Do you remember when we made most of our transactions with cash, making them, for the most part, untraceable?

No one would know if you purchased three gallons of milk or a bottle of champagne. There were no Radio Frequency Identity Tags attached to anything, and public records - if they existed at all - were on paper and had to be manually searched.

This made the process of inference (determining classified information from a large number of unclassified records) quite difficult and very time consuming.

Most corporate communications were carried out via postal mail or in face-to-face meetings, and confidential documents were held in locked filing cabinets.

Technology has changed everything.

Data mining makes the process of inference cheap and easy. Websites and software can be designed to collect and use your data without your knowledge.

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