The Myth of Privacy

Privacy is a myth in the digital age. The only privacy exists inside your own head.

If it exists in digital form, it is no longer secure. If it has been emailed or text messaged, it is no longer private. If you own a cell phone (even without built-in GPS), they can find you. All your phone calls are monitored. Don't believe me? Perform a complete digital check on yourself.

One of the biggest challenges to embracing the Cloud Paradigm is accepting that your data will now reside on someone else's servers. Traditional computing models calls for you to store all information on expensive in-house servers that were guarded by even more expensive IT staff. Your information was seemingly secure as long as your IT staff kept ahead of hackers, viruses and idiot employees.

Many people have a hard time accepting that some other company "out there on the Cloud" now controls their data. Our normal tendency towards personal privacy shrieks against the very notion of someone poking around our information. Yet we post photos on Facebook, inform the world when we're going on vacation on Twitter and reveal all other kinds of personal information for the world to see.

All of these digital files must exist on a computer server somewhere, and that means they can be Googled, subpoenaed, undeleted and reviewed.

Privacy is a myth. Get used to it and stop worrying about it.