Large data age privacy offended in exchange for security?

Sales of George Orwell's book "1984" have increased after the Silicon Valley Internet news that Edward Snowden exposed the NSA. In the present case, even though people do not like Big Brother spying on themselves, they are prepared to accept the cost of being offended by privacy in exchange for security.


　　


, what about "big data"? Fast-growing personal data is in the hands of companies that use new data analysis and artificial intelligence technologies to improve their products and services and to anticipate customer needs. Larry Page, Google's chief executive, described his ideal Larry technology as "a truly intelligent assistant who can help people do things and we don't have to worry about it."


　　


Imagine living in a virtual Downton Manor (DowntonAbbey), there is a computer to help you plan a day, give the best route advice on travel, movies you might want to watch and the most appropriate flights--and even tickets for you--it's tempting. We are all in a hurry and want a simple and easy life. As long as you are not bombarded with information or forced to lose your choice, a personal assistant service is good.


　　


but the NSA surveillance incident has surprised everyone, and although the surveillance program has been around for 60 years, I wonder if many people can understand how much data they are making every day, or whether they know how far technology is going--a handful of big data companies are already digging up data. Technology has grown so fast that what was thought to be impossible two years ago is now commonplace.


　　


"The future is both exciting and frightening. Companies with huge amounts of data even know who you are. They can predict what you might do below, "said Lee. He is the former CEO of Google China and is currently investing in Beijing.


　　


last week in a column I compared Google to ge in 19th century-an innovative industrial company with the power to develop new technologies. The downside is that Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants are accumulating their own strength, and need to be carefully controlled.


　　


The NSA and big data companies use their databases and computing power in different places-one for discovering spies and terrorists, and one for matching services to users. They have similarities to the use of large-scale databases, such as pattern recognition and network analysis.


　　


Further, this involves artificial intelligence techniques, such as analyzing the purpose of a search when a user enters a keyword, translating a speech into another language in real time (as Microsoft demonstrated in China last year), and learning to distinguish a cat's photos by reading thousands of images.


　　


's ability to learn about human convergence is called "deep learning" (deeplearning), and it is noteworthy that Google has hired several frontier scholars in the field, including scientists, writers Rey Kuzwer (Kurzweil). The NSA has "Advanced machine learning Technology" in the transfer of technology to US private companies.


　　


This software can predict many things from information fragments, as long as the debris is sufficient, as if the NSA gets phone calls from carrier Verizon to dial metadata and analyze it. President Obama assured U.S. citizens that "no one is eavesdropping on your phone," but just dialing a record is enough.


　　

A study by Latanya Swinnie, a professor at Harvard University,
that 87% of people can be identified with age, sex, and postcode, as long as they are cross-referenced (cross-checked) in the public database. This is precisely the data that social networks and internet companies typically collect.


　　

The astonishing power of
's big data companies comes from the fact that they can integrate their personal data, which covers what goods they buy, where they are located (collected by mobile phone GPS). This generates a set of "speculative data (Inferreddata)" about the customer's intent.


　　


, for example, if I used an Android phone to search for "Taj Mahal" in India, Google would give priority to the results of the temple in Uttar Pradesh (Uttarpradesh). If I were in Brick Street east of London, I would return to the local Bengal-flavored restaurant Bricklane. It is not difficult to implement a restaurant reservation service based on my evaluation record.





on the one hand, if you do this (as long as it's a good restaurant) I would be happy to save some of my operations. On the other hand, as the 9374.html > World Economic Forum Report on personal data says: "Predicting the data gives the impression that the omniscient big Brother is staring at the surveillance tape." ”


　　

One of the concerns raised by
is that big data companies that have the ability to master such software are hard to contend with. The more data I and other users provide, the more accurate they are at predicting our intentions. The more the machine brain uses the smarter it is.


　　


another trust-related. Social networks do poorly to protect user data, and they only have a small fragment of information about user behavior, habits, and willingness. It is clear why the NSA is targeting social networks as a target--nsa, and they need data materials.


　　


3rd is the question of ownership. We all have a certain right to our information. But what would happen if the information and other people's information were integrated into a massive willingness database? If I change my mind, how do I get the information back to the status quo?


　　


most important, we don't know what this technology means because we're still in the early stages of the big data age. Admittedly, big data has many places to spend, but it takes some time for people to love it.


　　


original headline Big Data age can't be like "brother"