Slashdot Mirror
40 Million Identities Up For Sale On the Web
An anonymous reader writes "Highly sensitive financial information, including credit card details, bank account numbers, telephone numbers, and even PINs are available to the highest bidder. The information being traded on the Web has been intercepted by a British company and collated into a single database for the first time. The Lucid Intelligence database contains the records of 40 million people worldwide, mostly Americans; four million are Britons. Security experts described the database as the largest of its kind in the world. The database is in the hands of Colin Holder, a retired senior Metropolitan police officer who served on the fraud squad. He has collected the information over the past four years. His sources include law enforcement from around the world, such as British police and the FBI, anti-phishing and hacking campaigners, and members of the public. Mr. Holder said he has invested £160,000 in the venture so far. He plans to offset the cost by charging members of the public for access to his database to check whether their data security has been breached."
"He plans to offset the cost by charging members of the public for access to his database to check whether their data security has been breached."
How, exactly, does this differ from extortion?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
So in order to find out if your personal information has been breached, you have to disclose said information AND pay a fee. Seems a little fishy to me. Isn't that how a lot of identity-theft scams operate in the first place? "Hey, your identity is at risk. Send us money and details and we'll check to see if you're a victim or not.........and.....YES...you are now a victim! Thank you for using Thieves-R-Us!"
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
... he'd notify the relative banks and get them to issue new cards to the card holders and then cancel the old account numbers.
Or isn't that something a police officer would not do?
Aren't the police supposed to help protect the public?
Actually, under the Data Protection Act he isn't allowed to hold that database at all. This will end very badly for him.
Actually in the US using police or federal services for personal use as an officer is a felony, thus if this guy was an American police officer he would be arrested and all his information would be confiscated as evidence for his trial.