Ben Malisow - Exposed: How Revealing Your Data and Eliminating Privacy Increases Trust and Liberates Humanity

Ben Malisow

Copyright 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-119-74163-3
ISBN: 978-1-119-74168-8 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-119-74167-1 (ebk)

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For my dad, Steve Malisow.

Maybe now he'll stop asking, Oh, is this one dedicated to your handsome, smart, wonderful father? every time I write something.

Yes. It is. Shut up, already.

Ben

Ben Malisow has worked in the fields of education/training, communication, information technology, and security, and/or some combination of these industries, for more than 25 years. Prior to his current position, Mr. Malisow provided information security consulting services and training to a diverse host of clients, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Department of Homeland Security (at TSA), and the FBI. He has also served as an Air Force officer, after graduating from the Air Force Academy.

An experienced trainer, Mr. Malisow has been an adjunct professor of English at the College of Southern Nevada, a computer teacher for troubled junior/senior high school students in Las Vegas, a senior instructor for the University of Texas San Antonio, and a teacher of computer security certification prep classes for Carnegie-Mellon University's CERT/SEI.

Mr. Malisow has published widely in many fields. His latest books are The CCSP (ISC)2Official Study Guide, The CCSP (ISC)2Practice Tests, and How to Pass Your INFOSEC Exam from Amazon Direct. Updates to his work and his podcast, The Sensuous Sounds of INFOSEC, can be found at securityzed.com.

There are so many people who helped in the development and refinement of this book; I want to take the opportunity to thank them all:

Kevin Galvan, for research and references.

Brian Hafter and Maren Calvert, for legal wizardry.

I must also thank Her Splendiferous Majesty Colonel Mo Barrett, USAF (ret), my classmate from the Air Force Academy, who reviewed some of the material and offered her invaluable insight on the tone and approach.

My preview readers, who gave valuable personal perspective into how each chapter resonated: Curchel Smoot, Wes Miller, Sergio Silva, Dallas Bishoff, Jonathan Aluveaux, Mike Beedlow, Tom Allen, Derek Osborne, Haider Sousa, and Stephen Villere.

Sebastian Kilchert helped verify some information for me.

Kelly Talbot, the editor who exceeds any sane description of what that position should reasonably entail; without him, many readers (and writers) would not even end up with the book they wanted (and were looking for). I am somewhat convinced Kelly is some kind of sorcerer with an advanced degree in psychology.

Jim Minatel . Jim is a publisher so therefore the mortal enemy of all writers. We usually communicate by lobbing heavy glassware at each other. However, when he told me he wanted me to write this book, he did something I didn't realize publishers knew how to do: he made a writer happy. I can't thank him enough for the opportunity.

And Robin Cabe, who helped with pretty much all of it, including reading the whole thing before it was ready.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

The idea of privacy is that each human being should be able to decide who has information about them. It's an interesting concept: each person creating an island of data and limiting access to the island only to other entities the individual permits.

In practice, it doesn't work, meaning it's both impossible and incredibly harmful to everyone when privacy rights are imposed and enforced. This is true for a number of reasons, including human nature, modern technology, and the way data functions and affects interaction.

Today, many people say they want privacythat they value control of their own information. There is an almost innate, reflexive horror at the idea that someone, anyone, could know something about us that we did not want them to know. Many of us do not feel comfortable with this idea: what if you had no privacywhat if everything you ever did or said was known to everyone else? Each of us may have a different image of the form of that discomfort. Who knows everything about methe government? Corporations? My spouse? And what would they do with that information? Harm me? Track me? Sell things to me? When we conceive of a dystopia, fictional or real, that depiction usually includes some aspect of loss of personal privacy, from the Big Brother intrusive government of George Orwell's