How Private Is Your Business?

I have just finished a novel by Jeffery Deaver, one of my favorite authors. For those of you familiar with Deaver, it's a Lincoln Rhyme novel named Broken Window. I don't want to say too much here about the content for fear of spoiling it. That said, the "environment" of the novel is a world-wide information service company--the huge data miner Strategic Systems Datacorp. Their files contain everything about everyone, including you and me (?).

While the description of the extent of the contents of these files is likely to be premature, I believe it does portend what may come in the future. This information, if not used improperly is pretty benign, but who's to say it will always be used properly. See Aldous Huxley's Brave New World or George Orwell's 1984.

Do you know that every time you use your supermarket club card that the data of exactly what you purchased is transferred to a data bank? The drugs you buy at the pharmacy on your Visa card? Do you know that everything you buy at Costco is memorized forever? Your membership at the health club, the country club, Borders, the websites you visit.....they're all in a databank. Oh, don't forget the appliance warranty cards you fill out. They have lots of private information on them. Your warranty doesn't need submission of the form anyway.

Ok, so be careful out there. If you don't keep an eye on your identity, there are people out there who will.

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT FOR THE DAY(Courtesy of Our Daily Bread)Those who lay up treasures in heaven are the richest people on earth