Long gone are the days when an urgent email from a Nigerian prince needs your account number to hold their millions, promising a finders fee. What quaint times.
No, while it wasn't long ago that we would see these obvious scams, laugh, and ask incredulously, "Who would fall for this?" The emails had misspellings and poor grammar, they included zero knowledge of who the target was, and were meant to prey on only the most gullible, the most vulnerable, and the most trusting. Yes, these attacks were successful for a while, as sending out a blast email to millions of people might still net a handful of victims. The technology innovation for this scam was the ability to collect a large amount of email addresses and send out mass emails-the equivalent of casting a very wide net and pulling in whatever possible. Yet today's technological innovations are orders of magnitude more sophisticated, and we have not yet realized their full capabilities. Let's dive into why big data has made this possible, what these bad actors will be able to do with it, and what the next decade will look like for data, safety, and trust. While big data was a major achievement for the global community, its next evolution, the "Trusted Data Market", will directly address the problems created from big data. As this cheqd article lays out, one of the key elements missing from big data today is trust, but it's the reason for that we should be most concerned about. Your data is no longer your data. It's owned by corporations and data brokers, who have commoditized your personal information into a product. For privacy, security, and frankly because it's not theirs to own, this paradigm needs to change. Your data needs to be in your hands, owned by you, and if you are willing to share it with others, there should be compensation. This is a trusted data market, and with the right help we will move in that direction.
Big Data Challenges
This problem started in the pursuit of something revolutionary. Big data was meant to make life easier, make logistics and recommendations better, and help better connect people to the things they want and need. And this was massively successful. The global community started collecting data, finding ways to store it efficiently (largely through the innovation of the cloud), and found more and more ways to pull information, and then insights out of it. The dream of big data was realized, and then exceeded as we found more and more ways to track data, and more seemingly inconsequential data points to track. And thanks to very basic supply and demand, people found new ways to massage and squeeze value out of the data.
Before long, our lives became well documented, far beyond what we thought was possible. This was thanks to two major innovations: smartphones and social media. With smartphones, our geo data was matched with what we were doing, which even when anonymized could be tied back to an individual. With social media, our posts were geotagged to go with our photos, videos, networks, and our thoughts.
As with all innovations, this has resulted in benefits to society but risks as well. The Nigerian prince is still sending emails, but now knows quite a bit about you.
Sophisticated Bad Actors
The other half of this growing concern are the bad actors who know how to leverage the latest innovations to achieve their goals. The speed of this innovation is exponential, which means it is happening faster and faster. What this really means is that intelligent people with ill intent are developing very, very realistic scams that can fool anyone if performed correctly.
Does this seem alarmist? Then consider the following. You are busy working and you get a call from your spouse's number. You answer, and your spouse says they are filling out some paperwork and need your social security number so they can finish, but they are in a hurry and need to verify it. They mention that the steering in their car seems a little sluggish and you might need to return to Bob's Mechanic Shop to get it looked at again. You complain about the car, give the number quickly, and say goodbye. You make a note about the car and finish up your day. Later, when you see your spouse, you ask how long the car has been acting that way, and they look at you, puzzled. When you explain, they insist that they never called you. After checking their call log, which doesn't show any calls to you, you have a sinking feeling that something is very, very wrong.
In this scenario, all of these elements are completely possible today. With a data broker, one can get access to recent trips to mechanics and the reasons why; with a cell spoofer they can imitate the number of your spouse (which was obtained by the data broker). Using Chat-GPT and an audible deepfake program, they could imitate not only your spouse's voice but also their speech patterns. These are incredible innovations, but they are not hard to obtain, not hard to learn, and not hard to use.
Trusted Data Is Key
So with bad actors this sophisticated, is there any defense we can use? Yes, there is. While there will always be evolving attacks, the ability to fake information, data, and even how it is presented requires a strong system for trusted data. This can be true with a casual phone call, but is significantly more important with decentralized transactions like those found in the crypto lending / DeFi market. The market has been working on this for some time, bringing in KYC protocols to ensure that those you are doing business with are genuinely who they say they are.
"Trusted Data" will be the currency of the next decade. Your reputation, and your ability to verify your identity, will create a safe place for you to do business. Thankfully, there are platforms working to make this a reality. Notably, the platform cheqd has built infrastructure for Trusted Data ecosystems. This involves a privacy-preserving data network, where that data is owned by users who have selective control over how their data is shared and transacted upon. This is absolutely critical as it allows the data to be protected and controlled by those who own it. We will need more of this development in the years ahead.
Looking Forward
As data attacks get more sophisticated, we will need stronger and more innovative tools to protect ourselves and our data. With a focus on Trusted Data, this goal might just be possible.
