One of the great unsung heroes of American history was a formerly enslaved woman named Mary Bowser, a spy who infiltrated the family of Jefferson Davis as a domestic servant, and eventually landed a full-time job in the Southern White House, the political seat of his Confederacy.
Armed with a photographic memory and an all-access pass to the inner workings of the Davis administration, she fed details daily to the Union army, which Ulysses S. Grant called the “most valuable information” he received from the Southern capital during the war.
While researching our new book, The Secret Life of Data, we gathered some sensitive information from Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club, which he used as a base for political operations both during and after his presidency.
Within a few minutes, we had a report profiling thousands of visitors to Trump’s club over the course of an entire year, including details like where they likely live and work, their ages, incomes, ethnicities, education levels, where they were immediately before visiting, and where they spent their time on the property once they got there.
Even though the data is technically “anonymized” (we can’t see the age, income, or ethnicity of a specific visitor, let alone their name), the pinpoint locations of where they spend their days and nights makes educated guesswork pretty easy.
Even though most of it has no practical value today, brokers keep it anyway, because hard drives are cheap, and there’s no telling what may become valuable in the future — say, if a private real estate developer suddenly gets elected to national office.
The original article contains 1,498 words, the summary contains 266 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
One of the great unsung heroes of American history was a formerly enslaved woman named Mary Bowser, a spy who infiltrated the family of Jefferson Davis as a domestic servant, and eventually landed a full-time job in the Southern White House, the political seat of his Confederacy.
Armed with a photographic memory and an all-access pass to the inner workings of the Davis administration, she fed details daily to the Union army, which Ulysses S. Grant called the “most valuable information” he received from the Southern capital during the war.
While researching our new book, The Secret Life of Data, we gathered some sensitive information from Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club, which he used as a base for political operations both during and after his presidency.
Within a few minutes, we had a report profiling thousands of visitors to Trump’s club over the course of an entire year, including details like where they likely live and work, their ages, incomes, ethnicities, education levels, where they were immediately before visiting, and where they spent their time on the property once they got there.
Even though the data is technically “anonymized” (we can’t see the age, income, or ethnicity of a specific visitor, let alone their name), the pinpoint locations of where they spend their days and nights makes educated guesswork pretty easy.
Even though most of it has no practical value today, brokers keep it anyway, because hard drives are cheap, and there’s no telling what may become valuable in the future — say, if a private real estate developer suddenly gets elected to national office.
The original article contains 1,498 words, the summary contains 266 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!