A Russian hacker is selling over a million hacked FaceBook account details.

Researchers at a University discovered security flaws in one internet browers that allows hackers to recover private tracking data on web browsing habits.

A programming exploit allowed hackers to gain access to many WordPress blogs.

FaceBook was told to stop sharing private user data by a Senator.

Each of the above stories points to the ease of access that online data offers for both convenience of the user and the ease of exploitation by criminals.

Like the musical Hairspray said “You Can't Stop the Beat” and in this case it's the driving pulse of the internet revolution. It is a march toward information freedom that empowers the individual. It is also a clarion call for people to be responsible for their own information like never before.

How can the Common Man protect his inteests against a deadly onslaught of powerful hackers determined to force entry into his digitial domain?

Despite the short attention span of the average consumer, I must be the one to break the news to you that the answers are neither simple nor easy nor short nor few

The Digital Age forces us each to be vigilent about the new frontier.

The free speech of the online arena means that the only censor to our words are our own minds.

I know, I know. Asking people to apply the faculties of reason when they've worked a hard day and only want to come home to mindless drivel on television like “American Idol” and “Entertainment Tonight” is simply unbearable.

“Too much to ask!” “A sacrifice not worth making!” “Cruel and unusual punishment!” “Take my baby instead!” will be the cries that will go forth from the hallowed dens and lounge chairs of the American castles.

Reality dictates that the populace wants it cake and expects to eat it too, regardless of the fact that the dairy will make them bloaty while the sugar will put them into a diabetic coma.

My solution would be to pile extra cake into the slack jawed maws and let evolution do the rest. My solution is unpopular, which is why we have a nanny state to protect some people from themselves. Again, let me be clear, I prefer to allow people to commits sepucu and am NOT in favor of banning the selling of ritual suicide knives...

Alas and alak, the only middle gound solution seems to be to get people engaged in the dirty business of the ever dreaded “Free Market”.

So, what practical steps can the individual take to prevent the situations in the news from affecting them?

1. Don't post personal data. Change your profile to remove phone numbers, email address, birth date and other contact data. Set your profiles to maximize your privacy rather than leaving them open to the world. Don't blab about your personal life and loves on your every (or any) blog. Know the people you invite or accept as “friends” and otherwise reject them if you don't know them.

2. Never post your social security number, middle name, family names or other personal data anywhere online. With Twitter from 2006 forward being archived by the Library of Congress, even a single mention of your wife or child's name is sufficient for a researcher in 2035 (decades fro now) to locate them and you, and forevermore. Remember: the internet is permanent. Once it's there it NEVER goes away. Now go back and REREAD that last sentence. Understand yet? Sigh, why do I doubt your limp mental “yes”...

3. Don't link your every blog, webpage, and online account to every other one. In fact, don't link any to any others at all. Yes, FaceBook and Yelp and Twitter can all be linked up to make it easy for your and your friends to navigate seamlessly from one site to the next, following you at every turn. Yet, one security breach that may be an outside hack, and your every posted thought, idea and interest is compromised. For debt collectors, process servers, nosey neighbors, advertisers and any number of other people who might seek to invade your privacy, this data is golden.

4. Stop joining online groups just because you can. The more groups you are associated with, the more unique your “social fingerprint” becomes. This is the sort of statistical data used by datamining professionals to identify you individually. “But my name isn't on my account...” “But I've taken you other steps and don't link to things...” Researchers have show that the list of organizations you join is likely to not be duplicated by anyone else, and can be a unique identifier to you. Join a half dozen groups and your interests become know. Cross-index this to membership rosters of private clubs and nonprofit groups, cross index this to magazine subscribers lists and cross reference this to know public profiles on other sites, and you might be individually and personally identifiable. Wanna bet against it? I wouldn't.

There are dozens of more do's and don'ts that are not listed here. You need to take control and responsibility for your internet footprint or others will use that information to affect you. Spam emails, advertising in your snail-mail box, phone calls at work, text messages online, and knocks on your door await you, if you don't exercise your rights. Nobody else will exercise your rights for you, but they will exercise their own; including the right to datamine the information you leave public, the right to send you commercial ads, the right to research and resell public information about you and more. I know, because I'll do that if someone pays me. It's fair and legal and you invite it if you don't act otherwise to stem it.

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