privacy

The Future of Social Media: Why Decentralizing and the Fediverse Matter Now More Than Ever

~ Taran ~ Leave a comment

There was a time before social media and social networks as we know them, where people would talk to each other in person, isolated by geography. Then we figured out how to send our writing, and there was a period when pen-pals and postcards were important. News organizations adopted technology faster as reports came in from an ever increasing geography until, finally, we ran out of geography.

Social media has become an integral part of our lives, connecting us to friends, families, communities, and global events in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. Yet, as platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X) dominate our digital landscape, serious questions arise about privacy, control, and freedom. Who owns our data? How are algorithms shaping our perceptions? Are we truly free in these spaces? Are we instead slaves to the algorithms?

It’s time to rethink social media. Enter decentralization and the Fediverse—a revolutionary approach to online networking that prioritizes freedom, community, and individual ownership.

The Problem with Centralized Social Media And Networks

At their core, mainstream social media platforms operate on a centralized model. They are controlled by corporations with one primary goal: profit. This model creates several challenges:

  1. Privacy Violations: Your data – likes, shares, private messages—becomes a commodity, sold to advertisers and third parties.
  2. Algorithmic Control: Centralized platforms decide what you see, often prioritizing sensational or divisive content to keep you engaged longer.
  3. Censorship: Content moderation decisions are made by corporations, leading to debates about free speech and fair enforcement of rules.
  4. Monopolization: A handful of companies dominate the space, stifling innovation and giving users little choice.

All of this comes to the fore with the recent issues in the United States surrounding Tik-Tok, which Jon Oliver recently mentioned on his show and which I mentioned here on KnowProSE.com prior. The same reasons that they want to ban TikTok are largely the same things other social networks already do – it’s just who they do it for or could potentially do it for. Yes, they are as guilty as any other social network of the same problems above.

These are real issues, too, related to who owns what regarding… you. They often leave you looking at the same kind of content and drag you down a rabbit hole while simply supporting your biases, and should you step out of line, you might find your reach limited or in some cases completely taken away. These issues have left many users feeling trapped, frustrated, and disillusioned.

Recently, there has been a reported mass exodus from one controlled network to another – from Twitter to BlueSky.

There’s a better way.

What Is the Fediverse?

The Fediverse (short for “federated universe”) is a network of interconnected, decentralized platforms that communicate using open standards. Unlike traditional social media, the Fediverse is not controlled by a single entity. Instead, it consists of independently operated servers—called “instances”—that can interact with each other.

Popular platforms within the Fediverse include:

  • Mastodon: A decentralized alternative to Twitter.
  • Pixelfed: An Instagram-like platform for sharing photos.
  • Peertube: A decentralized video-sharing platform.
  • WriteFreely: A blogging platform with a focus on minimalism and privacy.

These platforms empower users by giving them control over their data, their communities, and their online experiences.

Why Decentralization Matters

  1. Data Ownership: In the Fediverse, your data stays under your control. Each server is independently operated, and many prioritize privacy and transparency.
  2. Freedom of Choice: You can choose or create a server that aligns with your values. If you don’t like one instance, you can switch to another without losing your connections.
  3. Resilience Against Censorship: No single entity has the power to shut down the entire network.
  4. Community-Centric: Instead of being shaped by algorithms, communities in the Fediverse are human-driven and often self-moderated.

How You Can Join the Movement

  1. Explore Fediverse Platforms: Start by creating an account on Mastodon or another Fediverse platform. Many websites like joinmastodon.org can help you find the right instance.
  2. Support Decentralization: Advocate for open standards and decentralized technologies in your circles.
  3. Educate Others: Share the benefits of decentralization with your friends and family. Help them see that alternatives exist.
  4. Contribute to the Ecosystem: If you’re tech-savvy, consider hosting your own instance or contributing to open-source projects within the Fediverse.

The Call to Action

Social media doesn’t have to be controlled by a handful of tech giants. The Fediverse represents a vision for a better internet—one that values privacy, freedom, and genuine community. By choosing decentralized platforms, you’re taking a stand for a more equitable digital future.

So, what are you waiting for? Explore the Fediverse, join the conversation, and help build a social media landscape that works for everyone, not just the corporations.

Take the first step today. Decentralize your social media life and reclaim your digital freedom!

joinmastodon.org

Linux Ain’t Hard. Just Different. Come Play.

~ Taran ~ Leave a comment

Microsoft Recall has been making waves in privacy circles. Some are calling it a privacy nightmare, some others are calling it a privacy nightmare, and privacy experts are sounding the alarm about it1.

As usual, when Microsoft does a stupid – and in my eyes, this is a pretty big stupid – people talk about migrating to Linux. Of course, people still think that people who use Linux wear funny hats and shout incantations at monitors through their keyboards to make it work. It’s not true. Well, not that true. To date, no Linux user has summoned Cthulu, though there are corners where there is concern about that. Those are silly corners.

Around the Fediverse, Linux users are being admonished to be on their best behavior, but I think that stereotype of bearded Linux users shouting at newbies to ‘RTFM!’ is a bit dated.

Linux has become more friendly. It’s become so friendly, in fact, that some who are long term users eschew the fancy GUIs for the tried and trusty command lines, but you don’t need to.

Linux is easy, and no, you don’t have to abandon your documents, or your way of life. A few things will change, though.

You won’t need the latest hardware to run an operating system – which means more money for beer and pizza, or wine and pizza, or whatever and whatever. You can breathe old life into that old computer system that you don’t want to leak arsenic into your water table and use it some more.

Linux-Curious?

If you are an academic, Robert W. Gehl has some Linux tips for you – he’s been using Linux in academia since 2008, on ‘Microsoft campuses’.

He hits some of the high notes for just about everyone, and I’ll only add that the Linux-on-a-stick and Linux User Groups are good ways to get your feet wet and help with the transition.

The trouble is you have so many options with distributions, and so many people have strong opinions on which distribution is better.

Spoiler alert: They all work. Start somewhere. Distributions are just flavors of Linux.

I suggest Ubuntu since it has oodles of support. I myself have different distributions I use for different things, but I’m a long time Linux user and have gotten to know my own preferences along the lines of Debian Linux, but I use Ubuntu as well. In time you will, or you won’t.

Linux-on-a-stick is a great way to check your hardware to see what issues might have with Linux as far as drivers. Since this article is written for Windows users, I’ll point to using Rufus to create a bootable USB Ubuntu Linux stick. You can put other distributions on a stick in the same way, too, so you’re not just stuck with one type of Linux.

If you want human help, search your area for a local Linux User Group. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some ways to find out if there is a Linux User Group near you. Failing that, ask for help on social media platforms.

The key to moving to Linux isn’t that you don’t know the answers. It’s that sometimes you might ask the wrong questions because of what you’re used to. If you think about it, that’s true of everything.

Grab a USB stick and see if your PC will run Linux so you can put the ‘personal’ back in ‘personal computer’.

  1. You have to admit, the idea of a privacy expert making noise seems peculiar. You’d think privacy experts would be like ninjas – so private you don’t even know about them. They must be more interested in your privacy. ↩︎

Why I Installed AIs (LLMs) On My Local Systems.

~ Taran ~ 2 Comments

The last few days I’ve been doing some actual experimentation, initially begun because of Daniel Miessler’s Fabric, an Open Source Framework for using artificial intelligence to augment we lowly humans instead of the self-lauding tech bros whose business model falls to, “move fast and break things“.

It’s hard to trust people with that sort of business model when you understand your life is potentially one of those things, and you like that particular thing.

I have generative AIs on all of my machines at home now, which was not as difficult as people might think. I’m writing this part up because to impress upon someone how easy it was, I walked them through doing it in minutes over the phone on a Windows machine. I’ll write that up as my next post, since apparently it seems difficult to people.

For myself, the vision Daniel Miessler brought with his implementation, Fabric, is inspiring in it’s own way though I’m not convinced that AI can make anyone a better human. I think the idea of augmenting is good, and I think with all the infoglut I contend with leaning on a LLM makes sense in a world where everyone else is being sold on the idea of using one, and how to use it.

People who wax poetic about how an AI has changed their lives in good ways are simply waxy poets, as far as I can tell.

For me, with writing and other things I do, there can be value here and there – but I want control. I also don’t want to have to risk my own ideas and thoughts by uploading even a hint of them to someone else’s system. As a software engineer, I have seen loads of data given to companies by users, and I know what can be done with it, and I have seen how flexible ethics can be when it comes to share prices.

Why Installing Your Own LLM is a Good Idea. (Pros)

There are various reasons why, if you’re going to use a LLM, it’s a good idea to have it locally.

(1) Data Privacy and Security: If you’re an individual or a business, you should look after your data and security because nobody else really does, and some profit from your data and lack of security.

(2) Control and Customization: You can fine tune your LLM on your own data (without compromising your privacy and security). As an example, I can feed a LLM various things I’ve written and have it summarize where ideas I’ve written about connect – and even tell me if I have something published where my opinion has changed- without worrying about handing all of that information to someone else. I can tailor it myself – and that isn’t as hard as you think.

(3) Independence from subscription fees; lowered costs: The large companies will sell you as much as you can buy, and before you know it you’re stuck with subscriptions you don’t use. Also, since the technology market is full of companies that get bought out and license agreements changed, you avoid vendor lock-in.

(4) Operating offline; possible improved performance: With the LLM I’m working on, being unable to access the internet during an outage does not stop me from using it. What’s more, my prompts aren’t queued, or prioritized behind someone that pays more.

(5) Quick changes are quick changes: You can iterate faster, try something with your model, and if it doesn’t work, you can find out immediately. This is convenience, and cost-cutting.

(6) Integrate with other tools and systems: You can integrate your LLM with other stuff – as I intend to with Fabric.

(7) You’re not tied to one model. You can use different models with the same installation – and yes, there are lots of models.

The Cons of Using a LLM Locally.

(1) You don’t get to hear someone that sounds like Scarlett Johansson tell you about the picture you uploaded1.

(2) You’re responsible for the processing, memory and storage requirements of your LLM. This is surprisingly not as bad as you would think, but remember – backup, backup, backup.

(3) If you plan to deploy a LLM as a business model, it can get very complicated very quickly. In fact, I don’t know all the details, but that’s nowhere in my long term plans.

Deciding.

In my next post, I’ll write up how to easily install a LLM. I have one on my M1 Mac Mini, my Linux desktop and my Windows laptop. It’s amazingly easy, but going in it can seem very complicated.

What I would suggest about deciding is simply trying it, see how it works for you, or simply know that it’s possible and it will only get easier.

Oh, that quote by Diogenes at the top? No one seems to have a source. Nice thought, though a possible human hallucination.

  1. OK, that was a cheap shot, but I had to get it out of my system. ↩︎

Beyond TikTok *Maybe* Being Banned.

~ Taran ~ 9 Comments

The buzz about the possible TikTok ban has been pretty consistent from what I’ve seen in social media, but it seems like most people don’t get why it’s happening.

One post on Mastodon I read said that it was a way for the government to alienate GenZ, and I thought – is this network really such a big deal? Anecdotally, I know quite a few people who peruse TikTok, and I shake my head because I explain why it’s not a great social network to use. In fact, the reasons not to use TikTok are pretty much the same as why people shouldn’t be using Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter X, and whatever else is out there: They want to know your habits, as I wrote.

In that regard, if TikTok is used so exclusively by GenZ, it’s easy to imagine lobbyists from the big social network companies might push for TikTok being banned. That is likely, since all that data on GenZ isn’t in their hands and they believe it should be. But it goes a bit deeper.

…U.S. officials fear that the Chinese government is using TikTok to access data from, and spy on, its American users, spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories...

“Congress approved a TikTok ban. Why it could still be years before it takes effect.“, Rob Wile and Scott Wong, NBCNews, April 23rd, 2024

That’s fair. We have enough domestic (American) disinformation and conspiracy theories during a 2024 election, we don’t need other governments doing their own to their benefit, as happened in 2016 with Russia.

Interestingly, and perhaps unrelated, the U.S. Senate passed a bill renewing FISA, which makes discussion about a ban of any foreign social media a little awkward.

…“It’s important that people understand how sweeping this bill is,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence Committee and outspoken proponent of privacy protections. “Something was inserted at the last minute, which would basically compel somebody like a cable guy to spy for the government. They would force the person to do it and there would be no appeal.”…

“Senate passes bill renewing key FISA surveillance power moments after it expires“, Frank Thorp V, Sahil Kapur and Ryan Nobles, NBCNews, April 20th, 2024.

Articles about FISA are very revealing – but people who are focused on the TikTok ban alone are missing some great information. This article by Hessie Jones on Forbes puts together some pretty great quotes. so much so I won’t quote it and point you at it: “Data Privacy And The Contested Extension Of FISA, Section 702” (April 23rd, 2024).

You see, it’s not just about foreign data:

“…Under FISA’s Section 702, the government hoovers up massive amounts of internet and cell phone data on foreign targets. Hundreds of thousands of Americans’ information is incidentally collected during that process and then accessed each year without a warrant — down from millions of such queries the US government ran in past years. Critics refer to these queries as “backdoor” searches…“

“Senate passes, Biden signs surveillance bill despite contentious debate over privacy concerns“, Ted Barrett, Morgan Rimmer and Clare Foran, CNN, April 20th, 2024.

So, what’s feeding generative artificial intelligences? Why, you are, of course, with everyone’s social network ‘allowing’ you to do so.

The TikTok ban will likely be fought in court for years, anyway, and who knows what direction it will take depending on who wins the election?

But social networks and companies will still be hoovering that data up, training artificial intelligences all about you. It will help train algorithms to sell you stuff and influence you to make decisions.

TikTok ain’t the issue.

The Battle For Your Habits.

~ Taran ~ 5 Comments
Found floating around today in the wild. As an atheist that doesn’t use Chrome, I know he ain’t talking to me.

There are some funny memes going around about TikTok and… Chinease spyware, or what have you. The New York Times had a few articles on TikTok last week that were interesting and yet… missed a key point that the memes do not.

Being afraid of Chinese Spyware while so many companies have been spying on their customers seems more of a bias than anything.

Certainly, India got rid of TikTok and has done better for it. Personally, I don’t like giving my information to anyone if I can help it, but these days it can’t be helped. Why is TikTok an issue in the United States?

It’s not too hard to speculate that it’s about lobbyism of American tech companies who lost the magic sauce for this generation. It’s also not hard to consider India’s reasoning about China being able to push their own agenda, particularly with violence on their shared borders.

Yet lobbying from the American tech companies is most likely, because they want your data and don’t want you to give it to China. They want to be able to sell you stuff based on what you’ve viewed, liked, posted, etc. So really, it’s not even about us.

It’s about the data that we give away daily when browsing social networks of any sort, websites, or even when you think you’re being anonymous using Google Chrome when in fact you’re still being tracked. The people who are advocating banning TikTok aren’t holding anyone else’s feet to the fire, instead using the ‘they will do stuff with your information’ when in fact we’ve had a lot of bad stuff happen with our information over the years.

Found circulating as a meme, which lead me to check out StoneToss.com – some really great work there.

Since 9/11, in particular, the US government has taken a pretty big interest in electronic trails, all in the interest in National Security, with the FBI showing up after the Boston Marathon bombing just because people were looking at pressure cookers.

All of this information will get possibly get poured into learning models for artificial intelligences, too. Even WordPress.com volunteered people’s blogs rather than asked for volunteers.

What value do you get for that? They say you get better advertising, which is something that I boggle at. Have you ever heard anyone wish that they could see better advertising rather than less advertising?

They say you get the stuff you didn’t even know you wanted, and to a degree, that might be true, but the ability to just go browse things has become a lost art. Just about everything you see on the flat screen you’re looking at is because of an algorithm deciding for you what you should see. Thank you for visiting, I didn’t do that!

Even that system gets gamed. This past week I got a ‘account restriction’ from Facebook for reasons that were not explained other than instructions to go read the community standards because algorithms are deciding based on behaviors that Facebook can’t seem to explain. Things really took off with that during Covid, where even people I knew were spreading some wrong information because they didn’t know better and, sometimes, willfully didn’t want to know better or understand their own posts in a broader context.

Am I worried about TikTok? Nope. I don’t use it. If you do use TikTok, you should. But you should worry if you use any social network. It’s not as much about who is selling and reselling information about you as much as what they can do with it to control what you see.

Of course, most people on those platforms don’t see them for what they are, instead taking things at face value and not understanding the implications it has on choices they will have in the future that could range from advertising to content that one views.

China’s not our only problem.

Analyze This.

~ Taran ~ Leave a comment

When I read this article in the Trinidad Express, “Analyzing the TSTT Data Breach“, I shook my head a bit. It’s all much simpler than what was written down, citing Daniel Smith.

Protecting user information in a business is simple and doesn’t require couching in robust academic terms because it comes out smelling like something you might wish to put on a flower bed.

Keep. It. Simple.

It’s 6 very basic steps.

  1. Create a business list of what data you need in your system.
  2. Have a data policy as to who can access what (tiered).
  3. Inventory what you have in your systems.
  4. Get rid of what you don’t need.
  5. Lock and/or encrypt what you have.
  6. Have plans for dealing with any security incidents.

Any company dealing in user data should be doing these steps. They are not difficult, but people can make them complicated and those people are a large part of the problem.

TSTT Data Breach Context.

Step 1: In the context of the TSTT data breach, I have yet to hear any reason why TSTT needed scanned identifications, business registrations, and for all I know the latest DNA samples from Ancestry.com. I can go to a police station in Trinidad and Tobago and have a constable look at my driver’s permit, who then writes down the particulars, but somehow TSTT (and banks for that matter) need a constant deluge of copies of user identification?

I find it hard to believe that there’s a need for that in the systems that connect to anything other than a shredder and incinerator, but I could be wrong. I would like to know if I am and for what reasons, but I could be wrong.

Step 2: Who in TSTT needs access to documents, identification, etc? Which documents do they need to access? So you create the tiered access.

Step 3: What are you missing for your business requirements? Develop plans for that, and make sure it fits in with that tiered access level.

Step 4: You’re likely to find rubbish in all the data that has been needlessly stored over the years, particularly with steps (1) and (2) done. Destroy it. Shred it. Burn it with fire. You don’t want the liability, if a Data Protection Act ever surfaces. That Data Protection Act be something a Minister of Public Information and Digital Transformation could champion.

Step 5: Encrypt personal information of your customers if it must be accessible on any network. It’s not hard. Most content management systems can handle that pretty easily.

Step 6: With the above steps done, a bad actor would have to get past all those hurdles and that makes the company much more defensible should it happen. What’s more, since there’s no extraneous data, you should be able to point directly at why you needed the information stored on a network in the first place.

6 steps. That’s it.

Any CTO should be able to handle that. I’ve seen it properly done by high school graduates. I’ve seen it improperly done by college graduates. Once you care about your customer’s privacy, and once you are concerned about liability, things become extremely clear.

“Business In The Street”

~ Taran ~ 1 Comment

That’s a Trinidad and Tobago colloquialism much like dirty laundry, but with it embedded in the street networks of information. Gigabytes, terabytes, or even bytes – it didn’t matter the amount of bytes, just the weight of the bytes.

A juicy tidbit of gossip didn’t need much. In fact, you could consider it decompressing in a different way each time it was re-told.

In a world built largely on trust, on integrity, the wrong information could ruin someone. The right information might get you elected to political office, for those with such aspirations.

Some say these were simpler times. Some think they were better times, when people would discuss what they read in a borrowed newspaper over some puncheon rum. I don’t know. It was different, and it’s hard to say progress has been made.

I write that after reading Mark Lyndersay’s, “TSTT’s dark night of the soul“.

TSTT’s data breach was shouted from the rooftops. On social media, people became more and more daring about showing the sorts of information available from the breach. To say that TSTT was not frank about the breach of their information security is an understatement.

There was outcry, enough that the TSTT CEO was replaced, but… it seemed like most people didn’t talk much about it. I’m not sure what replacing the CEO does anyway. That’s like changing the steering wheel when you have an oil leak.

There was no real reason for me to go outside and do anything today, but I wandered into a few places and talked to a few people. Some of them had heard about it but didn’t know what the breach had in it. One person hadn’t heard about the TSTT data breach while he worked across from a bMobile (subsidiary of TSTT) store.

Then I realized something. It wasn’t that it wasn’t written about, on television (I assume), on social media, and what have you. It was. It was there for people to find.

There’s the algorithm problem, where they might not normally watch technology related news, but someone along the way would probably have spoken to someone in person about it.

People just weren’t as interested as I had thought they would be. They have much lower expectations than myself about safeguarding of personal information. They didn’t see the threat of having their information compromised… or as someone pointed out today, “There’s just nothing I can do anyway”.

And oddly, that’s why Mark was writing about the Data Protection Act.

Meanwhile, TSTT customers have their business in the street.

Why So Many Breaches in Trinidad and Tobago?

~ Taran ~ 5 Comments

People continue to ask why there are so many data breaches happening in Trinidad and Tobago. I’m not someone who would call himself a security expert by a stretch, but it’s an intriguing enough question that I decided to look into it.

Commonalities in Website Technology?

First, I checked the websites of those that had been breached, which might reveal some commonalities. Bear in mind, it’s possible that the websites weren’t how the information was accessed.

TSTT, which had the most noteworthy breach, runs Wix – which was quite a surprise if only because of the vendor lock-in associated with it. I was expecting a more commonly used content management system but instead, Wix.

The Office of the Attorney General’s website, attacked earlier this year and probably the 2nd most important breach overall since it paralyzed the Judiciary is using WordPress. It also is actually not the first time; a teen was charged in 2007 for hacking into the Attorney General’s Office.

MassyStorestt.com also runs WordPress, but is substantially behind in upgrades. Pricesmart.com runs mostly BloomReach and a bit of Drupal. Their breach was reported yesterday.

It’s apparent that this isn’t an issue of common platforms being compromised. Yet there is a hint in here. MassyStoresTT.com being substantially behind in WordPress updates.

Maintenance.

When I was heavily into developing CMS websites, I tried doing that locally in Trinidad and Tobago and found that people thought they could just buy a website and it would simply be done and they could go about their business without maintenance contracts. It simply doesn’t work that way.

Maybe even after years, that hasn’t changed. Maybe these websites aren’t being maintained and kept up to date with technology, which includes patching for exploits that allow their data to be breached or otherwise attacked. Maybe.

Personally, with my experience in dealing with local companies and government offices, I don’t see them seeing maintenance as a priority. In fact, I didn’t do business with companies in Trinidad and Tobago for that same reason because… I didn’t want my name associated with poorly maintained sites.

Is this the only conclusion? Definitely not.

Who Has Access Anyway?

Everyone talks about the breaches, but the public always assumes that the people with access to the information had a reason to access the information. In the TSTT data breach, scanned copies of people’s identification were found and I have to wonder what TSTT’s information policy is. Who needs access to that level of information, and why?

I’d be surprised if it were available through the website because that would be just asking for trouble.

Assuming they themselves can be trusted with your personal information, there’s social engineering, which the video below explains.

We forget at times that the people with access to information themselves are open to attack to get to something bigger. Maybe their own computer systems they use to access the data are compromised, maybe they’ve been compromised.

Conclusions

Again, I’m no security expert. Some of the information available from these breaches and the way attacks happened on some websites was clearly associated with the websites themselves. TSTT’s data breach seems different in that regard because no sane company would have that information accessible through their website.

Altogether, it seems like a lack of maintenance for most of these breaches – and maybe there were deeper issues with all of them, but in particular the TSTT data breach.

What is most disturbing is that these are the breaches we’re worried about, which could be a fraction of the number of breaches that happened. The announced breaches we found out about because either someone showed evidence or it created an issue that impacted products and services.

The insidious breaches, the ones where people simply mine the information and don’t get caught or brag, we don’t know about. That’s what concerns me most.

We should be worried.

Breach Ho!

~ Taran ~ 8 Comments
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

As everyone in Trinidad and Tobago knows, Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) had a horrible data breach that leaked quite a bit of personal information of customers, from scanned identification to credit card numbers.

I sat back for most of it. It was pretty clear to me from the onset that there was no putting the genie back in the bottle. As mentioned in the mainstream media, the story from TSTT changed quite a bit.

If there was a checklist of every bad way to handle a data breach of customer personal information, I think they at least hit the high notes. They were as unprepared for their information security being compromised as they were unprepared to have their information security put to the test.

TechNewsTT.com seemed to have the best coverage. I sat back and watched as details of scanned copies of identification, credit card numbers, a suspected password file and more began surfacing even as TSTT denied that they lost that information. When I searched for my information in the data dump, I found 2 occurrences. A few days later, I checked again and I was up to 37. This disturbed me not just because of the amount of times I showed up but because of one very interesting detail.

I’m not a TSTT customer. I am a customer of their subsidiary, Amplia. While I have heard but not met a namesake in Trinidad and Tobago, I strongly suspect that there are not 37 of us with the same name. Of course, that search doesn’t tell you what sort of documents and information was leaked. Why is my name in a data dump when I’m not a direct customer? Peculiar, suspicious, and enough to make one wonder a little bit about whether TSTT is co-mingling it’s information across subsidiaries.

Even more disturbing has been how many people misunderstand the data breach in their own personal context. The fact that a telecommunications provider, with a majority share owned by the government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, mishandled this from information security to being honest with their customers should boggle any sane person.

Unfortunately, this is not the first data breach in Trinidad and Tobago. There have been some announced, such as when the Judiciary got locked out of their system and no cases could continue their slow moonwalk toward progress. These are the obvious breaches, the advertised breaches.

It’s the silent breaches we should be worried about.

There’s so many questions that people need to be asking that it’s hard to write just one article about it.

Lawsuit Regarding ChatGPT

~ Taran ~ 2 Comments

Anonymous individuals are claiming that ChatGPT stole ‘vast amounts of data’ in what they hope to become a class action lawsuit. It’s a nebulous claim about the nebulous data that OpenAI has used to train ChatGPT.

…“Despite established protocols for the purchase and use of personal information, Defendants took a different approach: theft,” they allege. The company’s popular chatbot program ChatGPT and other products are trained on private information taken from what the plaintiffs described as hundreds of millions of internet users, including children, without their permission.

Microsoft Corp., which plans to invest a reported $13 billion in OpenAI, was also named as a defendant…”

“Creator of buzzy ChatGPT is sued for vacuuming up ‘vast amounts’ of private data to win the ‘A.I. arms race’“, Fortune.com, Teresa Xie, Isaiah Poritz and Bloomberg, June 28th 2023.

I’ve had suspicions myself about where their training data came from, but with no insight into the training model, how is anyone to know? That’s what makes this case interesting.

“…Misappropriating personal data on a vast scale to win an “AI arms race,” OpenAI illegally accesses private information from individuals’ interactions with its products and from applications that have integrated ChatGPT, the plaintiffs claim. Such integrations allow the company to gather image and location data from Snapchat, music preferences on Spotify, financial information from Stripe and private conversations on Slack and Microsoft Teams, according to the suit.”…Misappropriating personal data on a vast scale to win an “AI arms race,” OpenAI illegally accesses private information from individuals’ interactions with its products and from applications that have integrated ChatGPT, the plaintiffs claim. Such integrations allow the company to gather image and location data from Snapchat, music preferences on Spotify, financial information from Stripe and private conversations on Slack and Microsoft Teams, according to the suit.

Chasing profits, OpenAI abandoned its original principle of advancing artificial intelligence “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole,” the plaintiffs allege. The suit puts ChatGPT’s expected revenue for 2023 at $200 million…”

ibid (same article quoted above).

This would run contrary to what Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, put in writing before US Congress.

“…Our models are trained on a broad range of data that includes publicly available content,
licensed content, and content generated by human reviewers.3 Creating these models requires
not just advanced algorithmic design and significant amounts of training data, but also
substantial computing infrastructure to train models and then operate them for millions of users…”

[Reference: 3 “Our Approach to AI Safety.” OpenAI, 5 Apr. 2023, https://openai.com/blog/our-approach-to-ai-safety.]

“Written Testimony of Sam Altman Chief Executive Officer OpenAI Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, & the Law“, Senate.Gov, Sam Altman,CEO of OpenAI, 5-16-2023.

I would love to know who the anonymous plaintiffs are, and would love to know how they got enough information to make the allegations. I suppose we’ll find out more as this progresses.

I, for one, am curious where they got this training data from.