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Portrait of an Identity Thief
Ant writes to tell us that the New York Times has a closer look and an interview with an identity theft addict. From the article: "As far back as 2002, Mr. Sharma began picking the locks on consumer credit lines using a computer, the Internet and a deep understanding of online commerce, Internet security and simple human nature, obtained through years of trading insights with like-minded thieves in online forums. And he deployed the now-common rods and reels of data theft -- e-mail solicitations and phony Web sites -- that fleece the unwitting."
The reason most people don't do it is because they're honest and want to help out the human race instead of being a drain on society.
God spoke to me.
That is what worries Mr. Sharma's wife, Damaris, 21, who has no time for the Internet as she raises the couple's 1-year-old daughter, Bellamarie.
"I hate computers," she said. "I think they're the devil."
Sorry. I just thought that was funny, and had to post it.
Gamertag: WyleType
n/t
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Can anyone say... script kiddie?
The guy is clearly dumb as a rock. Who the hell takes a stolen credit card, buys stuff with it, and then has the stuff delivered to his doorstep???!!? I don't know jack about stealing identities, but this guy's MO is just plain stoopid.
Trust the mainstream media to make him sound like some kind of twisted, tortured genius.
The name and profile probably fit some unknowing retired auto worker in Cleveland. The master identity thief has pulled yet another one.
Where were you when the voynix came?
What's this "identity theft addict" balonium? Do you call bank robbers "bank robbing addicts"? All bad behavior is not addiction. The guy is a lowlife crook who found an easy way to make money and kept coming back to it, plain and simple.
Viper is the preferred editor of the Emacs operating system.
The banking industry as well as Congress and just about every commerce site out there is just drooling to get their hands on a REAL identity thief. The "example" they make of them should be grand! I can just see it....Nothing left but a smoking boot!
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Did anyone else find this guys total lack of remorse in his actions a little...well...wrong!
Not to mention this quote
which implies that if it wasn't hard to get back in to he might consider it.
What an ass!
Anonymity of the internet is responsible for the views expressed in my post.
Are we offshoring identity theft to India too?
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
My only question is, why isn't he dead yet?
Fraud |= theft. In plain English, fraud does not equal theft.
It's the same as the copyright argument. You cannot steal someone's identity. You can use it frauduantly. You can pose as someone you are not. You can give false witness. But identity fraud ISN'T!
Libertas in infinitum
Thieves make me sick. I'm sure that most people don't have much love for them either, but this piece of crap wants someone to believe that it's an addiction that he might 'relapse' back into after prison. It's not an addiction, it's a crime with no excuse to justify it. You have no right to something that is not yours or that you did not earn and to try and pass your stealing off as an addiction is simply not taking responsibility. Sharma and his kind are worthless parasites on society.
...is with the absence of any sense of responsibility for the consequences.
"It's an addiction, no doubt about that," said Mr. Sharma
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Not trying to defend these thieves but:
All it takes is common sense to know that clicking a link in an email is a no-no. Also, any site that asks for all the information these sites are asking for IN ONE PLACE is a big red flag. No site, not even a banking site, is going to ask you for your DOB, SSN, mother's maiden name, credit card PINs, etc all on the same page. People really should listen to their gut instinct when the red flags go up....
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
They get paid no matter what.
The only people who suffer are the retailers who sold the stuff and who now get hit with a chargeback so they're out the money AND the product
And the guy who got his number stolen.
If the banks had to pay even 10% of the annual loss due to fraud, they'd be clamping down on EVERYTHING you did with your credit cards.
Congress will like it because it gives them something that they can claim they are doing something about. But, in the end, they'll do nothing.
It all comes down to WHO has to pay for these crimes. And the banks have made sure that it won't be them.
Did your daddy fondle you when mom was shopping?? Christ..Relax troll//
On the whole, we seem to be slowly moving from a "govern thyself" to a "If no-ones watching, why not?" frame of mind.
I wonder if this is almost being encouraged by the powers that be as it fosters a feeling that it's ok for them to be watching because I no longer expect the others around me to be governing their own behavior...
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
People really should listen to their gut instinct when the red flags go up....
Look it up in your gut
Unfortunatly, most people's gut instinct is "OOO! Money!!" Greed and selfishness are the basest of all human vices, especially in a capitalist society. As long as people want a quick buck, people will be getting ripped off.
True, but check TFA. The email scam referred to was only one of his early efforts. His later (and more lucrative) scams involved buying numbers and doing direct financial transfers from those accounts. One of my accounts had something similar happen to it. It was only due to the fact that the individual responsible had used two smaller charges the previous day, and it happend to be the day that I was paying bills and saw the two fradulent charges during an online reconciliation that I discovered it and was able to cancel the transfer. I'm starting to think that the entire credit card system is broken. It is just far too easy to obtain stolen numbers, and far to easy to negotiate into goods or (as above) cash. That cards can still be used for wire transfers absolutely boggles my mind. Unfortunately, I don't know of any better system. Right now I use "disposable" numbers as often as I can when doing ecommerce. They minimize (but do not elminate) the risk, but they can't be used for recurring charges, and relatively few card issuers. I'm thinking that the penalities here are too light. This guy was involved in grand larceny, easily more than $200k. Why only a couple of years? Small time drug dealers (an offense with far less of a victim) get many times that penality. When the takings are so lucrative, the chances of being caught low, and the penalities light, its no wonder this is such a fast growing crime. Why perform an armed bank robccbery (average take, about $4,000 per the FBI) and get 20 years if you get caught when credit card fraud ($10k per theft) only will get you 2? And did you notice that some of his biggest takes were when he was under indictment and out on bail? WTF?
could you put another metaphor or two in the summary so that its really spelled out...
I forgot he did that skit...lol...
"Colbert Report: Truthiness Anyone can read the news to you. Stephen promises to feel the news at you."
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
The problem is, is that many people don't have a gut instinct about this kind of situation. There's 2 kinds of gut instincts that people can get. 1 is built in by evolution. After millions of years, the human body is wired to react certain ways to certain stimuli. This is stuff like being scared when you are approached by a tiger. The second kind is that built from prior experiences in your lifetime. If you grow up with no exposure to computers, a web site that asks for all this information may very well seem like a valid site. Why not, you get letters in the mail offering you credit cards, where they ask your DOB, SSN, Mother's Maiden Name, Other Credit Card Numbers, and all in the same application. Why wouldn't a web site be able to ask for the same information.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Even for wire-transfers with a credit card. Simply have the bank call the phone numbers they have on record for you and have you press a button sequence to authorize the purchase or wire-transfer.
... and re-route the phone system.
... but the more steps that it takes, the more likely it is that the thief will fail to complete it. And the easier it will be to track him. Although it can't get much easier than tracking this punk. He gave them his address to deliver his stolen purchases to.
The banks already have the systems to do automated calling.
The banks already have your phone numbers. And your mailing address.
Now the thief has to steal your credit card numbers
Or steal the numbers and fake your ID and go to a bank branch and change the phone numbers.
All of that is possible for a thief to do
But doing that would move the risk and costs to the banks. They prefer it the way it currently is because the banks aren't losing money on these fraud cases.
There probably are bank robbers who are addicted to what they do. The concept of "addiction" is just a model for understanding destructive behavior. It's not an attempt to excuse it. In fact, the opposite is true: people who are fighting addiction, and the people who help them (often addicts themselves) will tell you that the worst thing you can do for an addict is overlook his or her misdeeds.
Stories like this really irk me, and show how the industry wants to make the notion of identity theft much scarier than it really is. This is an example of an "identity thief?" This moron used stolen credit cards and shipped the crap to his parents' house where he lived. He's an idiot. Other people with common sense wouldn't do stupid shit like what he was doing. There's no skill involved in what he did. Any waiter or someone who handles credit cards on a daily basis could do the same thing, but they don't because they're not idiots like this guy.
In the end, anybody he ripped off probably didn't have to pay, so it was the merchants that got screwed if anybody, and this is becoming harder and harder to pull off.
If there's one thing this article does point out, it's that if the feds really want to stop identity theft damages, they'd shut down Western Union. That money transfer service pretty much solely exists now to play a party to scams of this nature.
Why only a couple of years? Small time drug dealers (an offense with far less of a victim) get many times that penality. When the takings are so lucrative, the chances of being caught low, and the penalities light, its no wonder this is such a fast growing crime. Why perform an armed bank robccbery (average take, about $4,000 per the FBI) and get 20 years if you get caught when credit card fraud ($10k per theft) only will get you 2.
First of all, they haven't started a war on identity theft yet, so until they do, drugs is the trump card. There is nothing worse than drugs, because there is a war against it. Well, there's terrorism, but there's a war against that too. Really, depending on the level of you drug dealing, it can be just as bad as terrorism in terms of repercussions. And second of all, being armed is also a trump card. You have the right to bear arms, but you'd better not use those arms to commit a crime. Anything armed automatically quadruples your sentence. If you can manage to rob a bank unarmed, then you'll probably only get 2 years.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
/begin sarcasm
/end sarcasm
1) This guy is clearly a scum bag, and worst, he is probably in the lower 5% in terms of intelligence amongst his theiving peers as he got caught. But, he has "Hollywood good looks", an "Addiction" and couldn't help himself according to TF interview. Instead of being demonized, he is portrayed as just your average guy who made some wrong decisions. He is just a moron that CHOSE to cheat his way into money, and failed. How is this even news worthy?
2) Everyone has an addiction. I am addicted to browsing the web at night and probably caffeine. That is not an excuse to do something that is morally and ethically wrong. Nor does it excuse the self-righteous way he presents himself. If you do something wrong, just take responsibility and say "Sorry. I made a mistake. I won't do it again". Blowing a one-line apology to a four-page article is crappy sensationalist journalism.
3) "He enjoyed chatting on AOL". This pisses me off.
Now excuse me while I go make a wrong decision and drive my car into some pedestrians. See, I am addicted to hitting people, ever since I played all those violent video games, like Grand Theft Auto. I can be contacted at "Ruins.Is@Moron.org" by the media if they wish to interview me.
Berserk Manga > All
As I posted in another related story, if you ever suspect (or know) you've been the victim of Identity Theft, here's what to do:
Contact the credit agency of your choice to put a fraud watch on your file. The agency you contact will notify the other two for you.
Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Experian: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
Its also a good idea to call 1-888-5OPTOUT to prevent banks, insurance companies, and those pesky fakers (remember the ChoicePoint fiasco) from getting ahold of your credit report. All 3 agencies use that same number for the opt out process. That should significantly cut down on those pre-approved credit card offers you get in the mail that can be stolen and used in your name as well.
And for the Active Duty members in the crowd that happen to be TDY, you should consider getting an Active Duty military alert placed in your name in addition to a fraud alert. You can never be too safe when it comes to preventing ID theft. However, no matter what you do there's still no guarantee you won't fall victim to the random oddity that can occur (such as a bartender swiping your card # and going nuts on Amazon).
For more info on how to minimize the risks of ID theft, or how to recover from it, check out the FTC's website at www.ftc.gov/idtheft
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Do you mean to imply that people are blind and deaf about identity theft with as much press as it has been getting? I know the American attention span is about that of a retarded gnat, but I didn't think it was so short as to be non-existant. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when you are being scammed INCLUDING those credit card offers....
B.
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You have the right to bear arms, but you'd better not use those arms to commit a crime. Anything armed automatically quadruples your sentence. If you can manage to rob a bank unarmed, then you'll probably only get 2 years.
If the people you are robbing believe that you're armed, you have just committed armed robbery. Even if you have no weapon.
People who use plastic guns or a banana in the pocket are armed robbers.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Merriam Websters defines theft as: "the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it"
When you use someone else's identity in a fraudulent manner, the original person STILL HAS THEIR IDENTITY!!! It is NOT THEFT, because you have not taken anything from them, they are deprived of nothing (except maybe some abstract type of sovereign individualism). But you are using their identity, and so are they!
I think the fundamental issue here is that information, once in the open, logically belongs to no one nor can it really be 'possessed'.
Libertas in infinitum
Oh come on! Do you seriously think that that's his real name?
--MarkusQ
There's nothing wrong with this piece of human trash that a baseball bat couldn't fix.
TFA in case anyone else is having trouble with access:
July 4, 2006
Stolen Lives
Identity Thief Finds Easy Money Hard to Resist
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
By the time of Shiva Brent Sharma's third arrest for identity theft, at the age of 20, he had taken in well over $150,000 in cash and merchandise in his brief career. After a certain point, investigators stopped counting.
The biggest money was coming in at the end, postal inspectors said, after Mr. Sharma had figured out how to buy access to stolen credit card accounts online, change the cardholder information and reliably wire money to himself -- sometimes using false identities for which he had created pristine driver's licenses.
But Mr. Sharma, now 22, says he never really kept track of his earnings.
"I don't know how much I made altogether, but the most I ever made in a quick period was like $20,000 in a day and a half or something," he said, sitting in the empty meeting hall at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y., where he is serving a two- to four-year term. "Working like three hours today, three hours tomorrow -- $20,000."
And once he knew what he was doing, it was all too easy.
"It's an addiction, no doubt about that," said Mr. Sharma, who inflected his words with the sort of street cadence adopted by smart kids trying to be cool. "I get scared that when I get out, I might have a problem and relapse because it would be so easy to take $300 and turn it into several thousand."
That ease accounts for the sizable ranks of identity-fraud victims, whose acquaintance with the crime often begins with unexplained credit card charges, a drained bank account or worse. The victims' tales have become alarmingly familiar, but usually lack a protagonist -- the perpetrator. Mr. Sharma's account of his own exploits provides the missing piece: an insight into both the tools and the motivation of a persistent thief.
Identity theft can, of course, have its origins in a pilfered wallet or an emptied mailbox. But for computer-savvy thieves like Mr. Sharma, the Internet has forged new conduits for the crime, both as a means of stealing identity and account information and as the place to use it.
The Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have invested millions of dollars in monitoring Internet sites where thousands of users from around the world congregate to swap tips about identity theft and to buy and sell personal data. Mr. Sharma frequented such sites from their earliest days, and the techniques he learned there have become textbook-variety scams.
"Shiva Sharma was probably one of the first, and he was certainly one of the first to get caught," said Diane M. Peress, a former Queens County prosecutor who handled all three of Mr. Sharma's cases and who is now the chief of economic crimes with the Nassau County district attorney's office. "But the kinds of methods that he used are being used all the time."
As far back as 2002, Mr. Sharma began picking the locks on consumer credit lines using a computer, the Internet and a deep understanding of online commerce, Internet security and simple human nature, obtained through years of trading insights with like-minded thieves in online forums. And he deployed the now-common rods and reels of data theft -- e-mail solicitations and phony Web sites -- that fleece the unwitting.
Much of this unfolded from the basement of a middle-class family home in Richmond Hill, Queens, at the hands of a high school student with a knack for problem solving and an inability, even after multiple arrests, to resist the challenge of making a scheme pay off.
That is what worries Mr. Sharma's wife, Damaris, 21, who has no time for the Internet as she raises the couple's 1-year-old daughter, Bellamarie.
"I hate computers," she said. "I think they're the devil."
A Thief's Tool Kit
Mr. Sharma is soft-spoken, but he does not shrink from the spotlight. He gained fleeting attention after his first arrest, as the first person
Here's another portrait of what I imagine an identity thief would look like.
-William Brendel
...are the names of those Atheist charities?
girlfriend.......Right!
As a European I still found amazing that you can "steal" someone else's identity by just getting his name and a social security number...
:) And knows what? Normal payment cards are more secure because we use a Chip and a PIN code so you can't duplicate the magnetic stripe in 15 seconds...
:)
In Europe, if you want to open a bank account, apply for a credit card, or any other credit you MUST show your ID in person (you know those ID cards that scare you...). The only thing that's really insecure are credit cards, but payments with your mere number over 100 euros are reimbursed if there's a fraud, which is quite easy to prove when the delivery address is not yours
Ok it's not perfect, but you'll never hear about someone getting strip of his money because he gave his name and a funny number to someone. Good old Europe
Poor little addict - and a pock marked one at that.
But really. The only realistic soultion is to put these guys under a strict regime - like for Kevin Mitnick - and then really watch him.
End
1260 divided by the weight of the problem equals the length of the solution.
Clearly this guy is a criminal mastermind. Not to mention VALEDICTORIAN of his class at Rikers State Pen. How many of you people were your class' valedictorian. He could probably get a full scholarship at NYU with the big V and that addiction sob story. Hah!
Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just glad to rob me?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It ain't pretty? It doesn't seem so horrible.
Think about it -- if most people actually enjoyed living in a dog-eat-dog world, that is exactly how we would all be living. Sure, we all have urges to take the shortcut to success by just taking what that other guy already has. But we hate being "that other guy" so much that it pushes things back in a sane direction.
Are you sure those are actually atheist, espousing a belief that there is no god, and not just non-religious?
"Addict" is not what you call someone who commits crimes repeatedly. Appropriate terms are "recidivist", "repeat offender", and hopefully some day, "lifer."
I am bloody tired of people tossing off a word like "addict" to describe someone who's just a goddamned crook.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm from EU. I don't understand how this identity theft works.
Can somebody explain what's this all about?
I could post my email address, real name, phone #,bank account # and national id # here,
why should i be worried if i do?
The article appears to have been written by an semi-literate teenager.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Geeze guys, since most of you here are liberal, WTF did you expect? I mean, REALLY?
Today when someone commits a crime, SOME group will get behind them and talk about how they didn't mean to do it, they were young, they were abused, it was racial (that's a biggie), morally equivalent, profiling, blah blah blah. And you buy it. You buy it everyday. You are not outraged. You do not demand personal responsiblity. Just look back over the new from the last 3 months. It's ok to get physical with a cop if your're black and your a congress person. It's ok to take a huge bribe if your black and your congress person (for God's sake, they have him on tape) It's ok to drown your three kids if you don't know it's wrong. It's ok to ignore immigration laws if you're mexican and you're just trying to find a job. It's ok to keep driving drunk until you've killed at least 3 people. Half the world governments still rape and kill but the human rights groups ACTUALLY still point fingers at the US for...OH MY GOD...putting underwear on a persons head.
These are just the front pages - I could go on and on and on. Excuses. Everyone has an excuse. No one is responsible for their actions. And it's just fine with most people - it must be because I see no one getting pissed. There are people making excuses for this worthless human being here. Destroy other peoples lives - they should have kept their identity safer.
We make laws and then think up ways to NOT enforce them. How is that equal protection? What is a hate crime and why is a black/yellow/whatever person's life more valuable than a white person? Think about it - if you are black and kill me (white), you get x number of years. If you are black and I kill you and yell a racial slur while doing it, suddenly I get x times 2...does this make sense? How about killing IS a hate crime. It's assinine to put a class of people above any OTHER class of people at ANYTIME - INCLUDING when dishing out punishment. People claim they want the races equal, but it's not true - each group is looking for a way to put theirs above the others - and good god don't point that out cause then YOU are being racist.
George Carlin said it best: 'Think about how stupid half the people you meet are...then realize that half of them are stupider than that....'
It's actually quite a hard question to answer. We know from our point of view that blowing up a few trains is not a good thing, but from the point of view of the person doing the blowing up why is this so?
The Bhagavad Gita makes very intersting reading on this. It is the story of Arjuna, a general at the start of a battle, asking God whether or not he is right to fight and kill the enemy or whether he should give up now. He asks 'Surely it is better to surrender, even if it means being killed, then commit the crime of killing all these quite respectable people?'
From the first couple of chapters you'd assume that in the oppinion of the author Arjuna is right to fight, but then the remaining chapters add a lot more detail. I've not reached the end yet, and am really intrested to know when I do whether or not it answers the question "How can this not be used to justify terrorist atrocities?". You don't hear of many hindu terrorists which is a good sign.
Even if you filter out the beliefs side - that the Atma (like Soul I suppose) lives on so should not be grieved - you come to some interesting questions.
The world unfortunately needs soldiers.
Soldiers must do their job
How can soldiers do their job free of guilt?
and from there
How do you tell the difference between such a soldier, and some terrorist blowing up lots of innocent people?
I suppose the situation for Arjuna (the soldier in the story) is different. He is in this war and to back out would cause a lot of problems. The terrorists however are not under threat and can back out without such problems. From the chapters I've read so far that is the best solution to the question I've found. I have a suspicion from the synopsis in the translation I'm using that the question isn't actually answered.
Please mod parent Troll -1.
Re: Say someone came to your home, took your face, robbed you of your fingerprints, and any other identifying marks on your person.
You mean with a hobby knife or something? Like the Slitheen? I guess it's possible, but identity fraud using copied personal details sounds less messy.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
"Mama says computers are the devil."
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
> ...Statistics say that here in the US, about 90% of the population describes themselves as
> spiritual. Most religions have some notion of an afterlife of pain or punishment, or
> karmic balance, or some such - i.e. consequences. And virtually anyplace you go in the
> world you'll find some sort of organized police force.
Maybe in the USA. Only in the USA is a person's religion significant. Most European countries, and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, religion plays a very small part in anything from regular life to politics. Comments from a person who had moved from Camada to Texas, interviewed in the Toronto papaer - "you had to pretend to have some religious affiliation just to get the neighbours off your back!" And, oddly enough, the USA has the highest prison incarceration rate, closely followed only by Russia and South Africa.
I suspect that fairness, honesty, a conscience, or empathy - whatever you want to call it - is something most humans have to a certain degree, because we evolved with it, We're social animals so we also look out for the herd. Social pressure can modify that to some degree.
I think that the risk of getting caught is usually a significant deterrent to crimes of greed. Those least affected are those who have little to lose - I like to describe them as "doing 'life' on the installment plan."
The cost of living is high. You would need to steal how much? $50,000 or so a year to live a comfortable lifestyle? $1,000,000 would give you a barely comfortable lifetime pension? How many years can you get away with that volume in today's society? And of course, if you're not stealing money, the problem is fencing it...
.... "identity theft addict?"
What's next: a bank-robbery addict, a rape addict, a murder addict?
For pete's sake, mealy-mouthed media, call it for what it is a crime that ruins the life of its victims.
It looks just like me!!!
A quick bit of advice for those "armed" robbers. If you commit your robberies on a hot summer day, your pocket will get really messy! Especially if your "gun" wasn't green when you got it from the supermarket.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
When one watches a magic show it's easy to see; people pay money to get fooled. Apperently people like to be fooled a bit (people don't seu a magic artist). I think lot's of people behave like a mass, in way cows follow a leader.
:
And that's quite dangerous, there should be a constant allert and investigation of public resources who use the internet. For example how safe is money transfer over the internet?. You think it's safe, as your sure inteligence serivices never cracked a root certificate from for example verisign? (and if they do this who else might do that)
Perhaps it's time to create a seccond internet, one which is not anonymous but registrated by owner by IP (using IP6) it would have some impact sure, but how lang can the internet be a wild west place? Tough good thoughts should be given to privacy, a goverment tracing your data isn't also what people want. Today we pay for the internet, so the current internet is in a way our freedom place and no one realy owns it.
This seccond internet could be funded by banks and various bussiness, who want to asure the creditability of their secured connections with you the consumer. Perhaps more seperated nets will become a reality as
- who want's his six year old kid to be able to watch the current pornbased-internet?
- Perhaps goverments should go on their own on the internet (to protect your privacy).
- Perhaps insurance companies should have their own net toe (to protect your privacy).
Well it's hard to imagine that the internet will noy evolve in about a 50 years to deal with these kind of wild west problems. As for sure we will see quantum computer in this time frame (being able to crack verisign keys in a few secconds...)
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Too many people put give their Credit Cards numbers out to anybody. It seems like these fly-by-night online shops are a breeding ground for identity theft. They should ask you, "Would you like us to keep your credit card in our vulnerable database in plain-text, so that the next time you return, we'll have it on file?". [x] nail here for new monitor!
http://www.thirdrake.com - Best Webcomic of all time.
so basically this guy is one of those persons that send me the "please reactivate your account" spam mails?
The New Scientist has an article http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9469-dodging -punishment-may-be-its-own-reward.html about how in some who have brain damage, getting away with a crime is as good as being rewarded for good behavior. This could be part of the "addiction".
This doesn't necessarily completely contradict the GP's point. They can still be charged with armed robbery, but it is often a mitigating factor when it comes to sentencing, and an unarmed 'armed robber' may get a sentence as light as a year or two when parole is said and done, or less if it's a first time offense.
Instead of (or at least in addition to) writing about one phisher, it would be interesting to know what the odds are for identity thefts. Are almost all cases based on "reactivate your account" mails? How often are working keyboard sniffers installed and used? Does anyone really have to worry about remote surveillance of screens through windows and across streets, or is it just a theoretical thought experiment, which never is used?
I think you'll find that this situation affects a goodly portion of the human race at various given times. You also counter your own point, as in the situation described - despite racing adrenalin etc - you were able to counter and suppress your irrational feelings.
Humans will at some times be subject to strong, irrational feelings, but the point is that losing control of them is not justified by defining them as "illness." If one feels a strong sexual urge when seeing a woman in a tight dress, does that mean that one can flout responsibility and ravish her?
I know and have known quite a few people who could be described as having this so-called IED, hell I can myself think of many occasions where my temper has flared way to hot and way to sudden for a warranted occasion. However, the point is that the "mental illness" tag is being used as a "get out of jail free card." People are no longer held responsible for their actions.
There are mitigating circumstances to any situation, but simply stating that you "get mad easily" is not a reason enough for destructive behavior. In knowing you have such a problem, you should also take steps to control said problem, and not flout responsibility be declaring that you are not responsible for your actions due to poor mental health. If you have a temper problem, a shrink may be a medically valid solution, that I don't argue, but it doesn't mean that with or without one this so-called IED is an excuse for the behavior it is being used to cover.
This recent book claims about 4% of the population has absolutely no concern or empathy for anyone else and comprises a large fraction of criminals.
Even if just some of them are smart enough to scam people, thats enough to cause
significant crime.
The only people who are really hurt by this are the huge corporations. Sure, the individual consumer victims face a great deal of aggravation, but they get their money back in the end. The banks, though, end up eating it. For all of their crowing about the losses, it probably amounts to about what the CEO routinely spends on lunch and nose candy.
A good flogging, followed by time in the public stocks-- say, a week or two.
Per incident.
Oddly enough, that's the same punsihment I'd recommend for the purely criminal activity of the same sort.
Those words appear everywhere. In so many computer press articles people are described as "Soft Spoken"
Apart from filler noise - what does this mean?
I'm from EU. I don't understand how this identity theft works. [...]
I could post my email address, real name, phone #,bank account # and national id # here, why should i be worried if i do?
So, just out of curiousity, why don't you go ahead and do it?
Spoken like a true patriot. It's hard to love, support, and defend one's country in these times.
What patriot would not read this and weep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Patriot_Act
Funny? I wish the moderators would stop sniffing glue.
I had my identity stolen way back in 2001, and since then I spend a week of effort, not to mention some cash, to try to fix the problem. I have reduced the fake debt from 100,000+ to about 20k. However, both the FBI, local police here in solano county, california, police in florida and georgia, and the DMV will do nothing about it even though there were six figures of damages to these companies that were fooled. In the 90's they busted a DMV here for providing fake (but real) licenses for $20. With all the talk of security, and the supposed need to close the borders to protect us, why won't the authorities do anything? Are they trying to support the case for national identities? After my repeated attempt to get them to prosecute this guy so I can clear the remaining credit, all that happened was that my entire life was put under scrutiny and I was then charged with two obviously fake charges for attempting to fix my phone line in a storm (since dropped). I've been fighting the fact that I need to pay a lawyer at least $1000 to remove the remaining charges... even if you are careful with your personal info this can happen to you just because of one corrupt offical that has access to your records! The worst part is I can't get health insurance because they were medical bills, and I have to move home instead of living off of credit cards between jobs like everyone else.
It is so easy to avoid getting pownd by id bandits. Don't pay your student loans for 2 years. Nobody on earth will give you a penny of credit. Problem solved.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Identity Theft Addict
What is this? It makes him sound like he's some kind of a victim in all of this, that he can't help helping himself to other people's money because he has a psychological dependence upon our dough. So, what, what should sympathize with this person while he's transferring our money out of the country? Political correctness will be the death of us all.
I'm sorry, but he's a goddamn criminal, that's what he is. Call him whatever you want but he's still a felon. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "A pile of Bantha poo-doo by any other name would smell as bad."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
First of all, they could sue me for the money. They would certainly lose their suit, but it would cost me money to defend.
But more importantly, and what the credit card company would do in practice, is report "my" debt (really the id thief's debt) to the three credit reporting agencies. These agencies are private companies and, as such, can't force me to pay anyone anything. However, in practice, I could not get a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card, etc., if it shows up on my credit report that I owe some credit card company money. So while I'm not strictly required to pay a debt just because it appears on my credit report, it's a real financial problem for me if that unpaid collection item appears on my credit report.
Unfortunately, getting fraudulent activity removed from your credit report is a royal pain. When my identity was stolen a few years ago, I had only two fraudulent items appear on my report. It took about 30-40 hours of my time over a period of 6 months in order to get it resolved. What if I needed to move during that 6 months and take out a mortgage? I'd have been out of luck.
Also, it was a pain because up until the moment the company who loaned money to the id thief admitted that they screwed up, they treated me like I was the one who just didn't want to pay my debts. These companies were extremely rude and unhelpful to me, and tried to make it as difficult and slow a process as possible to "prove my innocence".
If someone asked me to fix the situation, I would do the following:
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent