Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear?
posted by homunculus on Aug 17, 2009 - 98 comments

The commercials are all over television — and they certainly are attention-grabbing. They’re the ones where the heavy, bald guy is sitting in his easy chair talking in a squeaky female voice about all the clothes he bought — including a bustier. Or the little old lady speaking with the gruff voice of a younger man about the sweet motorcycle she now owned. Identity theft is a serious crime — one that is occurring with an alarming frequency. The Identity Theft Manifesto explains how criminals get your personal info, and what you can do about it.
posted by netbros on Jun 1, 2009 - 15 comments

Identity theft is epidemic.
posted by semmi on Oct 25, 2004 - 17 comments

Oppose a National ID card , this article tells the many reasons and abuses of freedom that will take place.
posted by Budge on Feb 6, 2002 - 32 comments

Killer Paid Online Data Broker for Material Obtained Through Trickery A stalker who eventually murdered his victim acquired her home address via a company named Docusearch. However, Docusearch didn't get it via database mining, but through a process they call "pretexting" (aka "human engineering" or "pretending to be someone else"). Docusearch, on the stalkers behalf, called the victim's business associates posing as an insurance rep or some such, and tricked the colleagues into giving over the victim's address. Legal? Perfectly legal. Ethical? Maybe. It's a tried and true investigative technique employed by private investigators for decades. It reminds us once again that the human dufus at the next desk over is the biggest security risk. However, this is an issue of an investigative firm exercising a typical, long-standing investigative practice for a purpose that, unfortunately, turned nefarious. Given that, why did the Post put the online data broker spin on the article?
posted by monkey-mind on Jan 4, 2002 - 20 comments