The primary reason we put information into computers is to retrieve that same information at a later date. Sure, the computer might process or modify our input, and we may apply locks and roadblocks in an attempt (ho ho) to prevent others from accessing it, but if you think about it, the main reason we save things like pictures and documents and music on our computer is so we can access them later.<\/p>\n

One problem with computer security is that most people don’t really understand it. For one thing, it’s hard to physically see. Imagine you’ve been stashing all your extra cash in a cardboard shoebox over the past few years. Off the top of my head, I can come up with a few ways to secure that box. I could bury it in my backyard. I could fasten it to the neck of an angry pitbull. I could toss the box in a lockable safe. I could deposit it in the bank. Each of these options offer some level of security that we can see, understand, and evaluate. <\/p>\n

Before I continue, let me explain Facebook’s security to you. Facebook is like handing your box of cash to some stranger you’ve never met, whose security you don’t really understand, and saying, “Here, I trust you with this.” And while most people wouldn’t do that with a box of cash, they are willing to do it with risque pictures that will get them fired on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

Since I’m already off and running free in analogy-land, allow me to share with you a true story. Back in high school, I worked for a local pizza chain and had a manager we’ll call Blake. Blake carried with him to work a briefcase every single day. The briefcase was always locked (we routinely checked), and when we asked what was in the briefcase, he wouldn’t tell us. One day, Blake got fired. Two minutes later, I (along with a few co-workers) pried open the briefcase with a butter knife. Inside the briefcase we found a bunch of paperwork, a pocket knife, and an issue of Playboy, which I’m guessing he didn’t want us to know about. I forgot who got the pocket knife; the paperwork went in the trash, and I got the briefcase (and the Playboy). <\/p>\n

Whose fault is it that we found the Playboy? You could say it was the briefcase’s locks, which weren’t very sturdy. Or, you could say it was the fact that the briefcase got left behind, which gave us more access to the locks than usual. But if you really think about it, there’s one way that we never, ever would have known about the Playboy — and that is, if he had never brought it to work in the first place. To paraphrase Miyagi, the best way to avoid a punch is to “no be there”. How so very true.<\/p>\n

Back to that idea of physical security for a moment. Let’s say we’ve moved our money into a safe with a padlock. It wouldn’t make much sense to store the key to the padlock on top of the safe, now would it? Of course not! In the real world, we would physically separate the lock and the key, perhaps even keeping the key on our person at all times. With computer security, sometimes we do the same thing. Lots of web servers access databases on a different server; that way, if the web server is compromised, the hacker still cannot directly access the back end data. There are electronic methods of protecting data too. You can encrypt it, or limit access to it by using passwords … on your own computer. When you’re using someone else’s system, you have to play by their rules.<\/p>\n

Look, there’s a reason Facebook made $500 million dollars last year, is expected to make $800 million dollars this year, and doesn’t charge you a dime. Facebook makes their money by selling ads, ads which are directly marketed to you and me based on our Facebook identities. Facebook will continue to walk the line and discover, through trial and error, just how much of your information they can share with their customers (the people paying for ads) without driving away their user base (you and me). Like it or not, anything you put on Facebook, whether its your photographs, your private messages, your updates, your private chats, the answers to your quizzes, or anything else you post there, is fair game. Maybe the owners of Facebook will take care of your data for you, and maybe they won’t. <\/p>\n

But if you absolutely don’t want it shared, stop sharing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The primary reason we put information into computers is to retrieve that same information at a later date. Sure, the computer might process or modify our input, and we may apply locks and roadblocks in an attempt (ho ho) to prevent others from accessing it, but if you think about it, the main reason we save things like pictures and documents and music on our computer is so we can access them later. One problem with computer security is that most people don’t really understand it. For one thing, it’s hard to physically see. Imagine you’ve been stashing all your… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}