Is There Some Way Out to Make Internet A Safer Place
How many internet users are aware that the Internet they use today is broken. Hackers, cyber-criminals, state intelligence operations, mass surveillance and other prying forces are ravaging through the Internet with attacks, viruses, malware and interceptions, creating an unsafe and scary environment for all users.
The black market of ID-theft for example is insanely huge, the 2017 Identity Fraud Study released by Javelin Startegy & Research, USA in Feb.2018 . Though the study is based on data taken from USA but is an indicater to the other countries also.
Major Highlights are as under :
1. The number of identity fraud victims increased by eight percent (rising to 16.7 million U.S. consumers) in the last year, a record high since Javelin Strategy & Research began tracking identity fraud in 2003. The study found that despite industry efforts to prevent identity fraud, fraudsters successfully adapted to net 1.3 million more victims in 2017, with the amount stolen rising to $16.8 billion. With the adoption of EMV (embedded chip) cards and terminals, the types of identity fraud continued to shift online and away from physical stores. The complexity of fraud is also on the rise as criminals are opening more new accounts as a means of compromising accounts consumers already have.
2. The year 2017 saw a notable change in how fraud is being committed. While credit card accounts remained the most prevalent targets for new account fraud, there was significant growth in the opening of new intermediary accounts, such as email payments (e.g. PayPal) and other internet accounts (e.g. e-commerce merchants such as Amazon) by fraudsters. Although not as easily monetized alone, these account types are invaluable in helping fraudsters transfer funds from the existing accounts of their victims.
1. The number of identity fraud victims increased by eight percent (rising to 16.7 million U.S. consumers) in the last year, a record high since Javelin Strategy & Research began tracking identity fraud in 2003. The study found that despite industry efforts to prevent identity fraud, fraudsters successfully adapted to net 1.3 million more victims in 2017, with the amount stolen rising to $16.8 billion. With the adoption of EMV (embedded chip) cards and terminals, the types of identity fraud continued to shift online and away from physical stores. The complexity of fraud is also on the rise as criminals are opening more new accounts as a means of compromising accounts consumers already have.
2. The year 2017 saw a notable change in how fraud is being committed. While credit card accounts remained the most prevalent targets for new account fraud, there was significant growth in the opening of new intermediary accounts, such as email payments (e.g. PayPal) and other internet accounts (e.g. e-commerce merchants such as Amazon) by fraudsters. Although not as easily monetized alone, these account types are invaluable in helping fraudsters transfer funds from the existing accounts of their victims.
3. It found three significant changes in data breaches in 2017. Nearly a third (30 percent) of US consumers were notified of a breach in the past year, up from 12 percent in 2016. For the first time ever, Social Security numbers (35 percent) were compromised more than credit card numbers (30 percent) in breaches. Finally, data breaches are causing consumers to lose trust in institutions. These trends combined to cause consumers to shift the perceived responsibility for preventing fraud from themselves to other entities, such as their financial institution or the companies storing their data.
4. Al Pascual , senior vice president, research director and head of fraud & security, Javelin Strategy & Research said “2017 was a runaway year for fraudsters, and with the amount of valid information they have on consumers, their attacks are just getting more complex,” said “Fraudsters are growing more sophisticated in response to industry’s efforts to implement better security. Fortunately, there are a variety of digital tools that consumers can leverage to stay better informed on the status of their identities and accounts, and to ultimately stay better protected.”
5.Record high incidence of identity fraud – In 2017, 6.64 percent of consumers became victims of identity fraud, an increase of almost one million victims from the previous year. This increase was driven by growth in both existing non-card fraud and account takeover (ATO).
6.Account takeover grew significantly – Account takeover tripled over the past year, reaching a four-year high. Total ATO losses reached $5.1 billion, a 120 percent increase from 2016. Account takeover continues to be one of the most challenging fraud types for consumers with victims paying an average of $290 in out-of-pocket costs and spending 16 hours on average to resolve. This translates to more than 62.2 million hours of time consumers lost in 2017. That is enough time for more than three million people to binge watch the first and second season of Stranger Things.
7.Online shopping presents the greatest fraud opportunity – EMV is driving more fraudsters to seek online channels for fraud. Card Not Present Fraud is now 81 percent more likely than point of sale fraud, the greatest gap Javelin has observed.
8.Fraudsters are getting more sophisticated in their attacks, and using more complex and difficult to detect monetization schemes. One and a half million victims of existing account fraud had an intermediary account opened in their name first. This is 200 percent greater than the previous high.
You log into the network by pulling up a page that looks like a web browser. It’s pretty much like a dashboard, opening up the safenetwork to you with a few simple clicks.
Once logged in you’re on the SAFE web and absolutely everything you do is encrypted end-to-end. With the Authenticator function you can authenticate ALL your apps with just one password which means that your private credentials are never passed to the authorised apps.
Users can read and store any kind of information in a fully decentralized fashion. There are no centralized hosts, no prying eyes and no way for any actor to access your data or activity on the internet. Read, share, comment and contribute as you wish ,with full privacy.
The network is economically incentivized with an inherent token named Safecoin. Simply earn coins by renting out your hard-disk space as storage for the network, called farming. Farmers earn safecoins by providing computational power to the network and best of all is that no expensive equipment is necessary, anyone with a decent computer can join in. The more reliable and consistent farmer, the higher the farmer ranks. The higher the ranking, the higher the earning. Win-win.
And last but not least : Application developers, called Builders, earn safecoin in proportion to how much their applications are used, leaving room for great earning opportunities. Some developers have already gotten started, and if you wanna test the waters go ahead and check out SAFE Network Apps.
4. Al Pascual , senior vice president, research director and head of fraud & security, Javelin Strategy & Research said “2017 was a runaway year for fraudsters, and with the amount of valid information they have on consumers, their attacks are just getting more complex,” said “Fraudsters are growing more sophisticated in response to industry’s efforts to implement better security. Fortunately, there are a variety of digital tools that consumers can leverage to stay better informed on the status of their identities and accounts, and to ultimately stay better protected.”
5.Record high incidence of identity fraud – In 2017, 6.64 percent of consumers became victims of identity fraud, an increase of almost one million victims from the previous year. This increase was driven by growth in both existing non-card fraud and account takeover (ATO).
6.Account takeover grew significantly – Account takeover tripled over the past year, reaching a four-year high. Total ATO losses reached $5.1 billion, a 120 percent increase from 2016. Account takeover continues to be one of the most challenging fraud types for consumers with victims paying an average of $290 in out-of-pocket costs and spending 16 hours on average to resolve. This translates to more than 62.2 million hours of time consumers lost in 2017. That is enough time for more than three million people to binge watch the first and second season of Stranger Things.
7.Online shopping presents the greatest fraud opportunity – EMV is driving more fraudsters to seek online channels for fraud. Card Not Present Fraud is now 81 percent more likely than point of sale fraud, the greatest gap Javelin has observed.
8.Fraudsters are getting more sophisticated in their attacks, and using more complex and difficult to detect monetization schemes. One and a half million victims of existing account fraud had an intermediary account opened in their name first. This is 200 percent greater than the previous high.
Most of us have heard the word big data but have no idea that data brokers exists and idea of just how huge the industry is. 2012 numbers show an industry size of 156 billion, we can surely conclude that today that number probably has passed 200 billion.
The secretive data brokerage firms scoop up everything possibly imaginable of internet users personal information and auction it off to the highest bidder without the knowing and saying of the users. US magazine Newsweek has outlined the landscape of the commercialization of personal data :
“Third, and most disturbing, there’s nothing consumers can do about any of this. They don’t know what data is being collected, or by whom. They don’t know what’s being done with it. They don’t know where it is going. They probably imagine specific lists being sent around, not calculated scores that may seem unrelated to the original data. And if they are concerned, there’s no way to see or correct the information about themselves being passed around. “
For consumer and businesses alike the Internet has never been a more dangerous place. DDoS attacks for example could cost a enterprise an average of 2,5 million USD not if, but when they get targeted. According to a trend report prepared by Neustar 84% of enterprise companies participating in the survey had fallen a victim of DDoS attacks in the last 12 months.
In 2016 ransomware attacks had risen by 600% costing businesses 1 billion USD, courtesy of security agencies. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimate the cost of cybe-rcrime and economic espionage to be more than 445 billion. A huge chunk of that is due to theft of intellectual property by foreign governments with US and China as main actors, both pointing fingers at each other accusing the other of being the perpetrator.
Speaking of governments, let’s take the thermometer of how Free speech is doing. Invisible State censorship on the internet is prevalent in almost every country. According to Freedom House 2/3 of world internet users live under veiled censorship of their respective governments and the suppression of speech and thought is continuously increasing. Only 13% of the world’s population have access to a Free Press. Just take that in for a moment. 13%.
Is there a way out ?
More reports are coming out of how the living room of the web, the social media platforms, is nurturing a phenomenon known as the ‘spiral of silence’ — a term coined in the mid-70s to describe how individuals suppress their own views if they believe they differ from those of family, friends, work colleagues and broader society. A write-up appeared in the magazine The Atlantic reveals just how widespread self-censorship is.
“But now, a recent research based on a sample of 4 million FB users reveal precisely how widespread this activity is. Carnegie Mellon PhD student Sauvik Das and FB’s Adam Kramer measured how many people typed more than five characters into Facebook content-input boxes, but then did not post them. They term this “last-minute self-censorship.” The numbers are impressively large. Fully one-third of all Facebook posts were self-censored, according to the method Das and Kramer devised, though they warn they probably captured a substantial number of false positives. 71 percent of all the users surveyed engaged in some self-censorship either on new posts or in comments, and the median self-censorer did so multiple times.”
That is a dangerous evolvement. When we fear structural authorities to the point that we start silencing ourselves, we, as a free society, are in deep shit.
What made Internet so amazing and appealing was the ability of people worldwide to connect and express themselves. But freedom of speech is under threat and censorship is increasing exponentially as governments and corporations desperately grasp for power .Kalev Leetarue, who frequently writes for the Forbes eloquently asks:
“What will happen to the web as it matures from a free for all flag bearer of free speech to a moderated commercial enterprise?”
Can SAFE NETWORK be a reality ?
In recent past Scotland based small company Maidsafe has done to change the way you use internet and making it safer place for you. SAFE stands for Secure Access For Everyone and that is exactly what the Maidsafe team has devoted the last decade to. Started in 2006 by Scottish engineer David Irvine, it is a small team, comprised of: thinkers, inventors, tinkerers, PhDs, engineers and designers. Although based in small town Ayr in Scotland, the team draws talents from many different cultures and countries, reflecting the users that we serve. Despite this variety, they all share a mission: a desire to provide security and privacy for everyone . Creating a Internet that allows for people to express themselves freely, without the fear of censorship and malicious actors. An Internet where you own your own data and the power of choosing who you wish to share it with is in your hands.
Ephi Blanshey explains the working of the SAFE Network :
'We have 7 goals in mind when embarking on this mammoth project called the SAFE Network.
Creating a safe web where nobody owns your data but YOU.
Constructing a network that is decentralized and resilient to attacks with no single point of failure.
Imagining the impossible. A serverless web eliminating the central point of failure via ultimate decentralization and in effect making DDoS, hacking attacks, data theft or government seisures virtually impossible.
Maximizing secure private file storage by encrypting and shredding the data into tiny pieces spread worldwide, allowing for a safer way of storing data by reduntantly spreading it out to thousands of locations around the world.
Most of these things can not be achieved without privacy being fundamental to the network versus being an afterthought, which commonly is the case.
Making good use of existing resources in a sustainable fashion. Contrary to the blockchain technology, SAFE Network does NOT need more hardware capacity. It simply thrives with the existing resources, which is the users free disk space. No expensive mining equipment necessary and no risk for centralization.
Easy entrance globally to use and participate in the network, with minimum costs. Free and accessible for all basically. '
Ephi Blanshey explains “Most of what can be done with the current internet can be done with MaidSafe. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn-type social websites can be built upon MaidSafe, as can real-time communication (chat/email), e-commerce stores (eBay/Amazon), media/streaming (YouTube/Twitch), news (CNN), mobile/desktop apps, and anything else you can think of. The MaidSafe network inherently provides the decentralized database, authentication system (logging in/out of apps), and security system (automatically encrypting data at rest and in transit).”
Great, huh? So let’s break it down in simple terms how the network is designed to function from a user perspective :
“Third, and most disturbing, there’s nothing consumers can do about any of this. They don’t know what data is being collected, or by whom. They don’t know what’s being done with it. They don’t know where it is going. They probably imagine specific lists being sent around, not calculated scores that may seem unrelated to the original data. And if they are concerned, there’s no way to see or correct the information about themselves being passed around. “
For consumer and businesses alike the Internet has never been a more dangerous place. DDoS attacks for example could cost a enterprise an average of 2,5 million USD not if, but when they get targeted. According to a trend report prepared by Neustar 84% of enterprise companies participating in the survey had fallen a victim of DDoS attacks in the last 12 months.
In 2016 ransomware attacks had risen by 600% costing businesses 1 billion USD, courtesy of security agencies. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimate the cost of cybe-rcrime and economic espionage to be more than 445 billion. A huge chunk of that is due to theft of intellectual property by foreign governments with US and China as main actors, both pointing fingers at each other accusing the other of being the perpetrator.
Speaking of governments, let’s take the thermometer of how Free speech is doing. Invisible State censorship on the internet is prevalent in almost every country. According to Freedom House 2/3 of world internet users live under veiled censorship of their respective governments and the suppression of speech and thought is continuously increasing. Only 13% of the world’s population have access to a Free Press. Just take that in for a moment. 13%.
Is there a way out ?
More reports are coming out of how the living room of the web, the social media platforms, is nurturing a phenomenon known as the ‘spiral of silence’ — a term coined in the mid-70s to describe how individuals suppress their own views if they believe they differ from those of family, friends, work colleagues and broader society. A write-up appeared in the magazine The Atlantic reveals just how widespread self-censorship is.
“But now, a recent research based on a sample of 4 million FB users reveal precisely how widespread this activity is. Carnegie Mellon PhD student Sauvik Das and FB’s Adam Kramer measured how many people typed more than five characters into Facebook content-input boxes, but then did not post them. They term this “last-minute self-censorship.” The numbers are impressively large. Fully one-third of all Facebook posts were self-censored, according to the method Das and Kramer devised, though they warn they probably captured a substantial number of false positives. 71 percent of all the users surveyed engaged in some self-censorship either on new posts or in comments, and the median self-censorer did so multiple times.”
That is a dangerous evolvement. When we fear structural authorities to the point that we start silencing ourselves, we, as a free society, are in deep shit.
What made Internet so amazing and appealing was the ability of people worldwide to connect and express themselves. But freedom of speech is under threat and censorship is increasing exponentially as governments and corporations desperately grasp for power .Kalev Leetarue, who frequently writes for the Forbes eloquently asks:
“What will happen to the web as it matures from a free for all flag bearer of free speech to a moderated commercial enterprise?”
Can SAFE NETWORK be a reality ?
In recent past Scotland based small company Maidsafe has done to change the way you use internet and making it safer place for you. SAFE stands for Secure Access For Everyone and that is exactly what the Maidsafe team has devoted the last decade to. Started in 2006 by Scottish engineer David Irvine, it is a small team, comprised of: thinkers, inventors, tinkerers, PhDs, engineers and designers. Although based in small town Ayr in Scotland, the team draws talents from many different cultures and countries, reflecting the users that we serve. Despite this variety, they all share a mission: a desire to provide security and privacy for everyone . Creating a Internet that allows for people to express themselves freely, without the fear of censorship and malicious actors. An Internet where you own your own data and the power of choosing who you wish to share it with is in your hands.
Ephi Blanshey explains the working of the SAFE Network :
'We have 7 goals in mind when embarking on this mammoth project called the SAFE Network.
Creating a safe web where nobody owns your data but YOU.
Constructing a network that is decentralized and resilient to attacks with no single point of failure.
Imagining the impossible. A serverless web eliminating the central point of failure via ultimate decentralization and in effect making DDoS, hacking attacks, data theft or government seisures virtually impossible.
Maximizing secure private file storage by encrypting and shredding the data into tiny pieces spread worldwide, allowing for a safer way of storing data by reduntantly spreading it out to thousands of locations around the world.
Most of these things can not be achieved without privacy being fundamental to the network versus being an afterthought, which commonly is the case.
Making good use of existing resources in a sustainable fashion. Contrary to the blockchain technology, SAFE Network does NOT need more hardware capacity. It simply thrives with the existing resources, which is the users free disk space. No expensive mining equipment necessary and no risk for centralization.
Easy entrance globally to use and participate in the network, with minimum costs. Free and accessible for all basically. '
Ephi Blanshey explains “Most of what can be done with the current internet can be done with MaidSafe. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn-type social websites can be built upon MaidSafe, as can real-time communication (chat/email), e-commerce stores (eBay/Amazon), media/streaming (YouTube/Twitch), news (CNN), mobile/desktop apps, and anything else you can think of. The MaidSafe network inherently provides the decentralized database, authentication system (logging in/out of apps), and security system (automatically encrypting data at rest and in transit).”
Great, huh? So let’s break it down in simple terms how the network is designed to function from a user perspective :
You log into the network by pulling up a page that looks like a web browser. It’s pretty much like a dashboard, opening up the safenetwork to you with a few simple clicks.
Once logged in you’re on the SAFE web and absolutely everything you do is encrypted end-to-end. With the Authenticator function you can authenticate ALL your apps with just one password which means that your private credentials are never passed to the authorised apps.
Users can read and store any kind of information in a fully decentralized fashion. There are no centralized hosts, no prying eyes and no way for any actor to access your data or activity on the internet. Read, share, comment and contribute as you wish ,with full privacy.
The network is economically incentivized with an inherent token named Safecoin. Simply earn coins by renting out your hard-disk space as storage for the network, called farming. Farmers earn safecoins by providing computational power to the network and best of all is that no expensive equipment is necessary, anyone with a decent computer can join in. The more reliable and consistent farmer, the higher the farmer ranks. The higher the ranking, the higher the earning. Win-win.
And last but not least : Application developers, called Builders, earn safecoin in proportion to how much their applications are used, leaving room for great earning opportunities. Some developers have already gotten started, and if you wanna test the waters go ahead and check out SAFE Network Apps.
I do feel that there is a need for many more opensource and collaborative organizations like Maidsafe who can change the way the internet is today where everything you do on it, is totally unsecured and your information is shared with vested interest organizations.
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