Digital cat and mouse

"Digital cat and mouse? Get used to it. It will be with us for a while. Until then, secure your data as best you can." 

I have been getting a kick out of watching the Facebook hearings on Capitol Hill. Watching the kid who runs Facebook getting the old "garage grilling". The response to the irresponsible behavior that Facebook has shown in its blatant political bias, many are now jumping ship to a (supposedly) less contentions social media platform. A more common one is called MeWe. My thoughts right now? MeWe is just a temporary shelter, as soon there will be dozens, of all political ilks. All thanks to Facebook becoming too arrogant.

Truthfully - I find this entire Facebook issue boring. I really do. Privacy concerns? I think most Americans would shudder if they knew how much of their most private information is "in the wind". The biggest Culprit? Our own government. Many, including myself, think the almost otherworldly amount of computing and storage power which exists at NSA's Bluffdale facility, has every aspect or our lives captured and forever stored.

Have you ever asked yourself where it is 100% safe to store your digital "lock box"? When I say "lock box", I mean the keys to your kingdom. Money, investments, important papers, heirlooms, and so forth. Home computer with hard disk backup? The cloud? Redundant sites? The answer is really no place is 100% secure. Bad guys, bad governments, natural and unnatural EMP - are all threats. So the game of digital cat and mouse continues.

When I worked at IBM, and we would migrate customer's valuable data from one location to another, it would send chills down my spine. If people and companies only knew how fragile (and vulnerable) their date really was. Some companies signed up for a business continuity site - in other words, a mirror site just in case of a disaster at the primary site. That offered some protection, but not total. 

Ever think what would happen to you if all your digital information was wiped clean? Savings, retirement, everything gone. Fewer and fewer places now are doing paper back-up. It is all digital. And as we know, one mighty solar flare, packed with an EMP punch, can ruin things for just about everyone.

Solutions? Stay tuned. This is going to be a very hot topic going into the 2020's. All projections are that our data stream is going to continue to grow like wildfire. The field of IT is going to be a hot ticket for decades to come. Digital cat and mouse? Get used to it. It will be with us for a while. Until then, secure your data as best you can.