Identity theft....

[masterswimmer]

My fellow members of MR, I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not at risk, but I've had my share of mortgages and other consumer loans like millions of others.

Please watch this short video and be amazed, like I was:

http://wimp.com/copymachines/

I hope nothing happens to any of you like I hope it doesn't happen to me. :sad2:

swimmer

 

[Awibrandy]

Thank you Russ!

 

[Lunareclipse]

That's is just totally freaky. Why would they need hard drives on printers to record every document printed? sounds like a severe privacy breach to me.

 

[JimmyR1rider]

Id like to see if the copy machine we have here- how many peoples a$$es are stored in the hard drive

 

[NYreefNoob]

thats just f'ed up

 

[Quang]

wow. thanks for sharing russ.

 

[James]

and on a related (and ironic) note....

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft


this is more funny but identity theft is no joke. don't use this company! haha

 

[straightjiggy10]

wowo

 

[jaa1456]

i had mine stolen about 6 years ago, Not very fun at all. I went to apply for my mortgage and they asked me about a Ford that I bought in Wisconson.

 

[masterswimmer]

and on a related (and ironic) note....

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft


this is more funny but identity theft is no joke. don't use this company! haha

I've seen this guys SS # on television ads too. Crazy that he's so confident about his system. Maybe the SS Administration issued him a new one after his was stolen originally and the old one that he publicizes is no longer valid

Just a thought
swimmer

 

[ZANYMASTER]

I agree Russ,someone took it as a challenge to steal his identity.It can happen to anyone even me and it did.Good thing the bank called me right away.I feel sorry for the person stealing my SS number,they could not even buy gum with it-LOL

 

[jf2381]

That is one thing I don't wish on anyone.

I dealt with it about 10 years ago. Someone had my license and got about 10 tickets. I spent 6 months going to court in different towns trying to proof that I was not drinking and driving, running red lights, hit and run and the list goes on. They almost threw me in jail at the Newark court because I got so pissed at the detective that accused me of selling my information.
Now I have to show 3 forms of ID if they pull me over and any credit transaction has to be verified.

 

[Killerdrgn]

The clip that you showed is very misleading. The hard drives on photo copiers are for server purposes, and any documents that you put on there are intentionally put there. Unless your company has setup the copier to actually save every document to the hard drive, it's not set up that way by default.

 

[masterswimmer]

The clip that you showed is very misleading. The hard drives on photo copiers are for server purposes, and any documents that you put on there are intentionally put there. Unless your company has setup the copier to actually save every document to the hard drive, it's not set up that way by default.

And how would you know which type of printer setup the mortgage company (for instance) you're dealing with has their printer set up as? Just a rhetorical question. Obviously you wouldn't know. What about the lawyer or title company that's closing your loan? How about two years later when your file is being prepared for sale to the secondary market? The point is, even after your mortgage loan is closed and you've been making the payments, your file is still open and copies can be made for various reasons. What assurances do you have that your name, address, DOB, SS#, account #'s, etc. are NOT being saved on a copier that has a hard drive set up to save your extremely sensitive financial information? You don't.

Now, with all that being said, does the fact that the expose` might be somewhat misleading to someone who is just looking to discredit the report from being 100% accurate for every single copier in the world make it any more comforting? Doubt it.

This is a very disturbing potentiality IMO

Russ

 

[Killerdrgn]

Actually there are laws that regulate this stuff. All banks are required to abide by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Just passed in Massachusetts is a law that requires all systems that would store sensitive PII data of any Massachusetts residents be encrypted, i.e. A company like Walmart if it wanted to continue doing business in Massachusetts would be required to encrypt all systems that would store any customer data. If they are dealing with EU companies or deal in the EU they must be Safe Harbor certified.

Yes in my job I deal with Privacy laws a lot, so yeah at least for the larger companies i know they have to follow these things.

 

[masterswimmer]

Actually there are laws that regulate this stuff. All banks are required to abide by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Just passed in Massachusetts is a law that requires all systems that would store sensitive PII data of any Massachusetts residents be encrypted, i.e. A company like Walmart if it wanted to continue doing business in Massachusetts would be required to encrypt all systems that would store any customer data. If they are dealing with EU companies or deal in the EU they must be Safe Harbor certified.

Yes in my job I deal with Privacy laws a lot, so yeah at least for the larger companies i know they have to follow these things.

Sorry to say, you still haven't said anything that increases my comfort level with regards to this. I've had at least 12-15 mortgages in my life, and never has WalMart been involved in any of them :tired: As a matter of fact, the expose` in that vid seemed to focus on NY. With Mass. as the state that passed the law, how would that help us NY'er's?

 

[Killerdrgn]

Sorry to say, you still haven't said anything that increases my comfort level with regards to this. I've had at least 12-15 mortgages in my life, and never has WalMart been involved in any of them :tired: As a matter of fact, the expose` in that vid seemed to focus on NY. With Mass. as the state that passed the law, how would that help us NY'er's?

I just used Walmart as the example of a large company that i know for certain operates in Massachusetts, and would not be regulated by GLBA or Safe Harbor. More applicable to your case, Bank of America, if it wanted to continue operating in any part of Massachusetts would be required to encrypt ALL of their customer data, as it would be cheaper to encrypt everything than to build out totally separate systems for Massachusetts. However they are already required to safeguard your information by GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley). And must be audited against those rules every year.

Of course this doesn't protect against retarded people at local offices that go against company policy, but it does lessen it from being systematic. And if a breach does occur the company is required to pay for credit monitoring and such.

 

[Killerdrgn]

Here lets just put it this way, it's actually much cheaper and easier just to steal the original copies of those records than it is to take the hard drive. And there are other varied free methods of getting your information such as phishing. The photocopying threat is much lower on the list than things like dumpster diving or SQL injection. If your going to be worrying about something, it really shouldn't be the office printers.

 

[ryangrieder]

wow....speachless. this is just crazy

 

[Alex]

That is very disturbing.