Bringing Awareness of How Technology Works Today and How to Protect Yourself
Maria Orms, Cybersecurity and Privacy Researcher, and Republican Gubernatorial candidate for Colorado, was the guest speaker at the Republican Strategy Forum on 12 November.
In an era where convenience often trumps caution, our digital lives have become an open book. As a cybersecurity and privacy researcher with master’s degrees in telecommunications and cybersecurity, Maria spent years building secure data communications networks, including for top-secret systems in the military. Today, through her private consulting company, she focuses on raising awareness about how technology really works—and the alarming ways it’s eroding our privacy. We’re not just connected; we’re constantly surveilled. From cell phones to cars, smart TVs to fridges, a “pattern of life” is being constructed for every one of us. And it’s not making us safer—setting us up to be controlled.
The Collectors: Who Has Your Data?
Your personal information isn’t just sitting idly on your devices. It’s being harvested by a vast ecosystem:
• Data brokers: These shadowy companies buy and sell your details, categorizing you into disturbing buckets like “sexual assault victim” or political leanings. HIPAA? It’s not a privacy shield—don’t sign authorizations that give private companies access to your health info.
• Cell phone companies, ISPs, and tech giants: They log your every move.
• Intelligence agencies and foreign entities: Data brokers have even sold military personnel location data to overseas buyers.
• Cars and devices: Modern vehicles are “wiretaps on wheels,” with built-in WiFi that registers nearby networks and shares data with passing cars. Tires are now being manufactured with RFID (Radio Frequency IDs) that are identified at intersections.
“A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful spouse, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of a particular individual or political groups – and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”
Storage is dirt cheap now, so everything is kept forever. Even Apple, which encrypts some data, can’t stop the broader ecosystem. Elderly fraud? Seventy percent is tied to national security threats fueled by this data glut. And foreign adversaries, like China, are hacking databases to ransack your health records.
How Tracking Happens: The Technical Breakdown
Cellular towers triangulate your position using signals from about eight nearby antennas—even if your phone is on airplane mode, GPS can still ping satellites. Bluetooth? Google won’t let you fully disable it on Android; it tracks your in-store foot traffic, revealing income levels, exercise habits, and more. Pair that with other data, and companies bombard you with hyper-targeted ads.
Near Field Communication (NFC) for tap-to-pay is vulnerable to eavesdropping and skimming—someone standing beside you could clone your phone via a laptop. Devices record SSIDs and BSSIDs of every WiFi network in range, building a map of your locations. Telemetry from gadgets pours out data, and now cameras lurk in the middle of screens.
Cars amplify this: Never connect your phone to a rental—it’s a privacy nightmare. Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) on traffic cameras, police vehicles, mall lots, and even HOA gateways scan for stolen cars but log everyone. Smart TVs? They’re digital Trojan horses with inaccessible cameras in your living room. Even Samsung fridges have been criticized for poor cooling leading to foodborne illness—while quietly collecting usage data.
The Bigger Picture: Identity Dominance and Manipulation
Why all this data? It’s about “identity dominance”—predicting and influencing behavior. Companies like Palantir (headquartered in Denver) boast: “You are what you do.” They analyze patterns to forecast your next move.
In elections, personal data tracks, categorizes, and manipulates us. Fake news proliferates via AI-generated memes and images we’re oblivious to. Speak out against the government or power figures? Shadow-banning silences you. A 1997 privacy law lets you demand what info law enforcement holds on you—but agencies can neither confirm nor deny to protect their sources, even if it shields potential terrorists.
What Can You Do? Practical Steps to Reclaim Privacy
You don’t have to be helpless. Here’s how to fight back:
Switch to Privacy-Focused Apps and Tools
• Email: ProtonMail—doesn’t collect data on you.
• VPN: ProtonVPN creates an encrypted tunnel, hiding your location from many data brokers. Use it at home (note: banking apps may require it off; Proton doesn’t support split tunneling).
• Browsing: Brave or Mozilla Firefox. Avoid DuckDuckGo (acquired by Google).
• Messaging: Signal for end-to-end encryption.
Hardware Defenses
• Mic locks to block microphones.
• Faraday bags: Only Silent Pocket and Mission Darkness reliably block signals.
Data Removal Services – Sign up to delete your info from the internet:
• PrivacyBee (free).
• DeleteMe or Incogni (~$10/month).
Password Management
Never reuse a breached password—check sites like Have I Been Pwned (HaveIBeenPwned.com).
A Call for Systemic Change: We Need a Digital Bill of Rights
Individuals can only do so much. We need a Digital Bill of Rights in Colorado:
• Puts you in charge of your personal data.
• Forces social media companies to reveal algorithms and shadow-banning practices.
• Bans government employees or elected officials from requesting censorship on platforms.
Florida has passed one. President Trump supports it. No other Colorado gubernatorial candidate is addressing this—Maria announced that she is running as a Republican for Governor of Colorado to change that.
Maria has detailed these threats in articles on her Medium account for a deeper dive.
Technology should empower, not enslave. By understanding the risks and taking action, we can push for a future where privacy is the default. Demand better. Your data, your life—take it back.