Hey, Google, use every discernible iota of my personal information to build the foundation of a Chinese-style, authoritarian, digital dystopia, because I'm too lazy to learn basic, self-managed organizational skills.
Somewhere online, just about every detail about you is stored. It’s almost impossible to avoid.
At the same time we have very little transparency, and there’s enormous uncertainty over whether we should trust these entity’s to keep our data safe.
More companies than ever before are being breached, and it seems very little is being done about it. When something is done, the punishment seems thin.
So, given this enormous rift, should you feel safe?
The first thing I would recommend is a security health check to see if you’ve been previously exposed to a data breach.
- Go to HIBP (Have I Been Pwned?) and type every email you’ve ever used into the search bar. It will cross-reference this with every exposed data breach. The results may be suprising.
- On the same website, you can alternatively go to the Passwords page, and enter the common passwords you use. It will cross-reference this against the same database, to see whether this password has been exposed.
If your login information has been exposed, it means that someone, somewhere, may be trying to use your login details on various websites around the internet.
It’s important to then go to every website on which you used that email or password combination, and immediately update your password to something that you haven’t used before.
The next best thing you can do is inform yourself. I’ve compiled a number of good videos which will give you a head start and help you better understand the many factors, in light of recent geo-political issues.
