Entries by Robert Siciliano

Most Willing to Pay to Reduce Identity Theft Risk

When you compare the cost of various services, you begin to see how much your time is worth. For example, it would take most homeowners a significant chunk of nights and weekends to paint a house themselves, but a professional crew can get it done in a week, for a reasonable price. Recovering from identity…

Dumb Pizza Burglar Stuck In Vent

Oh the beauty of stupidity. Not a day goes by that some dolt breaks the law and makes himself look like a total buffoon. This burglar decided to break into a pizza parlor through an exit: the smoke vent. If you’ve ever walked behind a strip mall where there is a restaurant you know which…

Springtime Home Improvement Scams Coming

This is the time of the year they come out of the woodwork. Scammers knocking door to door with promises of quality work for exceptionally low prices. The scams often include driveway repaving, chimney repairs, ductwork cleaning, and roofing scams. Toss a criminal handy man in there and you end up missing a jewelry box…

Spyware A Major Identity Theft Threat

Spyware is sold legally in the United States. This software records chats, emails, browsing history, usernames, passwords, and basically everything a person does on that PC. Some spyware programs can record everything in a video file, which can then be accessed remotely. This is all perfectly legal as long as the PC’s owner installs the…

Home Invader Claims Insanity Defense

Certainly when someone hacks another person to death it is safe to say something is very wrong with them. In criminal trials, Wikipedia defines “the insanity defenses are possible defenses by excuse, an affirmative defense by which defendants argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law because they were legally…

3 Year Old’s Identity Stolen To Buy Porn

A thief hacked into a woman’s checking account and used her daughter’s name on an electronic check to pay for an online porn subscription. The FBI believes this is a relatively new scam, with reports coming in from across the country. The little girl isn’t a signer on the account, but the bank cashed the…

Android Apps Infected With A Virus

Are you one off the 33% of all mobile phones running the Android operating system?  The official Android Market is run by Google and there are over 150,000 applications with an estimated 3.7 billion downloads. More than 250,000 applications have been downloaded with a malicious virus. The LA Times reports “Google is remotely removing virus-infected…

Managing a Digital Life: Snooping on a Spouse’s Email

Your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or partner just headed out to do errands without logging out of his or her email account. The computer’s sitting right there. Would you feel compelled to check it out? According to a recent study, there’s a good chance that you will eavesdrop on your significant other’s cell phone and email…

Identity Thief Steals Identity For 17 Years

This mess Joseph Kidd stole Larry Smith’s identity 17 years ago, when Smith was 50 years old. While operating under Smith’s identity, Kidd “spent time in jail, as sent to prison, paroled, obtained welfare and Medicare benefits, and got married.” He did all this using Smith’s name, which means that Smith has had to deal…