According to the Better Business Bureau's "2005 Identity Fraud Survey Report" the most common source of identity theft is a lost wallet or check book. Only 11.6% of identity fraud came from access to online records.
Here's an interesting observation: customers who regularly monitor their bank accounts online detected fraud far earlier than those who review paper statements, and their average loss was $551 versus $4,543 for paper statement. It didn't say how "regularly" you should check but I recommend 1/week.
Paper continues to plague us. Get a home shredder, and shred everything with an account number on it before you throw it out. I also shred every credit card solicitation, since they contain way too much PII. Shred all of your credit card receipts when you throw them out. If you lose your checkbook, get your account number changed and alert your bank to watch for activity. Yeah, you'll have to let your mortgage company know but that's better than having to fix your credit rating for the next 3 years.
Online -- the usual still applies. Buy from people you trust. Don't save your credit card info on anyone's site. Don't save your account numbers or credit card info anywhere on your PC, even encrypted. It's only 16 numbers, they're not that hard to type!
Interesting -- a way to "ask" phonecams not to take your picture. Problem is, it's probably omnidirectional and so will impact everyone trying to take a picture of anything in the vicinity.
I don't agree that this is paparazzi-proofing anyone -- how long will it take some entrepeneur to hack the controls and have a jam-free camera -- but it may well be a solution for areas that you shouldn't be using your phone cams in. The locker room at my gym, for example, where cell phones are banned because of this. I'd like to see this get out there commercially.
HP focuses on paparazzi-proof cameras | CNET News.com
Just a really cool little hardware hack -- use a 9V battery to emergency charge your USB-charged devices (like my GPS, my other GPS, my smartphone, ...).
how-to make a ‘usb battery’ - hack a day - www.hackaday.com
There is a new series of webcasts from Microsoft aimed at developers who want to know more about how to write secure code. Here's a link. This looks good although I haven't had a chance to preview the content.
Digital Blackbelt Series: Defend Your Code from Attacks
Never thought about this before -- the many people that publish online geneologies, and that collaborate on building family trees, are making it very easy for identity thieves to get very specific and personal information about you (far more than your mother's maiden name, although that alone is very useful).
But the basic rules still hold. Publishing info to a large, unsecured population is always dangerous and requires a very close examination of the threats. The web brings us far closer than we would like to the bad guys of the world.
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