Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Identity Thieves Not Big On Technology

Posted by kdawson on from the not-much-hacking-involved dept.

alphadogg sends us to Network World, as is his wont, for a summary of a new study of identity theft based on the outcomes of more than 500 Secret Service cases from 2000 to 2006. Here is the study report (PDF). The AP has coverage emphasizing other slants on the findings. Among the surprises: just 51% of convicted ID thieves were sent to prison. Only 20% of the cases involved use of the Internet, and such cases may be on the decline. More perpetrators used good old-fashioned dumpster diving and stealing stuff out of mailboxes.

1 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics... by hchaos · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the AP article: "The Federal Trade Commission has said about 3 million Americans have their identities stolen annually." And this study covers 517 cases over 7 years (2000-2006). I'm sorry, but I can't see a study of 517 cases during a period of approx. 21 million crimes providing really useful data.
    The 99% margin of error on this study is about 5.5% (e.g. there is a 99% chance that the real percentages are within 5.5 points of the reported percentages). If the sample size were 1000, we would see a margin of error of 4%, and a we'd need a sample size of 10,000 to give us a 1.2% margin of error. One of the things that you learn if you ever take a statistics course is that, regardless of your actual population, you just don't get much better results when your sample size increases beyond a few hundred.