The recent hacking of city computer servers serves as a warning that literally any device that taps into the internet can be hacked and I was a bit shaken when I hooked up a new device and discovered just how much of my personal information is floating around out there in the cloud.
Actually, my wife bought me a new computer months ago, but it sat in the corner of my office with the box unopened. I was procrastinating because I did not want to have to retrieve long-forgotten passwords.
However, my little five year-old laptop had become slower than dial-up modems of the 1990s and the thing would freeze often requiring a restart; so, I finally dusted off the box and set the new computer up on my desk.
As soon as I turned it on, the machine asked me to plug in my MicroSoft recognized email address and once I did, the new computer gave me a prompt that it could automatically retrieve passwords for me, as a convenience.
I hit the button, and POW! The screen filled up with apparently every password I have ever used!
Some passwords were for accounts I forgot I even had and others were from when a friend of mine once used my computer to log into his accounts. My friend has been dead for five years, and I doubt he has been checking his email from the afterlife.
I always thought that a password could be remembered by a device, but that the password remained on that device. No, apparently when you allow a computer to save a password, it is saved in the cloud.
Now, I follow the expert’s advice. I change critical passwords every few months and do not allow the computer to autosave.
Virtually every interaction we have on the internet is recorded and tracked.
Once, years ago, I was searching for the official site for my favorite rock band, Queen. Google took me to a site that had “queen” in the name, but it was a site for drag queens.
Then, almost automatically, I began seeing ads on Facebook for pride attire and YouTube began recommending I look at videos featuring drag queens.
All of that happened after one mistaken click.
According to the Observer, one Minnesota man became angry because Target was sending his teenage daughter coupons for baby clothes, something she had not requested. As it turned out, the computer algorithm in the daughter’s profile figured out she was pregnant before she did!
Here is how the cookie crumbles:
Data miners use these things called “cookies” and cookies must be used to fully access the site, these cookies are then used to create a profile on the user. The more the user uses the web, the more information is added.
This information is then shared across other platforms to enhance the profile.
In April, The Washington Post reported that Facebook had settled a $725 million class-action lawsuit filed against the tech titan over selling the data that it had mined.
Meanwhile, The Hill, quoted Twitter CEO Elon Musk as saying that when he bought the company, he discovered that the U.S. government had direct access to people’s private message accounts. This discovery, Musk said, “blew my mind.”
Highways have existed since ancient times and so have highwaymen, robbers. In the Old West, carriages always carried an armed man atop next to the driver, hence the term, ‘riding shotgun.’
Today’s information superhighway comes without anyone riding shotgun. Everywhere we go, everything we purchase (or even browse), personal information such as age, sex, height and weight, even our favorite colors are tracked and are accessible to anyone with enough tech savvy to mine the data.
The highwaymen of old looked for the most vulnerable of travelers and would sometimes case their potential victims for days before springing out of the shadows.
It is not just Nigerian princes we need to worry about these days when checking our email.
Over the past several years, reports of emerged of teenagers committing suicide over what is called “sextortion.” This is when a criminal finds the teen on social media and develops a relationship online.
The teen is sent fake pictures and coerced into sending pictures of themselves and slowly the pedophile lures them into taking graphic pictures of themselves. The criminal then demands money to “scrub” the photos, but once the photos are out, they are never “scrubbed.”
It is also not the young who are being targeted these days, but the elderly.
I remember that years ago I had to sift through my grandmother’s mail every week. She suffered from dementia and became the target of these televangelists shaking her down for money.
The preachers would send prayer cloths, holy water, crosses and other trinkets and Mema, thinking she owed money for the trinkets, she would send a check in the suggested amounts. I believe she once paid $300 for a cross that glowed in the dark.
Now, all a data miner has to do is select specific words such as “age 65 and over+pentecostal+church live streaming+prayer request,” and they can begin bombarding elderly users with “urgent” messages about how the ministry needs money.
But perhaps the worst thing the internet is doing to us is entirely our fault.
Here’s why I say that. Let’s start with a premise: We, as a society, are getting fatter.
According to the National Institutes of Health, there was a huge increase in the cases of obesity, especially in children, adolescents and young adults due to the Covid-19 lock downs.
While the quarantines of 2020 onward might have been necessary at the time, many of us never went back to our old routines. It became too easy to order food delivered from the grocery store, rather than go walk the aisles.
I have to admit that I used to be rail thin, but now I, too, have been putting on weight as a result of not being active enough. So, the Bride and I have resumed our weekly date nights, if for no other reason than to get off of our behinds and get away from a computer screen.
Also, we quit ordering in from the grocery store. The last time I went shopping, having this column in mind, I thought that another benefit besides the physical exercise was that no one was tracking what I bought.
Then, I had a “Doh!” moment right after I swiped my frequent shoppers card.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
