It’s your data, dummy: Make every day Data Privacy Day

It’s a cold and misty morning here in cyber space, and a sense of impending doom hangs in the air. I couldn’t fathom why at first, but after sucking down two cappuccinos and therapeutically drop-kicking Pammy’s yowling cat (not really, ASPCA), I realized the reason for my vertical neck hairs: Today is Data Privacy Day. It sounds like a laughable landmark, considering the events of last year or even the last couple of months, and digital privacy seems to have gone the way of the 5.25-inch floppy. Since we’re all exposing or digital bits anyway, why bother with data privacy?

The answer: Because there’s more villainy afoot than simple government fascist-esque snooping. Legions of vile hackers, identity thieves, pedophiles, smut merchants, spam spewers, bot commanders, and erectile dysfunction pill peddlers are swarming all over our wonderful InterWebs, and they have their sights set on your hard disk, bank account, contact list, and whatever else they can wrap their greedy Gollum fingers around to sell to the highest bidder. The NSA may make your life hard someday with its infernal, raid-our-digital-knickers initiatives, but Hugo the basement-dwelling identity thief can make you absolutely miserable right now.

So let’s use Data Privacy Day as a catalyst to take some steps, most of which start with us. In other words, by and large, we’re stupid. Some of us take security too much for granted (me), others have thrown in the towel (me on scotch), and still more (probably the vast majority) simply don’t have a clue (me on most other things). That’s sad, but we can fight it with a few basic measures.

Sacrifice a little convenience. For example, maybe don’t restructure your retirement portfolio off an iPad on a Starbucks public Wi-Fi connection because you don’t feel like driving home first? IT folk might laugh, but spend a few hours in a caffeine-mongering hipster-pit and surreptitiously look around at your neighbors’ screens. College tuitions, day-trading fortunes, and bitcoin billions — you can see it all scrolling by over the rim of your mocha soy latte half-caf, though we all know (on some level) that public Wi-Fi is to network security as TMZ is to Justin Bieber’s private life.

Sure, using your iPad or smartphone is slick and convenient, but the security vulnerabilities of mobile gadgets are potentially overwhelming. However, few dare to mention it because too much money is at stake or they’re afraid of demented fanboys leaving bloody penguin heads in their beds.

Watch where you’re going. We’ve all gone there for varying reasons: the fringe Web, dark and smoky places reeking of hookah pipes and laden with curious content, oft delicious and taboo. But we also know those sites are breeding grounds for the digital equivalent of two-foot-long cockroaches sporting handguns and rabies.

Though you can’t stop your teenagers’ curious eyes or typing fingers, you can at least make sure they’re not scratching that itch on your work PC. Instead, bite the bullet — drop $300 for a used laptop off Craigslist, install Linux, and tell them to wash their hands before dinner. Remember: There are dozens of reasons why any member of your family might wander the Web fringes — music downloads, emailed joke links, or “you gotta see this” Facebook posts, to name a few. While you’re at it, install secure browsing software and update your home firewall’s firmware regularly — which reminds me:

Use a firewall. It pains me to list this item, but I have no choice. At a recent press party, an old Microsoft acquaintance (who shall remain nameless) bragged that the state of Windows 7 security was such that he’d stopped using a hardware firewall and ran his PC directly off his cable modem. I stood blinking for a bit, not knowing what to do in the face of such raw and blinding moronic energy. Then my mind went blank, and when I woke up, I was in handcuffs with skin under my fingernails as the sound of his muffled screams dribbled out from a nearby ambulance.

Home router/firewalls should be mandatory — like a gentle slap upside the head for Tom Perkins. They’re customizable, often have advanced features like antiphishing or email scanning, and make splitting your Internet connection among home devices easier. How many benefits do you need before plunking down a whopping $45? I can’t imagine that many of you reading this aren’t using one, but for those few mollusks who aren’t — well, do. It’s a non-optional best practice, regardless of Windows 7’s security status, and frankly that sounds about as likely as me commuting to work tomorrow in a car made of bacon and marshmallows.

Change your damn password every once in a while. This covers a lot of ground. First, check to see if you’re using one of the 25 worst passwords, like “123456,” “admin,” or (ye gods) “password.” If you are, step into your garage and smash yourself in the face with a roofing hammer. If you’re in IT and know better but let yourself get bullied into it by your spouse or kids, smash yourself in the family jewels, too. Maybe now you’ll grow a new pair.

Then check to see how long it’s been since you last changed a password on anything important, like your bank account … or your email account … or your cloud account. I know you’ll have to tear yourself away from the latest C-list-celebrity-laden reality TV phenom, but it can pay dividends when a member of Nigeria’s royal family tries to snake your mortgage money. If you have trouble remembering new passwords, stop hitting yourself with roofing hammers and invest in an encrypted password file. Even the roofing hammer-challenged can remember one password (right?).

Maybe don’t trust everything to the cloud. A friend of mine (yes, I have some) recently yodeled at me with glee when he bought 100GB of online cloud storage. “Now I can keep all those long-term things there, like my photos and financials — you know, the stuff I don’t want to lose because now it’s safe online even if my PC crashes.” I wanted to tase him, but instead I tried to gently impart some common sense sans roofing hammer.

Nothing online is safe. It’s that simple. If it’s online, sooner or later some evil, scab-encrusted, boil-infested troll subsisting on a steady diet of beagle puppies is going to come within stealing range. It’s inevitable and unavoidable, like death, taxes, or my propensity for long-winded sentences. If it’s personal, financial, or critical and you want to keep it 100 percent safe, then take it off the Web, which is preceded by “worldwide” for a reason. Drop $100 on a couple of USB hard disks and a fireproof lockbox or a safety deposit box. Now your stuff is safe. Yes, in case you’re wondering, the Cringely tax files are on a WD My Book in my wall safe. I’d use a safety deposit box if I could, but I’m usually too drunk to drive.

We blame so many others for our data disaster misfortunes, but in honor of Data Privacy Day, we need to take a hard look inward and accept that the root cause of most byte exposure isn’t just Neiman Marcus’ no doubt cement-shoed, living-with-the-fishes security chief, it’s us. Let’s take 20 minutes tomorrow away from Angry Birds or incessant Facebook updating, and do a little cyber self-protection. Maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t, but it sure can’t hurt.