Protection online and off
Not many years ago, computer attacks generally took place when someone would write a piece of malicious software and send it to millions of people, hoping that someone like you or me would open the attachment or click on a link. Once compromised, our computers would fail or files would be corrupted, rendering the computer unusable. We’d immediately know we’d been had!
By contrast, today’s methods of compromising someone’s account or computer are so subtle that we may not even be aware the attack is taking place. In some cases, attacks may even come from what seem friendly or familiar sources. A hacking attack might start with an
e-mail from someone posing as a friend, or even as a company you do business with. You might click on a link or attachment in the e-mail because it seems to come from someone you know. To the casual computer user—and in some cases even the experienced professional—nothing seems to happen when you click on the link, or fill out information on a web site, and, since nothing happens, you move on. We might continue for weeks or months or longer without knowing that our private information is being gathered surreptitiously.
It may feel like the technological world is very uncertain and vulnerable. But there’s nothing new here—malicious attacks, under whatever guise, work exactly the same way as they have through the centuries: through deceit and deception, through lies! They are always and only lies. And because of that, they are vulnerable to the eternal power of Truth, another word for God.
Truth is our timeless fortress and shield from every claim of evil. How can it protect us? First, by keeping us spiritually alert. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy explains the mental strategy of malicious attacks and how we can counter them. In her day, such attacks were seen in the deliberate manipulation of others’ thoughts and actions through techniques of hypnotism and mesmerism, an approach that was broadly called animal magnetism. “So secret are the present methods of animal magnetism,” she wrote, “that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the subject which the criminal desires” (p. 102 ).
How relevant that counsel is today! As technology becomes prevalent in every facet of our lives, it is easy to become lackadaisical and complacent. We might lower our guard if an e-mail appears to be coming from a trusted friend or colleague. Perhaps we even expect to be compromised, concluding that being hacked on the Internet is inevitable. But is it to be expected? No! Not if we’re alert. We manifest the one divine Mind—the Mind of Christ—that includes wisdom, alertness, and poise that allows us to sift through our Web experience, separating the tares from the wheat, keeping only what is good and useful.
Nothing is equal to the protection God provides each of His ideas, and that’s what we can put our faith in.
Let’s look at advertising, which is prevalent in all of the most common technologies today. You cannot watch a TV program for more than a few minutes without having to confront an advertisement of illness or injury that would try to define you as a vulnerable mortal in need of the product being sold. The messages are sent out en masse, hoping to convince a good portion of the audience to believe them. A spiritually alert viewer counters those images and messages with the healing truth that we are God’s children, eternally pure and whole in God’s image, always sustained by the resources of Spirit.
This mass approach was the older strategy of online deception, too. Enormous batches of e-mail were sent out by spammers hoping to snare a few unsuspecting recipients. Today, hacking attacks can be targeted at specific individuals. Why? Because there is a lot of personal information about us available online to those looking for it. When we surf the Internet, purchase something online, or use social media services like Facebook and Twitter, we leave bits of personal information on the Internet. This type of information is sold around the world in exchange for money.
So what are we to do if we’re hoping to retain our safety and privacy? Do we need to avoid online activities? Not at all. The truth is, nothing is equal to the protection God provides each of His ideas, and that’s what we can put our faith in. God’s protection is complete, without failure, always operating. God’s love is an impenetrable shield whereby we are sheltered from everything that isn’t good. Our faith—our confidence in God’s power—comes to the rescue. Mrs. Eddy writes, “When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error” (Science and Health, p. 368 ).
In responding to the present forms of hacking, we also need to address the assumption that someone out there is malicious—a criminal, deceitful, without integrity. Or that certain countries or groups are responsible for these malicious attacks. All this too is a lie, a false belief that the Christ corrects by giving us a true, spiritual view of man. Eddy describes man—meaning all men and women—this way: “He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God’s image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker” (Science and Health, p. 475 ).
Does that sound like a hacker or a criminal? Far from it! In fact, this describes the exact opposite—the real man. Each of us expresses only the qualities of God, good: honesty, trustworthiness, respect, love, and ethical and moral behavior. The demand for each of us is to correct any stereotype of a hacker by attributing to everyone only the qualities and attributes of God and seeing every expression of man as “including all right ideas.” As the image and likeness of God, we reflect only God’s qualities.
In her advice to students of spiritual healing, Eddy writes: “Your means of protection and defense from sin are, constant watchfulness and prayer that you enter not into temptation and are delivered from every claim of evil, till you intelligently know and demonstrate, in Science, that evil has neither prestige, power, nor existence, since God, good, is All-in-all” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 115 ).
Think about that: constant watchfulness and prayer. It’s not software or passwords that keep us safe, but watchfulness—alertness—and prayer. These are our means of unfailing protection. And while it’s wise to employ passwords and software as practical measures while using the Internet, our defensive goes far beyond them. Reliance on God for protection, and steadfastly affirming man to be God’s image and likeness, is not only our surest defense, but the spiritual response that will bless all humanity.
