Quote:
Originally posted by hadaso
<snip>
I found out about it when Visa security called my cellphone and said they saw suspicious looking charges on my card. After confirming I had not made these they blocked the card immediately. Still whoever did this managed to charge almot $10000 before it was blocked. After filling some forms I got most of the money back, but there are still $100 missing. The first thing the Visa person asked me on the phone is if I used the card online. Of course I had to say I did because I did many times: I paid city taxes online. Electricity bills. Email acounts. Hotel reservations. Amazon. B&N. etc. Are these safe? I also made payments on the phone. Perhaps some of these were not as safe (small local businesses. Donations to small organizations...) And I made lots of payments directly: Stores. Gas stations in places I don't know. The most untrustable situations were those where the credit card is actually handed over to a worker in some business. When you need gas you need gas. Otherwise you cannot go home.
Well, that was a bit off topic, but my point is that as much as we like not to give personal info, there are situations where we must give this info whan we know it can be abused because this is how things work.
And about the incident with Yahoo and the Chinese reporter: Yahoo didn't need to give any personal information. Just the IP addresses that a certain account was used from. That's enough for Chinese intelligence to match to cybercafe's logs and to find out exactly who used it and when. And with a bit more efort the Chinese inteligence would probably be able to do it without Yahho's cooperation.
|
This goes to why I am very selective to where and who gets my personal information. You have to be, it's just out and out foolish not to be. I find it appauling that so much the attitude from companies and a lot of people also that they think you're nuts for not just handing over your personal info. Take for example a quote I read by Scott McNealy "Privacy doesn't exist, get over it"! That show's the general attitude, I find it shocking!
Another subject I take great issue with is Microsoft and their general disregard twards security and privacy. The story about the server found in Texas collecting the data from
keyloggers on millions of Windows computers. That's just out and out chilling! I'm proud to state I use only Unix and Linux on my personal machines. The risk is greatly reduced, and I can sleep at night. But it goes to show the great challenges that we face as a civilization that is currently getting rid of actual money and going to a "Point System". Identity theft is big business and no longer are they script kiddies writting viruses, it's organized crime!