Although the ability to spoof caller ID has been around for quite awhile, I wasn’t aware of any public services that offered that capability. On August 31, a company called *38 launched a service for spoofing caller ID. With stories quickly appearing on SlashDot and the New York Times (registration required), *38 picked up a… Read More »
It’s been awhile since I posted about my credit report travails that were caused by an evildoer opening up nine credit card accounts using my social security number. After that experience, I compiled some useful info about identity theft prevention, as well as how to deal with it if it happens to you. My mom… Read More »
It appears that the friend of a friend was the driver in the terribly unfortunate tragedy in Santa Monica. I’ve been thinking about possibilities for Friendster and FOAF lately, and for some reason this sad event triggered a tangential idea – automated tools for tracking news about friends. If many of your friends maintain weblogs,… Read More »
Sun tackles privacy, speech recognition | CNET News.com Both parts of this announcement are very interesting. While presence awareness software from Sun is not that surprising (they already have an instant messaging server and an identity management server), I’m surprised to see them getting involved in speech recognition. Although the article doesn’t mention it, I… Read More »
Do Not Call List – California Dept. of Justice – Office of the Attorney General For fellow Californians only, The Office of the Attorney General has set up a page where you can pre-registerfor the nationwide telemarketing Do Not Call Registry. You can use this form to register up to three phone numbers. Enforcement of… Read More »
Wired News: Credit Card Cos. Watch Own Backs This story in Wired refers to a Gartner report. The report notes that while credit card companies’ “zero-liability” policies protect card holders from paying for unauthorized or fraudulent charges, they do not protect consumers from identity theft and the credit report hell that can follow. I can… Read More »
Data thieves nab 55,000 student records | CNET News.com My sister-in-law, a UT Austin law school grad like my brother, let me know that the affected SSNs were in the following ranges: 449-31-98xx – 450-91-24xx 451-12-32xx – 451-20-35xx 451-20-64xx – 452-20-40xx Fortunately, mine isn’t in one of those ranges, as I used to work as… Read More »
Identity Theft Complaints Double in ’02 I’m now well into the process of clearing up my credit record. This experience is supplying me with a lot of information on how to deal with identity theft efficiently once it has happened to you. I’ll try to organize it in a reasonable fashion and add it to… Read More »
Some bum going by the name of Robert L. Stewart (that’s not my middle initial) has stolen my identity. According to the Experian credit report I received today, since June of last year he has used four addresses in Tulsa, three addresses in Kansas City, and two addresses in Topeka to request credit accounts using… Read More »