Contemplating a Life Offline

I’m not sure how many more data breaches need to happen before people begin to extricate themselves, insofar as is possible, from their lives online. Today it was reported that Ticketmaster customers’ data had been hacked, and that the hackers have been holding that data to ransom. Last month, it was London hospitals. Before that came to light, Borders hospitals had their customer data hacked. More famously, the banks (where we hold our dwindling savings) have been targeted. These are the latest in a long line of incidences that demonstrate how insecure the online world has become. I for one, hate that.

Every time you sign in to any website you have to endure, and then act upon, the regulatory ‘cookies’ statement. But it means nothing if your data can easily be sucked away by those who do that kind of thing. I struggle to understand the motive of hackers holding medical data to ransom, but struggle further with the concept that these nasty crooks would delete it or give it back after any ransom has been paid. They simply wouldn’t.

In almost every walk of life, there’s a new App that you’re required to download in order to access a basic level of service. Every time you do that, you’re required to give a certain amount of personal data. “Your data is safe with us” frankly doesn’t ‘hack it’ (pun), because we all should know by now that data is king and it has huge value. That’s why companies who say they don’t share it, share it in one way or another. How many times have you received an email that uses either your full name, or worse, just your surname from someone you’ve never heard of and would never wish to deal with?

From time to time, I change my primary email address or resurrect one I haven’t used for ten or more years. So when I receive a speculative email addressing me as “Dear Reed”, it goes straight into the bin. I use specific emails for specific purposes. If I’m buying from a shop and they insist on my email ‘for the receipt’, I give them a false one.

So far, the only time someone’s attempted to scam me wasn’t online. I was busy shortly after setting up my business in 2002. To be honest it wasn’t going so well, so I made myself extra busy by following up every lead and taking every opportunity. In that sense I was vulnerable, and signed up for a ‘free’ listing in a business directory called European City Guide (as they called it at the time). They then bombarded me with invoices and threats of debt collectors for probably two years. Thankfully, I realised very early on how I’d been sucked into their scurrilous system. Their address moved from Utrecht to Barcelona, and several other cities during the time I was tracking them, their directors having been banned from each city where they claimed to have a base. In the end they got bored chasing me, but I know they are constantly scamming even now. Their name changes from time to time, and they’ve long since realised the value of moving their scam online. It’s a numbers game, and they are making huge money out of scamming businesses like that.

I guess that experience put me on my guard, so thank you European City Guide for initiating my defences! I continued to run my business for 20 years without any further incursion of any kind, but I’m getting very concerned about the way in which modern life expects us to be liberal with our personal data, so we tend to be more liberal about sharing it when we feel under pressure. It follows that we should adopt systems to minimise the possibility of it being shared in the wrong places.

My song “Eyes” was number 3 in Ethnocloud’s World Top 40 last month. This month, it’s dropped to number 38. Similarly, in their West European chart, I dropped from number 1 to number 5. There are 14 comments against the song, which appears to have received a reasonable amount of attention, but I know from my long experience of the online world that the majority are autogenerated or otherwise not genuine. I’ve been on Ethnocloud for a number of years, but because they clearly don’t have the resource to secure their systems, I deleted my account with them today. I did something similar with Reverbnation after a similar experience a few years ago. I still receive occasional emails to an address I used back then.

Back to the here and now, and as a musician and radio presenter, I still very reluctantly use Facebook. I have three pages: a personal one; one for my music; and one for my radio show. There are friends and followers on there with whom I’d have no contact if I took the decision to delete my account, but the temptation is there because – by choice –  I’ve never had a huge following on any of them. I stay because I value my interaction with those lovely people. However, as far as the music and radio show are concerned, the numbers don’t stack up for the huge amount of effort I that goes into their creation.

For all these reasons, I’m considering my online future. Nothing will happen any time soon, but in recent years I have been good as my word – in deleting Twitter (I refuse to call it by its other name) and any other music-focused accounts. My only remaining social media links can be accessed via the homepage of my website (top left). Everything else is gone. I have a feeling it won’t be too much longer before I revert to a life offline. Those who value me as a person and value my art will always know where to find me.

Peace.

John