It’s almost midnight and I’m sitting on a public bench on a busy street full of drunk musclehead types and aggressive would-be badasses, many of whom like to start fights. The above-pictured email from Mint.com inspired more fear in my mind than these d-bags ever have or could.
I’ll be honest — I don’t make a habit of donning the tinfoil hat with regard to the security of my various online transactions. I buy things online regularly, often from smaller sites that don’t have the cheddar or the security know-how that, say, Amazon does. Always trusting that if anything goes south, I’ll have adequate recourse with the bank that issued the card I used. People may think this to be a bit naïve, but I haven’t been seriously bitten yet. This Mint thing, though — this is different.
Mint has most of my banking information stored on its servers. I’m talking account numbers, recent activity, access credentials, the whole freaking nine. Getting a series of blank emails from them (and confirming that others received similar messages) kind of freaks me the hell out.
I’m very familiar with Hanlon’s Razor, which says:
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
I don’t immediately assume that some nefarious prick is mucking around inside the plumbing of Mint.com, but that’s not the point. Even if it is some dumbass tech who accidentally clicked the “email the planet” button, my faith in the integrity of their service has been called into serious question.
Am I overreacting? Quite possibly. But, you’d be hard-pressed to name another area of life whose privacy and security are of bigger concern to the average person than their dough. Even the slightest possibility that I could wake up tomorrow having been dripped dry is more than enough cause for me to close the ever-loving pudding out of my Mint.com account.
That’s it for this unplanned episode of After-Hours FUD. Do you guys think I’m crazy?
