So, while the states can come and go, the cities can keep functioning as they always have, in service to the inhabitants that live there.
These hacks are going to keep happening and they are going to get larger and larger until at some point, the failure is so large, that it devalues the data stolen, making it worthless. But, if that is the path we are going to keep walking, between now and then, it is going to be very, very painful.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]