Data Privacy and Security Concerns

Either of them allow that button to exist.

In fact, they actively interfere with it because they say it's a security risk.

And from a particular perspective, they actually aren't wrong there.

But it's not enough to go,

we have to lock that capability off

from people because we don't trust they would make the right decisions.

We think it's too complicated for people to do this.

We think there's too many connections being made.

Well, that is actually a confession of the problem right there.

If you think people can't understand it,

if you think there are too many communications happening,

if you think there's too much complexity in there, it needs to be simplified.

Just like the president can't control everything like that, if you have to be the

president of the phone and the phone is as complex as the United States government,

we have a problem, guys.

This should be a much more simple process. It should be obvious.

And the fact that it's not,

and the fact that we read story after story, year after year,

saying all your data's been breached here, this company's spying on you here,

this company's manipulating your purchases or your search results or they're hiding

these things from your timeline

or they're influencing you or manipulating you in all of these different ways,

that happens as a result of a single problem.

And that problem is an inequality of available information.

They can see everything about you.

They can see everything about what your device is doing and they can do whatever

they want with your device. You, on the other hand,

owned the device.

Well, rather, you paid for the device.

But increasingly, these corporations own it.

Increasingly, these governments own it.

And increasingly, we are living in a world where we do all the work, right?

We pay all the taxes. We pay all the costs.

But we own less and less.

And nobody understands this better than the youngest generation.

Well, it seems like our data became a commodity before we understood what it was.

It became this thing that's insanely valuable to Google and Facebook and

all these social media platforms.

Before we understood what we were giving up,

they were making billions of dollars.

And then once that money is being earned and once everyone's accustomed

to the situation, it's very difficult to pull the reins back.

It's very difficult to turn that horse around.

Precisely, because the money then becomes power.

The information then becomes influence.

That also seems to be the same sort of situation.

Don't nod when you can motion.

Don't speak when you can nod.

And don't ever put anything in a text message.

At the CIA, on our very first day, they told us not to ever say or do anything

that we would be ashamed to see on the front page of the Washington Post.

I took that seriously.

The truth of the matter is,

because of technology the way it is today,

our whole lives are out there potentially for someone to see,

for someone to use against us.

So be careful what you say, be careful what you write, even in jest,

because it can be taken out of context to target you.

And what about digital security?

You talked about the fact that it's possible for these forces,

and not just the US but other countries,

to be able to hack and crack your devices and see anything on your devices.

I think we all go around assuming that our devices are secure. They're not secure.

At all. At all.

It's not just, you know, NSA,

CIA, FBI that you have to worry about.

It's the British,

the French, the Germans, the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders,

the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the Iranians.

I mean, everybody has these capabilities, everybody.

So you've got to be very, very careful. Capabilities to do what?

To intercept communications.

I've heard you say that they can hack car systems,

so they could theoretically hack into my car.

Yes, we know that from Wikileaks.

There was something in 2017 called the Vault 7 revelations.

There was a CIA software engineer who was disgruntled, and instead of

going to the Russians or the Chinese, he went to Wikileaks,

and he downloaded thousands,

tens of thousands of pages of documents classified above top secret,

and they became what Wikileaks is.