Identity Theft
live.pirillo.com – Arcane writes “Hello Chris, I have come up with a guide to help prevent identity theft. With the never ending technological advances, there are so many more ways people can take over your personal information… or find ways to obtain it.”
Cybercriminals claim a million victims a day with an online scam that McAfee Labs predicts will cost consumers the most money in 2010: scareware. Scareware appears as legitimate looking pop-up alerts warning users their computer is infected and prompting them to install malware disguised as security software. Stevie Wilson, a scareware victim who lives in Los Angeles, shares her story in this video. Go to www.mcafee.com/consumer-threats-blog to read the Consumer Threat Alert about scareware scams. Consumers can sign up for free to get warnings on the latest online threats at www.mcafee.com/consumer-threats-signup.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Great video Chris.
Overwriting ONCE does all you need with hard disk drives. Overwriting 7 or even 35 times is simply paranoid overkill. Ask Ontrack or Convar: They retrieved data from drives found at Ground Zero, but are not able to find data on a disk, that has been overwritten with whatever pattern.
Of course, if you wish to waste time, power – and still keep worrying whether overwriting *once*more* wouldn’t have been safer, go ahead.
There is a program online, I think it is called TrueCrypt. I never learned how to use it, but it is free and effective.If you don’t want to pay to encrypt your files with a 3rd prty applcnt fearing the man will have a “back door.”
LOL, they can tell when they search your computer applications. PGP erases files @ 28 passes. I use more than one file-erasing tool. However Eraser is my first choice. If the DOD is so concerned then they can simply police the internet like china and make sure no citizen can do it! It is the same as saying I can burn my paper, but limited to a crappy strip-cut (wiki or howstuffworks search) since the DOD wants a chance in hell to get my data. 2Hell w/ that! Did you encrypt today?
Buying a good shredder is a good idea. goto howstuffworks and wikipedia andyou’ll learn which shredder is best for you.
Yea, that is good if you don’t have an erasing program, but is way more time consuming.
If you never seen 35 (or more) passes, then you are determinately new to erasing files. I have used half a dozen different applications. Only one of then didn’t have 35 passes.
If you look up the legal stuff, they are not required by ‘law’ to check the ID. all they need is a signature! It could Jay Lin Cho and Marry Beth can use his card.
That is double speak is it not. Erasing a file does a rename and rewrite over and over. LOL, yea lets make it easier for a 15 year old to crack my files, but it is illegal for me to wipe a drive as good as the Fed. LOL I have free and purchased erasing and I have every intention of protecting my data. That would be like making 256encrypt illegal! LOL.
Eraser is a program I use often. I wipe the drive periodically 7 or more. 35 is done rarely – but is done. I normally erase a file instead of deleting it. Find reputable companies to get the software from free or otherwise.
Encrypt, encode, shred, erase, repeat! I encrypt all my critical files. I scan regularly. I check my credit cards statements (I normally use only one), etc. The weakest point in identity theft protection is the hard copy. Computer files can be protected with encryption / biometrics. The experience hacker won’t go after files that have high levels encryption like an predator. Make sure you alone could guess your pws.
I know those buy hart already.
People should know also identity theft is the use of someones personal ( name, date of birth, ‘SSN’ or Drivers License number ) details, to defraud them or companies of money, goods or services.
However, if someone just obtains your credit card number or internet banking login it’s usually called ‘Access Device Fraud’, read the law.
Fraud is a very diverse crime/field of work.
Suspect everything. Build a network of trusted people/companies to do business with and do business with them only. Take advantage of the fact you are covered by banks ( in most countries ) with Zero Liability for fraudelent charges, if you’re credit card data has been compromised and somebody else has used it.
There is no such thing as security.
Security is nothing more then a feeling of being safe, it’s an evolved (result?) human emotion, stemming from social conditioning (imho).
Anyone who operates a computer and wants to be safe from ‘ID theft’, remember this:
THE WEAKNESS IS ALWAYS THE USER
THE WEAKNESS IS ALWAYS THE USER
Such a well written post.. Thnkx for sharing this post!
The police don’t have the resources to keep up with the epidemic. There’s thousands of people out there just like this guy, who isn’t me.
It’s an industry. The hackers hide behind VPNs and infected ‘zombie’ computers, anyone can be a zombie, it’s just a Port-Redirect or Socks proxy opened up on your infected computer. You can chain proxies too ( make it go thru multiple – bouncing – hosts )
In this industry business is conducted online, and people are just getting better and better at this.
Someone who isn’t me makes at least 20K a week, from phishing internet banking accounts from naive people; by the sounds of things, these people remind me just like the people posting here, or their parents.
try Brute, 16 Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers and Symbols. Will take you several million years.
OOOOOOOOOO
The white race is the most beautiful, what other race has a pontential to have hundreds of combination of coloured hair from vivid auburn red to nordic blonde and eyes ranging from azure/cyan to dark blue/jade
Unfortunately through inter-racial breeding, all that genetic diversity will be lost and the future humans will have 60% asian features and 30% indian features and 10% black or other and they will all be muslim living under sharia law…
Dont let this happend…
OOOOOOOOOO
Weird?
Someone in chat said WEP your network. WEP is the EASIEST thing to crack in the world. Not sure if they knew what they were talking about.
The only sharing in this house is on the main computer. I won’t share files on my computer.
As for not signing the back of the card, not everyone checks the back of the card. What’s worse, you can sign it in front of them AND they will accept it.
weard?
In mac os x there is an erase feature in Disk Utility that allows you to do a 7 time pass erase like Darik’s Boot and Nuke. It also allows you to do a ridiculous 35 time pass erase as well which i’ve never seen before
the best you can do is overwrite the deleted files with as much random stuff as possible but even then its still possible to get some text or the filename. also shredding files securely on your computer above dod level is illegal (ie gutman) although no-one can tell
cougar
That was dumb.
Do you believe spam emails which say you won a zillion dollars too?
Anyway, this video is rich coming from McAfee- they just screwed up millions of PCs with their dodgy update this week.
Scareware = a major hindrance but can still use your computer.
Bad McAfee update this week = in many cases the computer is stuck in an infinite reboot cycle.
And they talk about how bad it is people are paying for software that screws up their computers.
i have enjoyed reading thank for sharing your story Greeting.
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