Nickdfresh
03-06-2005, 12:44 AM
Are Your Secrets Safe?
A huge leak at ChoicePoint, the nation's largest data miner, shows the reach of information giants as well as their vulnerability
By BILL SAPORITO
Monday, Feb. 28, 2005
Your name, your address, your Social Security number, your phone number, your driver's license, your car registration, your credit history, your birth certificate, your real estate deeds, your legal history, your fishing license, your military record, your insurance claims, your thumbprint, your DNA. That is just some of the information that data aggregator ChoicePoint might have collected on you and millions of other Americans.
The problem isn't necessarily that ChoicePoint has those data--although some privacy advocates are wary--but that some bad guys also got hold of them. That's why the nation's largest data miner, whose computers maintain and manipulate 19 billion data files for clients ranging from the Cub Scouts to the CIA, found itself trying to explain last week how a Nigerian con artist posing as several small-business owners could extract data on 145,000 people. "They were careful not to trip the triggers, and they did pay their bills," James Lee, ChoicePoint's chief marketing officer, says of the fake businesses. But the Nigerian job did trigger a national debate on privacy, identity theft and the role of the megaminers that dominate the information landscape.
The scam didn't hack ChoicePoint's network, Lee hastens to point out, a little disingenuously. Nothing so elaborate was necessary. The perp armed himself with phony letterheads and ordered electronic files by fax at $150 a batch. After a number of successful attempts, a ChoicePoint employee finally got wise and alerted police. When cops nabbed Olatunji Oluwatosin, 41, at a Copymat shop in Hollywood, he had five cell phones and three credit cards on him, each under different names. He has pleaded no contest to identity theft, but authorities say others must be involved, since the stolen data have been used in 750 fraud attempts.
Oluwatosin is keeping his mouth shut, but the breach at ChoicePoint has had politicians in full gumflap. "Our system of protecting people's identity is virtually nonexistent in this country," said Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York. Schumer's staff was able to download personal information on the likes of Dick Cheney and Brad Pitt from a ChoicePoint rival, Westlaw. Nearly 10 million people were victimized last year by identity theft, at a cost of $5 billion. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, pledged to schedule hearings on the topic. And that was before Bank of America learned, as first reported by TIME.com that it had lost several data-backup tapes that held information on at least 1.2 million federal employee credit-card accounts--possibly including some of Senators.
TIME (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1032374,00.html)
A huge leak at ChoicePoint, the nation's largest data miner, shows the reach of information giants as well as their vulnerability
By BILL SAPORITO
Monday, Feb. 28, 2005
Your name, your address, your Social Security number, your phone number, your driver's license, your car registration, your credit history, your birth certificate, your real estate deeds, your legal history, your fishing license, your military record, your insurance claims, your thumbprint, your DNA. That is just some of the information that data aggregator ChoicePoint might have collected on you and millions of other Americans.
The problem isn't necessarily that ChoicePoint has those data--although some privacy advocates are wary--but that some bad guys also got hold of them. That's why the nation's largest data miner, whose computers maintain and manipulate 19 billion data files for clients ranging from the Cub Scouts to the CIA, found itself trying to explain last week how a Nigerian con artist posing as several small-business owners could extract data on 145,000 people. "They were careful not to trip the triggers, and they did pay their bills," James Lee, ChoicePoint's chief marketing officer, says of the fake businesses. But the Nigerian job did trigger a national debate on privacy, identity theft and the role of the megaminers that dominate the information landscape.
The scam didn't hack ChoicePoint's network, Lee hastens to point out, a little disingenuously. Nothing so elaborate was necessary. The perp armed himself with phony letterheads and ordered electronic files by fax at $150 a batch. After a number of successful attempts, a ChoicePoint employee finally got wise and alerted police. When cops nabbed Olatunji Oluwatosin, 41, at a Copymat shop in Hollywood, he had five cell phones and three credit cards on him, each under different names. He has pleaded no contest to identity theft, but authorities say others must be involved, since the stolen data have been used in 750 fraud attempts.
Oluwatosin is keeping his mouth shut, but the breach at ChoicePoint has had politicians in full gumflap. "Our system of protecting people's identity is virtually nonexistent in this country," said Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York. Schumer's staff was able to download personal information on the likes of Dick Cheney and Brad Pitt from a ChoicePoint rival, Westlaw. Nearly 10 million people were victimized last year by identity theft, at a cost of $5 billion. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, pledged to schedule hearings on the topic. And that was before Bank of America learned, as first reported by TIME.com that it had lost several data-backup tapes that held information on at least 1.2 million federal employee credit-card accounts--possibly including some of Senators.
TIME (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1032374,00.html)