Friday, August 14, 2009

IP Change and Identity Theft Solutions

Identity theft is the fastest growing and most insidious crime in America. Hardly a day passes without new news of this atrocious crime and new victims. Recent news item titled “LimeWire cited as identity theft attack vector” on
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2247770/limewire-cited-identity-theft is a fresh example. The report went on to say: “The use of LimeWire, a popular peer to peer (P2P) service, as a tool for identity theft has been highlighted by a court case in Seattle.

Frederick Wood was sentenced to three years in prison today for stealing LimeWire to steal personal information, using that to fraudulently buy goods online and then selling them on Craigslist.

Wood admitted to using LimeWire to trawl the hard drives of user’s computers, entering terms like "tax return" and "account" to find financial information. He also searched for college application forms because of the wealth of financial information they contained.

When police raided his computer they found the financial information for more than 120 people on there. This data had been used to forge cheques which were used to buy electrical goods.

He was only caught because of a more low tech crime. He arranged to sell a laptop face to face and switched the computer’s box, leaving the potential customer with a box containing a book and a vase.

Limewire and other peer to peer systems need very careful setup when they are first installed, since the default setting is to share all the information on the hard drive online.

This is not only a problem for consumers but also for business. Congress has heard in the last month that key government data, including details of presidential safe houses, was available through the P2P system because IT administrators were not barring LimeWire either on the computer or via the firewall. “

There are number of ways one can fight identity theft but people who use internet (majority of Americans) are vulnerable to get their identity and other sensitive information stolen. There have to be multiple technological solutions to this problem. People now generally use antivirus, firewall, anti spy ware and other internet security software to thwart malicious attacks. Browsers have become more secure than they used to. However, we are still vulnerable. Using software that encrypts your data and surfing anonymously by using Proxy servers and software able to effect rapid IP Change via these servers is huge leap in technological solution to this problem. It effectively hides your IP address and thus thwarting would be hackers and identity theives.

For more in-depth analysis of technologies available to surf the net securely with privacy, especially one related to software that allows rapid IP change to hide your IP address visit http://change-ip-proxy.com and even try the software for free.

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