It starts innocently enough. It might happen as you cruise pornography sites. It might be during a search for online gaming codes. Perhaps it is attached to some link you clicked from a Facebook post. However you got it, you’re infected with malware. Even worse, it’s ransomware – one of the Internet’s biggest, most painful blights on the web (and people) itself.

The only way you are going to be able to unlock your precious files (if you can trust that these cybercriminals will turn over the key) is if you pay up some outrageous sum in bitcoin or from your credit card. I have faced numerous shakedowns before, but in this case, it is truly a violation of personal ownership and space. What was once yours is now held up by a mysterious, faceless criminal, and you may not ever see it again. Diabolical.

Greed in the digital world

I spent a big part of my life dedicated to eliminating threats like this. In the beginning, viruses and malware were completely about malice and what at times seemed like the twisted joy of destroying data. Inevitably, greed set in. The emergence of the entire range human volition is unavoidable when opportunities abound. Similarly, we are challenged by temptation, by our faults, through our most grievous faults throughout our digital lives. One misstep could mean things are lost forever, it could mean police knocking on your door, or it could mean that from now until forever you will be groped every time you fly out to see your Aunt Edna in Flint, Michigan.

Cybercriminals and state-sponsored hacking groups count on these tendencies. Go ahead. Be yourself.

“Click on this interesting thing.”
“Come on by, the water’s warm.”
“You’re not going to believe what Nancy said about you yesterday.”

Silly humans; now you’re owned.

Mitigating the human element

That human element can never be eliminated, but with a little luck and a whole lot of education, it can be mitigated. We will never be able to sanitize our own personalities from the way we interact with the web. The cautionary message here is to educate yourself and to think.

Awakening to new realities never ends. In all my years, I have yet to see it all, but there is one thing that I can recognize instantly, and that is a viral operation. Viruses have the ability to affect complete systems and networks. The tiniest little piece can be a pain to remove. Protections against the spread of these infections are no good unless they can learn or be constantly updated.

Tell me if this sounds familiar. Our government has followed the course of unending greed and a lust for ever-increasing power. Your freedoms are limited unless the government says so. Every item you see in your average grocery or department store has been regulated, taxed, created under permits, under agreements, under municipal financial arrangements – and it happens at every step of getting that product to the shelf.

I have largely shunned the traps of consumerism, but it is inevitably unavoidable. We are faced with a constant and pervasive intervention that is placed upon us by our government, under the auspices of somehow protecting us. For the simple act of being a human that must purchase items in our modern society, we incur the never-ending growth of the government leviathan and its countless agencies down to the local level.

There is nothing pretty about being powerless and completely losing your freedom. I ask, are you willing to accept that your freedom is an illusion? How can we strip the constant revolving door of promise-wielding politicians from pretending to echo the concerns of an overreaching government?

You can choose to make a difference. I ask you to support me. I support your freedom, your family’s freedom, and my own. I support your business and your right to create software and hardware. The only way to remove that which is systemic and pervasive is to root it out at scale. To clean house, we have to clean house.

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