How many times has your identity been compromised?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have had my identity compromised twice in the last couple of weeks, and four times that I am aware of. The most recent was when information on patients was published on a publicly accessible ftp site. I occasionally visit [deleted on request], and while I don’t have direct confirmation that my information in particular was accessed, I may as well assume that it was.

Worse than that, just the other day my information was stolen right out of my school’s academic advising center. I was in that office the other day. I don’t understand why they allow sensitive information to be stored on a Windows machine that has access to the Internet when my university can’t afford to hire competent IT staff. At least they should set up Linux and only connect the machine to an intranet. It’s not a bullet proof solution, but Windows is unsuitable for the storage of sensitive data due to the massive amount of security vulnerabilities that are constantly being exposed and the difficulty IT staff in general have with keeping those boxes up to date.

Worse than that, my information has been stolen from my bank. They obviously have the most personal information on me out of the bunch mentioned so far. I received a letter from them and was issued a new check card. I didn’t change banks. I doubt I would be able to find a bank with better security procedures in place. It’s just a flaw in the system, right?

Now, leave it to the federal government to leave me standing naked in the middle of Times Square. Veterans Affairs has more private information on me than anyone else. Combine security clearance screenings with medical information with all of the personal data they have on me, and they probably know more about me than I do. And that was all stolen. Luckily the perpetrator just wanted the laptop, but what’s the difference?

Maybe I am biased by my perspective, but unless the federal government steps in and mandates procedures for the storage of sensitive data, all of our information is going to end up publicly available on foreign servers, and then there won’t be anything left to keep private.

2

A little good news. And while i’m having a conversation with myself, damn if alterego isn’t sexy.

3

The only one I’m aware of was related to my recent job search. A local university I applied to has a quite long and detailed online job application. After I sent mine in I got a letter informing that HRs files had been hacked and the information might have been stolen. Nothing has happened so far.

4

Once, some years ago. My name and a previous address were used to get some credit cards. But, the SS# was different, and my first name was spelled wrong (two very common ways to spell it). The situation was very easy to clear up.

5

Over a period of about 10 years, my brother used my name when he would get in trouble with the law. I didn’t find out till I received a dunning letter for a fine that was not paid. The fine wasn’t paid because my brother was in a state penitentary under my name. He as able to do this by getting a state issued ID card with my name and his picture. It took me about a year to clear up the mess.

6

The last one I knew about was my health insurance. They had a desktop computer with about 40,000 names on it, walk out of the office. They said I shouldn’t worry though, they used passwords. The person couldn’t even lock the office door, and nobody in the building saw the computer walk away, so I’m guessing they used a pass word like their first name. The company used your S.S. number for your insurance id. I’ll bet the individual file names on the hard drive were our SS numbers too.