I just heard from a friend that "identity theft" is fast becoming the crime wave of the future. Who on this forum is aware of such practices, like tapping into cell phones and using a cell-clone to call kenya? Or, using someone's personal information to create fraudulent credit accounts... etc? If so, what precautionary steps do others take to keep this from happening? How does this problem affect DL???? We often order books over the net and submit credit card #'s, call on phones to talk with professors and perhaps disclose personal info., etc. etc. etc. When things are done over a "distance" we probably become much more vulnerable to "identity" tampering. Chris
People having been using stolen credit cards for years. This is something we've all heard of if not experienced. Using someone elses birth certificate in order to obtain a drivers license, etc. is often the first step in creating a false identity (at least that's the way it works in the crime novels). A friend of mine had his laptop hacked and the hacker was using his aol account for some devious purposes. He installed a personal firewall in his system. Firewalls are well outside my area of expertise though. Perhaps one of our CS/IT members could enlighten us in this regard. Jack
I've also heard that you can get hacked if you don't somehow register a kind of "lock" on your credit so that someone needs to be present with a photo ID to access it. If that's true, I'd like to know how to do it. I like the "firewall" idea too. CG
Black Ice Defender is a very good firewall and intrusion detection system. You should be able to buy it for personal use for around $20. It is easy to set up. http://blackice.iss.net/ ZoneAlert from Zone Labs is a decent firewall. It is a little more difficult to configure, but they used to allow individuals to install a fully functional version for free. http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp As for the other questions you are asking, I would merely do a google search. There are plenty of sites which discuss the perils of identity theft in our digital world. There are also many books on this and allied subjects. John
Our most recent problem came from the phone company. Someone called, gave our name and number, and had new service installed in another city. Then they ran up $2,000 in charges, and disappeared. Then the phone company sent dunning letters to that person's address. Then they turned the account over to a collection agency, which sent its threats to that address. And then the went to court and got a lien on our house -- all of this without our knowledge. We found out when refinancing our house last year, when the escrow company paid the $2,000 to the collection agency. It eventually all got undone, with major time and effort. Now we have a password on our phone company account. If we (or anyone else) calls to make any change in our service, they are first asked for the password. So at least that step is strongly recommended.
I have suffered "identity theft" twice. In both cases, someone simply filed a "change of address" form with the Post Office, which caused my mail to go to an address in Brooklyn. By the time I got this straightened out with the Post Office, the perpetrator had enough information to get credit cards in my name. I complained to the Postmaster, whose attitude was "So why should this be my problem?" No doubt, this is how it happened twice (about three years apart). My first hint of something amiss was a call from the credit card company asking for confirmation that I had indeed ordered $10,000 of computer equipment in Melbourne. The total stolen during these two periods was about $35,000.
Yep, not to mention viruses, trojans, worms, and the like. I consider myself fortunate in that I've never been the victim of identity theft. On the other hand, I did pick up a trojan (SubSeven) and I'm pretty sure it was a result of interacting with one of my DL courses (opening attachments, chat, etc.). FWIW, I have firewall and AV protection but, after my computer started acting weird, I needed commercial anti-trojan s/w to detect and get rid of the bugger.
