Tech is truly a liberating force in society. It is allowing us to do things ourselves that at one time was only available by getting in the car, driving to the store and buying what you wanted. It is allowing us to learn things in new ways. Should we need to know something about what we’re doing or is going on, tech is enhancing these functions. One of it’s most powerful functions is that of communication.
For all these good things that are derived from the deployment of tech, there is absolutely the illicit. It has provided whole new channel not only to rob those of their money but their identities too. To add insult to injury, it’s not easy to get your identity back.
Security is far from a Buzzword
Tech or the internet more specifically and all that goes with it has made a very clean route to the illicit. A year ago people mouth Security but they do far more than that now. Well beyond most, they are having to live and breath it. If we don’t, we put ourselves at great risk of quite the calamity.
Imagine, if you will, someone has gotten access to your credit card number and the appropriate identity questions and answers banks are happy to assume they are dealing with whom they should be. The reality is, they aren’t and large swathes of money literally disappears into the netherworld.
Couple this with Identity Theft
Identity theft is exactly what it’s name implies. The loss of your identity to someone else via documentation and the whole nine yards. The person could literally be doing with your money exactly what you would do. Combine this with property theft and as you can see the stew is really brewing.
One would think that in the case of the latter it would be simple to retrieve your identity but that is not always the case. Whose to say whose who.
The genie in our tech bottle is actually beginning to look like this tech version of “Les Miserables.“ The societal consequences of such a scenario are not pretty for anyone.
The Outcome
Naturally, if people are victim to this type of criminal activity they want restitution as does anyone who is the victim of a crime. As the problem progresses, more counter measures or security has to be enable to stop the activity.
The individual might get up knowing that the day might not be exactly as it was before. One counter measure is simply increased vigilance but not everyone can be equally as good at that. It more or less rests with our institutions to device ways to prevent this activity or should it have happened to trace how it might have happened.
The Proliferation of Password Managers
No one likes password managers. Some abhor them but to be “safer they have become a necessary evil. Paying attention to your finances and what’s going on is yet another method to identify suspicious activity. Vigilance therefore is important.
Yet, what is the toll this is taking on society. Human beings need to function based on trust to be healthy mentally and physically. If we’re all wound up trying to watch normal finances plub]ss the Tyrannous enemy of paranoia, it can only affect health in a negative way.
And if Something Goes Wrong
This is where it gets really scary. The American economy is losing thousands to millions in cyber crime. Should it happen to you, this could be the beginning of a real nightmare. The unravelling of what has happened can be very complex. But unravel it you must for so many reasons including the very core fabric of society.
The Double Edged Sword
Tech brings us a lot in terms of new freedoms and capability not previously available. Yet, this is a double edged sword. To the bad guys, this is just a another route to that which they have always been after and that’s a lot of money obtained in a rather clean fashion for the perpetrators anyway.
I hate to caution and provide the ground work to be a little paranoid due to its effects. However, if its not stopped the benefits of tech could very well be stripped bare.