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Your Identity Is Worth Less Than $15
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "One of the more interesting tidbits in Symantec's Global Internet Threat Report (PDF, 105 pages) is the price sheet, which suggests that someone's 'full identity' is worth in the range of $1-$15. Your email password goes for $4-$30 and your bank account might fetch $10-$1000. With those prices, I wonder how often they pay more for the bank account than is actually in it? There's also an executive summary (PDF, 36 pages)."
Whilst I am sure identity theft is a very real problem, I'm not sure I want Symantec to be my source of information about it. They have done more to reduce internet security than most, with bloated, unusable virus checkers that people end up simply disabling. Furthermore, there is a pretty obvious marketing angle to all of this.
Do you know how many people in America live paycheck to paycheck?
Quite a few people have bank balances that hover between the grand total of their most recent paycheck and $0. Or don't they count?
[Symantec has] " done more to reduce internet security than most, with bloated, unusable virus checkers..."
Whenever I encounter a computer with Symantec software installed, I uninstall it before doing anything else. My experience with Symantec is that the company's software is VERY buggy.
"Furthermore, there is a pretty obvious marketing angle to all of this."
Having insecurity is profitable for Microsoft, anti-malware software companies, and weapons investors like Cheney and Bush. It's a simple business model:
1) Do evil.
2) Profit!
That's because you're looking at the slips from people who don't give enough of a shit to keep them.