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Forget Phishing Just Buy Personal Info
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?"
Nothing like fishing eh
They've been doing this for years in other countries. What most people don't realise is that most of these stories you hear about personal information/security breaches (Lexis Nexis, etc etc etc) usually goes to thugs like this.
These thugs sell this information to people in the black market. This isn't new stuff neither, the news just seems to hover on this and "identity theft" a lot recently. It's been happening since the 80's.
A better question is, how much of this information is real?
A massive flood of fake information would dilute the value of stolen i.d. right?
you need your social, call me 555-5555
But, I thought information wants to be free?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Doesn't it scare all of you that this has been happening for so long already? I'm not saying there is much we can do about it, but it's still scary.
Now think about the databases the FBI and the airport security are keeping about you. Not only that but also the ones K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target, Giant(foods), and other stores. It shouldn't be too hard to be you. Just find out your address, and jump on Google maps. Find the nearest stores to you. With your name and address find out your shopping history. And expand from there.
And you thought with all the political speech out there that you might actually be safe in the USA. I'll be happy being Anonymous, until I choose to be known.
Sell a man a phish he can scam for a day, but teach him how to phish and he can scam for himself for a lifetime.
And it's not like these lists ever get refreshed much, so what you end up with is increasingly less useful data in these lists, and the vendors don't even care about it. It's just the nature of the beast (and the overall state of former Russia, where anything goes).
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
The question is, how much of this information is being sold in other countries, perhaps in a more sophisticated manner?
All of it, of course. Sooner or later we're going to have to get used to the idea that the concept of preserving privacy as a society disproportionately benefits individuals and groups with the resources to acquire and disseminate information regardless of the obstacles in their way.
It's too late to save privacy as most people currently envision it. What we need to be doing as a society is focus on transparency and equality-- ensuring that all parties in the social contract stand on an equal footing with regard to what information is publicly available. Secrecy is most dangerous when the powers that be insist that it be one-sided...
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
I think this has always been around, but with the proliferation of the digital era, it becomes easier to make a thousand copies of something.
Look at medical records, it used to take a few minutes while they looked for your chart. At the medical clinic I currently go to they can locate you instantly. When you go into the doctor's office, he has your information on-screen. If something like a patient's chart goes missing, there's physical evidence that it's gone. But if a computer is poorly secured, you may not ever realized it was compromised.
What really bothers me is who is purchasing this information. My medical records would be pretty harmless to most people, but what if a coworker with a grudge were to find out about a deadly allergy I have? There's always that scary potential you don't necessarily think about. What if a terrorist uses your identity to get into the country and commit nefarious deeds? Could you be imprisoned while they go free?
What is going on in Russia IS a little scary, but is it really any different that buying the same information from one the businesses operating in the US like choicepoint? The government and industry buys information from HUGE databases legally here in the united states, but for some reason people make it seem scarier when it is a Russian kiosk instead of an american corporation even though both exercise about the same amount of restraint and ethics concerning to whom they will sell information.
The rule of thumb is: Do not worry about the means of transport, but the destination.
In other words - don't worry if the encryption used to send the data is 128 bit or 1024. No one will bother try to sniff'n'hack it anyways. Worry about whom you're giving your info to. Sure - they may have cheap DVD's, but in order to sell you cheap goods, they must save money in other areas. Security is (sadly) one of the first things to go.
Underholdning.info
In every major Russian city you can obtain almost for free a database with phone numbers(including cell), addresses, car registry and pasports for all citizens of this city.
Even more, it's hard to find a PC in my own city that doesn't have a "Megapolice" database, which contains all above information accessible throught a single easy-to-use interface.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
...at least corruption was organized. I'm afraid nowadays Russia is just a big mess. You can't expect anything else.
Anyway, I guess that these days you better have nothing to hide.
Sorry to hear about your shift key.
... three periods. You only need one! ;)
Also, I like how you can't put a period after "St." but can end every sentence with
My other car is first.
Forget grammar just stick words together see like this isn't that easy
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...
I've given a lot of thought to the subject lately, and really, I've decided I don't care much. In fact, I honestly believe that anyone who stole my identity would after a quick perusal of what they've stolen feel guilty and probably credit me a couple of hundred bucks or so.
Hey, you can't steal what isn't there, and my credit is already wrecked beyond belief. You'd have to be a pretty desperate scammer to steal my identity.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
NO, NO, NO, it's
In Soviet Russia you buy your own information.
Equifax
Transunion
Experian
Unless you consider once a year access acceptable. Your credit report free. But that's only once a year.
Who's information is it anyway?
Live in the woods in a shack, no computer, no TV, no stereo, just you, the chickens, the cows, your banjo, and Deliverance. Que creepy hillbilly guitar riff.
By now you should have guessed...I'm your magic negro.
A few years ago in Israel a CDROM started circulating with information about more-or-less the entire population. The database was probably leaked from the Ministry of Interior. It was originally used by a private investigations firm but a copy leaked and started circulating freely.
IMHO, once it's out there it's everyone's civil duty to get a copy, just to level the playing field.
You're right. There's definately cause for concern - there are now so many weak spots in the system. A lot of people with access to these important databases are making less than $10/hr. If you find the right person, $15,000 would get you whatever information or passwords you need - or worse, making changes in records or deleting information.
It happens too with corporate espionage. Somebody at the help desk might be convinced to hand over the CEO's email account password to a competitor. If I've got $15,000 and find the right person, can I get your name on a terrorist watch list?
The easiest way to buy personal information here in the U.S. is to set up a fake company, then request the desired information from one of the major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, or ChoicePoint. Back in February ChoicePoint admitted to releasing the information on at least 145,000 consumers to fake companies.
In the UK I've had the ... pleasure (?) ... of knowing some exceedingly dodgy people with very good technical skills. This information has been available to criminals with the requistite amount of cash as long as hackers (sorry crackers) decided they could make a fast buck doing companies rather than pootling around insecure university networks.
Nothing new here and it certianly isn't limited to dodgy stalls in Moscow markets or corrupt outsourced callcentre employees.
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
I completely thought the title of the parent was leading up into a "In Soviet Russia, information phishes you!
...but there aren't enough moderation points available in the /. system to stave off the flow of bad "In Soviet Russia..." _AND_ "PROFIT!" jokes that are going to flood in from this one.
;)
If you think you have a good one, please save someone a mod point by keeping it to yourself, because if it isn't already redundant, it soon will be.
This message brought to you by the Moderator Points Association of America (MPAA) *ducks*
--
I'm commenting on this story to prevent myself from burning moderator points on useless comments like this one
Don't put, commas in your sentences.
:P
That, you could say, brings on the grammar Nazis
Though this is only alluded to in the article, one of the greatest dangers is using information like this as an ransom hit-list. If you could abduct the kids of the ten richest people in Moscow, odds are at least one of them would pay up...
Things like that are depressingly common in some parts of the world.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
that they haven't scammed detail from places like say, the NYTimes subsriber database. "Mr A Butthole, Kansas" and "Phil McCrackin, Washington" might find unwanted junk mail winging their way towards them.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Information just wants to be free!!!
The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers
$100 (even Canadian) per CD is a worthy amount of money in Russia or other second/third world countries where back-office operations have been off-shored to. This problem is only going to keep growing at these price levels.
The point here is that there is very strong incentive to provide accurate data at these price levels, competition being what it will be.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
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. 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.
Speak truth to power.
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...
Hell, you can buy your wife while in Russia. I would expect to be able to buy just the info on other people's wifes.
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GNU is not about information, it's about code, it's the Free _Software_ Foundation that's behind it, not the Free _Info_ foundation or whatever.
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.
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.
My other OS is the MCP!