The Net

You remember this movie…The Net?

This 1995 movie, which stars Sandra Bullock (I love her!) illustrates the types of problems that can come up if a person’s private information falls into the wrong hands. Angela Bennett (Bullock) fell victim to identity theft as her personal information and key identity data were stolen and used in order to exchange her identity with another.

Although the plot of this movie seems fantastic and far-fetched, identity theft in the internet is a serious and common problem that occurs frequently in real life.

I had 2 Indian colleagues (1 is an awarded independent film maker, and the other one is a very respected grassroots activist) who had their email accounts spammed. They were both using yahoo accounts for several years. A couple of months ago, I received separate email messages from both their addresses confessing that they are sex addicts. Of course, it turned out to be a case of email hacking.

Another pinay friend couldn’t access her email account after her break up with her most recent ex. We firmly believe that the good-for-nothing-jerk has his dirty hands involved in this freak accident.

That is why yesterday, I was in a state of shock when both my yahoo accounts could not be accessed! I tried punching in my password several times, but to no avail!

I wanted to cry! My heart stopped beating. My mind was racing, trying to recall all the important document and information stored in my email accounts. Everything is there – from passwords, to birthdays, to important personal documents, work outputs, contact details of friends, heck… even secret stories and juicy gossip and intrigues.

I tried the last solution that I could think of… I shut down my laptop and waited for 5 minutes, then turned it on again.

As the familiar windows OS display was flashing in my screen, I think I’ve called on all the saints that I knew of. I was begging them to save my email account. That was one of the very few times that I prayed that hard.

And I guess I must have done something good in my childhood, because yahoo finally accepted my password! Jos lord! Salamat ng marami!

This made me think again how our lives (well, at least mine) are so dependent on the virtual space we call the Internet. I remember 15 years ago, this was not the case at all. We can still get in touch with our friends just by landline phonecalls or even messages thru the pager, or even the good ol’ snail mail.

We can work for 8 hours a day even without an internet. Now I feel paralyzed at work without checking my mails.

We have let the Internet take over our lives. Children play internet and computer games instead of the traditional taguan and tumbang preso. Friends send virtual messages and hugs through facebook, yahoo and friendster, instead of talking over coffee. Family members write to each other using the electronic mail, and thus fail to memorize the strokes of their relatives’ handwriting.

Hay… we are really living in a virtual world.

Sometimes, I think of what might happen if the Internet collapses. Is there no end to the vastness of this virtual space? How much more gigabytes of information can it hold? Is there a possibility that someday, it will just explode like a big balloon? What happens to all those information?


To end this problematic blog entry, I would like to quote Angela Bennett:
“Our whole world is sitting there on a computer. It's in the computer, everything: your, your DMV records, your, your social security, your credit cards, your medical records. It's all right there. Everyone is stored in there. It's like this little electronic shadow on each and everyone of us, just, just begging for someone to screw with, and you know what? They've done it to me, and you know what? They're gonna do it to you.”

Hala… kaya ingat!


08:55pm
11 September 2008
Santiago City, Isabela