The Complication of Identity Theft

Identity theft is a puzzle in today's society that needs more attention than it is getting. In 2006 alone 15.6 billion dollars were stolen or used in identity theft related cases. Of order monetary figures alone do not give the difficulty proper justice. The date and stress of the victims trying to recover from their identities being stolen must also be taken into account. To begin to lodging the dispute I think we must first fully understand what the disagreement is and how it is occurring. Identity theft is the act of using someone else's personal facts for personal gain of any sort. We can break it down further by classifying identity theft into 3 categories: financial identity theft, criminal identity theft, and identity cloning. Financial identity theft is what most of us commonly associate as identity theft. It is the exercise of another person's personal material to withdraw a loan, withdraw money from the victim's bank account, or receive items
of value. In this type of identity theft the victim is usually unaware of what has taken place until the damage has already been done, and they are left with a large sum of money that is either missing or owed. In criminal identity theft, a fake ID using the victim's data is used when the thief is being cited for a ticket. The victim is then left to pay for the ticket and any other repercussion that should never have been assign onto him. Lastly, identity cloning is the act of using a victim's personal counsel to "become" the victim. The thief uses the info that he has obtained to assume the victim's identity to hide his certain identity. The thief may do this for a number of reasons such as hiding from the authorities for a crime, for illegal immigration, etc. Now that we have identified what the occupation is, we can try and understand how these thieves are getting their victim's personal information. A very common and possibly the oldest course
of action of doing so is stealing or dumpster diving for documents that have a person's personal news written on it. Another common means is to either eavesdrop or peep over the shoulder of someone that is punching in their personal information. With the dawn of the electronic age, fresh ways of stealing people's identity have come about. A very common plan is through viruses that essentially steal your personal information and send it back to the hacker that sent it. Another is through "skimming" cards which glance at and memorize credit cards that are run through it so that they can be used later. A growing concern in identity theft is the obtaining of personal information through social networks like Facebook. This is definitely a enigma as many mankind do not realize how dangerous it is to levy their personal information on the internet. The majority of the populace does not realize that once something is on the internet, it's up for the nature to see an
d practice as they see fit. Full text: http://computerandtechnologies.com/computers-and-technology/news_2008-11-14-04-30-04-611.html