Now You See Me, Now You Don't

The late morning ritual of rolling over and turning on the news radio is supposed to be mundane. It's supposed to be my one opportunity to lie in a state of relative quiescence and listen to snarled traffic, box scores and stock market averages while I pull together something resembling consciousness.

I'm not supposed to be disturbed by direct threats to my identity.

So I get to wake up in a bad mood and march over to my computer to check for that e-mail from acting Chancellor Abrams (yep, it's there) and go to the official UCLA "We Got Hacked and This Really Sucks" site. Look up some suggestions for additional action. Call a credit reporting agency and put (yet more in a long line of) fraud alerts on my reports.

KFWB offered up a sound bite from a "professor who seems blasé" about the whole thing. Darn, wouldn't you know, it's a voice I recognize, and a voice I have quietly disagreed with so many times before. Regardless of this person's opinion, unless you're a completely naïve mouth-breather who gives out personal information like candy, not every bit of information is equally accessible to everyone. Even someone like me, whose name and picture appear to reveal so much here, takes serious precautions. After all, I know what it's like to experience ID theft. I escaped serious harm, but I'm disappointed now that I listened to my bank's advice way back in the day and said nothing to the police. But I digress.

Here's the way I see it. If UCLA can be hacked, pretty much anyone else I do business can too. Assurances about encryption and login screens that attend to potential sound-recording hacks won't be enough anymore. (Not that they ever were enough, but this is front-and-center now.)

Now, I'm not going to tell you what I specifically intend to do next, but if you're in the same boat as I, I recommend that you go to the UCLA ID theft site and click on the "Protecting Your Credit" link. Take the most protective measure you can live with, not the least. Because the way I see it, anybody who is willing to hack something like the UCLA database (I show generosity to UCLA's security protocols here) must not only have smarts and speed, but also patience.

Someone with patience is willing to wait six months for a fraud alert to fall off a credit report if the money to be made is still good.

Excuse me; before I get back to writing on my papers, I'll need to grab a crash helmet to pull over my aluminum-foil cap.