The Washington Post has a timely article on the problem of identity theft which offers some tips on how to avoid it. The advice is at a very high level and provides the following common sense suggestions:
- Check your credit for irregular activity
- Shred sensitive documents
- Safeguard your social security number
- Don’t use your mother’s maiden name as a password
- Beware of phishing
The Post article suggests using a paper shredder that employs cross shredding so as to avoid the troubs that ensued from the Iranian embassy takeover in 1979. One supposes, however, that if the machine isn’t DIN 32757 Level 5 compliant (max particle size of 0.8x12mm) that the (shredded) docs would/might be vulnerable to the work of cos like ChurchStreet Technology, Inc., who specialize in the reconstruction of shredded documents….
Chances are that somebody, somewhere, is probably working on a fully-automated AI-based paper unshredder.
Protect Your Identity – Washington Post, Oct 4, 2006
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I didn’t know there were companies that could reconstruct shredded paper. Maybe you’d be better off barbecuing old documents.
okay… ich bisher nicht darüber nachgedacht und nicht gewusst das der Mädchenname der Mutter nicht eingegeben werden sollte. Werde es beherzigen. Was wird aus dem virtuellen Datenmüll?