<p>One topic interesting me these days is the ideas behind the interaction between our sense of privacy and our handing over of it to others with little thought. To be clear, I mean we trust some things without thought and doubt others and why one thing is in this pot and another is in that pot doesn’t make a lot of sense. </p>
<p>I read about a commercial bakery whose products contain much more sugar than the label says. And their sugarless products contained sugar. We trust labels. I trust labels even though I know they’re just labels. </p>
<p>We go to sushi bars and order tuna or snapper even though studies consistently say it’s likely not tuna and almost certainly not snapper. (And I know from threads about this that people will say they can tell. If people in general could tell, then why is the cheaper fish being served at higher prices? We tend to believe we can tell though the evidence is people in general can’t. We believe we are special.) </p>
<p>We let websites track us and have no idea what they do with the information. We rely on long disclosure forms that no one reads. We click accept. I installed an update yesterday that said it came from Adobe - even though I don’t enable flash, I keep the plug-in updated - but I can’t actually tell. If I were in government or in some sensitive position with important financial information or if someone needed to blackmail me, why not create a copy of an entire website, direct me there and get information from me? I’m sure it happens. That is, I’m sure it happens if necessary because from what I see enough people fall for far less sophisticated trust thefts.</p>
<p>We trust google versus Microsoft. Why? Google wants our personal information. It has been caught many times misusing it. We have no idea how they use it. But Microsoft charges us money. In normal cases, we think free is worse. We pay more for cars because they promise us sexier lives filled with soft leather and powerful acceleration. But free on the internet really means we’re more willing to hand over our personal stuff than money. Why? We know our personal stuff is valuable - witness how we react when we realize it’s being used, let alone being misused - so is does the transaction hide the trust issue? They promise they won’t misuse it, they say. But the bakery put sugar in the sugarless cookies.</p>
<p>Isn’t google being deposed right now for the private information they collected from their google map cars? They have to dispose of all that data eventually, and blame was enforced on a few “rogue” engineers. I mean what can they do with that information? sell it? It was probably a design flaw. they didn’t want to leave anything out, but instead put too much in</p>
<p>We trust waitresses with our credit cards. I used mine in a restaurant I go to frequently and was charged for two bills. I contacted my credit card company and they “investigated” and called me back and said both charges were legitimate because both slips were signed. I said I signed both? Finally they sent me copies and obviously one was not signed by me. I had to call back and tell them and they are “investigating” it again. I tell you, why do we sign slips if it doesn’t matter if the signature is ours or not?</p>
<p>PhotoOp, i think it depends on your bank.
My bank contacts me when there are suspicious charges before they go through. With online access to my acct I can keep close tabs on my financial records & they have been quick to respond when I find fraud.</p>
<p>I thought my bank was on top of too - because I had a truly suspicious charge and they called me before I called them and cancelled my account and gave me a new card. This charge was obviously a mistake on the waitress’s part. She ran through someone else’s tab on my card and then ran mine through. The other guy signed the slip not knowing it wasn’t his card. It’s just a mistake but since I go to that place a lot, and have the same waitress almost every time, I am very reluctant to give her my card.</p>
<p>We have to trust in order to function in the world. If we want to use banks, computers, credit cards, universities, doctors, services of various kinds- what choice do we have?<br>
My daughter’s identity was stolen from both universities she attended. Hacked. The cat is out of the bag, and there’s really no putting it back in.</p>
<p>Just lucky, I guess. Once at each school. University computers were hacked and ss#, names and addresses stolen. They were used to open new accounts in her name. It took months to get it all sorted out.</p>
<p>And to add to that, this year she received a letter from a company related to her health insurance company that their data had been “compromised” (i.e. hacked) and that some information may have been released, and they were offering free credit checks and a service, etc. Sure enough, a phone bill from Minnesota, a state she’s never even been to, was in her credit report, having gone to collections.<br>
So, at the ripe old age of 27, she’s had three incidents of stolen I.D.</p>
<p>that seems a little too lucky. I would be paying more attention to my daily routine if it happened just once.</p>
<p>There are devices that can scan a wallet and get all its credit card information. If she’s a big time shopper, maybe she should get one of those card casings that blocks the signal.</p>
<p>Daily routine? Seriously, there is no way she was responsible. In the case of Harvard, thousands of graduate records were accessed.<br>
What she does need to pay attention to is her credit report. Every six months at least, she needs to check it and make sure nothing is on there that doesn’t belong.
Not bad advice for all of us, really. My Dh and I get a monthly report, but we pay for the service.</p>
<p>Her credit card number wasn’t stolen, so it has nothing to do with shopping or using her card. Her SS# was stolen from university and health care data banks, and then used to open new accounts in places she’s never lived.
All someone needs to open a new credit card or phone account in your name is your ss#, your name and address. They can then run up bills and not pay them and you’re stuck having to either fix it, or live with a bad credit rating.</p>
<p>I mixed up credit statement and credit report. It’s still all new to me, but I’m pretty sure you need more than just these three things to get a new credit card.</p>
<p>This is old news, and not to pick on Harvard, as this kind of thing happens all the time. It seems like once a week I read about some breach in security somewhere. Even the President’s family isn’t immune.</p>
<p>Is it even possible to create a computer system that is actually secure? It seems that the thieves are always one step ahead of the rest of us.
We really should be behaving as if all of the information out there- even that which we think of as private, such as our health records- is accessible. Because it is. There is no privacy any longer.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, you’re right. I left out the birth date. That’s an important piece.</p>
<p>In recent years, when applying for a job, I’ve been asked for my Social Security Number and my birth date. Of course during the application process it’s none of their business – plus I am concerned about identity theft. I always tell them that if there is mutual interest, I will provide that information at a later time.</p>
<p>These days, some employers will do a background check, including a credit check, on their applicants. That’s probably why they want that information. I wouldn’t give it out either, unless I was hired or about to be hired.
Applying for health insurance as an individual is another way your information gets out there floating around. And bank accounts, of course. It’s pretty much an uphill battle.</p>
<p>I wonder if 20 somethings are more vulnerable because of their age. People using their information may be younger, and a 60 year old’s birth date may not get them as far.</p>
<p>I believe the credit card issue referred to is one with some form of radio frequency enabled. In other words, the kind you can tap to be read. Some key tags - like Mobil’s - do this as well. That system generally uses NFC and that is basically a way in which two things get together so data can be transferred using bluetooth. It doesn’t require you select a bluetooth device like when you pair a headset or keyboard; it just does it. Thing is, these things are pretty easy to hack so, yeah, they’re inherently insecure. </p>
<p>Another example is that Google wallet - and some similar ones - use a master pin for access and that can be hacked because it isn’t protected very well. So if you store all that information in a phone, it’s possible your pin - 4 digits is all - can be hacked. We trust that kind of system is fine.</p>
<p>I saw recently an example that kind of freaked me out. A guy I respect was writing about how he likes his android phone. He talked about how his boarding pass updated to show a gate change from when he first got the pass issued electronically. Think about that: Google was accessing his personal stuff in the background and changing things in his actual life. He had a boarding pass and it changed in his phone. I read that and thought that’s just the tip of a very big iceberg I don’t want to hit. </p>
<p>Isn’t it weird how we have these threads where people talk about going off the grid and more people protest - and introduce legislation - banning the utilities from monitoring your actual electrical usage over a day and beyond even as we hand over so much more to companies that sell things to us. We protest that the “government”, meaning a utility, can check on what’s on in our house but trust that letting a company see all our information is fine. Remember, the Apple maps / Google maps thing? Much of that was because Google wants your information and Apple’s standard is that it won’t allow that. So you put Google maps on your phone - I did - and the very first thing it wants is access to your information.</p>
<p>Yep. I did this, too.
And the boarding pass update- this didn’t come from the airline? I’ve had airlines update by email, but it would freak me out if I was notified by my phone, especially if the info wasn’t in there already.
It is a brave new world, yes it is.</p>