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New Class of Malware Will Steal Behavior Patterns
KentuckyFC writes "The information within huge, supposedly anonymized data sets can be used to build a detailed picture of an individual's lifestyle and relationships. This data is hugely valuable, which is why many companies already mine the pattern of links in their data to help them build things like recommender systems. Now a group of computer scientists say it is inevitable that a new class of malware will emerge for stealing this behavioral pattern data from social networks. They've analyzed the types of strategies this malware will use to collect information from a real mobile phone database of 800,000 links between 200,000 phones. They point out that the theft of behavioral data can be much more serious than the theft of other personal information. If somebody steals your credit card or computer password, for example, you can just get another card or change your password, thereby limiting the damage. That can't be done with behavioral data, they say. Who would be willing or able to change their real world pattern of person-to-person relationships, friendships and family ties?"
your behaviour patterns steal you!
All they'll see is that I'm on Slashdot 14 hours a day.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Fine. Then I'll constantly misbehave in atrocious patterns so they get nothing. What better way to misbehave than to claim FRIST on a /. story.
...can they link me to my anonymous first posts?
Identity theft takes on a whole new spin when you add in computer schizophrenia!
This is pseudo-science FUD and that kind of data would be useless to a criminal. Really, how can "behavioral patterns" be more useful than credit card or bank info to a criminal?
Your giving the criminals wayyyyy to much credit. Criminals are greedy and lazy looking for the EASY buck. What there talking about here is something a advertising company would do not a spammer
Jack of all trades,master of none
one of the best tools in fighting financial fraud is people's behavior patterns. I work for a big bank and have several applications which are used for pattern recognition both across a business unit, and across a single customer's account. If you buy something in Rome, than in Dallas Texas, then in Istambul, your account is going to be flagged... But what if someone had your card information plus your geographic habits? There are plenty of opportunities to make fraudulent credit card usage seem much more legitimate to an algorithm, all that is missing is social information... for now.
Will they also steal the designs of our Slashdot favicons?
May the Maths Be with you!
"Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", Samuel Delany. An early introduction and exploration of social networking, six-degrees of freedom connectivity, holographic information storage and its capability to track and predict criminal behavior. 1970 Hugo Award winner. Visionary, but the bad guys were big government ... not big business. Oh well, a 98% test score is still pretty damn good.
. . . with humorous results, as always happens when malware tries to replicate human behavior. Seriously, guys? Does no one remember the golden age of spam, when half the emails in your spam folder were 50% clipped quotes from Jonathan Livingston Seagull?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
FTA: "AOL removed the search data from its site over the weekend and apologized for its release, saying it was an unauthorized move by a team that had hoped it would benefit academic researchers."
Why are they saving this search data to begin with other than the profit motive? I highly doubt it was solely to benefit academic researchers.
What are our expectations of privacy when using search engines? Don't we have the right to assume that they do NOT save any personally identifiable information?
For now, I have learned NOT to use AOL for searches.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Criminals do not go to that type of effort. It defeats the entire point of being a criminal. To be a criminal is to suffer poor impulse control and to not be a big fan of working.
Most criminals aren't going to break into the Louvre and steal the Mona Lisa. Is it feasible to try? Sure. But, it isn't in the nature of crime to do so. Why? The who point of crime is that a lazy person or a person with poor impulse control can realize high marginal value by doing something illegal. The marginal value of planning out some super-caper is much lower than just going out and knocking the shit out of a dude and taking his wallet.
Even online crime tends to go after low-hanging fruit, such as spam, botnets, SQL-injection, etc. Why? Because the marginal value of hitting easy tagets for easy money is better than tracking down the actual victim and matching their spending habits to avoid detection for ever so slightly longer.
The actual marginal value in avoiding detection is not much, considering the victim will eventually check their credit limit and their bank account and see that something is up. In fact, I'd guess that's how most credit card fraud is halted.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
If the ad agencies cannot improve their systems with all the information already available to them, why would the criminals be able to do anything more?
Cash out a credit card, yes.
Cash out your mom and dad's address and the fact that you go there for Thanksgiving after buying a Safeway pumpkin pie, no.
If somebody steals your credit card or computer password, for example, you can just get another card or change your password, thereby limiting the damage. That can't be done with behavioral data, they say. Who would be willing or able to change their real world pattern of person-to-person relationships, friendships and family ties
ooooh. you spent 15 minutes yesterday on google looking for pet carriers. now i know who you will marry!
behavioral data is not mind reading or future predicting. its application is extremely narrow. this story is scaremongering stupid bs
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is why I change my porn viewing fetishes randomly every few weeks or so.
I read TFA and I still don't get it. What is the malicious coder's motivation? I mean, how does he make money knowing that you are friends with x number of other people? Does he sell it to marketers? Does he blackmail you because you have a mistress or something?
What I'm saying is, identity theft, credit card theft, and the like are easy to understand, because there is money to be made by doing it. How does one make money by knowing that Bob is friends with Susan, Bill, and Tracy?
Proverbs 21:19
What's this new class of malware called, facebook?
"Who would be willing or able to change their real world pattern of person-to-person relationships, friendships and family ties?"
People in witness protection do it because they have to.
People who are voluntarily in AA or similar lifestyle-change groups may drop certain friends or distance themselves from certain family members because they know they have to in order to overcome their additions.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. As soon as I reach some kind of definite policy about what is my kind of music and my kind of restaurant and my kind of overdraft, people start blowing up my kind of planet and throwing me out of their kind of spaceships!
...Steal Behavior Patterns
Funny, I still have my behavioral patterns here, neatly organized in alphabetical order... *shot*
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
If my behavior patterns can be replicated, then tracking me via my behavior pattern becomes a lot more difficult.
Sometimes even email gives far too much immediacy. By avoiding mindless social networking, I am left with more time to yell at the kids on my lawn to take their beer bottles and cigarette butts with them when they go.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Normally I don't mind, but I was a bit irritated I went down to another city (about 8-9h) to visit and pick up my GF. Along the way I stopped several times for gas. On the way back, I stopped again and my card was blocked.
Apparently going outside of my city and buying GAS along the way is enough to trip the pattern recognition, which is somewhat silly as my car's best is about 700-800/tank (45L) and filling up during a 700km (each way) trip is somewhat of a necessity... not to mention the pre-requisite bathroom breaks.
Plus you get to sue for $150,000 per pattern, because those bastards are denying you income.
How will I know if my behavioral patterns have been stolen?
Given the amount of time I spend on the interwebs , will I suddenly have a life?
"Holy shit! Where am I? Could this be the fabled Out of Doors? OH, GOD! Someone must have stolen my behavioral patterns!"
On second thought, maybe this new stealing of behavioral patterns could turn out to be a good thing....
People who are voluntarily in AA or similar lifestyle-change groups may drop certain friends or distance themselves from certain family members because they know they have to in order to overcome their additions.
It is often seen when overcoming one's additions that it is a negative thing or even sometimes divisive. Ultimately however, it really serves to multiply the positives. Sorry for the tangent.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book