Day 241: In the light of several recent events, I have been pondering the instability and impermanence of the internet. This monster was released upon the world untimely; unmuzzled, unleashed and relatively uncontrolled, it brought into the peace of our lives a whole new wealth of woes. With it came viruses and hackers, and it made identity theft a fear in the hearts of us all. It gobbled our time; it disenfranchised our families; yet we embraced it and confided in it, dumping our deepest secrets into the electronic ether where they might be retrieved by anyone with a mind to prowl. We trusted it. We gave it our family photos, our driver's license and credit card numbers, our service records. We allowed it to follow us into department stores and forests, into our doctors' offices, into our best friend's wife's bedroom, and we invited it to document the event which transpired there.
Once we awakened to the error of our ways, once we had discovered to our embarrasment and shame that our secrets were available for public perusal at a click, we tried to stem the tide. Alas, it was too late. Fools that we are, instead of withdrawing from its maw, we fed it more of our personal data, blindly believing that the odds would fall on our side, and that the inevitable would somehow pass us by. We did not understand just how insidious the Monster is, nor how pervasive; nor, indeed, how fragile. Websites change. Our most carefully crafted security measures can be circumvented. The internet houses hundreds of thousands of parasitic organisms, each waiting for a victim, and still there is no check, no collar put on this maleficent and virulent beast.
The internet is an unstable edifice. It is not a vault. It is not impermeable. It is not unbreachable. It is a house of cards, ready to tumble at the slightest breeze.
No comments:
Post a Comment