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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."
... to make more $$ for Norton. When will the shameless plugs ever end?
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
I used this tool, but it didn't turn out so well. The first question was, "To calculate your worth, please provide your SSN and online banking username and password." Unfortunately, when I clicked "Next", it's lagging and I can't get through to the next part...
Thanks to a messy divorce 4 years ago, my credit rating probably still sucks to the point that even an ID thief would be ashamed to use it.
Go ahead, try and get a credit card with it - you'll hear laughter that would compete with an insane asylum on Bath Day...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Symantec will calculate your net worth on the black market
I went there and it told me I owed it money...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This tool is nothing but a giant slashvertisement, though I suppose that should be obvious. It was a complete waste of time. Oh and I'm worth $31 online if anyone wants to buy me ;o)
.. articles that use links to "everyclickmatters.com" and such.
Maybe using this tool is not such a smart idea?!?
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
how much those black market names I was about to buy are really worth. Fantastic!
xxxxxxxxxx
It's your mess. YOU clean it up!
Gotta love leading questions:
Do you currently have a complete security software solution that includes spyware protection, antiphishing technology and a two-way firewall (BUY CO- ER, NORTON®!) installed on the personal computer you use most often?
Yeah, it's just a tool to raise awareness (BUY NORTON®!), indeed. Just a natural question, placed at the top of a page and taking up a lot of eye-space. It helps determine if we should give you the sales routine. No, it helps determine if how much a criminal would value your identity. No, uh... what were we trying to do again?
However, on a brighter note: I guessed a criminal could buy me, er... buy my online digital e-identity (or whatever they call it) for $20. They say I could go for as little as $11.29. Obviously I didn't take bartering into account.
PS: BUY NORTON®!
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
"Do you pay bills online? No? Can you VIEW bills online? No? Well...then that just means the hackers will try harder! BUY NORTON NOW!!!"
Brilliant marketing. It's a shame this power can't be harnessed for good.
The Norton Online Risk Calculator, unveiled within a microsite to coincide with the launch of Norton 2010,
All it does is make people anxious about unmeasurable quantities of unknown worth, arbitrarily estimated in an obscure manner with no basis in fact or reality. Treat it like astrology not security.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I was totally overpaying for all that black market info. I went to my dealer and showed him the link, now I save 30%! Thanks Geik^H^H^H^H Symantec!
It was humorous up until the last page, where it said, "Your entire digital life could go up for auction for as little as $21.39" and then had two big buttons, ALLOW and DENY. Are they ASKING if you want to auction your identity on the black market? And who in their right mind would click on either one of them? Very suspicious, but obviously just an advertisement for Symantec's crappy products. Long live ES-ET for actual bloat-free protection.
IT IS GOOD THAT CRIMINALS DO NOT PLACE A HIGH VALUE ON OUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION.
That basically means that the info is not all that dangerous. It means criminals are afraid of getting caught if they use it, so why spend all that much for it. If the criminals were sure they could get away with it and all they needed was the info, that information would go for a lot higher.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I'm still waiting for TFA to load, but TFS doesn't sound much like the headline.
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Ok, it loaded. It doesn't say much more than TFS. But I think its "online identity" thing is misleading; they're not talking about "mcgrew", they're talking about "McGrew"; in other words, your OFFLINE identity. After all, you don't log into your bank with a pseudonym.
I couldn't get the risk assessment tool to load at all. Since I don't do any business on the internet (I even used a paper check mailed to Canada for my domain when I had a web site) I don't think I'm at much risk at all. I'm more at risk of somebody going through my trash.
Free Martian Whores!
Of course, if they did, they'd find that:
* there was almost no-one willing to pay for this
* they would pay nothing like the Norton valuation
and therefore expose the complete and utter BULL behind this mind-numbingly DUMB idea. I'd even be happy for Norton to take a 10% finders fee - I'd still make a pile.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
'It's shocking how little value criminals place on your credit card,' she said."
No, if it were worth more, there'd be more value in stealing it. You want its value to a criminal to be zero, the chance of being caught to be infinite, or both.
Actually a chance of 100% is absolutely sufficient.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
...you guessed that a cybercriminal could buy you for $1.00. In the underground economy, you're really worth about $100.00. And that's on a good day. Your entire digital life could go on the auction block for as little as $0.43...
So is my information worth $100.00 or is it worth $0.43? It doesn't seem like they have a clue, but then this is Symantec we are talking about, so I guess we already knew that.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I agree it's important to understand how to keep your information protected, but this sounds like the newest method of selling you the latest and greatest upgrades to Symantec's software. We have seen scare tactics in the News media to get you to watch their stations for the news and weather by over-sensationalizing the headlines or the topics to be covered.
Just the other day, the news eluded to the next hurricane that formed with this dire sounding report about keeping you informed. What the news failed to mention was that the particular storm was just off the coast of Africa and it's path was keeping it in the ocean off the coast of Africa.
It's not that I don't believe Symantec isn't touching upon an important topic, it's just the method by which they are choosing to report the data to the consumer.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
This was just a way to sell their software. When I said I had a "security suite" to protect my accounts they rated me as "low risk" but when I changed the answer to "no security" than they rated me high. I'm surprised they didn't have an instant popup to sell me their program.
This is just like the insurance companies who make it sound you'll be run-over by a car or hit by a falling ladder, as soon as you step outside your home. Exaggerating a person's risk is a scam to get your money. That's all it is. "Oh yeah you need to buy this, else you will be SCREWED!!! Hahaha." "OMG I'll take it!" "A wise decision madam."
Ch-ching.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I used to work in a restaurant and we had a carry-to-table card reader. One of the waiters still was able to do a double swipe with many of them. Took about a month before we realized he was doing it.
My idiotic boss decided not to press charges against the thieving bastard and just cut his losses and pay the customers back. Idiots. Both of them.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Must be cloud based. Talking to servers on the clouds takes a lot longer, as clouds are farther away than earth-based servers.
If you fill out the quiz, and at the end, you elect not to protect yourself, you get to watch a video. At the end of that video if you choose not to protect yourself, you get another video, and yet another follows that. That, is what it's doing in the background. Downloading video. Personally, the Shopping Network video scared me.
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
Telling me how much I'm worth on the black market of identity theft begs the question of whether HOW SECURE AM I FROM IDENTITY THEFT and does nothing more than add FUD to the identity theft discussion.
If you don't want your identity stolen, the right way to do that is to PREVENT YOUR IDENTITY FROM BEING STOLEN, not buy more software that may or may not patch more holes in the software you already have.
Social networking sites aren't the problem. People who freely give out confidential information are the problem.
Your computer isn't the problem. How you use it to make it easy for others to take your confidential information is the problem.
Norton can't fix all the malware problems, and they can only do so AFTER they see the malware (either in concept or in the wild). Too often that's many many days after the problem is already too late. Their suggestions to use firewalls do nothing to prevent spyware installed through any number of known windows/adobe/vendor-of-the-day-hole from stealing your data in real time and delivering it where it will be used immediately to drain your accounts.
Use linux. Use FireFox. Use anonymizers. Don't store passwords anywhere other than your head.
Don't use Windows. Don't use Internet Explorer or Outlook. Don't keep all your passwords in the browser.
Here's an excellent example of a "strong password checker" that is in fact TERRIBLE: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx
Hint: try aaaaaa$A There are two problems with this "strong password checker". The first is it assumes a password CANNOT be strong unless it has elements of letters, numbers, and either special characters or uppercase letters. The second is it assumes that at 8 characters a password containing members of those sets is strong, and that at 14 characters it is "the best". This implies that aaaaaaaaaaaa$A is a stronger password than "You'llneverguessmypassphrasebutI'llrememberit!"
Norton needs FUD so they can sell more of their products.
We as /. readers don't like FUD. Not from SCO, not from MS, ...and not from Norton.
Stop the FUD when you see it.
E
I am so scared now I was asked a whole bunch of questions about how every single person in the world uses the internet, from online banking to facebook, and now Symantec has told me I'm a MEDIUM risk and criminals are out to get me!!!!!!!!!
I guess I should buy their software right away! SAVE ME SYMANTEC, SAVE ME!!!!
Oh, wait - the cost of their subscription fee over 10 years is less than what they say I am "worth". Or are they the criminals telling me what I'm worth to them? I'm so confused now...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.