Cringely on Identity Theft

Boiled Frog writes "Prompted by the theft of his mail, Cringely investigates how easy it is to steal identities from government publications. In this article he explains how he got the identities of 300,000 people which he calculates to be valued at $65 billion dollars. If Cringely can do it, anyone can."

Identity theft is indeed a big problem

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, someone has stolen my account. I'm not really an AC...

Watch out - this could happen to you.

Office of Redundancy Office

[jratcliffe]

"...valued at $65 billion dollars"

Come on editors, I know it's early on the West Coast, but really.

I'm Robert X Cringley

[Anonymous Coward]

Some bastard stole my identity and wrote that article under my name!

$65 billion? Ridiculous!

[Samurai Cat!]

I'll only go as high as $50 billion and not a penny more!

65 Billion Dollars?

[tinrobot]

If I were Cringely, I would have sold those names and now be the proud new owner of Microsoft. Free the source!

Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just keep your credit rating so low that even *if* someone stole it, they wouldn't be able to get anything.

It also helps if you keep your bank account overdrawn, all your bills behind, and just generally be a lousy target for ID Theft.

At least, that's my suggestion.

Ha ha! I got that in one person!

[Typingsux]

I got some dude named billy gates.

Re:Office of Redundancy Office -- RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Pssst, Mr. Hawking. Try that one again.

$65 billion dollars

Did you get it that time? Lets try again..watch closely now!

----> $ <----65 billion ----> dollars <----


Did that help?

I have the solution

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Wreck your credit score every 7 years by declaring bankruptcy.

Then no one will want to steal your ID :-)

It's RIAA Math!

[Ikeya]

It's the latest trend in Mathematics! In reality he's got data worth about $.35, but when you extrapolate $200,000+ per infraction, he's on a goldmine!
I propose they start teaching this in textbooks in elementary school! Then everyone will have access to this revolutionary idea!

How I Deal With Identity Theft

[jbottero]

My solution to discurage anyone from stealing my identity has been to default on all my student loans, consistently pay my credit cards a few month late, and write anti-government propeganda letters to the local paper (amazingly, I still have my DoD security clearence!). The scammers run screaming...

Re:You want some wine with that cheese?

[jandrese]

I love the smell of trolls in the morning. I bet your employer will love reporting your taxable income to the IRS with a fradulant SSN. I guess it is true that you're identity will be protected if you keep all of your money in a big wad of unmarked nonsequental bills under your matress, but banks offer other services beyond mere identiy theft that you may be interested in.

Oh, you forgot one thing. Make sure you never ever give out your true name, no matter who it is. Once they have your real name they'll own you. Also, make sure to use the heavy duty aluminum foil, the regular stuff doesn't block the mind-reading rays for crap.

Re:Article is spot on. Happened to me..

[swordboy]

My lesson learned: shread everything.

EXCEPT the DICTIONARY!

approx $220000 each

[mesach]

I need some money(being unemployed), who do I sell my info to?

Just let me make sure I get that email about creating a new credit file first!

Re:Stealing bank details

[pubjames]

Oh, come off it, only an illiterate shit would fall for this.

There are a lot of people in this world who aren't as intelligent and perceptive like you so obviously are!

This is no better than the usual spam.

I disagree strongly. Getting an email that looks as if it is coming from a bank or service you subscribe to is not the same as getting an email about enlarging your penis.

(I'm being generous letting them off w. the "unknown persons" bit b/c, while it's bad grammar (person == singular, people == plural), but "person or persons unknown" has made it into the vernacular)..

You, sir, are a bit of a twat.

Re:Will the REAL Robert X. Cringely please stand u

[mccalli]

Cringely still feels the betrayal deeply...because they accused him of trademark infringement for continuing to use the name that he had done so much to build.

Has he ever thought about a career in piracy? He'd make an excellent Dread Pirate Roberts.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Which goes to show you...

[benja]

Good idea but many places won't deliver to a PO Box as they've been used for fraud for eons. They want a brick & mortar delivery point.

Like my pizza place. I've discussed it with them time and again, but they won't deliver to my PO box.

Re:Article is spot on. Happened to me..

[I_M_Noman]

if you have two sons, don't name them "Peter Michael Jones" and "Michael Peter Jones".

Damn! George Foreman's sons are screwed then.

Re:How I Deal With Identity Theft

[eah]

My solution to discurage anyone from stealing my identity has been to default on all my student loans, consistently pay my credit cards a few month late,...

Ah, good. At least I'm doing something right.

Re:Article is spot on. Happened to me..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your family is really into version numbers eh?

Well, at least you should be stable...

Watch out for your son though =P

Re:Avoiding the Post Office.

[Mantorp]

you sure she'd been home all day? :P

Re:How often they get caught

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Can you imagine what would happen if a misguided Robin Hood decided to popularize the techniques and teach them to America's poor?

Tyler Durden?
Durden?
Durden?

ATT Wireless

[MacFury]

About a year ago I signed up to see If I qualified for a free phone from ATT Wireless. It was one of those mall kiosks. I did qualify, but delayed getting a phone from them, and instead went with Verizon.

Three months later, I get a call from ATT wireless about my enormous phone bill. I told them they must be mistaken so they tried a couple of different things to verify that I was me, then called the cell phone to do the same thing. Obviously the person on the cell phone couldn't answer the questions.

As far as I know, the only thing that happened was the cell phone account being closed. I would have gladly paid the bill if they would have just given me the cell phone number and a list of called/incoming numbers.

My plan was to find the bastard and call him by my name while beating the shit out of him untill he fessed up that he wasn't me and told me I have the wrong guy.

Let Me Guess

[PetoskeyGuy]

He read the earlier /. article and downloaded the Whois database.