The recent discovery that data thieves infiltrated Hannaford Bros' network and stole more than 4 million credit card numbers (see Data thieves steal credit card data from supermarket chain). According to articles related to this incident, Hannaford had some controls in place, like not associating names with account numbers. This incident is proof that basic controls are not enough.
Black hat hackers will continue to do the bidding of organized crime, regardless of the security in place. The future of personal information is bleak. At odds are the convenience of modern life and the ability of criminals to take advantage of it.
Think of all of the online services available. Many of the companies practice good security. Assuming that all involved parties are dedicated to security, as we know is not even realistic, the security is not future proof. Eventually, the best security practices will be deprecated. With the millions of servers, billions of transactions, and the march of time, your chances of being a victim of identity theft increase every day.
There are no answers. I have resisted many online services until I realized that I have no real control over my information anyway. Between the government and businesses being cavalier with my information. Unless I move into a cabin in Montana and live the rest of my life in seclusion, I'm no more able to protect my personal information than I can anyone else's. In ten years, will somebody be posting email, documents, or other files they found on a server they bought at an auction? If a company like Yahoo goes out of business, what happens to all of that information, including passwords and associated usernames?
Scary.
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Wretched Human Mirror by Bloodbath