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Five Men Arrested in LexisNexis Data Theft
An anonymous reader writes "Five men aged 19-24 were arrested last week in connection with the reported theft last year of some 310,000 personal records from database giant LexisNexis. The Washington Post reports that some of the individuals were also involved in the theft and online posting of revealing photos from socialite Paris Hilton's cell phone. All are being charged with 'aggravated identity theft,' which carries a mandatory 2-year jail sentence for those found guilty."
Sad to say, which brought about the investigation. 31000 peoples personal data or Paris Hilton's contact list. Unfortunately, it was probably the latter.
They used Police 'credentials' to access Accurint, which is a subsidary of Lexis-Nexis.
The aggrivating factor, was that he used that account to create other accounts "which he then allegedly shared with the other co-defendants."
It doesn't matter what they used the information for. They are pwn3d.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This is not about privacy, but about information, which, in the prevailing Slashdot opinion, "wants to be free".
So I'm surprised, no one is outraged at LexisNexis collecting (and selling) these data in the first place.
The thieves are thieves, of course, and LexisNexis is not doing anything illegal, but sympathy for them is something, I just can't master...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
For the younger crowd...
If you live in an apartment complex managed by a corporation and you live in a county with fast-track eviction, like Orange and Los Angeles and many others..you probably already know you have to pay by the 4th or you get a 3-day notice to pay or quit and a $50-$100 fine. On the 10th, their accounting person pushes a button and all of the accounts that haven't paid --in certified funds-- get FAXed to an attorney chop-shop that immediately adds a $300 fee and a couple days later files an Unlawful Detainer action against you. That filing immediately goes on your LexisNexis report --forever and ever. It never comes off. Not in 10 years, not in 50 years. Even when your bank finally clears your deposit and you come walking into your landlord's office on the 11th and say "here's your rent, $100 fine and $300 attorney's fee", the landlord picks up the phone, taps an auto-dial button and declares "this is Bee at the Pink Taco Apartments, we have a pay-n-stay on unit #3920...yeah, that's right, ok thanks." --your life is still ruined. No, LexisNexis is not used to grant credit. No the attempted eviction will never hit your credit report. But the first and subsequent time someone is thinking about filing a lawsuit or counter-suit against you, for example during a car accident, or during a dispute about a real estate commission when you go to buy a house, or some technical work you've delivered working as a contractor, or maybe a prior employer investigating a theft that occured around the time you left --they all get your LexisNexis report, which is linked together by your current and previous addresses. They see a couple of Unlawful Detainer lawsuits and they don't even bother checking to see they were withdrawn a few days after being filed --they just think, you're a broke-ass trailer-trash bustout and if their lawsuit is more strategically motivated than financially motivated (for example, suing you before you sue them), they open up on your but where they otherwise might not. The public record is what it is, but there is no g'damned reason for LexisNexis to show dismissed Unlawful Detainer lawsuits on people's reports for 10, 15 even 40 (entire commercially productive lifetime) years.
Only a two year jail sentence? That seems extremely light, considering that once you have your identity stolen, it can easily take over two years to put everything back in order
Well, first, a victim of ID theft doesn't spend two years of straight time fixing the problem. There's a difference between two years of dealing with bureacracy for a few hours a week and two years of your life spent in a prison cell. I'm not making light of ID theft, I was a victim of it myself and it was certainly a bitch to deal with... But hell, I'd take eight years of doing what you have to do to get everything back in order over eight months of prison time. Prison really, really sucks.
So two years doesn't sound that harsh to me. These guys are not violent criminals. They aren't gang members and will not be at the top of the prison food chain. Those two years will not exactly fly by, and being 19-24 they will lose some of what should have been the best years of their lives. When they get out they will be felons and will lose many rights (including foreign travel), and will have to check in with parole officers, and will find it much harder to find work and a decent place to live. They may even be prevented from using a computer for a period of time. I think losing two years of your life would deter most from d