UNHACKABLE : Your Online Security Playbook

Recreating Cyber Security in an Unsecure World

George Mansour

• Publisher: Writes Publishing House
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781648731280
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Ciencias computacionales general

Terrified about identity theft and data breaches? Discover a foolproof method to protect your information and get online with peace of mind.

Are you worried about your family members getting scammed or hacked? Want to keep your computers and phones protected with iron-clad security? Cyber security expert George Mansour has helped individuals and businesses protect their data for over 15 years. Now he'll share his simple system for safeguarding your valuable digital life.

Unhackable provides you with a unique Cyber security strategy that combines user psychology and easy-to-apply techniques that teach you how to become your own strongest line of defense. Informative and insightful, Mansour uses anecdotes, professional experience, and step-by-step procedures to make protecting your personal data as easy as hitting the power button.

Part I

Awakening

Reevaluate Your Relationship

with Technology

Chapter 2

Our Changing Relationship with Technology

“It has become appallingly obvious that technology has exceeded our humanity.”

—Albert Einstein

Our mission is urgent since the control of privacy and security has been lost due to nation-state-sponsored hacking, criminal behavior, ad-based revenue models, and misinformation. Technology interaction affects everyone, as we are interwoven over the Internet as one, but individually unique. The Unhackable mindset creates the conceptual model to enact a multi-layer digital union between technology and human interaction. The insecurities and impurities that threaten us online with every new connection must be controlled through a collaborative approach that will suppress the threats to our sensitive data. It's time to reclaim our digital lives and digital freedom.

The major influencers within the IT industry took the world by storm with their groundbreaking innovations. Followers took advantage of their innovations without thinking critically about the personal and social consequences of using the new technology almost incessantly.

The Beginning with Bill Gates

In 1974, Bill Gates read about a personal computer kit, Altair 8800, and felt it was a necessary item for the future of humanity. It was all about timing. Gates and his partner Paul Allen knew they could improve the personal computer by using the proper processing language.

“Allen spoke to Ed Roberts, president of Altair manufacturer MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), and sold him on the idea. Gates and Allen worked night and day to complete the first microcomputer Basic.”⁵ Gates anticipated the change that was coming and dropped out of Harvard to focus on the future of personal computing.

In 1980, IBM contacted Microsoft about an operating system for their personal computer. Gates took a big risk because he didn’t have the software at that time. Instead, he quickly bought another company’s software and presented it to IBM. “For this deal, Microsoft bought a system called 86-DOS from a company called Seattle Computer Products and, after adapting it for the PC, delivered it to IBM as 'PC DOS' in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000.”⁶ In one transaction, the world of technology forever changed.

Bill Gates saw the future in the first personal computer. However, could he have seen the concerns with the intelligence and information that would come from new innovation? With the advancement of new technology, it contributed to the privacy concerns that we have today. However, as technology became user-friendly, it also became a powerful tool for data gathering.

Microsoft became a giant due to the mouse and GUI (graphical user interface). Early computers used command prompts and only a select few knew the proper language. Microsoft brought technology to the masses, but nobody took the necessary classes to learn the language.

Humans, as a society, didn’t focus on education or training, we just leaped without thinking about the risk. Adults must obtain a driver’s license to have a car, doctors need a degree to practice, why should users not need a certificate to operate a digital device?

As an innovator, Gates is constantly thinking of future advances in technology. He continues to encourage society to use more advanced devices. Currently, Gates is working with Belmont Partners to create a “smart city” in Arizona. Business Insider’s "Bill Gates Just Bought 25,000 Acres in Arizona to Build a New ‘Smart City’”⁷ shares, “Belmont Partners expects its development to feature all the trappings of a futuristic city: high-speed Internet embedded in the built environment, accommodations for self-driving cars (such as traffic lights that communicate with one another to minimize congestion), and smarter manufacturing technology.”

However, the impact of all the technology on the future residents of Belmont is unknown. Brooks Rainwater, the director of the City Solutions and Applied Research Center at the National League of Cities said, “When details are released, he hopes technology will serve as the ‘backbone’ of the city, ‘not the purpose of its existence.’” Are we focusing on the tech itself, rather than on the quality of the lives for those using the technology?

Our Obsession with Apple

Apple has been incredibly successful in the tech industry. Apple has had an almost fad-like following as fans fervently anticipate new products, such as iPods, iPads, and iPhones. The LiveScience article, “Apple Obsession: The Science of iPad Fanaticism” explores just how fanatical some followers became:

Some fans have retold and romanticized Apple's history, giving a "legend" to the company and its founders. In 2005, Belk and his colleagues found evidence for several myths within the Apple community, including a "creation myth" involving the creation of one of the first computers in Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs’ garage.⁸

Steve Jobs made a major impact on our lives with technology. Historically, Apple has been ahead of everyone else with tech development and trends; however, with iPad sales declining, it seems like Apple may have to rethink its plan and adjust to the ever-changing environment. One of the reasons for this decline is that people may be starting to think more critically about whether they actually need a certain type of technology. We don’t blindly buy everything Apple and other technology companies produce. In “The World of Technology Is Changing and the iPad Is Getting Caught in the Middle,” Matt Weinberger shares:

Apple CEO Tim Cook talks the iPad up as a product with a bright future ahead. But with the decline in sales so unmistakable, that future is getting called into question...

And so, the question becomes less, ‘Do I need a tablet?’ or ‘Will this tablet replace my laptop?’ and more like, ‘does this device do what I need it to do?’ It's a healthy reminder that technology is supposed to serve you and your needs, not the other way around.⁹

Not only are sales down, but Apple is on shaky ground; they are realizing that their system is not as great as they thought. An increase in security attacks against Apple and Macintosh has caused concerns with users. “Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of security firm Kaspersky Lab, says Apple is headed for a rough patch… ’Cyber criminals have now recognized that Mac is an interesting area. Now we have more [malware], it's not just Flashback or Flashfake,’ Kaspersky told CBR. ‘Welcome to Microsoft's world, Mac. It's full of malware.’”¹⁰

Everything Is Hackable

Unfortunately, we are moving in a direction that focuses more on automation and profit over human connections and fair business practices. Influencers are reaping the benefits while we’re in danger, and that's wrong! Steve Jobs contributed greatly to technology, but he accomplished a lot through smart marketing practices.

“He had a unique way of crafting his own reality, a ‘distortion field’ he used to persuade people that his personal beliefs were actually facts, which is how he pushed his companies forward. He also used a blend of manipulative tactics to ensure his victories, particularly in boardroom meetings with some of the most powerful company executives in the world.”¹¹

Pushing New Versions

When a program tells users an update is available, we need to ask why the update is necessary. Is it due to a security problem or just an enhancement update?

These same companies keep moving forward, releasing new versions, and producing more advanced innovations before they have perfected the current version. Instead of facing the current problem and security concerns, we are being blinded by the newer version, along with new issues to cover and patch the previous set of problems and bugs. We should be trying to work in a collaborative effort to create a more stabilized environment; stop adding all the innovation and stick to what is working. Users should not update in a real-time environment online. Instead, we should have a testing environment where updates can be applied and tested before it’s implemented in real time. Otherwise, sensitive data becomes the guinea pig.

Apple even admitted that “it has been secretly stifling the performance of older iPhones. Critics have accused the company in the past, based on anecdotal evidence, of purposely slowing phones to compel users to upgrade to the latest model...The fact is Apple has an incentive to push users to upgrade; it makes money selling new devices, after all.”¹² Apple greatly upset many of its most devoted followers when the company admitted to slowing down the batteries of older iPhones.

Business Insider’s article "Apple Confirmed a Longtime Conspiracy Theory - and Gave Regular Customers a Big Reason to Distrust It" also reveals another tactic Apple has used to force users to upgrade:

The company has a history of artificially making old...