These recent "data harvesting" hacks targeting large corporations (SONY, AdultFriendFinder, Target, Anthem, AshleyMadison, etc) are illustrating a need to be careful regarding information you entrust to others.

The lesson to learn here: "Once sensitive information is out, you can't put it back in the bottle."

In 1999, a girlfriend who was very free with her personal information moved in with me. She was unhappy when I demanded that she use my PO Box for our mail, and that she unlist her new phone # and address. Prior to meeting me, you could look her up in the phone book and easily get both her number and address.

"I don't deal with freaks on the internet like you do," she said. "I am not hiding from anyone. I have no problem with my info from being out there."

"You have no problem TODAY," I said. "If tomorrow there's someone who wants to find you and you don't want them to be able to, it will be too late."

She very reluctantly went along with the PO Box and the unlisted number.

Literally weeks after she moved in with me, a disgruntled customer at her work developed a vendetta against her. The woman told her shrink that she was going to find my girlfriend, shoot her dead, and then shoot herself in the head. The shrink reported this to authorities, and my girlfriend was warned.

Except she had much less to fear. Her address wasn't listed. Nothing at my place was in her name. All of her mail was going to a PO Box. Short of following her home, even a PI would have had a hard time getting her address. Her work was in a large security building in LA, and that woman wasn't getting in there. The only threat was at home, but thanks to keeping her info private, she wasn't that scared.

"If I was still living at my old place, still in the phone book, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night," she told me. "I'm so glad that you insisted on this stuff."

Once information is out, you cannot put it back in the bottle.

Similarly, when you sign up for infidelity websites like AshleyMadison, or sexual fantasy websites like AdultFriendFinder, you are putting your biggest personal vulnerabilities in the hands of disinterested or overconfident IT security managers. They say you will be "anonymous" and "confidential", but you aren't at all anonymous or confidential if your account is linked to real-life billing details. You could avoid this mess by using a $50 prepaid credit card (registered in a fake name), but very few people want to take this extra step. They just blindly assume everything will be okay, and "secure and anonymous" really means secure and anonymous.

I'm saying that if you really want privacy, you need to create the privacy on your own, not count on others to do it for you.

The age of data dumps is upon us.