Business or commercial identity theft happens when thieves use an existing business’ name to get credit, or they may bill a business’ clients for products and services. Sometimes the Social Security number of a company’s officer or another representative is required to commit business identity theft. A big problem is that identifiers, such as federal…
Recent reports show smartphones are outselling dumbphones for the first time ever. Dumbphones are actually called feature phones, which is odd because they don’t offer many features. Well, they do, like a camera, texting, crude internet access, and a few other extinct bells and whistles—but not as many as a smartphone. The Wall Street Journal…
I use Grammarly’s online english grammar check because Grammarly watches writers backs like a bodyguard. Anyway….. Grey charges—deceptive and unwanted credit and debit card charges that occur as a result of misleading sales and billing practices—total more than US$14 billion per year among US debit and credit cardholders. The prevalence of grey charges among a randomly selected…
Can you believe it? A man of the cloth was up to no good. What has the world come to? A pastor from Tennessee was caught on a security camera trying to break into the home of one of his parishioners. It’s not the prison-heading pastor’s first pass with the po-po; it seems he’s got…
Identity theft in the form of new account fraud can happen to anyone with a Social Security number, which includes virtually any American with a pulse…as well as some who no longer do. Identity theft can even happen to your newborn baby shortly after a Social Security number has been issued to him or her…
The old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link rings true with home security too. A home is only as secure as its weakest door, window or lock. So in this post, I’ll address means of egress: doors. Front doors are often decorative and, most often, heavy with a solid…
Now that Apple has rolled out its new “Touch ID” fingerprint biometric technology, none of us ever has to enter a password ever again….NOT. While biometrics is certainly an option for authentication and a fingerprint is the most likely method of password deployment, it will be a long time until (if ever) a fingerprint is…
Identity theft is first and foremost a problem because we rely on numerical identifiers that attach humans to credit and a variety of services. Once a criminal gets hold of those identifiers, he can simply be you. But when that thief takes on those numerical identifiers and attaches another name or date of birth, he…
So a recent Bay Area home invasion ended in a gun battle. You know why? Because it’s a home invasion. That’s often what happens when a person’s home is invaded. If the homeowner has a gun and can get to it, he pulls it out and starts shooting. But chances are the home invader has…
Encryption is the science of encoding and decoding secret messages. It began as cryptography—the ancient Greeks used it to protect sensitive information that might fall into the hands of their enemies. More recently, governments have used encryption for military purposes, but these days the term if often used in reference to online security. Encryption is…
