Hello. I am ultrageek. I have been in IT for over 40 years, since long before it was called IT. And, since the advent of commercial relational databases in the early 1980s, I have been a database specialist. I do data. I do databases. I do them. I teach them. I breathe them. Since databases started becoming obsolete, around the time that this begins, I have been a data warehousing specialist. I am currently a Senior Big Data Designer.
Data is remarkable. But it is only powerful when there is a lot of it. Single points of data are meaningless. They are noise.
You may be aware that data doubles every year.
Think about that.
Every single bit of knowledge that we gathered from we emerged from the caves 13,000 years ago until January 1, 1970 has doubled every year since. And will double again this year. And next year, and so on. And while we, as a world, have, indeed, gotten that much more clever, and continue to do so, that simply CANNOT account for the doubling of data.
You know what can?
YOU.
You, your likes and dislikes, the time you spend going from page to page, the order you click things, the number of milliseconds you spend somewhere until you get bored and go somewhere else, what intrigues you, what doesn’t.
At some point in the 70s, the practice of psychographics began. This started out as simple marketing tools. Magazines started asking their subscribers to list their activities, interests, and opinions (AIOs). Again, a single piece of data means nothing: Timmy’s mom likes knitting. BFD. But, aggregating that data wound up generating rich, deep, and accurate psychological profiles with predictive capacity for things not listed. For example, if, out of 100 answers, you included that you go to church every week and had an interest in our national heritage, they knew you were a Republican, particularly that you were racist and had a bent towards authoritarianism. And, if there was a jury where a cop was accused of killing an unarmed Black man, the cop wanted you on his jury. They didn’t have to ask you what you thought about cops, Black people, and authority figures killing thugs: they already knew.
In fact, throughout the 80s, 90s, and well into the 21st Century, the top database was owned by a company called “Oracle”. They chose that name so as to communicate that they could tell you true things that would come to pass that other people would not be able to predict.
And they did.
That was so long ago that AIOs were used to influence jury outcomes. But, that was the beginning.
Now, well, when you go from page to page, as you scroll down the walls, three hundredths of a second determine your experiences. And, importantly, YOUR experiences, and Mr. Go-to-church-national-heritage ARE NOTHING ALIKE. Your entire online experience is an exercise in microtargeting. You never see what the other side is told. You are in your unique pigeonhole where you never see ads about AR15s, and they never see ads about, I don’t know, nature reserves or space exploration or whatever you see. The silos are never breached. This is how polarization began, and it will only get worse.
Now, if your crazy Uncle Fred comes to your house, hangs out on your computer, and watches mega church screeds about how the homos are destroying society, your online experience will change briefly after he goes. Also, if you rent a storage space. Or, buy a new car. Ever notice how the second you start thinking about something, that’s all the ads you see?
Yeah. That is what data does. It knows shit about you before you do.
Back in the 90s, if your daughter started looking at skin care solutions to hide stretch marks, you might start getting things in the mail about diapers. She might not even know she is pregnant. But, because of the magic of data aggregation, the data companies knew the early signs — even the pre-signs — of everything. You buy a gallon of paint. What comes next? Ah, you’re looking at the amount of space between the screws on your toilet? Well, maybe you want to buy a sink, or a vanity, or lighting fixtures. Wait, you’re looking at fridges? How about ads for moving companies? Or real estate brokers? In fact, there’s a family in western Ohio who are looking at homes in your zip code. They make a nice living. But that family in downstate Michigan make $15k a year more. But they’re looking at colleges in your town. No, their son isn’t going to buy your house. Let’s go with Ohio. Do you want us to make that call? Every piece of data informs every other piece of data. And, those pictures get really detailed.
Now come data brokers, who scour every piece of public data about you. You graduated high school in 1979? Can we interest you in retirement homes? Oh, you have a pension? Cruises are wonderful. Oh, and did you notice that all your advertisements have people about your age? About your skin tone? About your economic status? The kind of people you’d want to be friends with?
Yeah, they know all that about you. They know how many kids you have. They know their genders. They know their ages. They know where they go to school. They know how they get there. So, your back-to-school ads will be for kids about their age, appropriate to their gender, and feature kids who are about their skin tone. You won’t even notice. That is what is normal for you. Oh, sure, there might be a smattering of other skin-toned faces, more girls than boys, or more boys than girls. But the ones that look most like YOUR kids will be in the forefront.
That’s what advertising IS nowadays. Gone are the days when everyone saw the same ads. Gone are the days when everyone’s very existence looked pretty much like everyone else’s. Absent big ad spends for single events, everything you do is suited to YOU. That “smart” phone, the “smart” TV, all of that “smart”ness is a way to make YOUR experience suit YOU, and, not so coincidentally, take the maximum amount from your wallet. They know when you bought your washing machine. They know the brand. They know the mean time to failure, and whether you have a warranty, and when it expired. And, juuuuuuust before you notice the damned thing going on the fritz, you start seeing ads for new washing machines. Replacing is less of a pain in the ass than repairing. Call Sears.
YOU ARE THE PRODUCT.
And, it extends farther than you think. It’s not just online activity. If you use a credit card to buy something online, and you use that same credit card to buy something at Walmart, they then know everything about every purchase you have made at Walmart with that card. If you’re a loyalty member, they know about every purchase you have made with ANY card. NOW they know about all of your purchases online *and* offline. What restaurants you go to. How often you eat out. What you eat. How much you spend. Are you a once-a-week-expensive-meal type, or are you a drive-thru-breakfast type?
They know everything about you.
And, because you drive a smart car with gps, they know where you go, what route you take, how long you spend, and when you return. Because you hang out with other people who have their phones on, that data is available if it is ever needed. Who knows whom. How often they chat. How long. From where.
This is data. And data accumulates. And data aggregates. And data has associated metadata. And that’s just data, too.
I’m not saying this like it is a bad thing. Indeed, you WILL enjoy your life more when it is suited to you specifically. Try watching some tiktok. Find Good Boy Ollie. Watch a reel and put your phone down and let it repeat 20 times. See how many times you’re going to get dog things. It’s a lot. And that’s ok, because Ollie IS a good boy. But you’re not going to see hunting reels where dogs get killed. YOU WILL NEVER SEE THEM. And, again, this is a GOOD thing.
But, your ability to understand you crazy Uncle Fred will decrease, and his ability to understand you will decrease, too. And, while it makes for entertaining family dinners, it doesn’t do much for forging common ground.
I don’t understand MAGA people. They don’t understand me. I am a non-binary Jewish lesbian. They have guns. As much as they complain that people like me are ruining their lives, if someone’s in danger here, it ain’t them.
NOW we get to the crux of things.
Because blue lives in red states are getting precarious. @AdvisorJim had a diary about that not too long ago (hi, AJ! love ya!). There are places where it is getting dangerous. And soon, data will become weaponized. You can start seeing it now. Gladys’ daughter is pregnant and can’t get an abortion in her state. Gladys invites her daughter to come visit her in Vermont. Extrapolation isn’t hard. But, in Gladys’ daughter’s home state, that conversation is proof of a crime, and one subpoena to Facebook might be enough to get a conviction.
Now comes the part that I can advise on.
The big secret is “cookies”. Cookies track your online activity. Next is gps data. And finally, there’s credit card info. Aggregate those together, and here’s a list of helpful tips:
1) Keep separate emails accounts for online activity and business activity;
2) Keep separate contact lists for your various communications accounts. For example, your cousin Phyllis and your business associates in India should never be on the same list. If you have naughty friends, they need their own email account and contact list;
3) Keep separate credit cards for online purchases that are NEVER EVER EVER EVER used in RL;
4) Keep separate credit cards for RL that are NEVER EVER EVER EVER used for online purchases. In fact, if you do a single online purchase for a credit card you use in RL, all that data gets aggregated in. Call the credit card people and have them reissue a new card;
5) Reissue your RL credit cards regularly; do not reissue your online cards unless there is fraud.
6) Assume that your browsing history is public;
7) Delete your cookies ruthlessly if you find yourself on a site that you don’t want anyone else to know about;
8) Make a list of what you dont care is public and what you do; keep your public stuff active and engaging so that there is no question of which is which;
9) Keep completely separate and utterly innocuous accounts on all the platforms you are on. Make sure that those innocuous accounts are parts of groups of innocuous groups. Whenever you cross into a place that might be “dangerous” for you, remove all history from your non-public accounts from the devices you are carrying, and ONLY have your innocuous accounts logged in;
10) If you live in a state that is limiting ANY human rights, PHYSICALLY POWER DOWN ANY DEVICES that you are carrying while in transit. Like, if you are driving a pregnant woman across Texas — regardless of the purpose — MAKE SURE YOUR THAT BOTH PHONES ARE COMPLETELY OFF until you get back to your home base. DO NOT USE ANY CREDIT CARD THAT YOU HAVE EVER USED ONLINE ANYWHERE THAT MIGHT IMPLY THAT YOU WERE SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN YOUR HOME BASE. Never use that credit card for any online purchase or anywhere where you shop for things that people might know about you. Maybe throw it away. Or get your credit card company to issue a new card;
11) If you use a VPN or any kind of incognito mode, do it sparingly, and keep your public face active.
Remember: you can get your credit cards reissued whenever you want, with or without reason, and there is never a penalty on that.
Also remember that the minute you purge your browsing history and cookies, you are invisible ONLY UNTIL YOU LOG INTO AN ACCOUNT IT KNOWS ABOUT OR USE A CREDIT CARD THAT HAS BEEN USED BEFORE. If you are going to do anything that you want to be invisible, CLEAR YOUR CACHE AND DELETE YOU COOKIES AGAIN BEFORE YOU ACCESS ANY OTHER ACCOUNT.
NOTE: While I have worked for these evil data aggregators, it was only twice: once in the 90s, and once about 15 years ago. THINGS MAY HAVE CHANGED SINCE.
