Jim Adler

1. Confessions (and Lessons) of a
"Recovering" Data Broker:
Responsible Innovation in the Age of Big Data, Big Brother, and
the Coming Skynet Terminators
Jim Adler
Vice President, Products
Metanautix
jimadler@metanautix.com
@jim_adler
http://jimadler.me
Usenix Security Conference
Washington, DC
Aug 15 2013

2. About Metanautix
• Mission: Next generation big data management & analysis
– Transparency into the big data supply chain within and across
organizations
• Engineering led, product company
– Team of veterans (10-20+ years experience)
– Built massive data analysis systems at Google, FB, MSFT, AMZN, Pixar
– Solidly funded by top VCs
– Working with lighthouse customers
• Started Nov 2012, slowly emerging from stealth mode
• Stay tuned!

3. I am not an attorney.Confession
Dork
Nerd
Geek Dweeb

4. You can often do more from the inside than
the outside.
• 20B public records
• 30M visitors per month
• 50M+ reports sold
Confession

5. Listen to your toughest criticsLesson

6. Can I have a little narcissism with my
voyeurism?
• What does my background
check say?
• Privacy controls
– Suppress single address or
phone number
• Comment on your own
public profile
Lesson

7. Data from Feb 2013
Data from
40,000 BC thru 2002
20
Exabytes
(20M TB)
Lots of data created, transferred, & stored.Confession

8. The “Public” Data Supply Chain of YouConfession
Search
Blogs
Criminal
Records
Risk
Civil
Suits Marketing
Addresses
Directory
Phone
Numbers
Payments
Background
Resumes
Public
Posts
Name
s
Data Uses
Government
Commercial
Self-Reported
Big Data
Engines

9. FIND OWNER OF DOG’S
RELATIVE FOR TRANSPLANT
SINGLES CURIOUS ABOUT THE
PEOPLE THEY MEET
PARENTS ENSURING WHO
THEIR KIDS SAFETY
GENEALOGISTS CULTIVATING
THEIR FAMILY TREE
BUSINESSES THAT NEED TO UPDATE CONTACT
INFORMATION ON CUSTOMERS
FINDING LONG-LOST FRIENDS, MILITARY
BUDDIES, ROOMMATES, OR CLASSMATES
ANYONE CURIOUS ABOUT WHO'S
EMAILING OR CALLING THEM
THOSE IN LEGALLY ENTANGLED
LOOKING FOR COURT RECORDS ANYONE WHO NEED ADDRESS
HISTORIES FOR PASSPORTS
SOCIAL NETWORKERS LOOKING TO
EXPAND THEIR FRIENDS LIST
PROFESSIONALS LEARNING ABOUT
COLLEAGUES AT CONFERENCES
RECONNECTING OUT-OF-TOUCH
FAMILY MEMBERS
ONLINE SHOPPERS
VERIFYING ONLINE SELLERS
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS
RUNNING DOWN LEADS
SALES PROFESSIONALS LOOKING
FOR NEW PROSPECTS
NETWORKERS SEEKING
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
LAW
ENFORCEMENT
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
LOOKING FOR SUPPORTERS
FIANCÉS AND THEIR CURIOUS
FAMILY MEMBERS
SOCIAL WORKERS WHO NEED TO KNOW
MORE ABOUT THEIR CLIENTS
CALLER ID OF HARASSING
PHONE CALLS
ALUMNI GROUPS
ARRANGING REUNIONS
ADOPTED KIDS SEEKING THEIR
BIOLOGICAL PARENTS
AIRLINES TRYING TO
RETURN LOST LUGGAGE
CHECKING OUT A PROSPECTIVE SOCIAL
NETWORK CONNECTION
CHECKING OUT A
PROSPECTIVE DATE
CHECKING OUT A
PROSPECTIVE TENANT
FINDING PEOPLE THAT HAVE THE
SAME ILLNESS AS YOU
RESEARCHING A
PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEE
ANYONE RETRIEVING
COURT RECORDS
REGULATED
Lots of uses for your data … some regulated
LAWYERS NEEDING QUICK ACCESS
TO COURT RECORDS
BANKING
SERVICES
RESEARCH
SHARING
LEARNING ABOUT
A BUSINESS
Confession

10. Billions of Records
Millions of People
Jim Adler
Houston, TX
Age 70
Jim Adler
Redmond, WA
Age 50
Jim Adler
Denver, CO
Age 48
Jim Adler
McKinney, TX
Age 57
Jim Adler
Canaan, NH
Age 59
Jim Adler
Hastings, NE
Age 32
213 records linked
to the correct 37 Jim Adlers
Philip
Collins
375 People
Jim Adler
213 Records
37 People
Randolph
Hutchins
5 People
Gwen
Fleming
2 PeopleCarol Brooks
9800 Records
1250 People
Confession We don’t know you all that well

11. Opt-out doesn’t always mean deletionConfession
Jane Hampton 06/23/1998 123 Main Peoria, IL
Jane Hampton 123 Main Peoria, IL jane@facebook.com
Jane Hampton jane@facebook.com
Jane Hampton 06/23/1998 123 Main Peoria, IL
Jane Hampton 123 Main Peoria, IL jane@facebook.com
Jane Hampton jane@facebook.com

12. When towns were small, personal
anonymity was low …
“The only thing
worse than being
talked about, is
not being talked
about.”
− Oscar Wilde
Lesson

13. “Good Fences
Make Good
Neighbors”
− Robert Frost
Urban populations grew along with
personal anonymity…
Lesson

14. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1850 1890 1930 1970 2010
PrivacyExpectations
“Rockwell” Era “Good Fences” Era “Privacy
Vertigo”
Era
… we’re suffering from Privacy Vertigo.Confession
Urban Density ↓
Personal Anonymity ↓

15. Privacy is deeply cultural.Lesson
Discretion
Disclosure

16. EU “Right of Personality”
• Inviolable right of dignity
• Germany: BGB, 1900, post WWII
US: Brandeis & Warren, 1890
• Germany: “Source Right”
• Esra “kiss & tell” plaintiff
won, book banned
US “Privacy Torts”
• Statutory harm
• US: Prosser’s Torts, 1960
• US: Sectorial privacy regime
• Bonome “kiss & tell” case
dismissed
EU Rights versus US Torts
http://paulschwartz.net/pdf/SchwartzPeifer_Prosser_FINAL.pdf

17. How to unpack Privacy? Think PPP.
PERILS
Lesson

18. Sometimes you’re in a public place when
you think you’re in a private place.
“Gaydar”
A 2009 MIT study found it was
possible to predict men’s
sexual orientation by analyzing
the gender and sexuality of their
social network contacts – even
if the rest of the information on
their profile was set to private.
Confession

19. “To Serve Man” is a Cookbook.Confession
“If you’re not
paying for the
product, you are
the product.”
− Claire Wolfe
(paraphrased)

20. Peer to Peer Corporation &
Customer/Employee
Government &
Citizen
Your God & You
PrivacyRights
Power Disparity 
In privacy contexts, Power matters.Lesson

21. Target knows you’re pregnant and when
you’re due. So, what’s so perilous?
Confession

22. Secrets are power equalizers.Confession
DPower µ
1
Trust
µSecrets

23. Public Places
Powerful Players
Private Places
Powerful Players
Private Places
Weaker Players
Public Places
Weaker Players
M O R E P R I VAT E P L A C E S
MOREPLAYERPOWERGAP
Mapping Places-Players-Perils Cases

24. M O R E P R I VAT E P L A C E S
MOREPLAYERPOWERGAP
News of the World
phone hacking
Rutgers student
commits suicide
after spied by
webcam
FBI GPS criminal
surveillanceGoogle privacy
policy unification
Target finds out
teen pregnant
before parents
GM OnStar tracks
users
Woman caught
naked by Google
Street View
Actress sues IMDB
over revealing her
age
US deports British
tourists over Tweets
FB user sets fire to
home after de-
friending
"Girls Around Me"
pulled from market
Health orgs use
Twitter to track
illness
NSA internet citizen
surveillance
Georgia teacher
fired after posting
vacation pics
Places-Players-Perils Cases

25. A head in the clouds < 20 yearsPrediction
$27,100
$13,500
$6,800
$3,400
$1,700
$850
$420
$210
$100
$53
$26
$13
$7
$3
$2
$1
$1
$10
$100
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 2028 2030 2032 2034 2036 2038 2040 2042
CostperMonth(000s)
Year
• 20,000 TFlops
• 2,500 Terabytes
• Less than $700K per year
Chris Westbury, University of Alberta

26. “Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
– Lao Tzu
“… the essential crime that
contained all others in itself.
Thoughtcrime, they called it.”
– George Orwell
Big data inferences are not thoughtcrimesLesson

27. Felon Classifier Overview
ModelLearner
250 M
Defendants Feature
Extraction
15K Labels
15K Predictors
Cleaning
Linking
Sampling
Objective
If someone has minor offenses on their criminal
record, do they also have any felonies?
Today’s Bloomberg piece: http://bloom.bg/1eMtnug

28. How does the Felon Classifier work?
Gender Eye Color Tattoos Criminal Offenses Score
Over
Threshold
of 3.5?
Likely
Felon?
NO
YES
Hazel (+1.7)
Male Blue 2 + (+1.3) Traffic only
Female (-0.5) Brown < 2 4 or fewer
misdemeanors (+1.9)
YES
Green 8 or fewer
misdemeanors
NO
4.4
Hazel
Male (+0.1) Blue 2 + Traffic only (-0.5)
Female Brown (+1.2) < 2 (+0.1) 4 or fewer
misdemeanors
YES
Green 8 or fewer
misdemeanors
NO
0.9
widget: http://jimadler.me

29. Classifiers depend on policy as much as
technology
ANARCHY
T Y R A N N Y
0.0%
20.0%
40.0%
60.0%
80.0%
100.0%
0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0%
FalseNegativeRate
False Positive Rate
Threshold: 0.66
FP Rate: 5%
FN Rate: 22%
Threshold: 1.1
FP Rate: 1%
FN Rate: 40%
Threshold: -1.82
FP Rate: 19%
FN Rate: 0%
Confession

30. Privacy, Reasonable Suspicion, & Probable Cause
• Courts have upheld profiling
– US v Sokolow
• Predictive information never enough
1. Reliable
2. Efficient
3. Particularized
4. Detailed
5. Timely
6. Corroborated
• More
• Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Predictive Policing
http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=2050001
• Bernard Harcourt, Rethinking Racial Profiling
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/rethinking_racial_profiling.pdf
• The “Not Ready For Prime Time” Classifier
http://jimadler.me/post/47374264398/the-not-ready-for-prime-time-classifier

31. NYC Stop & Frisk Found UnconstitutionalRuling
“The city … believes that blacks and Hispanics should be stopped at the same
rate as their proportion of the local criminal suspect population.”
− US District Judge Shira Scheindlin
= 2*3%=10%
100% greater chance that a minority
stop is justified over a random stop
P~A|M = 90%
PA|M =
100%
50%
5%
NYC assumes 87%
Minorities in NYC
If it’s not ok to stop & frisk 95% of the general population for nothing,
why is it ok to stop & frisk 90% of minorities for nothing?
PA|M =
PM|A
PM
PA
PA|M = Chance a minority should be arrested
P~A|M= Chance a minority should not be arrested
PM|A = Chance that someone arrested is a minority
PM = Chance someone is a minority
PA = Chance someone is arrested
Bayes’ Rule

32. M O R E P R I VAT E P L A C E S
MOREPLAYERPOWERGAP
News of the World
phone hacking
Rutgers student
commits suicide
after spied by
webcam
FBI GPS criminal
surveillanceGoogle privacy
policy unification
Target finds out
teen pregnant
before parents
GM OnStar tracks
users
Woman caught
naked by Google
Street View
Actress sues IMDB
over revealing her
age
US deports British
tourists over Tweets
FB user sets fire to
home after de-
friending
"Girls Around Me"
pulled from market
Health orgs use
Twitter to track
illness
NSA internet
citizen
surveillanceGeorgia teacher
fired after posting
vacation pics
Big brother is watching (duh)
“We’re being asked to trust
without being able to verify.”
− Alex Howard
Pres. Obama calls for more
transparency in FISA court and
surveillance laws
NSA chief announces plan to
replace 1,000 sysadmins with
machines
Confession

33. Technology grows exponentially.
Wisdom grows linearly.
• Gov’t doesn’t trust
people (at least
sysadmins) but does
trust machines
• Little Transparency
• Wisdom is hard to
come by
• Sentient (?) brain in
the cloud in < 20
years
Lesson
Wisdom
Knowledge
Information
Data

34. Hilary Mason’s Maxim
Math + Code = Awesome
Quants
Making a killing on Wall Street but still can’t impress the chicks
Weakonomics.com
Lesson

35. Corollary to Mason’s Maxim
Values * (Math + Code) = Awesome
Lesson

37. Norio Ohga
Sony President
74 min CD
Jeff Jonas
Big Data
Privacy by Design
Mark Zuckerberg
Real Names
Steve Jobs
‘nuff said
Eclectic generalists drive innovation
Richard Feynman
Physics
Lesson

38. We’re making this up as we go.
Austin Alleman @allemanau
Innocence Frontier Regulation Innovation
Confession

39. “Can’t we all just get along?”Plea
Social
Entrepreneur
High-Tech
Mercenary
Responsible
Innovator
Traditional
Capitalist
− Rodney King

40. Lesson “No one here gets out alive.”
− Jim Morrison
Adapt, Inve
nt,
Test
Question, S
crutinize, Cr
iticize
Watch, List
en, Learn Geeks
WonksSuits

41. Questions!
Jim Adler
www.metanautix.com
jimadler@metanautix.com