Like the FBI Director, I’m Extremely Cautious of (Online Banking)

By Art Gillis Oct 13, 200910:03 AM ET



Where we (FBI Director Robert Mueller and I) part company, however, is in the fact that I never enrolled in online banking. So it’s quite easy for me to ignore phishing e-mails, even fictitious ones from my own bank, let alone all the fake wannabes.

My reason for not putting my monetary transactions on the Internet is simple—I know too much about technology and its user friendliness, even as it applies to intruders. For every new hurdle the hopeful protectors set up, it takes only 18 hours for the intruders to undo. In truth, the intruders are smarter than the protectors.

I’m sorry, Director Mueller, but you of all people should never trust anyone or anything, and you almost did.

Putting my money and its related data on a public facility (PC or browser) is equivalent to leaving the vault door of a bank unlocked, and posting a sign on the front door of a public street showing the location of the vault (and how much is in it)  for every passerby to see.

The best safety measure the world has today, is that a very large majority of citizens has no desire whatsoever to commit a crime. You won’t believe what I’m saying because the press covers the crooks not the good guys. Even if the bad guys amount to less than one-tenth of one percent of the world population, that’s 7 million possible intruders. I’d still be concerned if the number were only 100, because unlike Bonnie and Clyde, the electronic masterminds don’t need a fast Ford, guns, brute force, and a branch to get the dough. They can do it from a PC connected to a public network in the privacy of their cave anywhere in the world.

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