Forget Phishing Just Buy Personal Info 163
Iago writes "If you need information about a person in Moscow, just go to the market and buy it. The Globe and Mail reports that along with the usual pirated software, cd's etc. you can find out information such as the bank records of your competitors, motor vehicle information and tax returns. The question is, how much of this information is being sold in other countries, perhaps in a more sophisticated manner?"
India (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That old saying... (Score:1, Informative)
Off-topic but (Score:1, Informative)
all day every day (Score:3, Informative)
The question is, how much of this information is being sold in other countries, perhaps in a more sophisticated manner?
USian? Go get your free credit report [freecreditreport.com]. Look closely at who has recently requested it. They're getting all kinds of information about you. Your bank, credit card company, mobile phone provider, broadband provider, power company, pretty much anyone with your name addy and social security number can sell your info to be requested by someone else at any time. This is a perfectly legal and legit practice. Regarding other countries, these businesses who outsource IT to India/China/Russia will locally all have this information to trade on the white and black market where there are even less data privacy laws.
I used to worry about identity theft and related crimes. I used to think I was the one in control and had the responsibility of securing my personal information. No, the companies that trade on personal info and credit have the control and the toothpaste is out of the tube. I can never secure the last 30 years of my information again, so why bother trying? All I can do is be vigilant in trying to detect fraud and deal with it on a case by case basis.
There is too much commerce at stake for governments to pass laws to ensure data privacy or make issuing credit more secure. Stop whining and start making arguments to your local politicians for doing what you want to be done.
Old trick with new methods (Score:4, Informative)
People burned by that one could go for a class action lawsuit against either Mastercard their service supplier or the software vendor or a combination. There's no excuse for using tools known to be defective in a networked context.
Increasingly that said same vendor has been associated with breaches of security and failures. A year ago it was voting machines now this...
Re:"Private Eye" CD (Score:1, Informative)
Wrong. This database leaked only once - in 1994. The information contained in it, is relevant to that period. How many people have moved since? Also, it has glaring gaps - some completely random people are missing from the database. Most important, it contains no financial or medical information.
The database was probably leaked from the Ministry of Interior.
Wrong. It was attested that the database is one that is provided to all parties during an election, as a means to contact the population, and therefore contains only limited information. A friend of mine who once volunteered at one such party told me at the time that these CDs were all over the office, with no one bothering to keep an eye on them, which is enough explanation to determine how it was "leaked."
once it's out there it's everyone's civil duty to get a copy, just to level the playing field
Actually, having this database in your possession is a criminal offense and is punishable by a fine and up to several years in prison. Nonetheless, it can be found circulating on major P2P networks. The whole thing is simply an 800MB access file.
(-1, Troll) (Score:3, Informative)
Free Software is not about all kinds of freedom. It's just about software. It's like that, because in the context of software, freedom is much more obviously necessary than in other contexts, where its benefits can be more subtle.
What you are talking about is those guys that say the "information wants to be free" stuff. I like that, but GNU/FSF has nothing to do with them.
Yea, but the implications are still frightning (Score:3, Informative)
Not long ago here in Mexico, a punk servicing a PC in the Federal Electoral Institute downloaded and sold the ENTIRE National Voter Registry to a two bit data aggregator, which in turn sold the database to Choicepoint in the U.S.
Now the National Voter Registry contains the name, address, telephone and date of birth of all the people over 18 in the entire country. It is the basis for the most trusted identification used over the country and of our voting system.
The costs of managing and updating the registry is just a bit over a thousand million dollars per year. The punk sold the database for measly 2000 dollars.
After the excrement hited the cooling device, there was a big showdown between the aggregator, Choicepoint and the local authorities. The punk got busted and the buyers claim they destroyed the databases (yea, like hell they did).
I for one am not ever updating my entry in the Registry.