Big data is a double-edged sword?

Today, the functions of computers are more powerful than ever before, and massive data-including personal information-are collected by them to form a huge database. These data are used normally and legally, but there is also the danger of being abused.

The predictive function of big data gives it great potential to change our lives. With its support, the accuracy of weather forecast in the next two days will reach 95%. However, once big data is abused, users' privacy will be threatened, especially those who often use the Internet.

How did these threats come about? How can we deal with these growing threats while ensuring that big data benefits society?

Scope of potential problems

First of all, simply from the analysis of the number of people involved in big data security incidents, its influence scope is constantly expanding. 20 14 The career development system of the University of Arkansas was breached, resulting in the disclosure of identity information of 50,000 people. This data is not small, but it is dwarfed by the fact that145 million people's birthdays, addresses, email addresses and other information were stolen in the same year's ebay data leakage incident.

From the professional field of security maintenance, it is not optimistic to protect the information in large databases from being stolen. To some extent, this is related to the essential defects of the basic technology used to store and process information.

Big data companies like Amazon rely heavily on distributed computing, and they often have data processing centers scattered around the world. Amazon divides its global business into twelve regions, and a large number of data centers in each region are constantly suffering from physical attacks and cyber attacks. These threats mainly come from hundreds of hidden independent servers.

Difficulties in access control

The best strategy to control access to information or web pages is to set a single access interface, which is much simpler than controlling hundreds of interfaces at present. However, the fact is that big data is widely stored in various regions. Its huge capacity, wide distribution and numerous access channels also make it more vulnerable to threats.

In addition, many companies pay insufficient attention to the security of their cutting-edge software components and big data infrastructure equipment. This opens the door to potential attacks.

As a typical example, a large number of software components in Hadoop (distributed system infrastructure developed by Apache Foundation, which allows users to develop distributed programs without knowing the underlying details of distribution) enable programmers to obtain a large amount of data and information in distributed computing systems. When Hadoop was first introduced, its security performance was low and it could not be used by many people at the same time. Despite this defect, many large companies still use Hadoop as their entire company's data platform.

User needs promote the development of data security.

From the user's point of view, it is very important to improve the security of big data products through various means, such as signing conditions and agreements with big data collection and use institutions, service level agreements, security seals, etc.

How should big data companies protect users' personal information from being leaked? In order to prevent information from leaking to illegal users, we can adopt strategies including information encryption, access control, intrusion detection, data backup, and use process review. This improves the security of data and strengthens the privacy of our personal information.

However, too much emphasis on security may invade your privacy: law enforcement agencies can collect more personal information under the pretext of security, such as the browsing history of employees' computers.

Under the banner of strengthening security, law enforcement departments regard everyone as a potential criminal or terrorist, collect their information and prove their crimes one day. In this way, the government has a lot of information about us. Not only that, companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon will also be required to provide other information, including our online shopping records, web browsing history and decrypted data.

The basic principle of this kind of monitoring is that no one can be trusted (big data technology greatly reduces the cost of this kind of monitoring and improves its feasibility). However, the collected information is likely to be leaked and abused, such as the abuse of power by employees of the National Security Bureau to monitor other people's calls.

In fact, if used properly, big data can help us get more information and improve the information quality (especially accuracy) of potential computer attacks and attackers. In this way, your privacy is better protected.

For example, ideally, if the big data analysis engine can accurately identify which emails are fraudulent among a large number of emails, we will no longer have to worry about encountering phishing emails.

How big data is used-is it good or bad for you?

Another problem with the use of big data is that some companies will record all your browsing history so as to send you specific advertisements according to your habits and hobbies. Big data promotes their behavior-lower cost and simpler analysis.

IBM's "Personality Insight" service can "sketch" your image according to your online habits. This is far more than the disclosure of identity information. Your personality characteristics, such as whether you are extroverted, environmentally conscious, politically conservative or innovative, and even whether you are willing to travel to Africa, will be shown in the survey results.

These companies claim that this technology can greatly improve the online experience. This sounds like consideration for users, but on the other hand, it is not difficult for us to think that the same information can easily be used to harm our interests. For example, insurance companies have implemented differentiated charges through user sketches analyzed by big data.

To solve this problem, it is obviously unrealistic to ban large-scale data collection. Whether we like it or not, the era of big data has arrived. Finding ways to protect privacy while allowing legal use of big data will make our life safer, richer and more efficient.

For example, when used legally and safely, big data technology can greatly improve the efficiency of anti-reconnaissance, which in turn can help us avoid identity information theft and potential economic losses.

While enjoying the convenience brought by big data, the key to solving the problems of security and privacy lies in the openness and transparency of information use. Operators of big data must disclose the content and use of the collected data.

In addition, users must have the right to know how the data is stored, who can use the data and the authorization process of the data. Finally, big data companies should also explain the security control measures they have taken to ensure the safety of users in order to win the trust of the public.

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