For some years now we have been told repeatedly that we must get online for just about everything, whether for software, apps, shopping, communication, data storage – you name it – we must do it online! It’s worrying then when there are regular headlines about the latest hack into someone’s data or whether someone has seen someone else’s data online accidentally.
I’m still getting emails from scammers using clients’ Yahoo email addresses and emails even from someone using my email address which is very puzzling! We read about people who have committed suicide because they have been exposed on dating sites. Apparently Russian submarines have been sniffing around undersea Internet cables practicing cutting them if relations with the West deteriorate further. Think also on the debates about the ownership of data online. With certain accounting software business owners have found they don’t own their own data – how crazy is that?
The list of companies which have been hacked continues to grow. In addition, exposure of one’s credit cards details seems to be almost inevitable. Not only that, various government agencies apparently think they can access our online data at will. The IRD in particular have been active with Trade Me and the banks and now plan to access all our data via on-line software companies like Xero. Think what a benefit this will be for the IRD! To make matters even worse, some software companies are releasing information voluntarily outside of the law without authority. Take a look at the story below:
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2015/11/are-your-financial-records-safe-with-xero/
Where will it all end? Will we have to abandon everything online and go back to desktop software and bricks and mortar shopping? Why does my credit card company keep increasing my credit card limit without asking me so that now, if someone were able to access my credit card details they could spend $20,000 before I even knew it? I have already experienced Eftpos card fraud both here in New Zealand and in the UK in the last three years. Luckily, the banks involved reimbursed me but who knows what will happen next time?
It certainly makes you think, that’s for sure! Perhaps using desktop software and having three backup devices regularly rotated to guard against the likelihood of their individual failure kept in a decent fireproof safe is not so silly after all, like people I now know who keep their money buried in the back garden to stop governments and banks helping themselves to their money!
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