Work Together, People - To Combat Identity Theft

Working together: People and Identity Theft Laws

You might sometimes feel pity when you encounter stories about identity theft victims. If you were in the same situation, you would know how it feels to be in a victim's shoes. This is why identity theft laws have been made and enacted. Identity Theft Laws attempt to quell and stop this ongoing threat to people, companies, organizations of all sorts, and the whole country for that matter.

Awareness about Identity Theft among consumers has reached somewhat of a peak in recent years, due primarily to the media coverage that ID Theft has been getting as of late. Consumers are becoming more wary when disclosing personal information and are checking up to see that it isn't given out without their consent, especially on the Internet.

Outcries by the public have resulted in legislative attention brought to the issue, both on the federal level and in individual US states.

The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (18 USC 1028) was signed in 1998. This law made identity theft a federal felony. That is, when someone deliberately uses the identification of another person with the purpose of committing any unlawful activity, this infraction falls under federal and state law.

For those who violate this law, they will be placed under close investigation by federal agencies such as the U.S. Secret Service, the Social Security Administration, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Such crimes are prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

This law also allows for reimbursement for victims. It established an identity theft clearinghouse within the Federal Trade Commission.

In the following years, 40 states have criminalized identity theft. Most of them have also made it a felony.

In 2000, Senate Bill 2328 was signed by Senators Feinstein, Kyl, and Grassley. This bill is called the "Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2000." This law emphasizes more on the prevention that should be taken to combat ID Theft crimes.

The latest addition to these laws is the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act (ITPEA) signed by President George Bush.

What are the provisions of this identity theft law?

Theft determined to be of the IDENTITY THEFT type (a felony) is given a mandatory two-year prison sentence.

If the identity theft is directly related to any terrorist activity, the penalty is an additional five-year prison sentence.

This law also orders the U.S. Sentencing Commission to strengthen the penalties to be given if the act of theft is found to have been committed during the course of employment.

Lastly, it gives the judges the authority to give out soft punishments like probation and community for the offenders.

A lot of people are more than happy that this crime has been criminalized by the laws, finally. But one must note that, in order to put a hold on identity theft, drastic changes have to made in the credit industry.

Also important - these laws should continue to address what identity theft victims have gone through. There should be a way for consumers to know when certain individuals have a wrongful criminal record.

Some of the bills already passed include a provision for making it possible for individuals to acquire information on questionable individuals - from information compiled by proper information brokers, employment background check services, or individual reference services.

If wrongful information is reported in any background check for employment or other purposes, it is vital that the persons involved in these investigations know the precise information that has been made available, including the source from which the information came.

For those persons who have wrongful criminal records, they must be able to clear their records through an expedited process involving the law enforcement agency that made the arrest, the Court System where the warrant was issued, and other avenues that affect the individual and his/her reputation wrongfully. Presently, no such procedure is available.

Identity theft laws should not be the only and single answer to this ongoing problem. It is also vital that credit card companies, reporting and statistics industries, and any related industries should make an effort to assist consumers in stopping fraud altogether. These industries should also help victims recover from identity theft.

No matter how many identity theft laws are created and passed, this crime will still continue if additional efforts to alleviate this crime are not added. It is important that both the general public, as well as the government, work together in order to stop identity thieves in their tracks.

Winning Notification SCAM

I'm posting a recent 'notification' that I received in my email (late July). I have disregarded the email and chalked it up to another SCAM:

Please don't respond to links - I'm just posting to show you what many SCAM emails look like.


Here it is:

VIRGINIA LOTTERY Ref: VG/lo/3681Batch: 08125

Dear Lucky Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION

We the board and management of Virginia lottery Sweepstakes wishes to inform you of the E-mail address ballot lottery international program hold on day 28th July 2007. It's yet to be claimed and you are getting the final Notification as regards. Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 08-17 20-23-50-17 with serial numbers VG/01-08-10-23-34 and drew the lucky numbers 8-17-20-23-50 (17) which subsequently won you (One Million USD) as one of the 10 Mega winners in this draw. You have therefore won the entire winning sum of $1,000,000.00 The draws registered as hold in London United Kingdom on the 28th of July 2007. These Draws are commemorative and as such special.

Please be informed by this winning notification,to file your claims,you are to make contact with your claim agent who shall by duty guide you through the process to facilitate the release of your prize to file for your claim
Please Contact your fiduciary agent with this details below
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
( 1 ) Name in full:
( 2 ) Address:
( 3 ) Country:
( 4 ) State/ Provence:
( 5 ) Sex:
( 6 ) Age:
( 7 ) Maritual Status:
( 8 ) Next Of Kin:
( 9 ) Occupation:
( 10 ) Phone/Fax:
( 11 ) Current E-mail:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Executive DirectorVIRGINIA LOTTERY
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Contact your fiduciary agent: Governor Tim KaineEmail: info_virginia@yahoo.co.uk
Phone: +447024096041
You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with your details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications.

Best Wishes,Executive Director, Ms. Hill Christian.


The sender address from this SCAMmail was hill_christian23@hotmail.com


Sorry - but I don't think that a legitimate Virginia Lottery organization would be using a hotmail account if they were informing me that I just won 1 MILLION DOLLARS!

Off Topic - The Simpsons Movie Contest

The Simpsons Movie Contest is well under way!
Information About THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Contest
(link will open in new window)

I know this is off-topic to the nature of this blog, but how could I resist directing you to where you can Enter THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Contest that Fox and Opera (yes, Opera browser) are doing for Simpsons Fans all over?

The contest runs until the 27th day of this month, so hurry up and check out the details. You could win some official The Simpsons Movie merchandise for yourself.

Enter the contest!
Information About THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Contest
(link will open in new window)

Good luck to everyone who enters the contest!

Nasty, Nasty Keyloggers

The Continual Advancement of the Keylogger

A keylogger is a program that runs in your computer’s background. It will record all your keystrokes, only you don't know it's there. It secretly grabs your keystroke information. When you keystrokes are logged, they are saved and hidden away for the attacker to retrieve later - whenever it's convenient for the keylogger attacker to do so!

The keylogger attacker will then review very carefully, your information in the hopes of finding passwords to important and valuable sites - perhaps your payment processor or online bank! A keylogger/criminal can quite easily gain confidential emails. This person can then reveal them to others - any interested outside party who is willing to pay for this particular information.

Keyloggers can be either software or hardware based. Keyloggers that are Software-based are easy to distribute and they quickly infect user computers before they can be stopped by some systems. I don't really have to tell you that avoiding these nuisance keylogger infections is part of the reason why you should never NEVER run your system without anti-virus and anti-malware software.

While software-based keyloggers really move quickly and are often hidden in other downloads, they are still more easily detectible than the other type of keylogger. Hardware-based keyloggers are quite a bit more complex and harder to detect than the software-based Keyloggers.

For all that you know, your keyboard could have a keylogger chip attached and anything being typed is recorded into a flash memory sitting inside your keyboard. Keyloggers have become one of the most powerful applications used for gathering information today. In our high-tech world, where encrypted traffic is becoming more and more common, keyloggers of both types abound with great regularity and circulation.

As keyloggers become more advanced, it becomes harder to catch them. The ability to detect every-changing and ever-improving keylogging methods becomes more difficult all the time. Keyloggers can violate a computer user’s privacy for months - even years, believe it or not - without being noticed in the least! During that time frame, a keylogger can collect all kinds of information about the user it is monitoring. The potential for a keylogger to obtain not only passwords and login names - but credit card numbers, too - is very high.

Also open to Advanced and efficient keyloggers are:

* bank account details,
* personal contacts,
* business contacts
* an outline of interests (saved from 'Profile' forms)
* web browsing habits
and much, much more.

This collected data can be used to literally steal user’s personal documents, money, or even their identity. A keylogger might be as simple as an .exe and a .dll that is placed in a computer and activated upon boot up via an entry in the registry.

More sophisticated keyloggers, such as the Perfect Keylogger or ProBot Activity Monitor have developed a full line of nasty abilities including:

* Undetectable in the process list and invisible in operation
* A kernel keylogger driver that captures keystrokes even when the user is logged off
* A remote deployment wizard The ability to create text snapshots of active applications
* The ability to capture http post data (including log-ins/passwords)
* The ability to timestamp record workstation usage HTML and text log file export Automatic e-mail log file delivery

All keyloggers are not used for illegal purposes. A variety of other uses have surfaced for the keylogger programs that are around.

Here are some positive uses for Keyloggers:

* They have been used to monitor web sites visited as a means of parental control over children. * They have been actively used to prevent child pornography and avoid children coming in contact with dangerous elements on the web.

* December, 2001, a federal court ruled that the FBI did not need a special wiretap order to place a keystroke logging device on a suspect’s computer. The judge allowed the FBI to keep details of its key logging device secret (citing national security concerns). The defendant in the case, Nicodemo Scarfo Jr., indicted for gambling and loan-sharking, used encryption to protect a file on his computer. The FBI used the keystroke logging device to capture Scarfo’s password and gain access to the needed file.

Thus, now you've gained some details on keyloggers. The only way to keep safe from both types of keyloggers is to USE GOOD ANTI-VIRUS and ANTI-MALWARE programs and practice other obvious good internet navigation habits. Don't let your guard down for a minute. Even if you have great security-ware, you can still get a keylogger if you're careless.

Scan your computer often with the best antivirus and anti-malware products you can get. Update your software, check your security software homepages often just to check on virus alerts and things that you might not have received a notification about.

Online Information Sources - What Do You Believe?

With the number of online 'user-shared information portals,' Social Sites, Article directories and the like, it's hard to know when you're getting legitimate information.

I'm working on a list of 'legitimate' sites to post here in the near future and am learning about 'validity-checking' myself, in general areas on the internet.

As a student, I already know what higher-education institutions require as legitimate information checking online (that is, if I use an online source, I know the guidelines as to what is considered legitimate information or not). I am slightly less knowledgeable about pure business legitimacy, so I have some work to do yet before I post reliable information about 'online business' sources.

One tip I can give for ANY kind of information you're going to use online involves how to use Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is NOT a definitive, authority site, by any means. It is a 'collective' contribution by internet users all around the world who choose to add information to the Wikipedia site.

Many information pages at Wikipedia are without citations and proof of legitimacy. Very truly, SOME of the information found at Wikipedia is OPINION. Some of it is misinterpreted data, mis-informed reports about topics that, although someone tried to research, may not have been researched thoroughly enough.

I use Wikipedia very often, however, I choose to go to the Wikipedia site, using the information therein as a 'guideline' and a starting point - mostly for topics that I know absolutely nothing about. I enter the Wikipedia site with the intent to gain basic information and ultimately, follow the 'citation' links right back OUT of the Wikipedia site. If the citation links lead to an 'edu,' 'org,' 'gov' or other such site, then Wikipedia has served it's purpose for me. It is at the 'out-linked' sites that I can find better (perhaps original) information, but I may have been completely unaware of how to find 'original' information before I started reading articles over at Wikipedia.

This is not to imply that NONE of the information at Wikipedia is 'correct' or 'legitimate' or that all information there is unreliable. On the contrary. There are a TON of great, proper, well-researched and well-cited entries over at the Wikipedia site. It's just that I take particular care in checking the links that are within the articles I'm reading at the site. If almost all of the links are just internal, leading mainly back into the Wikipedia system (for definitions, related information, etc), then I don't consider this situation to be of legitimate value to me, though I will follow links and keep information in mind that I find internally at the site. I don't consider my information search to be completed at this point, however, I have usually gained some good general information by this point. Nothing I would use in a University paper, but information that allows me to be a little more familiar with the topic I started searching on - so that I can conduct a more intense search elsewhere.

I see forums posts and even pay-for-article material (Articles that you have to pay for) that use only Wikipedia as their source of authority - and this concerns me very much.

I have a friend who is a budding internet marketer. He uses Wikipedia in his promotions. He is listed as an Internet marketer and wrote his own article about himself, set up 'tagging' and keywords so that people will go to Wikipedia and see his name there - along with Historical figures, celebrities, etc. The average internet user considers Wikipedia as somewhat of an online encyclopedia, so using Wikipedia for marketing is actually a really awesome and effective tactic for marketers to use. It makes a marketer seem 'famous' and 'important' if they are in some kind of an 'encyclopedia' system! But the truth is - you can probably gain an account at Wikipedia and write an article yourself - about yourself - without too many problems. Or - you could submit an article to a fellow-member of Wikipedia and ask for editing help and if they do some research - some fact-checking on you, your information can still end up in Wikipedia, even if you're 'a slouch' at writing articles.

In short, any 'business information' topics that I research at Wikipedia MUST LEAD TO Better Business Bureau information and show a 'scam-list' clean status for me to believe that the business I am checking out has legitimacy. Otherwise, some relatively unknown 'newbie' could have written his or her own article, claiming that their business has skyrocketed in activity, is a leading, #1 business - and I wouldn't know the difference from the entries that tell me that "Coca-Cola" is a hugely successful company! (Well - there would be a LOT more links in an Coca-Cola article that would lead to other legitimate business reports, so the information on 'Coca-Cola' would not be as highly questioned).

Anyhow, I hope this helps you think carefully about the information sources you use online.

Want To Find Out How Much Your Efforts Are Worth?

Hey - are you blogging away with no idea about how much your blog could be worth?

Here's a link so you can check - tentatively - on what your blog might be worth if someone were to want to put an advertisement on your blog.

How Much Is Your Blog Worth?

This is just a little tool from Dan Carlson's "Business Opportunities Weblog" page.

Now, remember - this little tool doesn't promise that you SHOULD BE or that you WILL make that much money from your blog right away....only YOU can do that, according to whatever types of marketing you're doing from your blog, your different types of content and topic matter. But this is a cool little tool to show you what kind of potential your blog really has!

How Much Is Your Blog Worth?

Rules For The Internet Highway

Over 65 BILLION dollars was recorded as spent by online consumers in 2004.

It just gets easier and easier to shop, bank, invest, and otherwise feed money through internet resources.

The chances of coming into contact with Internet Fraud are extremely high and these odds raise significantly every day.

Around $2579 was recorded as 'average loss' to fraud from online activities, according to The Internet Fraud Center Watch - just for the first half of 2005! That's HALF A YEAR - 6 months only! The total average loss for 2004 (the entire YEAR) was only $895.

General merchandise purchases complaints accounted for around 30% of Internet Fraud complaints. These would have been goods never received or misrepresented products or goods. The percentage of fraud through misrepresented or never-received goods via AUCTIONS, however, was much higher, at 44%!

Though a great number of e-commerce websites are, indeed, reputable and legitimate, and have taken great and necessary safety precautions in order to protect consumers, it surely never hurts to always proceed cautiously when dealing with ANY websites.

If you must conduct online business and make purchases through or over the internet, here are some tips:

* Avoid using an ATM or debit card.
* Use only one credit card, preferably with a low credit limit, when making online purchases.
* Be wary of unsolicited offers by sellers.


Consider this: The Internet National Fraud Information Center Watch reported that email, as a method of contact by Internet scammers was up 22% in 2004. While offers by email may be perfectly legitimate, spammers like to use email tactics to side-step reputable sites that provide consumer protection for online purchases.

* Read the website’s privacy policy. Some websites may reserve the right to sell/give your information to a third party. You may inadvertently give permission to a website who will sell your information to a third party - you allow this by clicking the 'continue' or 'agree' or 'submit' button, quite often.
* Check the document you're involved with to see if the website allows an opportunity to "opt-out" of receiving special offers from third-party vendors or for permission to share your personal information.
* Check for a lock symbol in the status bar at the bottom of your Web browser window. Also - DO NOT provide your personal information if the website address doesn’t start with "https." The "https" is an indicator that lets you know that the site is using a secure server.
* Choose only verified sellers. DOUBLECHECK - to see if the vendor is a verified member of a reputable third party such as Better Business Bureau, VeriSign, or Guardian eCommerce. Third-party sites help to ensure online consumers will be protected when shopping or conducting e-commerce transactions.
* Check for a reasonable delivery date posted prior to completing your purchase. If you have never dealt with a certain vendor before on a regular basis, be wary of any Website that states the shipment will be delayed 20 or more days.
* TWENTY DAYS IS A VERY LONG TIME in the scope of internet business shipping. Delivery dates of 7-10 days are more REASONABLE and way more common.
* Keep a paper trail of all online transactions. This means BE DILIGENT. Print out a hard copy of the transaction and keep it in a file for future reference.
* Be wary of website offers that just sound too good to be true. Get Rich Quick Schemes abound with The Internet as a perfect vehicle for fraudulent activity. False advertising is commonplace online. Investigate all claims thoroughly before proceeding.
* Use only reputable e-commerce websites that list a street address and telephone number in case you need to contact them directly.
* If you do not receive what you paid for, and the vendor will not return your emails or calls, contact your state’s Department of Consumer Affairs for further assistance.

And Finally...

* DO NOT BE EMBARRASSED if you think YOU DID fall for a scheme, fraudulent claim or a 'too good to be true story' - REPORT IT REPORT IT REPORT IT!

Many scammers GET AWAY WITH what they do because people are too embarrassed to admit that they were trying to get a good deal, that they might not have double-checked every detail of a transaction - that they were simply outwitted by an internet scammer. People don't want to have to say 'It Happened To Me,' but

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU - Internet scams can affect nearly anyone.

REPORT IT!

You may help the next person from getting scammed, too!