KYMASON-L Archives

From: Jeannie Dalrymple <>
Subject: [KYMASON-L] Important Information
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 06:46:09 -0700 (MST)

Hello...I rec'd this this am and think that it is to important to not pass
on...... "food for thought"

Have a great day! Jeannie <><

>
>U.S. News and World Report
>
>News You Can Use 5/11/98
>
>ON MONEY
>
>BY MARGARET MANNIX
>
>
>Home-page snoops
>
>Does your family have a home page on the Internet? If so, you might want
>to
>reconsider how much personal information you post online. Con artists
>who
>steal others' identities, get credit in their names, then leave innocent
>
>people with a mountain of debt to fight and ruined credit to clean up
>are
>discovering the charms of the Net.
>
>Old-fashioned techniques like wading through Dumpsters for discarded
>credit-card receipts take time. These days, a savvy thief can hack into
>an
>Internet service provider's subscriber list and lift credit-card numbers
>by
>the thousands. Databases full of sensitive information have been
>inadvertently left open in cyberspace. And some online outfits peddle
>sensitive information without regard to privacy, despite Federal Trade
>Commission scrutiny last year that encouraged many to limit how they
>sell
>services like looking up Social Security numbers.
>
>Meanwhile, thousands of netizens are unknowingly making it easier for
>thieves to steal their identities by posting individual home pages,
>family
>genealogies, and résumés. Sure, there's no harm in posting photographs
>of
>Morris or Fido. And only the foolish post a Social Security number on a
>Web
>site. But many pages are packed with the sort of details identity
>thieves
>crave: full names, birth dates, birthplaces, addresses, occupations,
>degrees, phone numbers. With the click of a mouse, a thief has a
>personal
>dossier at his fingertips.
>
>Think about it. A name, birth date, and birthplace will get you a birth
>certificate, and a driver's license is not far behind. "The driver's
>license, unfortunately, has become a de facto ID," says Beth Givens,
>director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. It's the key
>to
>all sorts of financial services, and it propels a thief closer to the
>magic
>number: the Social Security number.
>
>Mom's maiden name. Some family tree tracers place details like a
>mother's
>maiden name online. That's often a common password for credit cards and
>bank
>accounts. Revealing such personal details, says Ed Howard, executive
>director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles, is
>
>"privacy suicide."
>
>As Howard points out, the Internet isn't a toy. Your home page may have
>hooked you up with a long-lost friend or relative, but it can also put
>you
>at risk. Identity-theft victims suffer the aftermath of the criminal's
>spending sprees for years in the form of calls from collection agencies,
>
>ruined credit, even mistaken arrest.
>
>While the Internet is a wonderful tool for genealogists (it has
>revolutionized family research), think again before jeopardizing the
>privacy
>of your relatives by putting intimate details up on the Web. "If a
>family
>member is going to put up the genealogy, I think they should notify all
>the
>living members of that family tree," says Givens--who would prefer her
>family tree in book form.
>
>You'll never have complete control over your personal information, so
>you'll
>never be immune to fraud. But why make it easy for someone to
>impersonate
>you? If you wouldn't post your background on your local grocery store's
>bulletin board, don't put it on the Internet. "It's the world's bulletin
>
>board," says Carole Lane, author of Naked in Cyberspace: How to Find
>Personal Information Online (Pemberton Press, 1997, $29.95). And con
>artists
>are checking it out.
>
>Take a bite out of credit crimes
>Tip: Identity thieves like to rifle through mailboxes for preapproved
>credit
>card and loan solicitations, fill them out, and start using other
>people's
>credit. A 1997 amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (the law that
>governs credit bureaus) required credit bureaus to establish toll-free
>"opt
>out" lines that consumers can call to remove their names from those
>mailing
>lists. To keep your mailbox free of such identity thief temptations,
>call
>any of the three largest credit bureaus:
>
>Equifax
>(800) 556-4711
>
>Experian
>(800) 353-0809
>
>Trans Union
>(800) 680-7293
>
>
>

The best form of spiritual excercise is to touch the floor
regularly with your knees. <>< <><

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• [KYMASON-L] Important Information by Jeannie Dalrymple <>