There's Another Kind of Virus Out There That Can Ruin Your Life.

They told him not to do it.

Like many CEOs, Todd Davis didn’t listen. He took out several ads in national newspapers and magazines, broadcasting his social security number and daring anyone to try and hack him. It was all a marketing gimmick for his company LifeLock, which claimed to offer total protection against identity theft.

Even his own staff warned him. Unfortunately, LifeLock itself was a scam and Davis wound up getting hacked 13 times. He often didn’t know until months later, when collections agencies came after him for unpaid bills. The FTC eventually fined his company $12 million for false advertising.

Yep, 13 times…

I’m no cybersecurity expert, but I’ve been around long enough to learn something important. If a real hacker wants your data, they’re going to get it. Most of what we do is about making it hard enough that they get frustrated and go after an easier target. It would be nice for the government to use some of the money we pay them to actually protect us against these kinds of threats.

I know, not gonna happen.

Alas, the cult of personal responsibility has turned the protection of our data into a highly profitable industry. It works almost exactly like healthcare. If you get hacked, it’s your fault. It’s your job to spend countless hours thinking up clever little passwords every 90 days, keeping them safe, squinting at authenticator apps, and clicking on little pictures of bridges and motorcycles.

You’re the one who has to pay for services like antivirus software, password protection, and credit monitoring to make sure that someone in a black hoodie wearing a Guy Fawkes mask doesn’t ruin your life.

It adds up.

Meanwhile, as I’ve recently discovered, Google is allowing hackers to clone entire websites and pay to have them listed at the very top of search results—even above the actual, real versions of those sites. These hackers create customer service fronts that look and feel just like the real thing. They’re stealing identities left and right, and infesting networks with Trojan viruses. As far as I can tell, nobody is putting any pressure on Google to put a stop to it.

This is what happens when you take another kind of public health, protection against a different kind of virus, and make it a complete and total personal responsibility while making fun of anyone who gets hacked.

I’ve been digging into ways we can protect ourselves better in a world where hackers are only going to get more ruthless as resources become more scarce and governments become further infested with billionaires.

Feel free to chime in.