kcaj is not my password

It is time for a Jack Rant...

This will be a common occurrence here. You will find that I have a tendency to froth at the mouth about lots of things. However I usually get cranked up about politics, or public policy or social issues and the like.

I saw an article on personal information security and data theft before Christmas and I thought it was worth talking about. This has been something that has been on my mind to mention to everyone, and this article was just the catalyst I needed to pull the trigger on this Rant.

How long has it been since you all changed ALL your passwords??? Are you diligent about keeping your personal information private ??? Are you aware of the consequences regarding the loss or theft of your personal info and identity?

There has never been a time in our history, when we are more at risk of having our identities and personal data/security illegally AND legally scanned, recorded, hacked, used, abused, tracked, stolen, traded and sold. Mostly without our knowledge OR permission.

If it has been more than a year since you have changed your codes, you are at considerable risk. According to CONSERVATIVE statistics, last year you had 3 or more of your bank or stock accounts or credit card numbers acquired and someone tried to crack it or hack it. This is a shockingly high number. But to me, the place where we should be more concerned, is in our personal privacy and the issues raised by the said piracy of that information.

We are at the front end of the explosive growth of data acquisition as practiced both legally and illegally by "legitimate " Big Business. You should be taking measures to prevent it from happening. I'll show you why later after I work up a good lather.

Many computer attacks of this kind are done by amateur's and if that is the case you probably will have (or have had ) no breach ......unless you are dumb enough to have used a spouse or child's name or your own name, or a street address or 123, or asdfg or something similar as a code .... even moron hackers will try these passwords. When the unskilled fail to gain entry with those common passwords, they generally will not have the intelligence or patience to stick with it and try other combo's. This will cause them to go off looking for someone that IS that dumb.WooWoo you win round 1.

If some one really wants in and has the skills and the patience, you HAVE TO HAVE a higher level of security on your passwords or your information WILL get hijacked

When, after reading this you decide to change your passwords, ( ........ Notice I do not say IF you decide ........ you should do it today) There are some basic rules about passwords and security codes that you should follow. Make sure you use a combination of letters (upper and lower case) and numbers. It should also be at least 6 characters long. And for God's sake don't use the same password for everything.

But if you are clever you can come up with a letter/number combo that makes sense sort of and this will do 2 things. 1. It will fit all the criteria for a complex, secure code .... and 2. It will be MUCH easier to remember . For example, a code I used last winter..... EyEh8c0Ld I hate cold ... do you see it? The 8 and the O in cold are numbers. It is very hard to break this kind of pass. (Harder still if it is completely gibberish..like ..... HgtY75tgj9 but these are very hard to remember.) You should NEVER write them down where they can be easily found. Not inside the desk drawer or on the bottom of the keyboard. Don't write them on a card that you carry around in your purse or wallet unless you encode them somehow. If you do need or want to carry passwords around with you, write them down only try just rolling the digits up by 1. (If we use " EyEh8c0Ld" as an example .. roll the digits up by 1 and you get FzFi9d1Me...E become F, 8 becomes 9...do you see it? This will work very well for all but the most ingenious hackers and as long as you remember up 1 digit you can carry your #'s much more securely.

You do need to figure out a place that you can write them down though, because if you forget which series of passwords you are on it will be a MAJOR bummer to get back on track. Don't use combos of your kids names or your name, use something obscure from the past that is easy to remember but not common knowledge. For instance; for a while, I used the password 8iG8Us. This is bigbus, do you see it? the 8's are b's then small big, big small are the letters with upper/lower case info ..... easy to remember ..... and from the past ...... the name of the my band's greyhound tour bus 10 years ago... Who would make the connection?

Identity fraud and theft are really spooling up. I am seeing so much hacker traffic these days that I am changing my passwords, (and I mean all of them email, ebay, bank card credit cards etc.) every 6 months. I know it is a pain but I think the danger and our exposure to it, has increased exponentially in the last year.

And it only takes one time. Once your information is in a database, it is EXTREMELY hard to get it out or keep it from being traded or sold. Along the same lines, you should NEVER give out your SS # to ANYONE.... By LAW you are NOT required to disclose that number except to the government or for setting up a bank account or the like.

I freelanced for years at a fortune 500 company that was in the banking industry ...they worked VERY hard to gain access to your SS#. Call center operators were taught to ask for it and coached to subtly imply that it was a "requirement". They had no need to know, they just WANTED to know so they could use it to gain information about you. ... for themselves and to sell in the open market. (Do you remember the flap about 2 years ago when Norwest Bank got caught buying all that personal info that by law, they weren't supposed to have??? Guess who sold it to them....the guys I was working for. It is all quasi legal too, because our super uninformed legislature doesn't understand all the implications ...and hasn't written good laws restricting what can be done with your personal info.

In fact there are many morons in the Congress and indeed our very own retarded(I'm being kind you will have to admit) President, that think it would be better if the government did have all your personal data INCLUDING YOUR DNA!!!! What then?? Let's put it all on a National ID card for you to carry around. (They "of course" assure us the data would be encrypted and used ethically at all times.)

You would be appalled at the amount of information that can be gleaned without your permission or knowledge with an SS# and some computer skills or money.

Information like bank records, tax stuff, employment records, insurance info, health care info, medical records, (yeah I know med info is legally supposed to be private, but banks are now owners of insurance companies and vice versa and if their data just "accidentally happens" to be commingled in the merger, well, whoops! ) mortgage, credit card debt, and buying habits...yes buying habits. They can track what you purchase with any credit card.

As a for instance, say a bank was looking to decide whether or not to do a mortgage on your house but it "just happened" to find out that you are undergoing chemo for cancer from the insurance company that owned the mortgaging bank ... oops loan denied. This is illegal but it happens I have seen this policy executed personally ...Can't do that you say? ..........how would you prove it was even done? ..

Want more? Let's say you are applying for a job ..... your prospective employer figures out that you are pregnant by accessing a database that tells him that you have been buying prenatal vitamins at the local WallMart .... Result?? Sorry we went with a more "qualified" applicant.

See?? It is important to keep as low a data profile as you can. I am not trying to freak you all out or make you super paranoid, but being diligent about keeping your own personal information private has become much more important than it used to be. Your exposure to this kind of crap is so much higher than it ever has been, and the ensuing damage can be greater as well. And until our political morons figure out how important this is, it is up to us to keep the barn door closed as much as possible.

End of Rant

Posted by Jack at January 05, 2003 04:43 PM