It's 2007: Do You Know Where Your Identity Is?

Part 1

By William Simon, Guest Blogger

This weekend, the Book Tarts are delighted to present a two-part blog by William Simon, a Man of the Blog and a recognized expert in computer crime. WARNING:  This blog will most likely scare the shit out of you; if it doesn't, you're not paying attention.

Let's call him Allan Jeffrey Smith.  His friends call him AJ.

AJ lives in an upscale neighborhood, drives a fairly new car, dresses nicely, always has money, and when asked what he does for a living identifies himself as a "consultant".  He looks and sounds like the Quintessential All-American Boy, the kind born and bred only in Southern California.  Seeing AJ with a surfboard would not be surprising, any more than seeing him surrounded by bikinied beach bunnies would be.

AJ gets up in the morning and checks his email.  His Inbox is overflowing.  With a practiced eye, he scans through the messages rapidly, separating the wheat from the chaff.  The good ones he separates into a special folder, the others he deletes, those from friends and family he replies to.  AJ makes himself a quick breakfast, then drives to the local post office where he collects his mail.  A quick flip through again, and he separates business mail from personal mail.  The business correspondence is carefully sorted as he sits in his car.  The personal mail is carelessly tossed into the back seat.  Once that is done, he drives to a small strip center, takes some of his mail into a particular establishment, stays inside for about five minutes, then returns to his car.

He drives home.  He goes back to his home office and sits down at his computer again.  There are even more emails than before, and again, he does a quick sweep separating the important ones from the rest.  The important ones go into a separate folder that he forwards to another email address.

All this has taken about an hour.  And in that hour, AJ has made, according to conservative estimates, a little over ten thousand dollars.

AJ is a professional identity thief.

In his 'snail' mail today, he has received money orders totaling over fifteen thousand dollars.  An arrangement with a check cashing store has netted him the aforementioned ten grand (their percentage guarantees his anonymity).  In his email, he has received hundreds of responses to emails he blasted over the Internet the night before, in the guise of a major credit card company, asking consumers for information due to a possible security issue with their accounts.  Per his instructions in the illegitimate message, all they need to do is click on the link provided within the email, answer a few questions to verify their identity, and the customers can rest assured their account will be protected. 

AJ sent the emails last night before he went to bed via an anonymous server in Finland, so there is no possible way to trace them back to him.  He has become an expert in providing spoofed headers, so it looks and 'feels' legitimate.  Even the most jaded Net User could be fooled into thinking the message is real.

The money orders in this morning's mail were sent by the accountant for an organized gang of identity thieves.  AJ is one of more than a dozen "employees" that are paid by the volume of responses they generate.  AJ likes to boast, his worst day ever, he cleared a little less than six thousand dollars.

One day. 

Six thousand dollars. 

That was his Bad Day.

In 1998, computers were used or involved in only around 18% of crimes.  As of the latest formal statistics, over 89% of crime today involves a computer in some fashion.  From serial killers who keep diaries, to the sadistic rapist who takes digital photographs of his victims (and publishes them online for the world to see) to gang-bangers setting up recruitment sites, to con-men who literally bilk little old ladies out of their life savings, computers have become so pervasive that it has become standard operating procedure for law enforcement and investigators to conduct a forensic examination of the laptop, the PDA, the cell phone. 

The first rule of investigation used to be "Check the family". 

Now, it's "Check the computer".

Identity Theft is the new crime for the New Millennium. 

Curious?  Frightened?  Nervous?  Like cliffhangers?

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion...same Tart Time, same Tart Channel!

Comments

[JJ]

William - well done and good to see a fellow blogging here.

Most people hear about ID theft via commercials, but have no idea how it happens.

Looking forward to the rest tomorrow.

[Kimmie]

What a great topic. I work in the IT field, and kudos to William for breaking it down into a story form everyone will understand.

And hey - it's another bumper sticker, too:

"Same Tart Time, Same Tart Channel"

I'll be back.

[Kathy Sweeney]

Hey William!

Excellent topic and a good story too.

But I hate cliffhangers - you're not going to end up with Bobby Ewing in the shower, are you?

I'll take a bumper sticker, too.

[Cinema Dave]

Holy Cliffhanger!

You tease!

I look forward to tommorrow's conclusion...if there is one!

[NJ Joe]

Glad I checked in before I took off for the day.

Good blog, and I'll be back for the rest tomorrow.

William - good to see one of our own getting some space above the fold.

And we needed a breather after Margie, so the timing is good.

[ramona]

Yikes! I'm kinda afraid to post, and I don't even know what happens next. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

Kimmie: Sign me up for a bumper sticker. Good one, William.

[Annette]

Great post William. I am off to visit my Mom and Dad who live out in the country. They would probably be afraid to simply turn on a computer. And I will be thinking of your scary blog all day. What a contrast.

[sarahS]

I had to read this with one eye open....Eeek.

Great blog, William. Glad to have you on board!

[Elaine Viets]

Man, this is scary stuff. Thanks for taking the time to blog.

[William Simon]

JJ - You're right. It's a cute commercial on TV...until it happens to you. (And yes, I myself got nailed in 2004; it had to do with my ATM card (which was in fact in my wallet), a boutique in Orlando, FL that catered to the BDSM community (and I've not been in the state of Florida for over 25 years), and an unbelievably lackadaisical attitude from the bank that sent me through the ceiling.)

Kimmie - Thank you for the kind words, and the creation of yet another bumper sticker! I love it!

Kathy - Sorry, but Bobby in the shower doesn't send me. I hate to fall back on the usual suspect, but Mrs. Peel in the shower....well... (koff, koff) Sadly, no one's in the shower tomorrow.

Dave - Of course there's a conclusion! You can't have a cliffhanger without the second part. (Check out the old Republic serials!)

Joe - Thanks to you also for the kind words.

ramona - Glad you're liking it. Wait until tomorrow.

Sarah - Thanks to you and all The Tarts for inviting me to board the S.S. TLC! This place is fun...:)

Elaine - To use another cliche, "Ya ain't seen nothing yet!"...:) More than once, I've honestly thought Helen has the right idea; just drop right OFF the map.

Tomorrow's conclusion will explain the terrifying simplicity of just HOW AJ does his thing. If I did it correctly, you'll never ever look at your computer the same way again....

Thank you, all.
William

[Margie]

This really is scary - who knew there was a Bondage Store in Orlando?

Does Mickey know?

[Christopher]

Just clicked over after checking on yesterday's blog, which I missed, and here she is.

Margie - gives a whole new meaning to that slogan: "Where Dreams Come True".

William - I'll bet that was fun trying to explain that one - you'd think the bank would've at least been amused.

Good blog. Looking forward to the conclusion tomorrow.

[Laura (in PA)]

My sister actually got a credit card cloned while in Dublin. The CC company called her husband back in Tennessee and asked him about things that got charged in Ireland to their account. She was there, but hadn't charged them. It was a mess trying to figure it out, and for them to communicate with each other, and arranging for a new card to use while still traveling.

Can't wait to read tomorrow's saga. Thanks, William, for sharing the knowledge.

I tell ya, this place is one learning experience after another.

[Rebecca the Bookseller]

Terrific blog.

And Oh Happy Day for me, sitting at the Apple Genius Bar and -- FINALLY - getting ready to take my iMac back home complete with all my original data.

William - hope your story has a happy ending too, but I have my doubts.

[Harley]

Ah, William -- A. J. sounds like half the guys I dated, in the old days . . .

[Carol]

This is so interesting - it's like an inside view of the cybercriminal.

Great blog!

[Sue L]

That is scary stuff, but I'd rather know it than not know it.

TLC is really a full service blog, ladies (oh, and William too).