Hackers

Recently someone hacked into the database at UCLA and stole personal identity information for potential identity theft. While it scares me in the first place to have my credit card and social security information in databases and on the internet, I recently had an unsettling experience concerning databases and the internet. I got a letter in the mail from this online company that I had bought something from online. Apparently someone breached the security of their online database and stole thousands of names, addresses and their corresponding credit card information. Mine was a part of this database so they told me to check over all my credit card statements, inform my credit card company and accept their apology. While I don't know much about hacking or really even computers in general, I was pissed at this company for not taking the proper security measures to protect their databases and their customers.

Then I kept reading articles and seeing stuff in the news about hackers obtaining database info from other companies/institutions and I think that the internet is just too crazy of a place to protect or oversee. Almost anything can be hacked into by people who know the internet really well and while I have no idea even how to make a basic website, I can't help but be more impressed that pissed off at them. Anyway, I just thought the article about the UCLA hackers was interesting especially with my recent hacking experience, so here it is:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/12/12/ucla.data.theft.ap/index.html