Identities Stolen in Seconds

NY Times ^ | October 24, 2004 | TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN

[sunshine state]

bump

[neverdem]

Caveat emptor!

[dr_lew]

Caveat omnis!

[GeronL]

are we allowed to post such HUGE articles from the NY TIMES???

[neverdem]

are we allowed to post such HUGE articles from the NY TIMES???

Yes Sir, the NY Times were not part of the WaPo & LA Times settlement.

[GeronL]

Okeeee dokeee

[endthematrix]

Terrorists gathered credit info from card readers while working as waiters in a restaurant. Not very hard to do. What is in a database is there until it is purged. Do you think Choicepoint is destroying data? No, it is selling it.

[raybbr]

Now we'll hear from all those who are going to blame the victims.

"If you can't keep your records safe, don't use the internet." "If they fall for these scams, they deserve what they get."

It alway appears on these threads.

[R. Scott]

The one benifit of being poor – a scammer would pay more for my information than could ever be recouped.

[cyborg]

I used to work as a temporary employee at a title agency in Uniondale. I saw the credit reports of very very wealthy people. It's unbelievable what people can steal. I'm sure that's why that company stopped using temp workers.

[Libloather]

"The number of victims we were estimating in 2000 were 400,000 to 500,000 annually and by 2003 we were saying 750,000," said Linda Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in San Diego. "The business community said 'Oh, you are wrong; those numbers are wrong.' Well, we were wrong. The numbers were much higher."

Maybe this is where Jesse Jackson gets the 'one million disenfranchised' number...

[B4Ranch]

Kevin Barrows

Kevin Barrows is Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at Stroz Friedberg, LLC and is responsible for supervising computer forensic, electronic discovery, anti-piracy, and computer crime and abuse assignments. Mr. Barrows also conducts traditional corporate fraud investigations and due diligence efforts.

From 1997 to 2003, Mr. Barrows was a Special Agent with the FBI, New York Division, assigned to investigate white collar crime. During his six years as an FBI Agent, Mr. Barrows directed major investigations involving financial institution fraud, identity theft and international money laundering, which required intensive document analysis and in-depth interviews of persons with relevant knowledge to uncover complex illegal schemes. Mr. Barrows also investigated numerous securities fraud cases involving insider trading, broker bribery, market manipulation and Internet-based touting. Mr. Barrows was the lead case agent coordinating a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency case that culminated in the arrest of 120 individuals, including members of an organized crime family, on stock fraud, racketeering and money laundering charges. For his role in this case, Mr. Barrows received the Department of Justice’s Director’s Award for Outstanding Contributions in Law Enforcement. He was also the lead case agent in the investigation and criminal prosecution of a group of individuals who stole 30,000 identities through the unauthorized computer-based accessing of personal credit information. He has testified on many occasions in trials and before grand juries in Federal court.

Mr. Barrows has lectured at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia and at FBI headquarters in New York on interviewing and other investigatory techniques, including the analysis of complex financial transactions and records.

Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Barrows was an associate at the New Jersey law firm of Dwyer, Connell & Lisbona, where he participated in all aspects of litigation in products liability and insurance cases. Mr. Barrows worked as an analyst at Salomon Brothers before attending law school at Seton Hall University School of Law.

[Alia]

Thank you for posting this excellent article; it's given me some ideas for dealing with a recurring ID theft problem.

[lepton]

BANKS and others in the credit industry disagree, saying that they see the war on identity theft as a top priority.

Friends of mine who are police officers have complained about how difficult it is to get Credit Card companies to show an interest in prosecuting Credit Card fraud. As they understand it, the banks that back the Credit Cards are insured, and seem little interested in going through with a court case when they can just file for reimbursement.

[Logophile]

... knowing that those employees interacted with customers who provided confidential personal information like Social Security numbers.

There's part of the problem. Social Security numbers are not "confidential." (We tell students never to use their SSN as a password—the number is too easy to get.) The SSN was never intended for routine identification, but is now used that way.

I can just imagine the mess when everyone is required to carry a federal identification card.

[neverdem]

From time to time, I’ll post or ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

This is more about crime, technology and government, but since almost 1500 FReepers looked at this overnight, I thought you might appreciate it.

[hummingbird]

Thank you for this post, neverdem. "I don't get out much," but personally know two people who have been ID theft victims.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Now we'll hear from all those who are going to blame the victims. "If you can't keep your records safe, don't use the internet." "If they fall for these scams, they deserve what they get."

That's the attitude of those suggesting a National ID card too. (One of the ID supporters did claim that a level of security equal to that of credit cards would be fine.)

[Criminal Number 18F]

Heh. A perfect fit for an article I'm writing. Thanks, ND.