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tomturbomatic

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In watching ads for various personal information security-protection services, they name social media sites where people list their birthdays since a name and a birthday are two key points of information used to steal a person's identity. Since non-members can look at member profiles, does anyone have any qualms about our profile information listing birthdays? I am NOT trying to make trouble; I just wondered if this might create a breach. My homeowner's insurance policy has benefits for ID theft. My VISA card intercepted someone trying to gain access to my account, notified me within hours and resolved the problem over the phone in 15 minutes. I realize that has nothing to do with our birthdays, but it was an alarming situation.

Does anyone have suggestions or advice or are my fears groundless?
 
there is some reason to be alarmed, but only to an extent!

well I don't think were at a HIGH risk....but something to consider, this would fall more under HIPPA rules of protected information I would think.....

for the most part, we could just put in the Month and Year for BDays, but kinda takes away when we want to announce a special day for a member...

and not everyone puts in their FULL name........

if it bothers you that much, you can leave those areas blank...

this is just one area of info, there is so many ways they can get info its not funny....

thieves already know how far they can go with certain info, it may be small peanuts, but can add up fast.....their way ahead of you if they want to be!

I know someone who paid their bill online.....before that company got to the bank to withdrawl the money, the thief already wiped out his bank account!.....minutes I tell you!....
 
Since non-members can look at member profiles, does anyone have any qualms about our profile information listing birthdays?

[COLOR=#000000; font-size: x-large]Tom your information provided is <span style="color: #ff0000;">completely incorrect,[/COLOR] non members cannot see profiles, neither can the search engine spiders. To prove what I'm saying log out and try and look at profile.</span>
 
Here's the deal. These days, you can pretty much do nothing.

Credit Card Information is commonly stolen in two ways these days.

At the Terminal. It's quite common for thieves to simply brake in and steal the POS terminal containing a Hard Drive, that keeps card numbers in Cache, Paging Files. There are programs one can easily find to obtain this information, and the criminals are in & out of these stores so quickly, they don't care about the Alarms, or anything. By the Time the cops get to respond, there long gone.

You may have received a phone call once, from, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, where they wanted to cancel the card, as they suspected it may have been compromised. Well, truth be told, they've realized more then one card holder, has made a purchase from a certain merchant, and they both made a transaction before the fraud occurred, so if you made transaction at the same location, they often times just suspect, and cancel out the whole block of cardholders.

The other way.. is, they simply plant a Malware, or Computer Virus on your computer. You don't have to open a single file for this to happen. You can just be using Firefox or Internet Explorer, on ANY website, and BAM, unknowingly malware get's installed in the background, without you ever even knowing. Plus, they don't take up much computer resources anymore. Your computer doesn't slowdown at all.

In the Background of your computer, a program is running, and every keystroke you make, ever site you go to, get's logged, and sent off to a Database (normally hosted in China, Russia, or on Hacked American servers) What's interesting, is there's also built in Plug Ins.

Like say, I head on to BOFA online banking, and go to sign in. I punch in my normal screen name, and then, it randomly spits out "we don't recognize this computer, please answer your site key challenge question" I answer my normal questions, and then it allows me to punch in my password. Through there program, they can launch a custom version of FireFox (Internet Browser) and use my OWN computers internet connection to LOG IN, and take over my account (with the details I so nicely provided).

The Newer plug ins, allow them to make a custom balance screen, so when you check your balance, the same amount shows up and you can't tell that they've taken everything. They can also use your own Computers cookies, now, instead of bothering with entering in those Challenge Questions.

There's also Plugins, for a common online banking website utilized by many smaller banks, but, the majority of them are after big accounts at Wells Fargo, Chase, PNC, Bank of America, USAA, US Bank, Ally, etc.

But, let's put aside online banking for a moment. There's also a CC Grabber Plugin. This little tool, looks at every numeric keystroke you type in, and checks them against a CC Bin. This Bin basically tells it, if it's a card number your typing up, or if it's just a random number for the hell of it.

So, every Card Number you type up, along with Zip Codes, Addresses, CCVs, everything get's recorded, and nicely sorted for easy access.

And as you may have guessed, there's a plug in, that grabs all of your usernames and passwords. They really don't care about your Facebook Logins, but, they'll normally just take all of these, and sell them in a bunch for like .10 cents a account.

I gotta run now, and don't have time to add more. But I'll gladly answer any questions you guys have. And No, I'm not a Theif, I'm just Really into Computer Security Coding ;)
 
My advice Tom, I'd worry more about your personal computer security, as that's how most Identity Theft is started these days.

While Online Information is useful for Thieves, they can often times, easily gain any information about you, through special outlets they have access to. For $1 they can instantly get your MMN,DOB,Addresses, Phone Numbers, everything..

I'd invest my money and concern, into a Good Antivirus, and Firewall. Or a Mac ;)
 
What Dave T said.

We use deliberately incorrect DOBs and other personal info (including names) on all sites, except where doing so is either not allowed or inappropriate (banking etc). And even on non-critical sites (news, discussion etc) that don't allow it, we do it anyway. If you'd like to know why, we will be more than happy to show you the stack of letters we've received in the last five years, from everyone from our health care providers to our life insurance and ex-cable TV providers) informing us that our personal data had been compromised and is now probably sitting on a billion hard drives across the Asian Rim. The situation has screamed for action from our currently deaf Congress and Executive Branch (regardless of party). They passed a federal sales tax on the internet, but they can't quite manage to protect our Constitutional rights on it. The internet has become the world's primary common carrier and it must be protected as such. How many of us would tolerate commercials during our telephone conversations, or the USPS rerouting our mail when THEY don't like the sender or recipient.
 
Internet Security

Hear, Hear, JeffG.....

The situation is much the same on this side of the 'Pond'..... :-(

Public bodies are constantly 'losing' or 'compromising' data, then our government uses that as an excuse to erode our personal liberty, by wanting to collect even MORE personal data and storing it on (insecure) networks....

All best

Dave T
 
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