I logged into a website to buy a chair mat. Innocuous enough for you? It asked me to sign in as a faithful (sic) member which I promptly did. Equally promptly, the website informed me that my user id and password were exposed in a data leak, requesting me to change my password. That’s not too bad, is it? No harm done as far as I could tell. Unfortunately, this happens to me almost every time I visit a website or e-commerce portal in the past few months. Every single one. Not one exception. Frightening, isn’t it? I’ve resigned myself to the reality that living in the information age has not just one, but several drawbacks. A dreary cynic might even suggest that we’re accustomed to it, perhaps even taking many of the pitfall in our stride, be it cyberstalking, online trolling, less real conversation replaced by superficial texts and the worst of it all, losing money to cybercriminals. There are more ways to suffer, of course. This is by no means an exhaustive list. The smartphone is as ubiquitous as the internet, the two intertwined to the extent that a valid complaint is that it’s taken over our lives. The question often asked of me is quite simple, the answer perhaps more complex. Is my identity safe?

The answer is a big resounding no. It isn’t. Scroll to the end of this blog if you want to hear a corollary. Keep reading to understand why.

If you read the news or listen to it, it’s impossible not to have heard of data leaks, once rare and scandalous, now commonplace and frequent. I won’t bother reeling off statistics such as the billions of individuals affected, or the money lost. A simple search of the internet will tell you – if you have the stomach to assimilate the mind-boggling data.

A few decades ago, a conspiracy theory raged across the United States, the bogey of Big Brother – the state or Federal Government is watching you. Ever seen Will Smith’s Enemy of the State? The reality is that long before even computers became commonplace, our data was being stolen, misused or abused. The difference is that it was being traded amongst businesses who’d send you fake letters awarding you equally fake prizes – just one of several cons. Scams were aplenty. Now, it’s just as easy for criminals living several thousands of miles away in another continent, using a computer to access your most private of information.

If you have a life, then you probably have a bank account or two, an email id or several, a multitude of memberships at retail outlets, services companies, online traders, and the like, with each of them possessing information about you, including a user id and password – hopefully not the same password for each website. Many of these companies hold within their databases enough information to have your identity stolen – such as Name, Address, Date of Birth, SSN … I needn’t go on. This is enough. These organisations are supposed to guard this data like precious possessions. They don’t. Many have safeguards, sure. Firewalls. Malware and virus protection. Multifactor authentication. Data governance policies. The trouble is that they don’t always do what must be done. The bigger worry is that a determined hacker can get through almost any defence. Even the Pentagon has been hacked and data leaked to the enemy. If you can access your data with a user id and password, then hackers can too, along with your data, that of the several other thousands or millions of fellow members of that data pool.

There are several reasons for this. The simplest is that hackers have plenty of time, a wealth of resources, safety in anonymity, and worst of all, lack of laws and the will of governments to pursue and punish them. I’ve only heard of identity thieves being caught are in television shows or movies and even in those fictional accounts, they become good guys and work for a LEO – ha! In real life, as countries or states, we are so busy fighting with one another, engrossed in our own lives, drawing political lines, inventing more ways to torment and kill each other that we don’t seem to even want to cooperate with each other to fight this insidious evil.

There is one way to stay safe. Live on island with no cell coverage, no cell, no computer, no bank account, no internet connection, no email and no friends except Friday like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island with a good book or two. If you’re really lucky, Friday can be a gorgeous specimen of your sexual preference, who also doesn’t possess a computer. You can drink water from the river or from the coconut, eat fruits, kill, cook and eat fish, indigenous birds, animals or feast on the fauna. My only advice under those circumstances – watch out for sharks and rattlesnakes.

Sorry for being a gloomy Gus but I really don’t see anything encouraging on the horizon.

I try. I don’t always succeed. You see, it’s the journey. It has to be fun. It has been for me thus far and I have hopes for the future. Hope you enjoyed it. I know that I did. Let me know what you think.

Mark Ravine