{"id":21335,"date":"2020-05-20T12:01:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T16:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/21335\/"},"modified":"2020-10-14T03:08:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T21:38:36","slug":"social-ratings-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/21335\/","title":{"rendered":"Social ratings: Be careful what you post"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s already hard to imagine life without social networks. We use them to chat, communicate, share our creations, discuss the hottest news, and more. It\u2019s worth keeping in mind, though, that people may use your social media profiles to assess, for example, your ability to repay a bank loan. Or to decide whether you\u2019re suitable for a particular job.<\/p>\n<p>The measure of a person\u2019s potential based on past actions, social circle, and the like is called a <em>social rating<\/em>. A person\u2019s social rating is similar in some ways to the credit rating that banks use when issuing loans, but it can include a far wider range of information.<\/p>\n<p>Many countries already see the use of social ratings in various arenas. For example, insurers in New York are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jessicabaron\/2019\/02\/04\/life-insurers-can-use-social-media-posts-to-determine-premiums\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">officially allowed<\/a> to determine premiums by analyzing data from social networks.<\/p>\n<p>And China is developing a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Social_Credit_System\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">social credit system<\/a> that some describe as <em>1984<\/em>-esque. However, not everybody considers such systems scary; some people actually think they are useful, saying they help make life more secure. Are people and technology ready for what\u2019s coming?<\/p>\n<p><!-- Put this code where you want to place the widget --><\/p>\n<div id=\"privacy-widget\"><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/privacy.kaspersky.com\/js\/widget.js\"><\/script><br>\n<script>\n\u00a0       Privacy.init({\"lang\":\"en\", \"responsive\": true})\n<\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Social ratings: What people think<\/h2>\n<p>To gauge user attitudes about social ratings, we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-credits-and-security\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">polled more than 10,000 people around the world<\/a>. Here\u2019s what we found out.<\/p>\n<p>Slightly less than half (46%) had heard about them. The phenomenon is better known in Asia. For example, in China, where ratings are rolling out nationally, 71% of respondents know about social ratings, compared with only 13% in Austria and Germany. What\u2019s more, again almost half (45%) of respondents admitted to having issues with understanding how the ratings are calculated. Only one in five (21%) had ever come across them in real life (although it\u2019s possible that some people are simply unaware that social ratings play a role in getting a loan or mortgage).<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, many generally agree with the underlying idea of social ratings: 70% say it is fair and right to limit access to public resources (transport, education, housing, etc.) based on people\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n<p>Many people don\u2019t mind being monitored if there\u2019s a good reason. For example, to improve security, almost half are ready to allow the government to monitor social networks, and two in five would share their data with a company in exchange for discounts and other benefits. And only about 20% of respondents expressed unease about private and public organizations taking an interest in their personal information.<\/p>\n<h2>Social ratings: The technology<\/h2>\n<p>Many of the people we surveyed support the idea of social ratings, probably in the belief that they will, on the whole, deliver a fair and unbiased assessment. Alas, with current technology, that is unlikely.<\/p>\n<p>For one thing, it is difficult to track errors. Current systems are based on neural networks, the operating principles of which are opaque even to the developers, let alone the operators or general public. When lowering or raising someone\u2019s rating, the neural network does not disclose its informational basis for a decision. If the computer says you don\u2019t qualify for a loan, you won\u2019t get one \u2014 even if you\u2019re a decent person with a good income.<\/p>\n<p>In the language of medical testing and computer security, the above is known as a \u201cfalse positive,\u201d the same as when a security solution flags a clean file as infected, or a medical test erroneously identifies a disease in a patient\u2019s sample.<\/p>\n<p>On our favorite topic \u2014 antivirus \u2014 the level of false positives varies greatly from one product to another. Some products deliver wrong verdicts far more often than the average, and others far less (our security solutions have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/awards-post\/21053\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">minimal false positives<\/a>). The point here is that it is impossible to eliminate errors entirely. But in the case of ratings that affect human rights and even lives, the price of such an error <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/when-ai-decides\/25607\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">can be very high<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from mistakes caused by imprecise algorithms or imperfect data, systems can also be intentionally hacked. As regards nationwide social ratings, our experts have identified <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-scoring-systems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">three types of potential attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Attacks on data-collecting devices<\/h3>\n<p>To accurately assess a person\u2019s rating, the system needs a lot of information about them. It gets this data not only from social networks, but also from various appliance-based cameras and sensors \u2014 the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/encyclopedia.kaspersky.com\/glossary\/internet-of-things-glossary\/?utm_source=kdaily&amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;utm_campaign=termin-explanation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Internet of Things<\/a>. These devices are often vulnerable and get repeatedly attacked. In the first half of 2019 alone, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/about\/press-releases\/2019_iot-under-fire-kaspersky-detects-more-than-100-million-attacks-on-smart-devices-in-h1-2019\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">we detected<\/a> 105 million attempts to hack them.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Attacks on software implementation<\/h3>\n<p>To assign you a social rating, it is not enough for the system to harvest information about you, it also needs to process and interpret it. The mechanism that handles this may be vulnerable too \u2014 both to malware infection attempts and to nonstandard attacks.<\/p>\n<p>For example, an attacker might wear colored glasses. A human being would easily recognize the person, but a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/machine-learning-nine-challenges\/23553\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">smart camera might mistake them for someone else<\/a> \u2014 so everything they did in front of the camera could be attributed to someone else.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Attacks on system logic<\/h3>\n<p>Lastly, an attacker can identify actions that, if repeated many times, change the rating beyond all recognition \u2014 either positively or negatively. For example, by exploiting gaps in the system logic, it might be possible to boost one\u2019s own rating or, conversely, spoil that of a potential victim.<\/p>\n<h2>Preparing for the world of social ratings<\/h2>\n<p>In summary, social ratings may not be as fair and unbiased as we would like or suppose. All the same, such systems are already deployed in certain fields and likely to be introduced more widely over time. Although there\u2019s no way to shield yourself from their flaws completely, it\u2019s worth trying to minimize the risk.<\/p>\n<p>Think twice (or thrice) before posting ambiguous photos of yourself or other potentially compromising information on social networks. Some things are best kept private. At the very least, do not make them publicly available.<\/p>\n<p>Protect your accounts so that cybercriminals can\u2019t hack and use them against you. Create <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/strong-password-day\/25519\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">strong, unique passwords<\/a>, enable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/what_is_two_factor_authentication\/5036\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">two-factor authentication<\/a>, and don\u2019t enter login credentials on suspicious sites.<\/p>\n<p>Guard your privacy. So that the bank doesn\u2019t refuse you a loan because it knows, for example, that you\u2019re looking for a job, protect yourself against online data harvesting. We explain how in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/privacy-5-steps\/35209\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<input type=\"hidden\" class=\"category_for_banner\" value=\"kis-trial-privacy\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another reason not to share everything online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2581,"featured_media":21336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[363,43,211,98,2941,119],"class_list":{"0":"post-21335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-privacy","8":"tag-personal-data","9":"tag-privacy","10":"tag-social-media","11":"tag-social-networks","12":"tag-social-ratings","13":"tag-survey"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/21335\/"},{"hreflang":"en-ae","url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/16791\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/22379\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/20516\/"},{"hreflang":"es-mx","url":"https:\/\/latam.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/18867\/"},{"hreflang":"es","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.es\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/22744\/"},{"hreflang":"it","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.it\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/21767\/"},{"hreflang":"ru","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.ru\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/28428\/"},{"hreflang":"tr","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.tr\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/8342\/"},{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/35610\/"},{"hreflang":"fr","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.fr\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/14929\/"},{"hreflang":"pt-br","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.br\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/15421\/"},{"hreflang":"pl","url":"https:\/\/plblog.kaspersky.com\/social-ratings-2020\/13480\/"},{"hreflang":"de","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.de\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/24014\/"},{"hreflang":"zh","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.cn\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/11506\/"},{"hreflang":"ja","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.co.jp\/social-ratings-2020\/28412\/"},{"hreflang":"nl","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.nl\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/25438\/"},{"hreflang":"ru-kz","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.kz\/social-ratings-2020\/22332\/"},{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/27613\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/social-ratings-2020\/27446\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/tag\/privacy\/","name":"privacy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21993,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21335\/revisions\/21993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}