After getting blogo-lambasted for a gaping security hole that allowed anyone to call up and snag your name and home address by punching in your Sprint cellphone number into an automated system, Sprint has closed that selfsame privacy aperture.
security
Sprint Loves To Give Out Your Billing Address
By 7.10.06
Sprint is taking the lead for crappy customer verification after Boing Boing spilled that their new international call identity verification service will spill the name and address of the owner of a particular phone number just by typing that number into a robot-manned 1-800 number.
Portrait of an Idio… Er, Identity Thief
By 7.5.06
Meet Shiva Sharma. Husband, father, identity thief, inmate of the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, New York. Shiva has no idea how much money he’s stolen from other people, but by the time of his third arrest for identity theft, he’d been nailed in connection with over $150,000 in credit card fraud transaction.
Stolen Veteran Affairs Laptop Recovered
By 6.30.06
After much hand and flag-wringing, a laptop containing millions of veteran’s personal data has been recovered. A preliminary analysis by police reveals that the sensitive information was not accessed during the theft.
Shamu Proves Retailers Don’t Care About Credit Card Signatures
By 6.20.06
Conclusive proof that signing your credit card slip is completely irrelevant: The Credit Card Prank II.
Verizon Wants to Chat About -$1000 Bill
By 6.19.06
Back in mid-may, we decided that the best way to protest the phone companies selling our records to the NSA was to send our cell phone company a bill for $1000. What we did is take our Verizon bill, deduct $1000 from it, and enclose a copy of 18 USC 2701 with relevant secitons highlighted. Specifically, those parts saying that if anyone gives up your phone records, they can get fined $1000. Obviously, this is in jest. But Verizon’s taking it seriously enough to want to schedule a conference call with us.
Hey Consumerists! Get Blacklisted By The Chargeback Bureau!
By 6.16.06
Welcome to the consumerist blacklist, Dalton Trumbo!
Petty Power Trips at Dulles Airport
By 6.15.06
With wild googly eyes and a crazy unkempt orange beard, Edward Hasbrouck looks a bit crazy. But not terrorist crazy. Geeky crazy. Actually, he’s a very proud American: proud enough to assert his rights in the fear that if he doesn’t, he’ll lose them. He isn’t afraid to question authority. And most importantly, he isn’t afraid to question the murky and nebulous “authority” of TSA contractors demanding to see his identification.
Scammers Won’t Accept Credit Cards
By 6.6.06
These days, when I want to use my credit card, it isn’t enough to just sign the slip and be done with it. I have to sign the slip. Then I have to show some ID. Then I have to stand stock still as a clerk scrutinizes my face. And then I have to type in an arbitrary 5 digit pin number. Only then will Mastercard be convinced that I am not some brown-toothed Russian lottery scammer.
Hotels.com, Ernst & Young Lose 0.25 Million Credit Card Numbers
By 6.5.06
250,000 Hotels.com customers woke up to super great news Friday morning: “Um, sorry guys, all your credit card numbers were stolen.”
Lawsuit Filed for 26.5 Mil Vets in Data Privacy Snafu
By 6.2.06
A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the 26.5 million vets whose personal records were lost by Veterans Affairs due to employee negligence, reports the AP.
Thunder Before The Storm? Another Citibank Account ‘Compromised’
By 6.2.06
Buckle yourselves in, boys and girls. Is this email we just received from Kate H. the first rumbling of another massive slate of Citibank security breaches?
Windows XP Now Calls You A Pirate
By 5.29.06
If you’re using Windows XP with a product key of dubious origin, you may have noticed that your computer just got a lot more obnoxious.
How Many Weeks Does It Take To Tell A Veteran His Identity Has Been Stolen?
By 5.24.06
we cursorily mentioned the fact that the authorities investigating the theft of the laptop that resulted in the names, addresses and social security numbers of every living veteran being stolen waited three weeks to alert the public. But it took awhile for that to sink in.
Are Identity Thieves Targeting Idiot Employees?
By 5.23.06
Consumer Affairs raises an interesting question in its summary of the theft of 26 million social security numbers on a burgled laptop: are these targeted thefts?
