Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000 14:46:32 -0600 (CST) From: Jay Nelson <noslenj@swbell.net> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: FreeBSD <freebsd@gtonet.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Identity theft (was: Re: load spike strangeness) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10001091400200.7272-100000@acp.swbell.net> In-Reply-To: <20000109192152.G51101@bitbox.follo.net>
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On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Eivind Eklund wrote: [snip] Hmm... I think a little healthy paranoia is probably good, though I don't see how a name alone is any more risk than the phone book. Without other key pieces, like SSN, a name isn't very useful. However, your following reponse raises some questions. >I won't detail my verification methods in public - I see no reason to >fully break your cover, and I see no reason to give a detailed list of >how to break the cover of other people. Why not detail the methods you used? If "FreeBSD" wants anonymity, you'll help him achieve it and help the rest of us avoid risks we may want to avoid. With a number of states selling public records to off-shore companies who make all the information required for identity theft available at 35 cents a query, I see no way of preventing identity theft. Do you know of a way to avoid or minimize that risk? >However, I *do* care to send the public message that if somebody is >going to try to do identity protection, they need to do quite a bit of >work to do it - doing a half-assed job won't work. I used to run a What constitutes a good job? Is it even possible to participate in a public forum and maintain anonymity? BTW -- what is a nym? >nym (stopped around 1990), and I was *careful* about it - and it still >got broken to a point where only a few work-weeks would probably be >able to connect the nym to me (at least I found points where it broke >- I don't know if anybody else did, but I assume that if NSA got >interested, they now know the connection of my nym to me - not that it >matters.) It seems that nothing stops the NSA -- not even the law, so I'm not sure that's worth worrying about. Still, privacy is nearly extinct and identity theft is a growing problem. It would be more productive to explain where he failed instead of ridiculing his desire for anonymity. -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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