Identity theft; a hundred years ago, nobody would have understood what that even means. Perhaps they would have thought it was a just a fallacy produced by some science fiction movie, but they didn’t even have science fiction movies yet. Identity theft is a product of the Information Generation, and at no other point in history has one’s identity been able to be stolen. Any identity for someone from at least one hundred years ago was your own personal image; the clothes you wore, the things you did, the people you associated with: a highly social concept. Nowadays though, your identity is delineated by your social security number, your phone numbers, and other little strands of data that truly mean nothing but also mean everything.

IP Changers protect your online identity

It seems kind of ironic; one’s identity is shown by a bunch of numbers and passwords and user names. When you think about it though, it really does make sense. A hundred years ago, there simply weren’t as many people, and those people lived in small towns where everyone knew everything about everyone else. Nowadays we live in crowded cities pretty much running into each other while trying to walk on the street. Instead of just having to watch out for a slowly moving horse drawn carriage, we have to beware and yield (a car yielding in a busy city just doesn’t happen) to huge sport utility vehicles, speeding through the streets desperate not to hit any red lights. These people in the small towns were all known by first and last names; the government today could never keep track of all American citizens like that, so we are each assigned a social security number; a numerical value that becomes who you are to the United States government, and a tool that makes it much easier and faster to search for and find people.

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The Internet is not a place to be known and recognized on. There is too much inherent risk: if everyone knew everyone else on the Internet, everyone would now be able to get all sorts of personal and sensitive information off of each other. The Internet is a great tool, and nearly essential in today’s society. Business is conducted over the Internet and through computers; some of the world’s biggest deals have been inked online, through a combination of video, text and voice chat. Socially, society has taken a one hundred and eighty degree turn; we used to value our personal friendships and have a close inner circle of friends to whom we would trust our lives to, now we have all of our information laid out for our near one thousand friends to read and comment on. Even the world of the Internet itself is changing quickly. Once upon a time, e-mail was the fastest way to communicate with somebody, while now it is faster and more convenient to simply instant message (IM) them.

Again, the Internet is a great place, and an irreplaceable tool in the Information Generation’s repertoire. It goes without saying though that every good thing has a flaw, and the Internet’s thorn is quick a scary and dangerous one. This thorn could put a hole into your very life and your very identity: who you are! Don’t get philosophical now, saying the Internet could change you and ravage your morals and values; identity is meant in a social way. Whether it be your reputation, or the more ominous social security number, when you do any business on the Internet, both are being put at risk.

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Everyone knows how difficult it can be to find a job. There is so much competition, and so much criteria you have to meet. It is common knowledge and a sad truth that if you don’t have a college degree, you will have trouble finding any job that will make you decent money. In a little while, your Bachelor’s degree might become obsolete! Think of all of the people you have to run up against too; there will always be that one over qualified person who sets the bar so high no other prospective employee can even try and compete. Maybe you are that employee, but somebody below you has connections with the boss and hiring staff, and you get pushed out of a position you really deserved. These problems are especially lucid in today’s society and our rapidly diminishing economy. Jobs are few and far between, and the people who aren’t getting laid off are holding onto their jobs for dear life; there won’t be many places hiring or looking for newcomers to start there.

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A groundbreaking new project to collect all of the world’s written materials and assimilate them all into one place is under way; the result has come to be known as Google Books. Instead of having to sift through a giant library of books in order to find one little one you want, and then having to lug it to home, school, work, or where ever, you can simply access it online. A subscription to Google Books would allow you to access any book by any author anywhere while online. Some people wonder why this is useful though, because no one can have a computer while they are out traveling. They are mistaken though; most everyone has a computer on them at all times; simply enough, we disguise it as a cell phone. These cell phones used to be bulky car units used as a last ditch attempt to communicate, but have grown into quite intuitive instruments. Consider today’s cell phone; texting, games, camera, video, many apps, and for many, a web browser. That’s right; a web browser to access the Internet and to access your Google Books account.

You can see how Google Books is going to be quite a useful and economical resource, but it doesn’t come without its downsides as well. Many privacy advocates have eyed the service with suspicious glances, for the software holds the capacity to track and maybe accidentally release sensitive information. As it stands right now, a customer has to release a large amount of their personal information to sign up, and the service will keep meticulous records as to who is reading what and when they are doing so. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has released many papers to the court that is still figuring out the logistics of these agreements between authors and companies. They say that this Google Books software is potentially very dangerous, and the public needs to be alerted, or they at least need to change things.

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It is quite understandable to question a new thing, and want to know what it is and how it works. This is especially true of new people; our instincts tell us who is a threat and who isn’t usually seconds after we meet them or see them. Sometimes our intuitions can fail us though, and we then turn to a more infallible way to decode somebody. Employers nearly always run background checks on potential employees. Again, this is that basic human instinct running in our veins telling us to find out about people and who they are. Someone could be a great guy in the interview and completely have the wool pulled over your eyes, but when you check his background, you find out he is a convicted felon of a serious charge. Certainly not the type of guy you want working at your business and working with your customers!

While this is a safety issue for the most part, these tests may have a bit of an intrusive value to them, and could be misleading. In psychology, the tendency for people to put more emphasis on the personality than the situation is called the false attribution effect. Many employers are blind to the possible mitigating factors of the offense or the actual person’s turn around in life. Regardless, these types of tests border on the privacy laws that everyone enjoys around the world… for the most part.

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