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ID Theft Made Easy
chiagoo writes "You may remember that 70% of the time, people will reveal their passwords for chocolate. Well, at this year's Infosecurity Europe, it was revealed that 92% of the 200 attendees surveyed would gladly trade enough information to steal their identities for a chance to win theater tickets. Social engineering at its best. Why spend time writing bots and rootkits when people will give you what you want for a piece of candy or a ticket to see The Pacifier?"
One man "provided all his information without question, but returned five minutes later asking for it back, as he thought that we could use it to gain access to his online bank account," Sellick recalled. "We gave him back his survey form, but did not provide any evidence of who we were. If we had been fraudsters, he would have been too late."
I refuse to do business with any Lakeville Liquor store in Lakeville, MN because they require a license swipe to verify my birthday. While they claim on a sign on the counter that they respect my privacy what does that really mean? Do the clerks know that those machines can store an XLS spreadsheet of all the information scanned? Do they know if those that own/operate the stores use that information later? Perhaps it's just to CYOA if some question arises from authorities later but how can I be so sure? I can't so I drive the two and a half miles out of my way to get my wine/beer somewhere else that doesn't scan. I make sure to tell the clerks that I buy there because they don't scan. Most don't care but perhaps someone will overhear me.
The manager at the Lakeville store sure did. I asked "are you going to scan that?" and when the clerk said she was I told her I would like my license back and that I was sorry that I couldn't do business with them. The clerk had no problems with it but the manager muttered that I was an "asshole" under his breath. Somehow I'm the asshole for protecting my privacy. If only more people would refuse to hand over their personal information. What happens if someone robbed the liquor store and stole the little scan box along with the register, would you be a bit more concerned then?
How about the gas station that writes down your license plate information when you purchase gas w/o paying at the pump. It's just for their economic safety they say. Do you know how much information you can get on the owner of a car from their license plate? What happens if I go inside, buy a few items, and pay w/my credit card? They now have my CC # and my personal information. That's enough for ID theft as well. I saw the clerk write down my license plate and I asked them for the paper when I left. They were a little confused as to how I knew they did that and they were VERY confused as to why I would want that back. I didn't feel the need to educate them on it though.
Even I am not immune to this sort of scamming for info. While out drinking with friends (drunk actually) I was approached by an attractive female working for Marlboro. She would give me cheap cigarette coupons and a free Zippo lighter if I let them give me a survey. Drunk, distracted, and clueless, I swiped my license and took the survey. I have been getting coupons and various "gifts" in the mail since. I could have been completely duped by these people and not had a single clue. Luckily they were who they said they were and I'm not seeing any miscellaneous charges being rung up by any cigarette companies trying to cover their lawsuits with my money. Anyone (no matter how careful) can be owned. By the way - I don't even smoke cigarettes.
So, just because we know a company (or its representatives) we should not trust them with our personal information and the more people that are willing to trade over their private/personal information for a bottle of wine, a 12 pack of cheap beer, or a free Zippo might want to think twice.
it was revealed that 92% of the 200 attendees surveyed would gladly trade enough information to steal their identities for a chance to win theater tickets.
Yeah it is cool to think that 92% of the people you have enough info to steal their identity. But lets put theory to practice and see how much of the 92% gave real information.
For me any form online I was born in 1900. My zip code is 12345, usually 666 Elm street, Amityville, NY. Phone number is 1-800-328-7448 and call anytime. I would make of 250,000+ or anything thing they have in the list that is higher. My occupation is the first drop down. Oh and my email address is who you are @mailinater.com. If the site looks up the information than I just go the governors web site and copy that info and use that. So I bet if you run a web site and you found that one than you probably could cross reference that info back to me and I would only say good job.
So I speculate that the 92% you have data from that you'll have 25% techices that give you 100% BS. It will occur to the general population once more and more people get burned to keep quiet.
Do the clerks know that those machines can store an XLS spreadsheet of all the information scanned? Do they know if those that own/operate the stores use that information later?
Nightclubs do that. When they scan your license, it stores your name/address/birthday for a mailing list. Big events are a mass mailing...and birthdays get you a "get in for free" pass.
I entered my friend's e-mail in hotmail, and clicked the forgotten password button. It gave me his secret question, and from there I simply asked him it. Its a secret question! Ack.
Whenever I have spare time I go out of my way to answer surveys like these with bogus data. Like they say "It'll only take a couple of minutes of your time Sir!"
I consider it an important and useful civic act to poison the noosphere with false data in order to throw off the pundits, pollsters, advertisers and fraudsters.
Being in the telemarketing industry, I can whole heartedly confirm the stupidity of most people. Hell, I can get someone's credit card, shipping address, and telephone number, and then they ask "oh, what was this product again??"
Flash some useless piece of shit on TV, get Chuck Norris to pretend like he uses it, and people will fall all over themselves to give you all their personal information. I bet I could even ask for their SSN on a Super Duper Blender call and they would cough it up.
Slashdot sucks
The last few times I've used short-term parking at the LAX airport, I've been asked to pull forward so their camera can get my license plate in view, and I notice they record it in a log. Every time this happens, I question why they do it and their response is "for security." I don't understand how their recording of my license plate increases security. Nowadays, any question you ask at an airport is answered with "it's for security purposes" or "increased security."
I understand that you can write down any license plate number in a parking lot or on the road and you can easily track people that way. I just didn't like the way they told me my plate number was logged for security. One time when I asked and pressed for a better answer I was given something more realistic. I was told that people frequently try to cheat the parking garage by getting a new ticket just before they leave. (park for a week, get a new ticket 10 minutes before you exit and pay $2.00). They occasionally run audits and record license plates during the night to track who is parked in their lot. Upon exiting, if your plate is logged in the system as "parked" and you have a 10 minute old ticket, it raises a red flag.
Of course, I'm sure there are ways that an electronic log of me being parked at the airport for a week could possibly be used against me.
While out drinking with friends (drunk actually) I was approached by an attractive female working for Marlboro. She would give me cheap cigarette coupons and a free Zippo lighter if I let them give me a survey. Drunk, distracted, and clueless, I swiped my license and took the survey.
I've done the same thing before. I wanted the free Zippo to give to my brother. They were walking around with a portable device that scanned the license and accepted the signature electronically. If you read the line where you sign, it says "I CERTIFY THAT I AM A SMOKER 21 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER". I'm not a smoker, but I signed anyway to get the freebie. I always wonder if insurance companies could get their hands on that info and use it against people. Fortunately for me, the address on my license is incorrect, so no junk mail for me.
My credit card company offered this very protection.
They included a preprinted check with my name on it for $5 ready for cashing. Pre-perforated and everything.
Way deep in the very small print on the back was the line that if I actually did cash this check, then I would be agreeing to have $69.95 automatically billed to my credit card each year for 'identity theft protection'.
Before this scam they sent me checks already made out to 'CASH' with my name and card number already preprinted on it. All I had to do was sign my name on the back and fill in the amount.
I'm sure glad my sleazy meth-shooting junkie neighbors didn't find that one in my mailbox.
I wish that I could get all this nitwit chickenshit from the credit card companies to stop. I'd cancel the card, but I need it maybe once a year for car and hotel rentals.
Citi Corp. must make a ton of money off the American yahoos with all these schemes. Maybe even enough to cover the interest on all their bad loans to third world dictators enabling them to keep the Bongo Congo Mercedes dealership fat and happy.
The way I see it, this is not a sign that people need to be taught not reveal details about their personal life to allow identity theft, but that the standards for allowing new/changed credit and other profitable (including non-monetary) benefits from identity theft should include identifiers that people will not normally give away without realizing it's significance.
Biometrics are a good example, but even that does not go far enough.
How about a video clip where the person says something like "I explicitly authorize the following change to my personal credit/identity profile; Please add a $2453 credit line for ABC appliances to purchase a new washer/drier". This and every other change could be stored with the credit/identity profile. It could be done with a simple mic/webcam and some database extensions.
Birth certificates could include DNA data and/or DNA hashes and new credit/identity profiles could require checking that and recording of a baseline "I Bob Jones authorize the creation of a new credit profile".
New changes to that profile could be checked against past photos / voice prints anytime a change is requested. Impersonators would have to look and sound very much the person being imitated.
This would be A very strong standard to block fraud indeed.
Legislation would be required to prevent the misuse of this kind of DNA data and the accepting of new credit/identity changes without it.
In Summary: Its not the users who are broken, its the system that does not take into account their likely behaviour and provide cost effective technical solutions to the weaknesses of that behaviour.
Its not users who are broken, it's systems not taking account their likely behaviour and fixing it technically.
It won't really work, because there are too many who just don't care, till something really happens to them. Most of the users who give their real address (as someone mentioned above) are the ones who use internet for basic stuff, like reading their email and maybe some news. Definatly not /.
You can try to explain to someone that you shouldn't use IE because it is dangerous, even people who haven't used a PC in their life, but it still won't work, they just don't see how it matters.
heh reminds me, the easiest way to get into people's email accounts is to ask them their "secret question". I know this from an article I read not from experience....
Signatures are so 90s
Interesting you should mention the CC companies' push for fraud protection. In the last few weeks my wife has received two offers from one of her CC companies. They basically want to pay you $10 for signing up for the fraud protection. You know the deal, "cash this check and we'll activate the protection. You can cancel at any time, yadda yadda yadda"
Now here's the important part. The check is made out to "Wife's Name or Bearer". That's right. "Or Bearer" which means that anyone who happened to come upon that check could cash it, automatically starting a monthly charge on her CC without her knowledge. Yeah that's the way to protect her card from fraudulent charges. Way to go!
Needless to say, we are complaining to them and closing the account with that company.
Ender-
Nothing to see here
The other day I went to see the movie and there was that stand in the middle of theater offering some credit card (I think citibank). 2-3 young females were approaching people asking to write an application where you should fill in your SSN. When I refused to give them my ssn and asked for some credentials other then name tags they were literally shocked. So was I...