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THREAT ASSESSMENT

What You Put Online Can Hurt You

More and more people are pumping personal information about themselves into cyberspace—a careless practice that could come back to haunt them. Some security experts are concerned that hostile governments, extremist movements, and organized criminal groups are data-mining cyberspace not just to steal people’s identities but to compromise them.

“If you want a sensitive career in government or business, be extremely careful about what you say in e-mails or post on Facebook or MySpace,” a CIA contractor tells Serviam. The security sector is waking up to concerns that electronic correspondence and popular social networking Web sites will become informational treasure troves to unfriendly intelligence services and crime syndicates.

“Neural network software combines information from multiple data sources, making use of selected information to predict outcomes,” says Professor William Perry of Western Carolina University. Stockbrokers use neural network software to help predict trends in business and finance. Physicians use the technology for early warning of a patient’s disease. Gamblers employ the software to improve the odds of betting on racehorses.

While Perry sees neural network software as an important national security tool, he adds that the same technology in unfriendly hands can become a potent weapon of espionage or crime.
This is why committing indiscretions online could become increasingly dangerous, especially for people seeking sensitive careers in government or the private sector.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work, the CIA contractor explains, “Each piece of innocuous information might be meaningless on its own, but everything we write online is sitting on a server someplace in the world. Over time an individual will create an electronic database of his or her entire personality and private life that could make them vulnerable.”

Today’s identity theft is mainly the illicit or illegal use of an individual’s name, date of birth, Social Security or national identification number, and passwords. Armed with such information, a criminal or spy can assume the person’s identity online. But with data-mining software, unfriendly or unethical people can assemble thousands of tiny details of a person’s life—likes and dislikes; hopes and anxieties; friends and relatives; physical ailments and emotional states; dates, times, and places of activities—and construct an intimate personal profile.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a social networking page, as long as you keep in mind that you’ll never control who sees what you put on it,” the contractor says. “Especially if you have, or hope to have, a job that requires a high security clearance. You never want to give the bad guys the information they can use to blackmail you by threatening to ruin your reputation or family life, or steal your identity. Not just your identity, but your very personality.”

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From the September/October 2007 issue of Serviam.