oh hey
how's it going
in this video you're the frog
hey what's up i'm destin so what i would
like to do today with your permission is
i would like to use any trust that i've
earned with you throughout the years
here on smarter every day and i would
like to push all that to the center of
the table and
use it to talk about a topic a topic
that's very important to me over the
last several years i have been reading
the works of very smart incredible
people and they've been saying something
in the background and i think they're
right i think we've let something go too
far and so today i would like to start
what i'm calling the smarter everyday
privacy series in this first video i
would like to explore your current
privacy situation and how we got here
and then at the end of this video i have
a proposal for a way to push back
against the current situation in a very
real way i know that you're smart so
that puts the onus on me to try to
compel you to agree with me so that's my
job here in this video i'm going to try
to make a compelling enough case to
convince you that privacy is worth
fighting for and the way i want to do
that is by talking about frogs there's
an old expression about boiling a frog
and it goes something like this if you
have a pot of boiling water and you drop
a frog into that pot it'll realize it's
hot and it'll jump out however if you
were to place a frog in room temperature
water and then slowly crank up the heat
hotter and hotter and hotter the frog
doesn't realize what's going on and
eventually it'll croak it's true that
the scientific merit of this experiment
is in question however the object lesson
is very very important when you're
living in one specific moment in time
you can only see the things around you
from your specific spot on the timeline
this is especially true when it comes to
privacy i started looking into history
and i realized that as our ability to
record and retain information increases
our natural desire to collect
information on other people and keep
that information has also increased
we're just naturally nosy people another
thing i realized is as the distance
between people has changed and we're
able to communicate over longer and
longer distances our ability to
intercept that communication and get
information on other people that's also
increased during my research i purchased
this beautiful physical copy of the new
yorker from 1938.
there's a neat article in it about
wiretapping written by a guy named meyer
berger it describes the history of how
wiretapping started when telephone
workers joined the police department and
details the methods used by both private
and government wiretappers it explains
how telephone companies initially
assisted in the wiretapping and then
they got put in an uncomfortable
position and they quit helping it also
explains how wiretappers would sometimes
amuse themselves by listening into
private conversations that had nothing
to do with their investigations so in
the 1930s people kind of viewed
wiretapping as like this thing that had
to happen in order to catch criminals
however it got so out of control that
there was a public outcry and by the
1950s you had all kinds of legal
scholars and politicians debating this
publicly in my judgment
it's difficult for me to escape the fact
that when government officials engage in
wiretapping they are engaging in a form
of criminal conduct and i don't think
that we should
should impose it upon the american
people because it is a serious violation
in my judgment of the precious right of
privacy the right to keep the american
home the free man's castle transition to
within our lifetimes in the 70s the
digital revolution is underway
transistors in digital recording media
allow for more sophisticated
surveillance and broader data collection
and analysis surveillance steadily
increases until that one tuesday in
september 2001
that a plane has crashed into one of the
towers of the world trade center when
america was attacked everything changed
suddenly people all over the country
myself included we were motivated to do
whatever it takes to fight terrorism and
we did in that moment through the
signing of the patriot act we threw out
a lot of mechanisms which prevented the
use of unchecked surveillance power if
you weren't an adult at this time it's
very difficult to describe what that
felt like we just wanted to catch the
bad guys and a lot of our decisions and
thinking was driven by emotions there
was another thing that happened at this
point in time though in the early 20
aughts i'll call it there were these big
internet companies in this new thing
called social media and these companies
started developing services that you
could use and the only thing they asked
for in exchange is for you to put your
data into the company it was interesting
it was like the first time the internet
became a self-propelled business the
engine that made this whole technology
happen was user data all we had to do
was put our data in the system that
didn't matter to us we weren't trying to
hide anything we could put it in the
system and all of a sudden we had access
to all these new really interesting
capabilities and it was fun so this is
where we found ourselves we had this
perfect storm of legislation passed to
increase digital surveillance and every
big tech company everywhere trying to
make money off of users data fast
forward 10 to 15 years later and you get
this
gigantic data farms within driving
distance or wherever you live these
things have been quietly popping up all
around us and you might not have noticed
i don't know what this specific location
is for but what i do know is that it's
full of data we put data in huge places
like this every day okay now we're on
the other side of huntsville in a
sketchy sprinter van getting drone shots
of the facebook data center this thing
is absolutely massive there are two
buildings that are completed there are
two other buildings that are under
construction this is insane if you're
not paying for the product you are the
product and i don't pay for facebook
whatsapp or instagram i don't know if
you do you are the product and this is
where they store that product some of
the stuff that's stored in data centers
like this i'm frankly grateful for this
video for example i am grateful for the
ability to distribute this to everyone
for free some of the stuff that's in
these buildings i'm not cool with how
long i looked at a particular picture on
instagram what my search history was
what the location of my phone was last
night where you slept who slept there
with you
it gets weird doesn't it it's more than
that though because i've got all my
documents like personal and business
i've got all my emails it's all there
that's the treasure trove it's all in
one place
is that smart so if you're like me you
might be okay with your data being
stored in a facility like this as long
as it was kept private but what if i
told you there is a way for someone to
remotely extract data from your records
without you knowing it because that's
exactly what happens in the u.s we have
the fourth amendment to the u.s
constitution which was ratified in 1789
at this point in time people were
concerned about unreasonable searches
and seizures of their papers and effects
you were concerned about a literal
soldier with a gun showing up at your
house and rifling through your physical
papers we now live in a very different
time now someone just has to gain access
to your digital files wherever you store
them which is easy to do without you
knowing because we no longer maintain
physical control of our effects i would
argue that our effects should include
our digital property but currently
effects are commonly interpreted as only
someone's physical property so at this
point i'm looking at the fourth
amendment it makes a lot of sense to me
if we could just get that to extend to
digital property then we're golden right
well no it's complicated who has access
to your digital email is a function of
where you physically store the digital
files an email server in your basement
is one of the only things that's
protected under the fourth amendment
that doesn't really sound like a big
deal unless you understand how this
process works if you wanted to share a
private digital document with a friend
in a different location how would you do
it we like to imagine the file going
directly to them but it doesn't it goes
through a service provider and often to
a big tech company data server like
these buildings not only could they see
what the document is they could keep it
there forever so the question is simple
do you trust these big tech companies
and service providers to keep your data
secret because you shouldn't because
they're not allowed to let's say big
tech company sells you in a cloud
service to back up your data photos
documents maybe some biometric stuff
from your smart watch whatever it's got
two-factor authentication and it feels
super safe but let's not pretend like
you read the terms of service who does
anyway right along with the intentional
data without realizing it you end up
putting in unintentional metadata gps
history phone and message logs contacts
internet session times no one piece of
this data would be very useful but when
aggregated this metadata creates a
complete map of who you are the who what
when and where of your life even though
you're trusting big tech cloud to guard
your stuff at this moment the government
can and does subpoena people's data and
then the government can issue a gag
order so that these providers aren't
allowed to tell you that your data was
requested this is generally done in the
name of national security but how do you
know since there's no outside
accountability even the fact that your
data has been requested is kept secret
so how can we have a review to know that
what's being done is right some
companies literally have a dollar amount
they charge the government to give away
customer data that tells me that this
happens way more than most people
realize by the way even though that big
data center that we were just flying
over was owned by a tech company the
land it's sitting on is owned by the
united states government i don't know
what that means i was just surprised by
that look at this the president of
microsoft is complaining in the
washington post about having to execute
these secret data requests i can see how
these tech companies are in a pretty
crummy situation and by the way these
secret requests are happening under both
democratic and republican
administrations power corrupts people
and the ability to intercept data and
communication between different people
is incredible power if this capability
exists someone in the political
hierarchy is going to choose to use this
power and they're going to frame its use
as good in an attempt to stay in power
as i'm talking about all this stuff you
might be thinking well i have nothing to
hide what does all this matter and the
answer is this can deeply affect your
life cyber crime and data leaks are at
an all-time high have you ever gotten a
sudden surge of spam in your email have
you started getting a ridiculous amount
of robo calls has anyone opened a credit
card in your name have you received
physical letters from your bank or
employer saying sorry but our system was
compromised and your personal
information has been stolen all of these
things are the results of hacks and
leaks of your information that was
sitting unprotected on someone else's
system we've been conducting our
business every day in a manner that
gives other companies control of our
information we've relinquished control
if you were to pull a 1980s version of
us forward till now we would be able to
quickly identify how bad it is for us to
let others control so much of our
personal information but because it
happened slowly we weren't able to
detect the massive changes that were
happening all around us we are boiling
the frog and we're the frog we are
giving away our privacy for convenience
entertainment and social media my
question is is this the way it has to be
the first thing that made the internet
run was an engine that ran off of users
data oftentimes though the first version
of a technology is not what's ultimately
in the best interest of society we're
now running today's internet by still
using the same type of engine we started
with and a byproduct of this approach is
the spewing out of your private data all
over the internet like air pollution the
damage this does is not immediately
obvious but in the long run it wreaks
havoc on our society and eventually
becomes an existential threat just like
how most car manufacturers are swapping
out internal combustion engines for
cleaner electric motors it's time to
take the next big step for how we use
the internet we need a new technology
that's clean that doesn't spew out your
private information and pollute the
environment we need an engine built for
privacy over the past three years i've
been working with a group of developers
in columbus ohio on ways to solve this
problem to do this right we think there
needs to be not only regulation but a
technology solution and we think there
are three key technologies that need to
be implemented the first thing we think
is important is end to end encryption
where the users hold the keys a lot of
people say they have indian encryption
but if the tech company in the middle
has the key you don't own the data so
this is important if you can have a
truly end-to-end encrypted solution
where the users hold the keys then you
own the data so what we're working on is
a way to make key handling easy and
simple the second thing that's important
is called zero knowledge architecture
this protects against hacks leaks secret
subpoenas and government overreach this
is a way to ensure that you and only you
get to control who gets to see the data
the third thing that's important is open
source coding this allows the system's
trustworthiness to be independently
verified signal is the gold standard for
encrypted text messaging and phone calls
the problem is that communication is
just the tip of the digital iceberg
we're trying to come up with a way to
apply that to all the other digital
stuff you do in your life imagine how
cool it would be to have a very simple
technology that could apply encryption
to the everyday business of your digital
life in a way that gives you the
encryption keys that's the magic of what
we're trying to do said in a complex way
the most important thing we're doing is
encryption key handling in a very simple
transparent way for the user so here's
what we're doing we want to remove the
dirty data spewing engine that the
internet is currently running on and
replace it with a clean engine built for
privacy we're actually calling this
effort are you ready for it for privacy
the goal is for you to own and control
your own data so we plan on
incorporating the for privacy engine
into other technologies whether it's our
method or something even better comes
along we want a more private future also
we're looking for experts and
collaborators so if you think you would
be willing to contribute in some way
please reach out we're a small team and
we're looking for people to partner with
to make this thing work if you're one of
these folks that think you might be
interested i will leave links down below
so that you can contact us we would
greatly appreciate that last thoughts
even if you're not interested in our app
that's the proof of concept for the
privacy engine if we could create a
successful kickstarter campaign that
would send a powerful message that
privacy is important and things need to
change all right this is the first video
in the smarter everyday privacy series
there's a lot to cover here so please
consider checking out the links below
thank you so much i'm destin you're
getting smarter every day have a good
one bye