Consider the case of an intrepid identity thief. The perpetrator, Jane, encounters the victim, John, online in a chat room. John is using his real first name, but only his last initial. However, over a series of online conversations between Jane and John, he does reveal personal details about his life (marital status, children, occupation, region he lives in, and so forth). Eventually, Jane offers John some piece of information, such as perhaps an investment tip, as a trick to get John’s email address from him. Once she gets his email address, an email exchange begins outside of the chat room, wherein Jane purports to give John her real name, thus encouraging John to do the same. Of course, the perpetrator’s name is fictitious, such as “Mary.” But Jane now has John’s real name, city, marital status, occupation, and so on. Jane has a number of options she can try, but we will choose a simple one. She begins by using the phone book or the Web to get John’s home address and phone number. She can then use this information to get John’s social security number, in a variety of ways. The most straightforward would be to go through John’s trash while he is at work. However, if John works in a large company, Jane can just call (or enlist someone to call), claiming to be John’s wife or another close relative, wanting to verify personnel data. If Jane is clever enough, she may come away with John’s social security number. Then it is a trivial matter (as we will see in Chapter 13, “Cyber Detective”) to get John’s credit report and to get credit cards in his name.

 

From this scenario, consider the following questions:

1. What reasonable steps could John have taken to protect his identity in the chat room?

2. What steps should any employer take to prevent being unwittingly complicit in identity theft?