Identity Theft

Burton Catalyst 2010 - San Diego

Attended Burton (now acquired by Gartner) Catalyst 2010 in San Diego, an excellent forum to get upto speed on what is happening in technology world in terms of standards and trends.

Paradigm shifts:
* Pushing core to the outside
* How SAAS, HIAS, PAAS, have provided capabilities to the industry in terms of scalability. Users pay only what they need. * Stop wasting platform resources by leveraging virtualization
* Chaning views on how Identities should be managed
* Writing applications that are cloud aware and are able to co-exist on a platform


Identity Theft Terms

  • Dumpster diving - Searching through trash and recycling bins for personal information such as credit card statements, purchase recripts and income tax papers.
  • Shoulder surfing - Confidential information such as your PIN or password can be stolen by ID theives who can look over your shoulder at and ABM or POS Terminal, or when you use a public computer, your laptop, your Blackberry or other devices in public places

Protecting your identity on the Internet

Internet is a medium where you are trusting a website with the information you provide, you have no idea who this website belongs to.  Therefore:


Protecting your identity at home and in public

People think their information is protected while it is sitting in their homes, which is not true.  Therefore:

  • Always shred your bills, credit card offers before disposing off
  • At home try to mantain a clean desk policy, to ensure your bills and other information is not lying around in the open, which makes it easy for visitors to pick up
  • Never carry your SSN/SIN card in your wallet/purse
  • Never provide your SSN/SIN numbers to anyone besides your TAX Agency, all other agencies need it but it is not mandatory

Social Networking Security Tips

By the Associated Press