Three reasons why Internet Security Fails (and how we can fix it)
Hackers, Trackers and Fakers — today’s web is not secure. Here’s how Web 3.0 will fix many of these issues.
Just because a product employs “end-to-end” encryption means little to nothing. As it turns out, the very design philosophies of Web 2.0 are rife with privacy and security flaws.
In this article, we take a look at three major buckets of security issues on the Internet. We also paint a vivid picture of how future architectures will overcome these issues, including our efforts at SecureMeeting.
Primer
In a 2018 Vanity Fair article, the founder and inventor of the world wide web, Tim Barnes Lee, discussed the shortcomings of the Web and the crisis this has produced.
“We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places.” — Tim Barnes Lee
The power of the Web was neither snatched nor stolen. We, collectively, by the billions, have given it away with every signed user agreement and intimate moments shared with technology. The Internet’s problem are threefold:
- We are constantly tracked. We live under a giant digital microscope. It’s only about to get worse.
- Storage is centralized. All of the aforementioned “tracking” makes it’s way into one large digital cesspool.
- Advertisements are drivers of web business models. You are the product. Ad engines are obsessed with your eye balls.
#1 You are always tracked
You are often asked, innocuously, to grant your mobile phones, apps, and browsers the right to use anonymized diagnostic or location data in order to “improve performance”.
Your apps and browsers know where you were last night, and they not keeping it a secret. One NYT report shows that more than 75 companies receive anonymous, precise location data from an average user.
“The database reviewed by Times — a sample of information gathered in 2017 and held by a company — reveals people’s travels in startling detail, accurate to within a few yards and in some cases updated more than 14,000 times a day”
Often buried in vague privacy policies or wordy agreements, most products sneak under your skin and collect way more information that you thought they would. It’s not just the collection — this data is actively monetized. You are the product.
How to overcome this
Turn off “location tracking” on your phone, and severely limit apps from getting this information. Use browsers like Brave that defend against tracking. Avoid sites that force you to sign up using “social” handles like Facebook, Gmail, or Instagram. Also, just delete Facebook and never look back.
#2 Storage is centralized
In November 2020, more than half the world population, or 4 billion users, logged onto the Internet. In the future, billions of sensors, cameras, drones, and virtual assistants (voice) will listen to and monitor everything around your life.
All of this data will go park itself in data-centers controlled by a few Big corps. With data like that, they end up wielding more power than entire nation countries. This accidental dictatorship by Big corps must come to an end.
First, a single point of storage makes it easy for hackers. All they need to do is breach into a few data centers and they will know more about the world population at their fingertips.
Second, most corps are casual about protecting accounts. When half a billion accounts hacked/leaked, Facebook did not even bother notifying its users. Not to mention the fact that this data is actively sold to the highest bidder.
Third, even if the corporations takes steps to thwart external attacks, it hardly stops employees from pouring over raw information and connect the dots. For e.g., it is well known that Gmail employees have access to your email contents.
How to overcome this
The only way to stop this madness is to require data to be truly decentralized. Web 3.0 will usher products/services owned entirely by its users and not by any single corp (effectively eliminating the need for corps). In reality, corps dealing with user-data are best run as non-profits and not Silicon Valley backed VC firms (e.g., SecureMeeting).
#3 Click baits, Fakers and Ad Revenues
Ever wondered why you watch an ad and they get paid for showing you that ad? In a fair world, if you saw an ad, you should get paid for it.
The online jungle is feudalistic by definition. You are the peasant, working the feeds, videos and photos. In return for your hard work, you get to watch ads. And they keep all the profits.
Ad-revenue is how Big corps make money. All of our social, messaging, video, and news media sites are desperate for our attention. This forces them to focus on algorithms that get you to click all the time and spend endless hours on their platforms. Eye balls = $ revenue.
Keeping you addicted comes at a steep price — misinformation, conspiracies, and stoking tribal affiliations to divide us rather than enhancing our lives.
Because user identity is loosely coupled to the media system, it makes it easy to create multiple accounts that function as echo-chambers, effectively subverting content (Sybil attacks).
How to overcome this
Web 3.0 will change this landscape drastically. Watching ads will be opt-in. Even when users are forced to watch an advertisement, ad-revenue will be shared between the user and the corp (many emerging Web 3.0 apps give away 70% of ad revenues back to the user).
Open-source, non-profit movements will take over content and messaging bypassing Big corps and entire governments.
Conclusion
We are at least 5 years away before the underlying landscape of Web architectures evolve to make security, privacy and equality the primary pillars. We encourage you to to actively adopt Web 3.0 compliant sites that embrace these central tenets.
About Us
SecureMeeting is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit.
We are on a mission is to advance human rights and freedom of speech. We do this by designing, developing and deploying planetary-scale, privacy-preserving, Web 3.0 compliant communication architectures for all of mankind.
Send us a note, we’d love to hear from you: hello@securemeeting.org
