Of course, the doctor will share your medical information with the hospital and other doctors with whom he consults. That doesn’t count. Under the new proposed rules on healthcare all hospital records will be “Open Sesame” to proper authorities – whoever they are. Theoretically they are private, but I would not bet on it. Any amateur hacker can break into that broad a program.

Hand your credit card to the store clerk. Is it safe? From my personal experience it is not. I did not lose my card, but in one day someone charged $11,000 on it in a city 200 miles away.

Everybody networks. Or at least all the kids do. They never stop talking, web searching, emailing and texting. Can those messages be broken into? You bet.

If they are so safe how come there are so many software programs to be bought that are supposed to protect your files? Facebook, Twitter. More of the Open Sesame network for hackers of all kinds. And the secret hackers are the worst. They have programs that extract information every day that these software programs are not aware of.

The hackers scare me. For my business I do not receive customer credit card information. It is kept at another site and not sent to me. A hacker might get my data base, but nothing financial of any kind. Maybe I am paranoid, but I would rather be safe than sorry. No customer will every call me complaining it was my fault she had her credit card abused or her bank account cleaned out.

Is there any way to protect you privacy? Really, no. Of course, that is not what the radio and TV ads tell you. Basically if you don’t want anyone to know don’t use or sign up for any program that might be accessed or abused by criminals or maybe just some curious relative. The world today runs on electronically transferred information so that is not possible. We have to take our chances.

In today’s electronic world with information reduced to electrons some bright young person will come up with a special way of making those electrons work for him. We call them hackers, but they are computer geniuses. Many after being apprehended go to work for the people who caught them.

Be aware that every day someone is trying to see if our door is locked. Most of the hackers are amateurs so simple defensive programs will keep out 99% of them. There is no way to stop Mr. One Percent.

About the best all of us can do is use some of the protective software and a large gob of common sense.

Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he's the man that Wall Street does not want you to know. Copyright 2010 Williamsburg Investment Co. All rights reserved.