Being wired can unknowingly open oneself to identity & physical theft

With the proliferation of networking & social services (twitter, facebook, myspace, etc...) people can unknowingly provide a thief with all the info they need to steal a person blind. The internet never forgets. Something you mention casually may piece together a complete picture of your life over the course of a year.

For instance, the iPhone & new "droid" phones have built in GPS/Geotagging features . The holidays provide opportunity for people to take lots of photos of Christmas presents, family functions, home interiors & so on. Combine that with the instant upload features of Twitter or Flickr & you have just shown the world that you have a 50" TV hanging on your wall along with your address where it can now be picked up. Should you decide to ever leave the house for a vacation or,.....uh,...... ever, you have just shown that your house may be empty for them to come by & pay your valuables a visit.

With the holidays being in full swing there will be plenty of digital locations where a person may post something about their family online. It can be easy to provide family members names, locations, birthdays, pet names, favorite cars, etc.... giving a complete guide to all of the favorite security answers that may be asked should one forget their password to an online account. Remember, this could be something that you may not even do. Your nephew, niece, cousin, etc... who visits may even do this not realizing the implications of their actions. It is very simple to associate family members making it childsplay to get all the info a thief needs to access your online identy & claim your physical one as well.

http://www.augmentedplanet.com/2009/11/do-you-care-about-privacy/

http://www.mobile-spy.com/

http://iphone.iusethis.com/app/gpstracker

arstechnica tips on protecting ones identity

arstechnica has posted 5 reminder tips on how to protect yourself from identity theft:
1. protect against spyware/malware
2. fraud alerts
3. Google the kids
4. medical identity
5. social networking
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/09/five-steps-to-protect-yourself-from-identity-theft.ars

Remember, most identity theft is actually done through physical means but that doesn't mean you should leave your electronic door wide open for them. Make sure to always have up to date virus protection & run periodic scans on your computer for bad software that might unknowingly be on your computer. All of the necessary software can be found on the net for free so there is no excuse.

Happy (belated) data privacy day !

Even though we forgot write a post about it (whoops). I sure hope that you were able to celebrate data privacy day back on Jan. 28th. The main idea is to devote 1 day a year to actually thinking about & discussing data privacy concerns. Since alot of this data is comprised from databases it fits snuggly side-by-side into the Id Theft concerns we like to discuss.

Intel , Microsoft, Google, along with several other companies are behind this official holiday. Here are a few links that can help in securing your data.

1. Nothing beats Pre-Paid Legals' Identity Theft Protection
2. Lifehacker always has good tips.
3. The IAPP is a worldwide organization dedicated to spreading information about ID privacy .
4. Here is site for MAC users with some good tips

Free software links to help you keep your computer (& identity) safe:

Commodo Internet Security suite is a well rounded, low system resource package

PC-Tools Antivirus is a decent realtime Antivirus scanner. The same company also created Threatfire to compliment any other (even paid ones like Norton's & McAfee) antivirus scanner. *Caveat* : Threatfire should not be used by itself but to enhance a "library based" scanner that receives nightly updates.

There is no excuse to NOT encrypt your Windows hard drive with the free, "Open Source" Truecrypt.

Don't forget to sign your mail too! There is free software available to integrate with your MS Outlook.

Of course, nothing beats physical security & awareness wherever you are.