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How Much Is Your Online Identity Worth?
itwbennett writes "Answer a few questions about your personal Internet use, and a new tool from Symantec will calculate your net worth on the black market. You'll get three results: how much your online assets are worth, how much your online identity would sell for on the black market, and your risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. The tool is intended to raise consumer awareness about cybercrime, said Marian Merritt, Internet security advocate for Symantec. It's unlikely the average consumer would read an Internet Security Threat Report, she added, but a simply illustrated example might get the same point across. 'It's shocking how little value criminals place on your credit card,' she said."
Your BS meter appears to be functioning correctly.
Over eleven years ago (1998), the UN reported that "illegal trade in narcotics has a captive market of about 190 million addicts and users worldwide, and is estimated to be worth more than 400 billion dollars a year". (source)
"No way" by one or two orders of magnitude, I'd say.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
This idiocy seems to trace back to a woman who once worked for the Treasury Department and made this claim to a Reuters correspondent at a conference in Riyadh in 2005.
http://threatchaos.com/2009/03/evolution-of-the-cyber-crime-exceeds-drug-trade-meme/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=480
In its PR release, Symantec justifies this claim with a footnote to "Source: US Department of Treasury."