NuWave, known for data analytics just bought Big Bear which provides a lot of cloud computing and storage services. Why does this matter? It matters because both are contractors to the US government, including the NSA. Naturally, that means they are (or better be) very concerned with security. After all, it’s hard to go more than a day or two without learning about a major data breach at a national corporation or even the government itself getting hacked. Cybersecurity has never been more in the forefront.
We at TARTLE get questions about cybersecurity all the time. After all, we are asking people who sign up with us to funnel their data through our servers, so the concern is understandable. And it should go without saying that we take every precaution to ensure that you data is secure with us. With that said, there some additional points to make concerning cybersecurity and our overall approach to data as a society.
One is that the term cybersecurity implies something entirely new. The truth is, it isn’t. Sure, the digital aspect is new, but take that away and it’s simply information security, something that has been a concern for as long as people have been sharing information they didn’t want others to see. Think back just a few decades. In WWII and other wars following, if there was information that had to be shared quickly it was done over the radio, using equipment that was available to even the poorest people within range. In order to keep sensitive information out of enemy hands, it was necessary to develop unique code systems. Yet, those systems were still at risk. Someone could always break the code, which of course applied pressure to develop ever more complex, or at least unexpected codes. Even before that, sensitive information was literally transported by men carrying letters on horseback. All one had to do was capture the carrier and read the letters. And then – well you get the picture. It’s always been important and difficult to secure sensitive information, all that has changed is the medium in which we do it.
Another point is how comfortable we are with sharing information already. How many social media platforms are you signed up with? How many streaming services? Heck, do you have a smartphone? We know for a fact that many of these companies are already collecting all your data and using it to target specific advertising to you with the sole goal of parting you from your money. They also have no qualms at all about selling your data to third parties for ends that we simply have no way of knowing. And it’s no secret at this point that smartphones are listening to your conversations and adjusting ads accordingly. What about every website with a notice about cookies and you have to accept or decline? Most of us accept the terms without giving it a second thought. Yet, we know full well that they are tracking our activity online. The only question is how much are they tracking and whether or not they are doing anything we don’t know. Shop online? That means your credit card number or PayPal account information is stored on someone’s server somewhere.
Finally, many social media companies have shown a disturbing willingness to share data with or adjust their search parameters according to the whims of government authorities, even foreign governments who have demonstrated that they are more than happy to use technology to oppress people.
Being concerned with security in the digital world is a good thing and it would be a lot better if more people were more conscious about the vulnerability of their data. Signing up with TARTLE is actually an important step in not just controlling how your data gets shared but in better protecting your data whether you share it or not. With our VPN and firewalls your data will be at least as secure with us as with anyone else. Even better, we won’t sell it behind your back and if you want to sell it, you are the one who gets rewarded.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
NuWave, known for data analytics just bought Big Bear which provides a lot of cloud computing and storage services. Why does this matter? It matters because both are contractors to the US government, including the NSA. Naturally, that means they are (or better be) very concerned with security. After all, it’s hard to go more than a day or two without learning about a major data breach at a national corporation or even the government itself getting hacked. Cybersecurity has never been more in the forefront.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TartleCast, with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Jason Rigby (00:19):
Alex.
Alexander McCaig (00:26):
Jason. New wave, was that the '80s?
Jason Rigby (00:28):
Yes. Yeah, that's what I was going to mention, yeah. So, yeah, it's like a new wave-
Alexander McCaig (00:32):
Who did [crosstalk 00:00:32]?
Jason Rigby (00:32):
It was The Cure.
Alexander McCaig (00:34):
Yeah, and who else had the hat? They're were like tiered hat [inaudible 00:00:38]?
Jason Rigby (00:38):
Oh, yeah, yeah, that was Shot the Radio Star.
Alexander McCaig (00:42):
Oh, my gosh.
Jason Rigby (00:43):
'80s. It's not Diplo. I'm thinking Diplo. It's [crosstalk 00:00:45]-
Alexander McCaig (00:45):
Yeah, I want to say Diplo. It starts with [crosstalk 00:00:47]-
Jason Rigby (00:47):
... but it's something like that. We'll think of it here. I know people will be commenting on it. So, NuWave Solutions acquire BigBear. Now, that sounds weird. Like a NuWave, and then who's BigBear?
Alexander McCaig (00:58):
What is this?
Jason Rigby (00:59):
Yeah, I want to explain what NuWave is real quick, and then I want you to talk about this. NuWave Solutions is a leading provider of data management, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, cloud solutions, and technologies to the federal government. It has announced that it acquired BigBear, a leading provider of cloud-based big data analytics, this is all cloud-based big data, solutions to the national security community within the U.S. government. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Alexander McCaig (01:27):
Yeah, of course because it was a fat amount of money using the defense budget. So, BigBear, what they were doing is they were working on how is it that we continue to do advanced analytics with very sensitive information in a cloud environment and keep it secure? That's it. That's all they did. The government's worried. It's like, okay, if we put sensitive information in the cloud, very sensitive information that may affect national security, whatever that information might be, how can you guarantee us, with the least amount of risk possible, that nobody's going to be able to hack into this or there's going to be some sort of leak? That's what BigBear specializes in, and NuWave, who's a contractor for the government, they said, "Oh, we're going to acquire these guys and their technology."
Alexander McCaig (02:12):
That's what you find, is you see a lot of these companies, they'll come up with a solution, and then they get swallowed up by the larger contractors, and then they just come back, and they just repackage everything under their own brand and sell it back to the government.
Jason Rigby (02:24):
But I think with, especially when you look at these large defense budgets and then you look at these companies that are coming in there, I mean, I get it, you know what I mean? Like you said, it's sensitive information, and we had done a whole podcast, if you remember, on the government doing a big push to go to the cloud.
Alexander McCaig (02:39):
Yeah, to move records into digital.
Jason Rigby (02:41):
Right. I think they want to do that by next year, right?
Alexander McCaig (02:44):
Yeah, they're trying to make that push, and this is like a separate part of the government. This is like NSA, where everything already is digital, and how do we continue to protect it, right? So, it's inefficient, really, to house your own servers. It's extremely costly, and when you use a cloud system, you can do it very decentralized, meaning it's more efficient to sustain all that information collecting and analysis. They're doing their own transitions away from in-house servers, to be like, how do we manage this in the cloud format, so that we can offload a lot of that cost onto someone else, but still keep our security protocols very high?
Jason Rigby (03:20):
Yeah, we have the Space Force that we created and stuff, and I heard some of it's coming to New Mexico, so that's awesome, but we almost need like a Cyber Force.
Alexander McCaig (03:30):
Actually, they do have a Cyber Force. If you look at a lot of the jobs that are trending for the air force and everything, it's about that sort of cyber defense because that is really the future. Think about in the '40s, right, during the Pacific Theater and things of that nature, what was that encryption computer the Germans were using?
Jason Rigby (03:51):
Oh, yeah, yeah. I watched that movie. It was The Imitation Game.
Alexander McCaig (03:54):
Yeah, great-
Jason Rigby (03:55):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (03:55):
Absolutely great film, but what's the important point here? It's like how is it that we protect information in transit? Nothing has changed since the '40s, other than the fact that things are digital.
Jason Rigby (04:07):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:08):
Nothing's changed.
Jason Rigby (04:09):
I mean, we are trying to-
Alexander McCaig (04:10):
We were collecting information over an AM waveband, but apart from that it's been pen and paper, so it's like how do we, again, just continue to protect the information if it's sitting in a new type of house? That is the full gist of it, so a lot of this technology, the spending, these acquisitions, are happening around how do we acquire people that are very forward-looking on data security?
Jason Rigby (04:32):
And globally, when we look at it, there are bad, if you want to use the word bad, there are bad people.
Alexander McCaig (04:37):
There's bad actors, always.
Jason Rigby (04:38):
Yes, that are wanting to take this data and use it for harm.
Alexander McCaig (04:44):
Yeah, and think about it. If you're the NSA, you're naturally a target. If you're a big data collector, you're a natural target. People are going to want to look to that. They're going to want to see ... Do their penetration testing, can we get in? What sort of free information can we scrape from your servers? Do you have a leak in one of your security standards? These acquisitions, that's why NuWave pays so much money to get this, because it costs less in the acquisition than the cost of that information actually getting leaked, and that's how they view that, that risk analysis. If we pay a couple of billion here, that's a lot less than someone getting their hands on information in another country that they absolutely should not have their hands on.
Jason Rigby (05:26):
Yeah, you don't want operatives, let's say a special forces team or something, being found out with all their information, where they live, where their family is.
Alexander McCaig (05:36):
Or somebody was analyzing the training records of special forces in certain areas. If you got into the server, oh, look what they've been doing. It reminds me of that time they had ... You remember Strava?
Jason Rigby (05:48):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (05:49):
Well, all these special forces guys were like, "Well, why is there a camp up in the Arctic? Why am I watching groups of people running around here." The Strava data was public, right, and so these are like these basic leaks. We're doing everything we can now to prevent that sort of information from getting out there because something so simple can give away so much.
Jason Rigby (06:08):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:09):
When you look at these acquisitions and this big spending, the future is going to be that sort of spending. It's like how do you protect information again now that it's in a fully digital format? We had analog encryption machines for encrypting and decrypting code, and now we just have digital formats doing that. We have currencies that specifically work on encryption standards, like BitCoin or Dogecoin or [inaudible 00:06:32] coin.
Jason Rigby (06:32):
Yes, and speaking of Dogecoin.
Alexander McCaig (06:34):
Right, so if we look at the basis of our future, our future is a basis pretty much of security encryption because there's just going to be so much information out there.
Jason Rigby (06:42):
I love that. Well, speaking of protecting data and privacy, I want to make sure that people understand when they're submitting their data packets when they're signing up for tartle.co, how concerned are you with privacy?
Alexander McCaig (06:56):
So, that is a major concern because this is very personally identifiable information, so we also follow the same ... They're called PCI standards. Even when you're storing things like credit card numbers, there's certain ways that those need to be stored in a system. We not only do the best practices and standards that are required that these other companies are using in the financial sector, but on top of that we have outside third-parties do penetration testing and all these other things in the system to make sure it's completely buttoned up and protected. We never have any control over your information. You're the only person that can handle that.
Jason Rigby (07:29):
And you're anonymous.
Alexander McCaig (07:31):
Yeah, you're anonymous, right, so if somebody was in there, there's no number saying, oh, that is this person.
Jason Rigby (07:38):
This is Troy Rigby, Troy Jason Rigby.
Alexander McCaig (07:40):
No, so like even when you sign up on Tartle, you'll see your encrypted name that comes in. It's a hash, right, and that's what you are, but when you sell your information, you choose how much you want to give up. You choose how much you want to be identified.
Jason Rigby (07:52):
Yeah, and that's our whole philosophy of free will.
Alexander McCaig (07:55):
Yeah, it's your choice. It's your free will, and you should always have that.
Jason Rigby (07:58):
Yeah, I love that. I wanted to address this and then I wanted to address the privacy issue with Tartle because I know there was a couple of comments out there. People were worried about if they sell a data packet, how are they being protected.
Alexander McCaig (08:13):
As they should be, and so you have to remember, right, anything you put online on the internet, it's on the internet.
Jason Rigby (08:19):
Yes, Facebook has it.
Alexander McCaig (08:20):
The NSA has it, somebody's got it.
Jason Rigby (08:21):
Yeah, somebody's got it, yep.
Alexander McCaig (08:23):
So, if you're going to start selling information through the Tartle marketplace that's identifiable about you, just choose, be aware, of what you're giving up. We give you the choice. You don't have to give up the full kit and caboodle, everything. You can choose, okay, I only want to do 20% of me, 30%, 40, 50%, and then you have a difference in conversation depending on how much you actually want to give up that's identifiable to you, but just remember, once you send it, it's gone. That's just what it is. You can't come back and get it. Once it's put out there on those servers to the free world, after you let control of it go-
Jason Rigby (08:58):
But I mean, we don't, and I know we've got to close this and I want you to speak to this last thing, we're giving away out data for free anyways, all the time.
Alexander McCaig (09:07):
Yes. Somebody would say-
Jason Rigby (09:08):
How many read the accept all cookies?
Alexander McCaig (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, we have users in The Philippines, right?
Jason Rigby (09:12):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (09:12):
And you were talking to me that they were talking about, well, it's like we're worried about signing up for new stuff and giving up our information. You're giving so much information to Facebook right now. What are you worried about us ... We're trying to protect your information and help you monetize it, so it's interesting to see the emotional triggers that people who use the Tartle marketplace and people who are thinking about using the Tartle marketplace. It's an educational thing.
Jason Rigby (09:41):
Yeah, I love that, and everyone, they can go to tartle.co, sign up. We encourage you to do that, be a part of the movement.
Alexander McCaig (09:46):
Yeah, and you can feel rock steady that we do everything to make sure your information is protected with the absolute best possible standards.
Jason Rigby (09:54):
Have you heard that Bobby Brown song? Rock Steady?
Alexander McCaig (09:57):
Rock Steady?
Jason Rigby (09:59):
We've got to close.
Alexander McCaig (10:00):
See you later.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Thank you for listening to TartleCast, with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby.
Jason Rigby (10:15):
[crosstalk 00:10:15].
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Jason Rigby (10:24):
[crosstalk 00:10:24].
Speaker 1 (10:24):
What's your data worth?
