If you want a Puerto Rican identity, it’s about $6000 for a “tripleta,” which can be used to hide illegal immigrants. Other forms of identification vary in price. A United States passport can range from $950 to $1650 to as much as$5500. In the U.S., we have as many as 200 different forms of identification circulating, including passports from…
I’ve said it before, use upper and lower case, use number and letter combinations and when possible, if the website allows it, use special characters. It has been documented that “Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.” It…
Dumb Criminals are performing stupid crimes all the time. Here is a list of 10 stupid criminal stories. #1 Firefighters said it can’t get more ironic than this — an arsonist breaks into a convenience store, steals scratch-off lottery tickets, tries to cover his tracks by setting a fire, and in the process, sets himself…
An elderly World War II veteran fought off a man who had broken into his home and attacked the Marine veteran. The Boston Herald reports the Vet was sitting in his living room watching TV and his wife was upstairs. The home invader comes in and attacked the Vet, then “as he was being attacked,…
September is National Campus Safety Awareness Month. I helped Uni-Ball conduct a survey of 1,000 college students and 1,000 parents. The survey revealed that while about 74% of parents believe students are at a moderate to high risk for identity theft, and 30% of all identity theft victims are between 18 and 29, only 21% of…
Technology is meant to make life easier, safer and in some cases fun-er. Geolocation is supposed to make you save a few bucks on discounts when you “check in” at participating retail stores and gather “points”. It is also supposed to tell your friends and followers via geo-tagging that you just snapped a photo somewhere. …
iTunes users all over the world are being hooked in a possible phishing scam that siphons cash out of their PayPal accounts. Phishing scams, of course, consist of emails that appear to be coming from a legitimate, trusted business. These emails are often designed to trick the victim into revealing login credentials. Once the phishers…
There are 437,000,000 debit cards in circulation, and their use is on the rise. Criminal hackers are paying attention. Credit cards offer some measure of protection when it comes to “zero liability policies,” as long as the cardholder refutes the charges within 60 days. But when a debit card is compromised, the stolen money is…
When most people think about a virus, they think of a fever, chills, and maybe a potential pandemic. But when they think about a computer virus, they think of a headache, or worse, identity theft. Unusually, one report claims that a computer virus played a role in the deadliest air disaster in Spanish history. Others refute this…
A report issued by the FTC finds that customers in the process of withdrawing cash from ATMs are more likely to be victims of ATM fraud than a direct, physical crime, and skimmer devices have recently been found on gas pumps and ATMs throughout Northern California. ATM skimming occurs when a device is placed on…
