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Forget Phishing Just Buy Personal Info

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-are-you-today dept.

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?"

2 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. India by romit_icarus · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's being sold in India. I've met "vendors" who do the round of direct marketing agencies peddling CDs for information. The last I checked, about a year ago, a data CD came for 10c/record...

  2. Old trick with new methods by Peyote+Pekka · · Score: 4, Informative
    The difference is that since the 80's it is much easier. Personal data on Windows servers has made getting personal data that much easier. Doing that and connecting it to the Internet is just asking for a gross- or willful-negligence lawsuit. Take the case of the recent Mastercard incident: (sorry, link in Finnish)

    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...