[projectvrm] The Ashley Madison Hack Should Scare You, Too

[Identity Coach < >]

...because EVERYONE has something to hide.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/ashley-madison-hack-should-scare-you-too.html

In the bad old days (and today, in impoverished or corrupt places), the mob often rules in matters of morality because the state doesn't have the resources to enforce the laws of the land. And in some ways, all of that '90s-era talk about the internet as a kind of "Wild West" of unknown, ungovernable virtual space has finally come to fruition. As Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum write in The Future of Violence, thanks to the wide distribution of advanced technology these days, the means of disruption and attack are now dispersed across the population. Threats from hackers (and drones!) can come from any corner of the globe, and can affect anyone on the globe. No matter how much any of us claims to have nothing to hide, the fact remains that we're all vulnerable — and hacking is the tip of the iceberg. Anyone with an email account, a credit card, a Wi-Fi connection, or health records online is exposed.

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This isn't just a particularly suspenseful episode of Mr. Robot we're witnessing. The world is changing quickly, and real lives are being destroyed by the recklessness at play on civic, corporate, and individual levels. Every other day, there are new security breaches, and more private information is shared with strangers. Simply proclaiming that all of our secrets will be revealed, or naïvely asserting that you have nothing to hide — this is the behavior of citizens who don’t know history, or who've surrendered completely to a modern sense of learned helplessness, or who simply don't care about protecting the weakest or the most vulnerable among us. Yes, that includes cheaters. It includes all of us. We are all vulnerable now. We are all at risk.