OK, it’s Halloween week — we couldn’t resist. But seriously, everyone should be masking. All the time. In every way possible.
Data masking, of course.
Your personal information is ridiculously valuable. It fuels the entire data broker industry — the shady middlemen of the internet who buy and sell your digital breadcrumbs. And since cyberattacks and breaches are accelerating at an accelerating rate, your data is more valuable and more vulnerable than ever.
We’ve talked before about pulling your info off broker sites, and why it keeps coming back like a bad penny. The reality is that every time you use the internet, you’re feeding the machine again. Unless you stop putting your real data out there.
So, what’s data masking?
Data masking protects your sensitive information by running it through a tool that scrambles or substitutes key details, making it useless to thieves, trackers, and algorithms, while still letting you use it.
It’s like wearing a digital costume: you still get to move through the party, but nobody can tell who’s behind the mask.
Let’s talk credit cards
Raise your hand if your credit card’s ever been compromised. (That’s… everyone.)
I mean, the first ever credit card fraud was in 1899. You’ve had your card stolen, maybe, or you’ve lost it, or it was in yet another data breach. So you go through the hassle of calling the card company, canceling it, challenging any fraud charges, and then replacing your credit card number in all the places you’ve used it.
Card masking fixes that. Most major card companies now offer virtual card numbers — disposable stand-ins for your real card. You can generate one through your card’s website or browser extension, use it for your online purchases, and if it ever gets breached, you just nuke that number. No updating 47 autopays. No stress.
Bonus: it also breaks the algorithm’s tracking loop, because your spending data no longer points back to you.
More than money
Masking isn’t just for credit cards. You can also mask your:
Email address — ProtonMail and DeleteMe offer similar options.
Mask before you share
Like “Screencap and Send,” this is one of those golden moments to pause before you hand over personal info.
They want your phone number? → Mask it.
They want your email? → Mask it.
They want your social security number? → Are you kidding? Absolutely not.
The fewer places your data lives, the fewer people can grab it, sell it, or lose it. Every time you mask, you win.
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