MetaFilter posts tagged with identitytheft

The Market for Lemons, or Thieves Discount the Value You(r Identity)

filthy light thief — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:37:22 -0800

Calculate the value of your identity on the black market, based on how you access your financial information, your involvement in social and file-sharing networks, and security software installed. Spoiler: it's less than you imagine, as using the data is riskier than stealing the data, and the thieves market is polluted by liars (you can read more in the 12 page Microsoft research PDF). If you think you've been the victim of identity theft, the Federal Trade Commission and Better Business Bureau have lists of actions to follow. For a broader view of legal responses, wikipedia has details listed per country for a few nations (currently listing information for Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, UK and US). The Consumer Credit Reporting Agency page on Wikipedia is thinner, covering the US, UK, and India.

"Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future."

Keter — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:12:08 -0800

Imagine you're living in China, trying to work your way out of the family date farming business (which garners approximately $450 annually). You do all the right things. You apply for (and receive) Communist Party membership. You study literally to the point of collapse, and despite coming from coal-town origins, you score high on your gao kao ("high test," more-or-less the only thing that matters in getting into a Chinese university). Your already-poor family goes deep into debt to send you to college, and you even manage to come out with a degree. Classic rise-up-by-your-own-bootstraps tale, right? However, finally, when you go to apply for a job—your state-sanctioned educational, occupational, and political records are inexplicably, awfully gone. What has happened to that plain manila folder (!) that serves as your only legitimate, official history in Chinese society? Probably stolen and sold so a party official's child can get everything you worked so hard for. And then, of course, your family is detained by party officials when your parents demand to know where the hell your life went. Of course. Then again, local corruption by local officials in China isn't terribly surprising. It's had some time to evolve. This just isn't what you normally think about when you think "government corruption."

One man's trash is another man's gold

Christ, what an asshole — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:48:03 -0800

FRONTLINE: Ghana - Digital Dumping Ground On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the biggest fallouts? Identity Theft.

The Cut-and-Paste Personality

subgear — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:42:27 -0800

These identity thieves don't want your money. They want your quirky sense of humor and your cool taste in music. Among the 125 million people in the U.S. who visit online dating and social-networking sites are a growing number of dullards who steal personal profiles, life philosophies, even signature poems. Dude u like copied my whole myspace, posts one aggrieved victim.

"Then, on Election Day, 1975, I disappeared."

amyms — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:51:01 -0800

Mayor Ken Williams of Centerton, Arkansas, recently resigned over allegations of identity theft and other weirdness. He claims that a truth serum injection helped him to recognize that he was formerly The Rev. Don LaRose. He runs a website telling the "amazing story" (in 11 chapters) of his abduction by satan-worshippers three decades ago.

SF woman snags identity thief, on foot

daninnj — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:32:30 -0800

When Karen Lodrick turned away from ordering her latte at the Starbucks at Church and Market streets, there it was, slung over the arm of the woman behind her... a "beaucoup expensive" light-brown suede coat with faux fur trim at the collar, cuffs and down the middle. The only other time Lodrick had seen that particular coat was on a security camera photo that her bank, Wells Fargo, showed her of the woman who had stolen her identity. The photo was taken as the thief was looting Lodrick's checking account. And thus a foot chase towards justice began. (via the Consumerist)

ID thieves beware mad sk1llz

roue — Mon, 29 May 2006 07:00:12 -0800

Geek tracks down identity thieves via luck and persistence. What should you do?

You should probably buy a shredder today.

Joey Michaels — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 16:38:06 -0800

The Torn-Up Credit Card Application. Can you get a credit card with a torn-up application? One citizen puts in the minimal effort to find out.

FTC imposes $10M fine against ChoicePoint for data breach

mk1gti — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 14:41:45 -0800

FTC imposes $10M fine against ChoicePoint for data breach The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has fined ChoicePoint $10 million for a data breach that allowed identity thieves posing as legitimate businesses to steal social security numbers, credit reports, and other data from nearly 140,000 people. This is the largest fine ever levied by the FTC. ChoicePoint also has to set up a 'trust fund' for people victimized by identity thieves. From the article: 'As part of its agreement with the FTC, ChoicePoint will also have to submit to comprehensive security audits every two years for the next 20 years.'" BusinessWeek has additional info. Perhaps there might be hope for individual privacy after all. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

The Virginia Watchdog

MLIS — Wed, 25 May 2005 08:18:41 -0800

The Virginia Watchdog "Don't you think if I can get Tom DeLay's Social Security number . . . that some guy in an Internet cafe in Pakistan can, too?" Virginia activist Betty (BJ) Ostergren puts the Social Security numbers of politicians such as Colin Powell, Porter Goss, Jeb Bush and Tom Delay on her website to show how anyone can become a victim of identity theft.

Cops engage in ID thefy - legally!

Heminator — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 14:50:00 -0800

Cops engage in ID thefy - legally! [sorry - reg. required was all I could find] Cops in Ohio were putting together a sting in a strip club. They paid a 24-year-old informant a $100 a night to work as a stripper in the club (What? After tips?) But in order to carry out the sting, they gave the informant a false identity. Instead of creating a new one, they simply plucked the details off of some poor girl’s drivers license and social security card, such that this girl now has being paid as a stripper on her record. And according to the law, this is PERFECTLY LEGAL — in fact the Ohio police’s right to do this was included as a provision in a new Ohio law that was aimed at stopping ID theft. Which also makes me wonder — was this a commonplace practice in Ohio or anywhere else? Is that why they sought to protect it in the law? Is some guy using my ID to infiltrate NAMBLA right now?

My Butt (_._)

Robot Johnny — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 10:28:42 -0800

The Credit Card Prank Part 2 Not satisified with the results of an earlier experiment, John Hargave kicks it up a notch and tries to get someone, anyone, care about the signature on his credit card receipts.

crime

semmi — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 09:06:07 -0800

Identity theft is epidemic.

A Tale of Two Moxies

jonah — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 08:21:17 -0800

Blogger moxie.nu acuses another blogger of identity theft . The other blogger, moxiepop.com, fires back, saying she got harassed by moxie.nu's readers and that she had never seen moxie.nu's site before. Another blogger goes on the offensive and accuses moxiepop of imitating moxie.nu. Comments start flying on moxie.nu and are ultimately closed by the host. Some other blogs step in, supporting moxiepop (1, 2, 3) and supporting moxie.nu (1, 2, 3). Tim Blair chimes in, Andrea Harris has a few words, Jim Treacher calls for some Moxie Boxing, and Kevin Parrott adds Rockem Sockem Moxies. A delightful train wreck for all to see.

I really hope this is apocryphal.

eriko — Sun, 06 Apr 2003 12:05:02 -0800

So, what does one have do to trigger a security alert? A suburban Philadelphia lady finds her credit card has been fraudulently charged for a flight to Philadelphia, with a passenger name that sounds Middle Eastern, during the time that President Bush and DHS Secretary Tom Ridge would be in the city. Worried, she tries to report this to various police and security officials. This is her story.

Su — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 19:10:48 -0800

The Yes Men, impersonators who have dissolved the WTO, among other stunts, released YesIWill! last year in response to the WTO's attempt to shut down the gatt.org web site. I was checking in on the program today, and was disappointed to see it hadn't been updated any.
Then I found out it's because it's been renamed: Reamweaver.

artifex — Thu, 16 May 2002 09:47:42 -0800

Ford Motor Credit Co. recently sent 13,000 people certified letters warning them that an unauthorized inquiry had been made on their credit reports and that they were now at risk for credit fraud and identity theft.

Just great.

ryanshepard — Sat, 22 Sep 2001 06:18:59 -0800

9/11 Conspirators Stole Identities of Murdered Students: "HAD FBI agents bothered to ask college lecturers in South Wales about the terrorist bomber they supposedly taught over a decade ago, then security chiefs would have realised how Osama bin Laden had carefully created a generation of impostors . . . his agents stole the identities and life histories of at least a dozen Western-educated young men who were all murdered in 1990, according to a former head of the CIA."

thirteen — Mon, 14 May 2001 12:30:27 -0800

Social Security Numbers and privacy. I refuse to give my number out whenever possible, but it is getting worse all the time. Thankfully I can still buy batteries and refuse to give Rat Shack my telephone number, and tell Toy R Us where to go when they ask for my zip, but this is frustrating. Wasn't this what people feared about having identification numbers in the first place?

peterme — Fri, 30 Mar 2001 11:44:58 -0800

I-jacking!
Sippey encourages you 'to inject chaos and anarchy into the post button by hijacking the identities and namesakes of your favorite web "icons."'
Who do you want to be today?

semmi — Wed, 28 Mar 2001 20:07:59 -0800

Your phone is you Before we let cellphones handle everything from opening our medical records to buying a house, we'll need to make sure people can't steal our identities.

Postroad — Tue, 20 Mar 2001 08:05:38 -0800

Busboy makes good! Sometimes when your pay is not enough to live on you have to take action to correct things. This guy did. With a computer he didn't even own.

lia — Thu, 08 Jun 2000 01:20:50 -0800

Identity swapping makes life relative

Do any of you do the Safeway Card Shuffle? I think I probably would, but then again the level of tracking where I live is currently negligible, so it isn't yet an issue. How about where you live?

And how does this tie in to online privacy, like advertising cookies and programs like RealPlayer and GoZilla that track and report where you've been and what you've been doing?