I know, I know. When most people think about glass houses, it’s usually in reference to the idiom where you shouldn’t throw stones. But it’s also an apt way of describing how privacy is getting harder and harder to enforce in the modern world. Technology continues to increase, as does the amount of data there is about people being passed around. Most of this information is not secured in any way, making it easy for data aggregators to get their hands on it, and there are plenty of times when even secure data is compromised. It’s a problem that is only going to get worse.
I had actually planned on doing this post before the recent news about the nude photos of several celebrities getting out into the wild, but that makes it even more appropriate. I fully agree that what happened is awful and they didn’t deserve to have that happen. No one does in that situation. However, I have to acknowledge that these things are inevitable, so what we as a society really need to do is accept that fact and learn from these events.
Privacy is Over
Make no doubts about it, privacy as we know it is ending. It will be a slow death, but it will come all the same. At least, it will for the people who don’t bother to do anything about it. This is the overwhelming majority of people on this planet. When it comes to privacy, there is a broad spectrum of people. At the one end you have the people who do not care at all and just let out any information that is asked of them. At the other end you have the people who are paranoid and spend a lot of effort protecting every single thing they do. Like all normal distributions, most people are somewhere in the middle.
As we have seen with the rise of the Internet and social media, people are not terribly secretive creatures. This has always been true, but now with these technologies, those secrets are easier for outsiders to access, and those secrets never go away. Once something is posted publicly, it is almost impossible to erase, especially if there are people who are interested in it. And the harder you try to erase it, the harder it becomes to do so (see the Streisand Effect).
The real trouble comes when people have an expectation of privacy, but their information gets out. Sometimes it just leads to an annoyance, like getting phone calls from telemarketers. Other times, it can be severely damaging, like getting your whole identity stolen. In lots of these cases, the root problem is that they had the expectation when there was nothing to back them up. When it comes to social networks in particular, assuming there is any privacy is a falsehood. As soon as one person can see it, any one can see it if there is malicious intent.
That is where the true danger lies. Not in technology, but in the people who are using it. More and more often, people are losing data through social engineering. There are certainly still hackers who just go after data, but preying on the mistakes that people make is becoming increasingly popular. And even if you are careful, that doesn’t mean someone else who has data about you is going to be the same.
Protecting Yourself and Letting Go
So what can people do about these things? No matter how careful one person is, they can be compromised by someone else. What can they possibly do in that kind of situation? Honestly, there are really only a few things you can do.
First and foremost, assume that everything you do can be compromised, especially if technology is involved at all. Anything you say to someone in confidence can still be leaked out. Any picture you take with your phone has the potential of getting stolen, even if you never post it anywhere. Think before you post: Will I be okay with this in a month? A year? Several years down the road? Don’t treat anything as sacred.
Second, focus on protecting the things that really matter. For the vast majority of people, this means your financials. Eventually technology will lead to better protections on our identities so that it will be almost impossible for them to be faked, but until that time comes, we need to be vigilant. Use credit cards whenever possible instead of debit (they generally have better protections). Avoid leaving paper with sensitive info on it around. Get a locking mailbox if you expect to get mail with sensitive info. Be careful about who you share information with (don’t go with unknown companies). Most other things are fixable, but having your financial information stolen is hard to recover from, so focus there first.
And lastly, know where it is okay to let it go. In many areas, we like to treat things as secrets when there is no real need to. My phone number, my address, things that are going on in my life, none of these things are truly secret, so it seems silly for me to assume that they are. But while that is true for me, it will not be for other people. For others, having their home address out in the wild can be potentially dangerous to them, especially when combined with other information. It’s just a matter of knowing what is okay and what isn’t. But in general, most information about you isn’t going to get you into trouble. If it doesn’t compromise your safety, it’s probably not worthwhile trying to keep it secret.
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This post was mostly to fill a gap while I finish up the last of a series of books I’ve been reading about self-improvement, so it’s definitely not one of my better efforts. Next week’s should be better though. I will be revisiting an old post and seeing how I am doing with my productivity goals. I will also be discussing the books I’ve been reading, either in the next post or another one soon. See you then!