Archive for the ‘You’ Category
Friday Survey: Do You Own An iPhone?
Posted on: May 17, 2008
It’s coming up on a year since the iPhone was released, and the second version appears to be just around the corner. So it’s a good time to check in with our readers and see just how many of you actually use the device.
Please take a second and let us know where you stand.
Fee-based services say they’ll protect your identity, privacy, credit, name, and more. Find out what they can and can not do — and learn what you can do to defend yourself.
What is your identity worth? According to the Global Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec, credit card numbers go for as little as 40 cents on the black market. Complete access to a bank account? Just $10.
Not so long ago, one’s identity didn’t involve so many dollars and cents. Discussions of privacy seemed better suited to the realm of academic debates or conspiracy theories. Today, unfortunately, the context is too often one of ripped-off consumers, with tales of swiped credit card numbers, false mortgages, and employment fraud leading to many cumulative hours spent, perhaps over years, trying to clean up the mess.
Of course when someone comes gunning for granny’s life savings, “good Samaritans” won’t be far behind.
Take identity theft monitoring service providers. The pitch? Give us your Social Security number and notification of suspicious identity activity is only an e-mail alert or phone call away. These services, which typically cost $10 to $20 per month, offer to guard your identity by monitoring the three credit-reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion), cell phone applications, government databases, and public information. Some also provide insurance (subject to underwriting, and not valid in every state) to help defray costs associated with recovering from identity theft cases.
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Tips For Fighting ID Theft |
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• 5 (Mostly) Free Alternatives To ID Theft Monitoring Services • What No Identity Theft Monitoring Can Catch |
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Others offer even more. For example, Intersections’ Identity Guard ($17 per month for the “Total Protection” plan) says it uses “patented scanning technology” to maintain “daily surveillance of the Internet’s ‘back alley’ chat rooms and news groups” and see if your identity is for sale. Secure Identity Systems ($7 per month) says it “tracks hundreds of databases that use Social Security numbers, including utilities, DMV records, financial institution records, and more.”
MyPublicInfo ($80 for a six-month “Public Information Profile”) watches criminal records and real estate reports. Debix ($99 per year) automatically calls you at home or on your cell phone the moment someone obtains new credit in your name. LifeLock ($10 per month) requests “that your name be removed from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists, and we keep making the requests as they expire,” so would-be attackers can’t swipe credit card offers from your mailbox. According to LifeLock, “we’ve got your back.” More Than 225 Million Records Breached Since 2005
A little identity theft prevention would be nice, especially since over 225 million records containing sensitive, personal information have been compromised since January 2005, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Furthermore, the quantity and scale of data breaches appears to be on the rise. For example, a March break-in at an Indiana debt-collection agency led to a missing server containing 700,000 people’s personal information, including some Social Security numbers. (The server is still at large.)
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Hollywood Newsroom noted
that Google ads are now popping up for searches on “Tom Cruise” that say “Official Tom Cruise Site. Stay Tuned for the Official Launch of TomCruise.com. Check it out!” or alternatively “Official Tom Cruise Site. The Countdown is On. TomCruise.com launches May 5th. Get the scoop!” and links to TomCruise.com.
Because it’s a Saturday and I’m interested in Tom Cruise in the same way people are interested in accident scenes as they drive by, I decided to dig a little.
The site currently shows a countdown clock that ends on 9 AM Monday morning (somebody please double check the math for me). The domain name was registered by an attorney, Benita Das, at the Los Angeles law firm Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger. Das is not listed as an attorney on the firm’s directory, but I did find a reference to her back in 2002. Is this one of the law firms that Tom Cruise uses? I have no idea. They do practice entertainment law, though.
The domain was first purchased on November 6, 1996, but very little was done with it until now. The last update to the whois information was April 28, 2008. My guess is that the law firm bought the domain name on Cruise’s behalf. That would explain why the attorney is the registered owner, at least for now.
Just yesterday Cruise was back on the Oprah Winfrey show promising to “strictly divide” talking about his absolutely insane personal causes, and film promotion. Which topic will be the focus on TomCruise.com? Who cares. This is likely the last time I’ll visit the site.
Valleywag - valleywag.wordpress.com 
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