Fed chairman victim of identity fraud ring: Newsweek - Yahoo! News

No one is immune!

Yet another demonstration that ID theft is done at the document level, not so much in cyberspace. The most proficient of these criminal types have figured out that they can do all of this without even stealing the purse, by just cell-phone photographing the data needed in a few seconds.

Here's the latest victim:

Fed chairman victim of identity fraud ring: Newsweek - Yahoo! News

Be careful showing your ID to that cash register clerk - always at least cover your postal code.

CARS.gov Site Accused of Government Takeover of Consumer PC's

This blog is edited as non-partisan as possible. For that reason we try to stay away from political editorials offered by either the left or the right, and I would normally not quote anything from such programs.

In this case, however, Glen Beck of Fox News did seem to break this story. The CARS.gov website, which facilitates the Cash for Klunkers federal government program, requires that dealers who use it literally allow it to take over the PC of the visiting user, and turn over ownership of all content of the PC to the federal government or its assignees.

Beck is alarmist, acting like this is what consumers agree to, rather than dealers, which is not the case. But if I was a dealer, I would be alarmed!

Consumers should be alarmed as well, however, as their own information is on the Dealer's computer, and therefore becomes the property of the federal government - right down to the credit report. As the consumer isn't the one who agrees to this, it is even more sneeky.

SEE BECK'S STORY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy8wgS69xjI

Where is the Privacy Czar? This would appear to be nothing but a scam to collect other monies owed. CARS.gov appears to be a ploy by the Treasury to find tax debt, and scoop it from the program. Let's hope we hear some inteligent explanation from the Administration.

US Falls Below Russia, Moldova, Belarus in reported corrupton rankings

Transparency.org has issue its lates Corruption Barometer, whereby citizens polled rate various categories of corruption in their countries.

In the categories of Political Parties, Legislature, and Private Sector the US rated worse then Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia, among others.

See the entire report at:

http://media.transparency.org/fbooks/reports/gcb_2009/

Feds at DefCon Alarmed After RFID’s Scanned | Threat Level | Wired.com

Follow up to http://jonathan-warren.blogspot.com/2009/07/youtube-how-to-hack-rfid-enabled-credit.html:

Feds at DefCon Alarmed After RFID’s Scanned Threat Level Wired.com

The very proponents of RFID chip usage have had the tables turned on them, as one might expect, in Las Vegas.

At the DefCon hacker convention taking place now, attendees set up an RFID scanner which photographed chip carriers. These of course included various feds - under cover and not - in attendance.

The amiable scanner owners were kind enough to destroy the data in public view, after letting the "Meet the Fed" panel drop jaws when they heard the news. Lucky for the feds it was such a friendly environment. Is everyone else who scans for RFID's so friendly?

False Alarm? - ‘Credit Hackers’ Win the Credit Card Game … Legally | Threat Level | Wired.com

This article in wired purports to expose a new form of "credit hacking". However, the activity described is NOT hacking, NOT illegal, NOT able to take undo advantage of creditors and NOT considered any threat by the banking industry.

The tone of the article seems to seek to create a buzz around nothing, and generate sympathy for the credit card industry. One has to wonder the true motives and backing of the person supposedly calling himself "anonymous". Could this be the credit card industry laying cover?

Read the article:

DefCon: ‘Credit Hackers’ Win the Credit Card Game … Legally Threat Level Wired.com