More than a year after online dating site AdultFriendFinder.com suffered a hack that exposed sensitive account information for nearly four million users, the website and its parent company have reportedly been hit with a much larger breach affecting some 412 million accounts. [More]
personal info
Study: Consumers Give Up Data In Exchange For Discounts Because They Figure It’s All Out There Anyway
By 6.8.15
You’re shopping at a store you’ve never been to before. They offer to sign you up for a loyalty card. You know it’s going to create endless postal and electronic spam for you if you accept, but they’ll give you 40% off of this order if you do. So you take the card. The store thinks they just bought your info with a discount. Are they right? [More]
Price Chopper Supermarket Emails Customer's Employer, Demands Disciplinary Action For Negative Tweet
By 9.21.10
Last week, a customer at Price Chopper in upstate New York tweeted a relatively mild insult about the store: “Every time I go to @PriceChopperNY I realize why they r not @wegmans. Tonight -bare produce areas & this sign 4 ex http://yfrog.com/2tfj9sj.” In return, Price Chopper contacted the man’s employer and complained about him. [More]
How To Opt Out Of Apple's iAds Service, Eventually
By 6.22.10
If you don’t want Apple collecting data on you and using it to target you with ads starting July 1st, you can opt out from “any device running iOS 4,” says AppleInsider. The opt-out is automatic when you hit up http://oo.apple.com from an iOS 4 device, and as far as I can tell you can’t undo it, so don’t click the link unless you really want to opt out. Also, it’s not working at the moment. [More]
Cruise Line Employee Used Reservation List To Determine When To Rob Vacationers
By 6.14.10
I guess you could try to prepare your robbery schedule based on Foursquare and Twitter updates, but a former Royal Caribbean Cruise Line employee found a much easier way: she accessed the cruise line’s reservations list, wrote down the addresses of passengers and the dates they’d be on the cruise, and handed the list off to her husband. She’s being charged with 24 counts of burglary, while her husband will be charged soon. [More]
Two Facebook Apps To Help You Fight Back Against Facebook
By 5.4.10
If you’re unhappy with the latest Facebook privacy settings but don’t want to kill your account completely, ReadWriteWeb has highlighted two services–both Facebook apps–that might give you back some control. They’re not perfect solutions, though. The Green Safe app scrapes all your data into a stand-alone tab that only your friends can access, but it also means a third-party developer will replace Facebook as your data holder (the app will use your data to serve ads as well). The Give Me My Data app lets you export all of your Facebook content so that you don’t lose anything if you disconnect your profile from Facebook’s pages. [More]
Free "How To Be Invisible" Download In Exchange For Your Email Address
By 1.28.10
J.J. Luna, a former security consultant turned author, released a guide ten years ago that showed readers how get rid of paper and digital trails. The subject matter is probably a little too paranoid for most of our readers, but it overlaps with issues we talk about all the time here, like identity theft and online security. He’s just released a revised version, so he’s giving away the 2000 edition in PDF format for free. Well, in exchange for your email address. [More]
Dell Gets Nosey When Attempting To Verify Order
By 10.27.09
Zach ordered a netbook online from Dell, then got a call from a customer service rep who wanted to verify his identity for the order. He was stumped as to why the company needed to give his birthday and last four digits of his SSN.
Protect That Identity With A (Free?) Paper Shredder
By 10.20.09
In honor of National Protect Your Identity Week, personal finance blogger Stephanie at Poorer Than You has cobbled together a guide on how to shred your documents if you’re too cheap to go out and buy a paper-shredder.
Get Your Data Out Of Google
By 9.24.09
If you’re like the average Google user, you’ve now got a lot of personal data—emails, addresses, calendars, documents, photos and videos, maybe even health records—in their system. This is fine with them, because the Google Hive Mind needs all of this data to eventually become self aware and enslave us. However, if you ever want to get that information out of Google, the company has created something they call the Data Liberation Front to make it easier for you.
Skimmers Rig Door Instead Of ATM
By 8.31.09
Last week, a customer in Long Beach, New York, discovered a skimmer attached to the outside of a local ATM branch instead of on specific machines. We’ve talked a lot about being wary of any suspicious add-ons at the ATM, but in this case the criminals were collecting card info as people swiped to enter the building—although they still had pinhole cameras set up to record PINs next to each keypad.
Wave Of Fake Debt Collectors Hints At Possible Data Breach
By 8.4.09
The Better Business Bureau has released a warning to be aware of scammers calling to threaten people with arrest “within the hour” for defaulting on payday loans. What makes them stand out from normal debt collecting scammers is these callers have huge amounts of personal info on their victims, including Social Security and drivers license numbers; old bank account numbers; names of employers, relatives, and friends; and home addresses.
Emailfinder.com Sells Wrong Info, Now Woman Has To Show Up In Small Claims Court
By 7.14.09
Some guy in London fell for an online iPhone scam in January, so he paid $150 to emailfinder.com to track down the identity behind the Hotmail account of the person who scammed him. Now he’s suing Kim, who is completely unrelated to this story (or was, at least), for $4,368 to cover the $1200 he lost on the iPhone scam plus travel expenses for him to show up in small claims court here in the U.S.
Marketers Announce They Will Bring More Transparency To Personal Data Collection By 2010
By 7.3.09
Several major advertising trade groups announced yesterday that starting in 2010, they will implement a new set of self-imposed guidelines on how they collect and use your personal info, in an attempt to prevent the government from handing down federal regulations.
Sears Pays $10 In Coupons For Your Email Address
By 5.19.09
Max wants to know why he hasn’t received the $10 gift certificate that the cashier at Sears promised him for turning over an email address to receive marketing messages. We contacted Sears and found out what’s actually going on.
Monster.com Hacked, User Names & Passwords Stolen
By 1.26.09
Last Friday, Monster.com announced that their database had been attacked, and that account names, passwords, email addresses, and phone numbers had been stolen. Unfortunately, they haven’t sent out email alerts to anyone—they just put the announcement up on the security section of their site. As our tipster Erica points out, “Given people’s tendencies to reuse passwords on multiple sites (BAD!), that they aren’t actively emailing and informing members of this breach is quite irresponsible.”
How To Get Utilities And Phone Service Without Giving Up Your SSN
By 9.23.08
As several readers discussed in yesterday’s post, utility, phone, and cable companies usually require your Social Security number in order to perform a credit check before activating service. You don’t have to provide it, but they don’t have to extend their services to you either. Here’s one reader’s explanation of how he was able to turn on water, electricity, gas, and an AT&T land line without turning over his SSN.
By 9.19.08
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This Saturday (September 20th) is the Better Business Bureau’s “Secure Your ID” day: in select cities, “bring up to three boxes or bags of paper documents that contain your personal information and we’ll shred them.” Or, you know, just do it yourself all year long. [BBB]
