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Identity Theft Skeptic Ends Up As Fraud Victim
An anonymous reader writes "British TV host Jeremy Clarkson recently wrote a newspaper editorial ridiculing the uproar that had occurred after the British government admitted to losing two compact discs containing the personal information on 25 million people. To support his claim about the overhyped risks of identity theft, he published his bank account information in the article. Proving that some identity thieves have a sense of humor, a week later, he found out that someone had set up an automatic bank transfer for $1000 to a diabetes charity from his account. This comes less than a year after the CEO of LifeLock, an identity theft protection company which publishes the CEO's social security number on its website, himself was a victim of financial fraud. Back in July of 2007, a man in Texas was able to secure a $500 loan from a payday loan company using the CEO's widely publicized SSN. Will this latest incident finally prove that identity theft is real, and that publishing your own financial info is an invitation for fraud?"
Plain and simple.
Vescere bracis meis.
Clarkson, you ponce!
And learn what a pickup truck is designed for, would ya?
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: "What a maroon!"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you give personal information away freely, is it really accurate to call taking it theft?
Of course, what defrauders do with it might constitute stealing. But that's less "identity theft" and more "money theft" if you ask me.
...but is it art?
That was a pretty arrogant move, even for his standards, and I'm sure he's be humbled (somewhat) after being taken down a peg. I guess that's the price you pay for overconfidence.
How in hell is this possible?
Isn't your bank the only institution able to transfer money out of your account? Don't you have to show your ID? Don't you have to sign some documents???
My opinion is ID theft is only possible because the clerks in the banks are too lazy to check for an ID or a signature. Whenever you go to a bar in the US, they will look at your ID before they serve booze, but if you set up a $xxxx account/load no one will ever check it. This is just how ridiculous the system is. Account number without proof of identity should be as useless as a car without gas.
It seems like making people paranoid about protecting their personal data is the wrong way to attack the problem, especially given the significant chance that whatever they do, some 3rd party will release that data and put them at risk.
Instead, we should remove the incentive for identity theft and make it MUCH more onerous and difficult to get anything worthwhile out of stolen financial data.
Plus, it'd be nice to not get those 10-15 credit card offers a week in the mail.
To be fair what happened was someone set up a Direct Debit in his name, where a company or organisation can deduct money directly from your bank account. These are _very_ common in the UK, much more so than direct bill payment in the US.
One of the reasons they are so common is that every transaction under them is covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee. Under this, he can get an immediate refund from his bank just by asking.
The process of being approved to collect direct debits is pretty arduous, as the banks bear a lot of the costs if something goes wrong. At the same time, the consumer has a level of protection light years beyond that offered in the US for similar transactions.
It's not that uncommon for friends exchanging money in the UK (say someone borrowed some cash for a night out) to simply hand over their bank details and get the money from their friend as an electronic transfer using online banking. In general it'd be pretty difficult for someone to take money from an individual's bank account, even knowing their details for their own benefit. I'm not even sure most online banking in the US lets you deposit money directly into another person's account?
The information he gave out was the same information a person gives out when they hand over a check. It's analogous to a pundit loudly proclaiming that it is perfectly safe to walk around outside. This is then demonstrated by walking through a large crowd of people. Somebody decides to prove otherwise & stabs them in a non-lethal manner solely to illustrate the point.
I hear this all the time, usually from Anonymous Cowards too scared to say something so anti-American in public. So I always rebut it, because I understand America, rights and government.
America is built on the simple, but radical (for the 1780s, anyway) realization that people have rights, create governments to protect those rights, so when we create them, we must create them with powers to protect them, but not to abuse them. We have a right to privacy, as the 4th Amendment says. The government exists to protect it,
Or are you going to tell me that, say, the 13th Amendment banning slavery limits only the government from owning slaves? No, freedom is a right. Rights are inalienable, not just "inalienable by the government".
--
make install -not war
A lot of people are very naive about the security provided by credit cards and checking accounts.
I used to run credit cards and EFT as part of a previous job, and I was responsible for setting up the system. The only thing I need for an electronic funds transfer is your bank routing and account numbers. All that information is available on a voided check.
The only security you have, is that it's difficult to complete these kinds of transactions anonymously. Bank fraud is a big deal if you are caught.
The same is true of credit cards. Your signature is a contract promising to pay. It protects the business against customers reversing charges on purchased goods. It is not used for authentication of any form.
Actually, it doesn't say that he was a victim of "identity theft". It says that he is an "Identity Theft Skeptic" and that he is a "Fraud Victim". The article called the crime "identity fraud" which seems accurate. Somebody said "These is my account information, please accept my money." - Perfectly describable as "identity fraud" and nearly enough for the article submitter to assume that the fraudsters were "identity thieves" as he described them.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
He was wrong and went on to say so
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
In the UK you can only set up a direct debit to certain registered things, one of them being charities.
The pranksters couldn't have set up direct debit to their own account, for example.
No sig today...
We have a right to privacy, as the 4th Amendment says. The government exists to protect it
Wrong. That's not what the 4th amendment says. The 4th amendment puts a limit on the government's ability to invade your privacy:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It does not establish a right to privacy; that right, since it is not expressly surrendered to the government in the Constitution, is reserved to the states and the people via the 10th amendment.
It is up to your state and local government to define the limits of other individuals' ability to encroach on your privacy and property. (Similarly, it is up to those governments to specify how they protect individual's lives from the threat of other individuals.) If they fail to sufficiently protect those rights, well, there's always the 2nd amendment...
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
If a crime bas been committed the police have good reason to seek to have privacy doors opened - perhaps with the oversight/approval of a judge. Recent UK legislation is giving civil servants wide investigation powers - without judicial oversight.
This smacks of an excuse.
I think this is possible only because people confuse information about an identity with that identity, and therefore believe that knowledge of that information proves that the person is who they say they are.
I think there's way too many people and organizations with legitimate access to all kinds of information about me for me to consider that my SSN (or an account number that's printed on every statement that goes through the mail, or 16+4+3 digits on a credit card) is a good shared secret between me and my bank (or employer, or anyone.) Then, there's all the people who have illegitimate access.
We still use this because... it works "well enough." Banks make enough that they can cover the loss from a few fraudulent loans. And a person having to clean up a credit record is a PITA, but it's doable. And it's an externality from the bank's perspective.
Thinking about this, I don't have a real solution. It's advisable to guard your psudo-secrets, when you can. A law or two to help this might help, but not get rid of the problem. Until someone comes up with a good identifier[1], we're stuck with it.
[1] For values of "good identifier" that include a way that one person can prove they are the same person who established the good credit / made the bank deposit / whatever, including letting someone act as a limited agent of another (so the power company can take my electricity bill out of my account, but not let a rogue employee take all my money and buy Enron stock) and also doesn't let someone establish multiple identities with which to keep ripping off banks and others.
He published is information, and the only thing that happened was an automatic withdraw?
If it was as rampant as people are bing led to believe, his account wold have been empty.
Yes, it exists, but I don't think it's worth the panic people tend to go into.
Of the millions and millions of people whose information has been stolen or lost or were copied froma computer system, only a very tiny fraction have been the victims of identity theft.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Just as a point of relevance here, Clarkson was victim to a fraudulent direct debit, not a standing order. While both are useful for similar things, the mechanics in the two cases are quite different.
A standing order is normally some sort of regular payment you set up yourself for a constant amount, such as a monthly rent payment to a landlord. A direct debit is set up by the recipient and can vary in amount and date it is collected, and is typically used for paying things like utility bills, where the money owed varies a bit from month to month.
The key difference, for the purposes of debunking the hype here, is that because of the obvious danger in letting a third party instruct your bank on your behalf and then withdraw your money remotely, all direct debits are covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee. Among other things, this says that if something goes wrong, your bank must refund your missing money first and ask questions later. A corollary of the latter is that Clarkson is unlikely to have any trouble getting his missing money back here, ironic and amusing as the incident is.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Okay this article mentions:
/. comment moderation is badly broken. Burn Karma! Burn!
1) Identity theft
2) A celebrity who holds extreme views on a wide range of topics of interest to nerds, from the environment to computers and identiity theft.
3) The celebrity has changed his mind on the topic after being proven wrong by a very cheeky identity thief.
4) That celebrity presents a show that does interest nerds. (Not just the cars either. One episode showed a car being blown off the tarmac by a 747's engine thrust).
How is this not news? How is this not interesting?
Yet a comment like yours gets modded as insightful instead of -1:troll. More proof that
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer