Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Securing Your Personal Information










 




The technology revolution has given us the gift of online shopping convenience. I buy stuff on the Internet all the time. I put in my credit card numbers. I type in my passcodes and passwords and login, username, online ID and my pet’s names and the schools I went to and my mother’s goddamn maiden name and I buy stuff. It’s easy and cheap.

Silicone Valley is the new Shangri la, the west coast paradise that is populated with young tech dorks, over paid and under laid, who are shaping our future. Ask them. They are developing necessary, indispensable, essential, important, cutting edge, progressive, forward thinking apps and tools and games, systems and software and platforms and plug-ins and programs designed to make life easier, cooler, more fun and efficient. Sure they are. You can download ringtones and movies and music and books; you can shop for shoes and watch amazing, unbelievable pornography, see eternal endless LOL cat and dog videos or read about what an asshole you are for not being a member of the NRA or a vegan. And it’s all so goddamn easy thanks to the geniuses at Apple and Amazon, Google and Facebook. Of course, most of the bullshit they are selling is simply ways of selling you more bullshit and tricking us into feeling good about it. Buy a new phone, download favorite beats, text friends, post update about it. Repeat the process infinitely. Fucking tools.

Meanwhile, it was reported today that a massive malware attack has hacked the personal info from 1000 businesses. Last week, another Russian gang ripped off “billions” of passwords and usernames. Billions with a “B”. It’s s real thing. Google it. The theft was reported by “security analysts”, which sounds like a self-negating term or a synonym for Worthless Goldbricking Assholes. There is no security so what is there to analyze? Thanks for analyzing the hell out of a catastrophe after it’s transpired. And what is the “Security Analysts” answer to these huge cyber thefts? What can we do to combat a potential worldwide financial and social disaster? Change your password. Yep. That’s what they recommend. We, the users, the clients, the morons, are supposed to use longer, harder to remember passwords with lots of capital letters and numbers and never reuse them and (I love this one) find words that are not in a dictionary.
ZZrf$666colonoscopy**happyface emoticon? That’s my new password? So, ultimately, the industry is saying “fuck you” again because they can’t be bothered, they are so busy selling us unnecessary crap, making so much money and buying new homes and hot cars and hookers and heroin that they are unwilling or incapable of safeguarding our personal information.

You know who’s going to make a lot of money? The kid who invents an app that slaps me in the face every time I put in my password to buy one more thing I don’t need and remind me that I’m about to lose everything I own. Thanks, tech wizard.


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