Guides & Opinions
Tech Essentials for the Modern Investor, a guide that reveals the new world of big data,
privacy risks, and Internet
criminal tactics.
“Tech Essentials for the Modern Investor” was written to open your eyes to the new world of
big data, privacy risks, and
Internet criminal tactics. Why should you care? We discuss how companies are siphoning off
your personal, financial, and
habitual information, using the information to build profiles on you, and then selling your
profile to organizations
that want to track, target, or market to you. Some people enjoy this as it gives them the
opportunity to receive more
targeted advertising in their email – but they are often not aware that Internet criminals
can also use this information
to target you with sophisticated cyber fraud and hacker attacks. Today, Microsoft and Google
are an extension of your
life. With Google, it is impossible to avoid providing them your information if you use
Google products (search, Gmail,
document storage online). With Windows 10, unless you take great care when you first start
using, every document you
create is stored in a “Drive” in the Microsoft Cloud, where Microsoft discloses that they
have the right to read your
information and analyze it. There is a mirrored document structure on your computer’s hard
drive and on the OneDrive
(your Microsoft online drive). The copying of your information might be refreshing for those
that want an instant
backup… but do you really want all of your financial and personal information stored and
analyzed by Microsoft,
automatically? Microsoft Window 10 goes further with Cortana, for example, which can,
perhaps without your knowledge,
record your keystrokes, listen to your conversations and watch you via your built-in
computer microphone and camera.
Microsoft’s Cortana is particularly invasive as this has access to your camera and
microphone along with your contacts,
calendar, keystrokes, web browsing history, web search key words, and all of your documents.
Apple’s Siri is similar, on
your mobile device, and Amazon Echo listens to you in your living room. People have reported
having conversations in
their living room, only to receive email marketing messages related to those conversation
topics soon after. Creepy.
This is all disclosed of course. Microsoft states, for example: We will access, disclose and
preserve personal data,
including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or
files in private folders),
when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary. The good news is, with some
awareness, you can learn how to
use these powerful technologies (Windows 10, with all its built in “spying,” is really built
with the end user’s
convenience, needs and goals in mind). You can opt out of these features to enhance your
privacy, but you need to know
where to look. Windows 10, for example, has a Settings and Privacy applet, where you are
greeted with 13 different
screens to weed through, to opt out of things (read each carefully). Most of the concerning
ones are on the General tab,
but you really should go through all tabs, to understand and customize which types of data
each app on your system can
access. With Apple’s iPhone, within the Location Services area, you can see all of your
physical locations visited and
the tracking that is shared with Apple, other apps, and sometimes other people. For example,
if you do not want a
cumulative list of every physical location you have visited stored by Apple and shared with
apps and marketers (among
others), you might take the time to turn that “feature” off, hidden away in sub menus. 5 |
Foreword Some people simply
claim none of this is important as their life is not interesting enough for others to care
about enough to monitor their
activity. Hackers like these people, as they can use legitimate marketing and social media
tools (often back-end
purchased premium accounts) to cull this data on you, run your profile through an algorithm
to determine if you are
worth targeting (if you have the financial resources to pay ransom to regain access to your
personal files and photos,
and if you are making investments) and then they lure you to send funds to hacker or
imposter bank accounts. If you are
an investor or investment advisor, your profile would certainly trigger the green light for
hackers to target you. This
book aims to increase your awareness of these trends and threats, recommend tools you can
use to protect and equip
yourself, and show you how to meet these challenges head on.
