Are you safe?

I’m tired of hearing that question too. As a Nicholls student who likes to know what’s going on in the world, I’ve noticed lately that almost every news column, bulletin, webcast, blog, etc. that talks about the Internet begins with this question to shock you into realizing that anyone can go online and find out everything about you.

I mean everything.

But we already know that, especially generations even younger than us, who the majority of those warnings are targeted at. For the older generations, which includes college students in this case, it’s a little too late. Before we realized the power of the Internet, we’d laid out our social security numbers, credit card and bank account numbers, phone numbers and addresses to the public at large.

Keep in mind that “public at large” literally means the public at large. Anyone, anywhere, ever, with a computer, phone, tablet, PDA, etc. and a connection to the Internet can access everything you or other people or companies have put online.

So for the younger generations, this is hardly news. They grew up with technology from infancy (feel sorry for the children whose parents make Facebook accounts for them before they are old enough to decide they want their lives posted online), which is why the theme of “online safety” campaigns is a bit ineffective. The targeting is right. Get them before they put their whole lives on the Internet. However, telling them that everyone can see their information is pointless. They already know that. That’s why they put it out there, isn’t it? So their friends and family can see what they’re doing and every other aspect of their lives.

What these campaigns need to be emphasizing is not that people shouldn’t put their information online. Honestly, it’s impossible these days. For example, a hacker group called Lulz Security (LulzSec) has recently demonstrated its ability to hack high-security websites, such as the FBI and CIA. We’re lucky that they aren’t doing this to be malicious and use our information against us, but to point out the security flaws in these systems that are supposed to be protecting us. But if the FBI can be hacked, what’s really protecting us? Keeping your information off low-security websites such as Facebook and Twitter only keeps low-grade hackers out, but your information is still on government websites, whether you put it there or not, and there are Internet leaks all the time.

All the time.

Your credit information gets leaked from banks. American terrorism videos get released (Google Wikileaks for more on that). We only wish we had similar technology back during the Watergate Scandal to get the same information we can get now at the click of a button. But it’s not just the bad stuff that gets exposed. It’s our lives.

So what should we be teaching children about online safety?

They won’t stay off the Internet. They’re not going to refrain from posting their names, numbers and addresses. It’s impossible to do so if you want to order the latest video game that is only released in Japan. What you can do, at the very least, is not use your actual information. For example, get a second bank account and use it only for online transactions. Don’t keep it full, and only deposit money into it when you need it. This won’t stop banks from getting hacked, but it’ll help protect you from the low-grade hackers at the very least. Also, get a P.O. Box. I understand it’s a little annoying when you find the one company that won’t ship to it, but I promise there’s most likely another place to buy what you’re looking for.

These are only a few of the ways you can protect yourself from low-grade hackers. The high-grade hackers are scarier to deal with.

The problem is that we don’t have control of everything that gets put online. Online safety campaigners like to think we do, but we don’t. If I Google my name right now, I’ll find records from my high school and University careers. I’ll find contests I’ve been entered into and forums I joined as a child. I’ll find accounts I don’t even remember making. I’ll also find at least 10 websites asking me if I want to get a full background check, police records and current address included, on the name I am searching for. If I check yes and go through the considerably small sum for the type of information I am getting, I can find out if I’ve been arrested, what for, and if I have a bank account. I might even find where it’s at and my account number.

I can promise you I never signed anything admitting any of that information for use. I never told the background checker websites, most of which I’ve never heard of, any of my information or that they could release it for a price. But it’s there. What can I do about it?

Short of never getting on the Internet, which would leave you out of an aspect of life that makes up almost the majority of it these days (most places want you to have an e-mail account at work, for example), the answer is that you can do nothing. We are in an age stuck online. We already see it everywhere. The second class ends, look around. What are people doing? Pulling out their phones and getting online to check Facebook. We are already too far in. We are stuck, and we love it.

The hacker war is continuing and getting stronger. LulzSec has teamed up with Anonymous (which the younger generation will recognize from 4chan.org—a large forum website I don’t truly recommend going to if you are easily offended and is not safe for work), a hacker group that hacks anyone and everyone for fun, to target high-profile government agencies to raise awareness in this age. Obviously, they are not protesting the use of the Internet with their hacks. These people are experts, and most of them found this knowledge of hacking through, you guessed it, the Internet.

Their protest is against the government and its sloppy security. It used to be that the only way to get information from the government was to spend the time to decode encrypted messages. These days, all you have to do is hack a server, and it’s all laid out. Obviously the server is a little more difficult to hack into and can take days or weeks, but the problem is that it’s not impossible.

The solution? Maybe the government should go offline again. The Internet is convenient, but it’s dangerous. I’m sure this solution may cause more problems than it solves, but we didn’t always have the Internet. I’m sure there’s a better way.