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I know this isn’t really an identity theft relevant topic, but I felt it pertinent all the same. The goal of ProtectIdentity.com is to keep you and your family safe. In that aspect, I think it’s not a digression.
“The FBI uses national security letters to find not just who the target of an investigation e-mailed, but also who those people e-mailed and who e-mailed them.” This is the statement that Gregory Nojeim, the director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology made in reference to the governments new stance on web surfing. It’s a slippery slope though. Yes, it is true that this policy will help law enforcement track and catch those engaging in illegal activity, but the massive invasion of privacy cannot be easily overlooked. Criticism abounds.
The current process isn’t without flaws anyway. Obtaining a security letter to gather information has not been an infallible system. The bureau has allegedly engaged in a widespread and serious misuse of its authority in the issuing of these letters. From 2003 to 2006, the bureau issued 192,499 national security letter requests. It has also been concluded by the Justice Department’s inspector in 2007, that data from Americans and foreigners has been collected illegally.
This is not something to put out of sight and out of mind. It’s a huge expansion of the FBI’s authority. They are planning on burying it in the intelligence authorization bill. Why? Is it really just intended to bury it from scrutiny? The proposed amendment is going to add the category “electronic communications transactional records” to a section of the law which already lists only those items cited in the Justice legal opinion. Why? It’s because those four words are already included in another section of the law.
It should be met that this proposed amendment has Congress on guard with good reason. The Obama administration’s action here could just clarify a statue or end up allowing the FBI to request sensitive information without federal judges and courts being allowed to scrutinize it.
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To Young For Facebook, To Tired To Fight It
0 Comments | Posted by admin in Identity Theft, Uncategorized
I had a recent scare with my kids, so I am on a protective kick. This and last weeks post reflex so. Anyways…
The World Wide Web (Do people even call it that anymore?) can be a dangerous place for your kids. Crazy To Catch a Predator stuff goes on everyday. We don’t know who is on the other end of the connection talking to our kids. It makes my skin crawl to even think about it. On the other hand, after a long day of work the last thing I want to do is fight with my children about how and what they get to access on the net.
I’m also not going to do a reverse email lookup and a sex offender search for every little friend my kid makes online (Although I have done it before and it was in fact a 35 year-old man with a charge for “Fail & Refuse to Furnish Proof of Age and ID” and “Sexual misconduct with a minor in the first degree”. So the threat is real people. You best believe that my kids facebook accounts and yahoo messenger accounts were cancelled after that.
I can’t wrap them in bubble wrap before I sent them to school or walk them to the bus until they are 18. So I sat them down and talked to them like the competent little minds they are. Not sharing last names, addresses, birth days, schools attended, parents credit card numbers, etc. After doing so I went in search of alternatives. I can’t just kick them off the computer. I found my answer in Togetherville.com.
It’s a safe online neighborhood for kids under 10. Here they can play games, create art and interact with friends and family under your supervision. It’s gotten some recognition from The Journal and The Times. Mashable.com even did an article about it.
I didn’t mean to put you off from performing one of those searches either. If you suspect your child (any age) is chatting with a serious creeper (Some younger girls [boys too i guess] find the attention of a much older male appealing. And won’t be telling you about it any time soon). Monitor their behavior and launch one of those searches after any signs arise.
PeopleSearching.com is a comparison site which will let you see what others user think of these services.
Facebook has made, what seem to be, moves tied to public relations. If you are an avid consumer of the news, it is no surprise to you that the social networking site has attracted some negative publicity recently for certain privacy issues. Facebook has now teamed with The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to develop an application that gives users the ability to “Protect yourself. Protect your mates. Make it easy”. It appears this campaign may avert some of the heat from the sites other short comings. Either way, this is a great move. Still, it is not a button as many have led on. It is an application from CEOP.
The only concern that arises then is that its viral distribution may suffer because it is not perceived as “hip, cool, or grown-up”. Still if it does catch on, it could be a huge step toward raising awareness and will hopefully dissuade predators from even accessing the site. The app can be found here.
Facebook has been resisting the launch of the ‘panic button’ for years. But the pressure mounted on the site after the rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall by a 33-year-old convicted sex offender, who was posing as a teenage boy, who she allegedly met on the site. Presently, it is functioning in the UK. There has been no mention of bringing it to the states yet.
Parent’s best bet is to still monitor their children’s behavior and correspondence. Have a talk with your child about the dangers of internet and let them know you are not opposed to making sure they are safe from the sidelines. Parental controls can only do so much. You need to let your kid know you are onboard with whatever they are doing, but they should see who they are really talking to.
A reverse email search will do just that. If you do so, and find the person’s name, a sex offender search may be the next step.
Whatever motivated Facebook to launch this campaign, I’m elated that such steps have been made.
Just to get things going here, if you are just throwing your old machines out when you are done with them, you may be handing the public your personal info. If you are moving all your personal files to the trash and hitting “empty” you may still be doing so as well. When you go and delete a file, only the link between the computer’s index and the deleted file goes away. This lets you computer know that that space can be overwritten. But all the bits and pieces of the deleted file will remain on the machine until they are actually overwritten. The deleted files can still be retrieved with a data recovery program ($50) . To remove data from your hard drive permanently, it needs to be wiped clean.
If you are going to throw out or sell and old computer of yours, the smartest thing to do is “write zeros to the hard drive” this means the entire machine is blank. Not even an operating system will remain.
Of course if you are in fact throwing it out, you could always remove the physical hard drive itself and play home run derby with it for half an hour. You could alway look into recycling or donating after the computer has been wiped clean.
Accidentally stumbling upon malicious, insecure, or underhanded websites happens. It’s hard to believe that there are people who actually build such pages. Fraudsters don’t really care about the state of the net. The first line of defense is running what you want to search for through a search engine. These sites are programed to only bring back relevant, higher grade sites. Many times people will create a page or site with a web address very similar to that of the legitimate company. Typing the address in directly to your browser, you run the risk of opening this incorrect address. If you do it in a search engine, they will often correct this for you. This can fix a large portion of that problem of visiting fraudulent websites. If you do get caught on one, file a complaint with the FTC. It will make sure you as well as others stay safe on the web.
Of course there are also some out there would would prefer to just hack sites.
Here’s a few other tips when it comes to browsing the net safely and, more importantly, in an knowledgeable state:
What to look for (and ultimately avoid)
- Broken graphics, grammatical errors, misspellings, and poorly written sentences.
- A sense of urgency or immediate action required.
- Requests for personal or confidential information.
- Links that go to an unknown Web site or a Web site that looks similar but the site address may be slightly altered. Recheck any typed web addresses or URLs to ensure it was entered correctly before providing personal information on a site.
- Be suspicious of an information-collecting Web page that is not linked to a known home page for the company, or the home page has an “under construction” message on it.
- Look for the presence of an “@” symbol anywhere in the page URL. This is usually indicative of a fraudulent Web site.
It seems there are people in this world who will never draw the line. Identity theft is not being quelled. These are just stories of people who didn’t get away with it.
This past week a man was arrested in Louisville for some interesting charges. He was taken in with $500 in fives, a concealed deadly weapon, and a list of homeless shelters and their respective meal times. Antonio Philips, a “nice and clean cut” 30-year-old Florida man was apparently offering homeless people $5 to tell him their first and last names, date of births, and social security numbers.
This is not the end of the ridiculousness.
A Girl Scout Leader in Mount Olive, NJ was arrested at the end of a three-week investigation. Police concluded that she was responsible for applying for credit cards under the identities of other people. She had obtained the personal information of two of the troop’s volunteers.
One of the victims said a credit card was opened through Capital One. The 30-year-old Kelly Willard, of Budd Lake, and leader of Daisy Troop 4366 had run up a balance of $2,126 on the card in just two days.
“Willard has been charged with identity theft, seven counts of credit card fraud, two counts of false application to secure a credit card, two counts of identity theft, and theft for the items which were purchased using the fraudulently obtained credit card, Anthony said. She was lodged in the Morris County jail in lieu of $1,000 bail,” according to the reporting of NJ.com news site.
Homeless and scout volunteers are just random stories. But be aware that your identity is not safe.
Do not carry your Social Security Card with you unless you need to and don’t participate in sweepstakes, credit card offers, or respond to emails with your information. If “your bank” is supposedly updating its records they will be sure and do it in a credible manner. New Read Flag requirements will help with your protection.
They did this to New Yorkers. You guys are supposed to be the most cut-throat people in the nation. I don’t really know if IE8 is what they say it is, or not. That’s not really the point. The fact is, they people not only got duped, but also gave out their most precious info. Are we really this gullible when a promise of money is dangled above our heads?! I am personally sickened by how easy it is to con people out of their livelihoods.
Its no secret that cell phones have become a major player in crime. They make it easier for crimes to be committed. But there is also crime towards cell phones. The theft of mobile phones is way up. If a phone is stolen, chances are you are not going to get it back. There is a market for stolen phones, but generally this is a theft of service. Thieves are doing this for themselves. A stolen phone with cancelled service can still be used. The thief can remove the SIM card, insert their own, and continue using the stolen phone. However, there is a way to ensure they can’t .
If you know your phone’s serial number you can render the device unusable remotely through your cell provider.
If you don’t (no worries, most will not), you can find it this way:
If your phone uses the Global Systems Mobile Communications standard (GSM), you can punch star-hash-zero-six-hash ( * # 0 6 # ) into the phone to reveal your fifteen digit IMEI code. Write this down and keep it somewhere. It might not get you your phone back, but it will foil some punks unscrupulous behavior.
So I know it’s probably just me who finds it weird to still call it a Social Security Number when the system is in the tank. The system is so overwhelmed that its taking forever for people to win their cases for disability benefits, sometimes taking two years before a payment is made. Anyone who thinks this is going to sustain the Boomer Generation coming in and the Gen Y’er too is just asinine. The spike in the number of applications recently can be attributed to the economic status of the country. The system is dangerously close to being swamped yet again.
But that’s not what we need to cover today. Consider that rant a historical background. What we need to cover today is how you can protect the you withholdings from criminals so you can give it to other people you don’t know instead. Okay, okay…Turning the cynicism off.
People send us emails all the time asking what they can do now that their credit, identity and life are all in jeopardy. The answer is: very little with a lot of patience. The fact of the matter is, a lot of times fraudulent SSNs are just made up and happen to correspond to a real individual. This we have no control over. What we can do is lower the risk on the other percentage of the cases of identity theft. So once again:
- By law, your Social Security number is only required for opening new financial accounts or lines of credit, obtaining a job or for governmental purposes such as taxes or benefits. (That’s it! It’s okay to decline giving it out in other cases.)
- Ask questions: If a company asks for your number, ask under what law they need the number and offer an alternative identification. Only give it out if you feel comfortable with the company, and if you don’t, be prepared to do without its services.
- Don’t carry your Social Security card on a daily basis. Memorize the number. If your Medicare card had your number, make a wallet-sized photo copy for your wallet or purse and black out the final four digits.
- Shred any financial documents that might have your Social Security number before trashing them. Monitor your financial statements closely. And be wary of entering your Social Security number on web sites. (Again if it isn’t registered as secure and is not a job app, gov. site, or financial/credit institution don’t give it out.)
- Your Social Security number can be changed if you can prove you have been the legitimate victim of identity theft.
For more information, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10064.html
Sources: Social Security Administration, Identity Theft Resource Center.
Knowing where to look to check on your credit is a first big step:
http://www.creditratingbureaus.com/index.html
Here’s a pretty good post I came across as well:
Why Good Credit Scores are Key to Surviving in a Troubled Economy
Credit.com and the free Credit Report Card were featured last night on Channel 2 KTVU‘s special report by Pam Cook. The report discussed why preserving good credit scores is key to surviving in a troubled economy.
Adam Levin, Chairman and Co-Founder of Credit.com, was interviewed for the piece and explains how your credit card balances are one of the keys to obtaining high credit scores. What is your credit score, how is it calculated and what does it mean? If you missed it, you can watch the full clip here:http://www.ktvu.com/video/23512512/index.html
Special thanks to Erin Smith, a local consumer in the San Francisco area who shared her personal credit story. The fact that she used our free Credit Report Card before she went to apply for an auto loan makes everything we do at Credit.com worthwhile. Credit.com, promoting financial literacy and consumer credit awareness, one consumer at a time.
If you haven’t tried the Credit Report Card, we encourage you to check it out: https://www.credit.com/ufg/default/ccom_credit_report Not only does it help you understand exactly how your credit scores are calculated and where you stand, it’s really, truly, free. And be sure to let us know what you think!