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Dumpster-Diving for Your Identity

Posted by michael on from the buy-a-shredder dept.

The NYT magazine has a story titled Dumpster-Diving for Your Identity - the author interviews two convicted identity thieves talking about their methods and successes.

3 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Important add-on by karevoll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Im not saying Im agreeing with the parent post, but if you do, please remember that certain papers must be filed by you for a period of up to 10 years.. so you might want to do what most people in this situation does: buy a small file-safe... othervise you might end up having troubles with the IRS, and we dont want that, do we?

  2. Re:Shredding doesn't offer much protection either. by igrp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Well, in my experience it usually boils down to one, or a combination of, the following:

    • ignorance
    • incomptence
    • liability

    That's one of the reasons the military and (some) government agencies have adopted standarized protocols to deal with this kind of stuff and generally are quick to reprimand those who violate policy.

    Many security problems these days have to do with the fact that people for some reason refuse to apply common sense -- requiring people to wear ID tags at all times and conducting thorough background checks is not going to do any good if you just dispose of confidential documents into some backyard alley dumpster.

  3. College Anyone? by saderax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about idiot colleges who require are not allowed (legally) to request your social security number, but anyone can ask for your "student ID" which is coincidently the same?

    (all sarcasm aside, really what could one do?)