Theft of personal data from websites is also growing. Egghead.com
sent a chilly wind through cyberspace late last year when
it disclosed that hackers had broken into its system and may
have accessed millions of credit-card numbers from its database.
(It later found that no credit cards were compromised.) It
was a stark reminder that financial data are only as safe
as every website you share them with.
There have been other recent high-profile hacks. Music retailer
CD Universe lost up to 300,000 credit-card numbers; Bibliofind,
a subsidiary of Amazon, had the names, addresses and credit-card
numbers of 98,000 customers stolen. One thing that makes online
credit-card theft more tolerable than some cyberscams: if
consumers find false charges, banks and merchants should pay
most of the bill.
That
website on which you just entered your credit-card number
may be a fake
In April, the FBI cracked a Russian ring and charged a pair
of its members with conspiracy and fraud. The hackers were
also allegedly involved in website spoofing. Federal officials
said they tried to create a counterfeit website that mimicked
the real home page of PayPal, the popular online fund-transfer
service. PayPal has been hit with such spoofs several times.
When a fake site was operating, hackers e-mailed PayPal users
and got them to click on a hyperlink with the spoof site's
domain name: www.paypai.com. On many computers, a capital
I looks identical to the l at the end of the word PayPal.
Near-identical domain names are easy to obtain. Banks have
also been a frequent target of spoofers. Bank of America got
wwwbankofamerica.com taken down - its domain name, minus the
dot after www, but not before some customers were tricked
into entering financial information.
The
government may be giving out your home address, social security
number and other personal information online
If you live in Ohio, anyone who types your name into a county
database can learn your address and how much your house is
worth. He can also inspect detailed floor plans of your house,
showing placement of your windows, porches and balconies.
Supporters of the state's online initiative call it a breakthrough
for open access to government records. Critics have another
way of describing it: a breaking-and-entering handbook.
Governments around the country have been rushing to put property
records online. Many jurisdictions have joined Ohio in creating
databases searchable by name. If you go to the Brookline,
Mass., website, you can find out where Michael Dukakis lives.
Miami's will tell you Janet Reno's home address.
It isn't just property databases. Wisconsin has most of its
arrest and court records online. (I discovered that a former
law-school classmate of mine has had two traffic violations
and was a defendant in a civil lawsuit.) The federal courts
have put many of their records online through a system called
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (pacer). Among the
data available: Social Security numbers; financial assets,
which often must be revealed in court proceedings; and the
names and ages of minor children.
Critics say the government has gone too far in making data
available online, and there are signs the tide may be turning.
California's court system is considering new rules that would
deny Internet access to certain court records, including those
of criminal, family and mental-health proceedings. "The purpose
of making public records accessible is to ensure accountability,"
says Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic
Privacy Information Center. That, he argues, does not require
putting details of divorce and child-custody disputes or bankruptcy
proceedings on the Internet.
For-profit
companies and people who don't like you may be broadcasting
your private information on the Internet
The murder of Amy Boyer, a 20-year-old New Hampshire dental
assistant, by an obsessed admirer in 1999 called attention
to an obscure part of the cybereconomy - online data brokers.
Boyer's assailant paid $45 to Florida-based docusearch.com
for her Social Security number and later purchased the name
of her employer. He then tracked her down on the job and killed
her.
Data brokers insist they are doing necessary work, providing
background information to employers, creditors and other people
who legitimately need it. But many sell Social Security numbers
and private financial information to anyone willing to pay
their fees. Often they are the first stop for identity thieves
and stalkers.
Data brokers get most of their information from government
records. Privacy advocates want governments to be more selective
about what information they allow brokers to harvest. California,
for example, has a law that permits police to release arrest
data to reporters while withholding it from businesses that
would use it for commercial purposes. Privacy advocates say
more jurisdictions should follow California's lead.
The Internet makes it easier for people to broker information
about people they don't like. In Seattle, a battle is raging
over justicefiles.org, a frequent critic of local law enforcement.
The group began posting police officers' Social Security numbers
on its website. A state court has ordered the group to stop,
holding that it was infringing on the officers' privacy rights.
Free-speech advocates are fighting the ruling, arguing that
there is no basis for preventing the dissemination of truthful,
legally obtained information.
Your
company or your spouse may be using your computer to spy on
you
Companies have the legal right to monitor their employees'
web surfing, e-mail and instant messaging. Many do, whether
they warn their workers or not - so don't count on any of
it remaining private. Last month the University of Tennessee
released more than 900 pages of archived e-mail between an
administrator and a married college president in which the
administrator wrote of her love for him and of her use of
drugs and alcohol to deal with her unhappiness. Employers,
including the New York Times and Dow Chemical, have fired
workers for sending inappropriate e-mail.
But the fastest-growing area for Internet spying is the home.
SpectorSoft, a leading manufacturer of spyware, at first marketed
its products to parents and employers. Sales jumped fivefold,
however, when the company changed its pitch to target spouses
and romantic partners. "In just one day of running Spector
on my home PC, I was able to identify my fiancˇ's true personality,"
a testimonial on the company's website trumpets. "I found
all 17 of his girlfriends."
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