Big data is used, among other things, in cybersecurity research. Take, for example, Dr. Amit Rechavi‘s research, tracking different hacking activities in order to supply policymakers with state attribution of malicious hackers.

We often put our trust in data-based information and decisions, but even data has inherent bias in it, which stems from what data we decided to collect, the way the data was collected, as well as how it was analyzed. Dr. Guy Katz explains how this happens and what can be done to address this.

Another problem with big data is its potential to harm our privacy, not only in having troves of data collected about us, but also in big data analysis which provides excess information that we did not even know could be concluded from that data. For example, a smart city system operating in China was found to utilize facial recognition technology to keep track of specific residents, as well as identify their ethnicity. In a country where technology enables persecution of Uyghur Muslims by the authorities, this may have dire consequences. Dr. Romi Mikulinsky tells us about artists and designers who have taken upon themselves to call attention to this surveillance capitalism with artwork that allows us to defy data collection, contaminate databases, and cast doubt upon the so-called reality as it is being presented to us – while giving law and security authorities quite a headache. Such artworks include Peng! Collective’s Mask.ID, Zach Blass’s collective masks, and Adam Harvey’s CV Dazzle.

Big Data and Information Security are the subject of this episode of Lex Cybernetica, hosted by Ido Kenan.
Clips in this episode: Black Mirror S03E01, Buzzfeed’s Barack Obama’s deep fake.