The datacenters are just huge monoliths, securely guarded, sometimes a "farm" with multiple buildings. They'll just sit there, making noise, using water, demanding power and all the actions that might come of analyzing all that "data" will happen elsewhere in stuffy offices and boardrooms. It's the AI part of why datacenters are needed, that should concern people. AI hallucinates, lies and makes up facts; rewrites history, science AND math - to suit itself.
Don't get me started. It's a bad, Post-Apocalyptic fever dream. Fortunately, it's also a financial circle pyramid scheme - and it's based on debt - and the cracks are beginning to become chasms. A lot of people are going to lose money because they bought the marketing narrative and invested in it, driving share prices astronomically high.
My personal terrors started around the beginning of July. Spam phone call; phishing. Impersonating my bank's fraud dept. Caller did get one piece of info to add to his profile of me - but when I realized he was asking about my checking account and NOT my card; and he already knew my online username... I went full tactical, and immediately changed my username WHILE still on the phone, then hung up and changed my password. I'm now rotating an impossible to type comfortably combination of username/password on a regular basis. Yes, this lives on a post it in my password book and I have to look it up each time. Eventually, since this had happened to me at another bank, I realized that the only common piece of info/data was my phone number.
Changed the phone number from the one I'd used for over 20 years. It's helped - but that number is getting at least 4 spam calls a day. I just delete them and move on.
Every time I order something online, they REQUIRE a phone number to complete the order. I am finding that there are ways to protect one's number - still giving the vendor a number they can verify works - so how many places have sold my data to someone who sold my data and it got to the dark web or where ever else, these no-goodniks buy this info to persecute & rob us? LOL, it's funny/ironic, that I learned that bit of info from a hacker community.
Modern life increasingly REQUIRES us to perform functions online. So, a lot of my research involves how to stay safe/secure while doing so. Nothing is 100% guaranteed. Our personal contact info - addresses, phone numbers, etc are all publicly available online; remember the webpage "WhoIS?" from a couple decades ago? There are companies that will do their best to get that info removed. I haven't picked one or priced it yet. Yeah - it's a service.
I already practice (diligently) a lot of good security habits. But all this crap is changing VERY fast; as in every couple weeks. And I am facing the decision of weighing the risk of "task A" with the number of options I have outside tech/online and it's inconvenience, and choosing which way I want to do.
And the whole PITA that I feel I HAVE to do this at all... versus living my life with a reasonable assumption of data security. Remember when you weren't supposed to tell ANYONE your SS number? Now, the last 4 digits are all part of the security questions places use to verify your identity.
Might just be safer to NOT HAVE an identity, you know? LOL, in the techie, data sense.
