The information revolution involved many facets of our life.  As communication improved the speed of information increased.  Before the telegraph mail took weeks to months to be delivered, after a delay of only a few days was expected.  With the introduction of the telephone information could flow from anyplace with one instantly, the problem was that large amounts took a long time to get across.  The internet building upon the backbone created by the engineers of ArpaNET was a much more instant and less intrusive form allowing for large amounts of information to flow freely at the speed of light.  Soon this internet allowed one instead of carrying cash to carry a bank card or a credit card to make a purchase, it is supposed to be a much more secure way of using your money.
    Every purchase you make with a bank card or a credit card is logged.  The credit card company

knows where, when, and how much you spent.  It stores this information alongside your personal information, your name and address, telephone number, even how many kids you have.  If you are a compulsive credit card user chances are that if someone had access to your file they could glean very specific facts about your life.  The problem is that with these conveniences also comes a danger.  The immense database that the credit card company has upon you can be accessed by anybody

who can break through the electronic security of their servers.  It really isn't that hard, a few of these overzealous hackers even steal the information and sell it to the highest bidder.  Soon you begin to receive telemarketing calls and e-mail Spam, your inbox is loaded and your telephone is ringing off the hook.  The offers that you receive are tailored to you, it is as if they know what you want.
    Most hackers aren't this malignant, but your information is floating around on several databases, everything you have applied for, your credit and bank cards, the contest you entered last week on the

internet, the membership you hold to that site, your data is located on all of their servers, ripe for the taking and if you didn't read the privacy policy maybe even ripe for the giving.  That's right there is no law protecting any data that resides on the internet.  Again these topics will be discussed on a later page.