Everyone would be familiar with the
word “identity”, but no one could be sure what that word stands for. Sometimes,
we know the term, but we do not know the meaning of it. Knowing the vocabulary
could be way different from understanding it. Even though we know the word, we
do not know about it. Identity is the facts of being who or what a person. It
is also called the characteristics determining. According to the
Dictionary.com, identity has five different definitions. “Identity is the state
or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or
conditions. It is the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another. It
is the condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is. It is the
state or fact of being the same one as described. It is the sense of self,
providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes
disturbed in mental illness, as schizophrenia.” (Dictionary.com). Theft is taking something, which
belongs to someone without the owner’s consent. According to the Wikipedia.com,
“in common usage, theft is the taking of another person’s property without that
person’s permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of
it. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against
property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery,
shoplifting and fraud. In some jurisdiction, theft is considered to be
synonymous with larceny; in others, theft has replaced larceny. Someone who
carries out an act of or makes a career of theft is known as a thief. The act
of theft is known by terms such as stealing, thieving, and filching.” (Wikipedia).
All
human beings have a unique identity. There are many ways to define the identity
of the people. The name of the person is the easiest example to express
someone’s identity. Even though there
are some peoples who have more than one name, no one can have two identities. Karl
Perera, the owner and author of www.more-selfesteem.com website, said, “your personal
identity is the way that you see yourself and is closely related to yourself
image. It is very important to you because it will affect the way you feel
about yourself and how you behave in challenging situations. (Perera). He
added, “The most important thing to realize about your personal identity is
that it can be close to how other people see you in which case you will be at
harmony with the world and others around you or it can be very different from
how others see you and so you may feel you are misunderstood and you feel life
is battle to make others appreciate who you are.” (Perera).
As
a human being, it is very important to understand the notion of personal
identity. According to the Britannica.com, “one makes a judgment of personal
identity whenever one says that a person existing at one time is the same as a
person existing at another time: e.g., that the president of the United States
in 1802—namely, Thomas Jefferson—was the person who in 1776 was the primary
author of the Declaration of Independence. Matters of great importance often
turn on the truth of such judgments. Whether someone should be punished for a
crime, for example, depends on whether he is the person who committed it, and
whether someone is the owner of something now may depend on whether he is the
person who purchased it at some past time. Whether there is personal
immortality, or survival of death, depends on whether a person who dies can be
identical with a person existing subsequent to that person’s death.” (“Personal identity”).
According
to the website above, “The topic of personal identity has to do with what the
truth of judgments of personal identity consists of and how it can be known.
Equivalently, it has to do with the nature of the persistence of persons
through time and their awareness of such persistence. Some scholars, such as
the 20th-century American philosopher Roderick Chisholm, have denied that there
can be an informative answer to such questions; they think that personal
identity is “simple and unanalyzable.” But it seems plausible that something can
be said about what the sameness through time of automobiles, rivers, and cities
consists of, and so it is natural to think that the same should be true of the
sameness through time of persons.” (”Personal
identity”).
In
the passage of bodily and immaterial-substance
theories, the online encyclopedia added, “what one normally relies on in
making judgments of personal identity in everyday life are facts about human
bodies—sameness of appearance, sameness of fingerprints, sameness of DNA, and
so on. This fact suggests that the sameness of persons consists of the sameness
of human bodies. This suggestion of course raises the question of what the
sameness of human bodies consists of. It cannot consist simply of similarity of
bodily characteristics: different bodies can be alike in appearance and could
be alike in fingerprints and DNA. A better answer would be that it consists of
spatiotemporal continuity and continuity of bodily characteristics. A single
body’s career traces a continuous path through space-time in which bodily
properties change only gradually and in certain ways. Such an account would be
unacceptable to those, such as the 17th-century French philosopher René
Descartes, who take persons to be immaterial substances, or souls that are only
contingently connected with bodies. These philosophers would say that the
persistence of a person consists of the persistence of such an immaterial
substance. As to what that consists in, the most common answer is that the
identity of such substances is simple and unanalyzable.” (”Personal identity”).
In
the point of Philosopher John Locke’s view, “ both of these accounts of
personal identity—the bodily theory and the immaterial-substance theory—were
rejected by the 17th-century English philosopher John Locke in his Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1689), which contained the first extended
treatment of the topic in Western philosophy. Book II, chapter 27, of the
Essay, Of Identity and Diversity, introduces a famous example in which the soul
of a prince, carrying with it consciousness of the prince’s past life, is
transferred to the body of a cobbler. Locke argued that the post-transfer
cobbler-body person would be the same person as the prince, despite not having
the prince’s former body. (Updated versions of this example involve brain
transplants rather than soul transfers.) He also held that consciousness can be
transferred from one immaterial substance to another, so that the immaterial
substance that was initially the mind of one person might become the mind of a
different person.” (“Personal identity”).
Locke said, “The identity of persons consists of sameness of consciousness.
This is usually interpreted to mean that identity consists of facts about
memory: someone existing now is the same as someone existing yesterday because
he remembers the thoughts, experiences, or actions of the earlier person. One of the biggest problems people have
with their personal identity is that they may not accept or may be blind to who
they are and what they believe. Most of us today suffer from this to a certain
extent because society seems to want us to behave and live in ways which may
not be exactly what we want.” (“Personal identity”).
Everyone would not be familiar with identity
theft. Identity theft is a scary issue for not only individual but also
companies, organizations, and universities. You can be stolen important
information such as, email password, bank information, and social security
information. Identity theft is one of the fastest and the most dangerous crimes
in the United States. It is not only financial crimes, but it widely varies. In
April 2006, University of Texas, Austin was attacked and downloaded personal
information of 197, 000 students, alumni, and employees by hacker according to
the article “Defending Your Identity” written by Robert Lemos of PC Magazine.(Lemos).
Even though the rate of identity theft occurrence is becoming high, there is no
way to avoid it. As long as we are accessing to the internet, it is sure that
you may face cybercriminal. Regarding this, idtheftcenter.org reported in the
statement, which titled “Identity Theft Resource Center®, Nonprofit
Organization”, “identity theft continues to be one of the fastest growing
crimes in the United States. It is important for consumers to recognize that
identity theft is not just a financial crime. This crime varies widely, and can
include financial identity theft (checking and/or credit card fraud), criminal
identity theft, governmental identity theft, and medical identity theft.”(“Identity theft resource center”). The
statement added, “ Identity theft is a crime in which an impostor obtains key
pieces of personal identifying information (PII) such as Social Security
numbers and driver's license numbers and uses them for their own personal gain.
It can start with lost or stolen wallets, stolen mail, a data breach, computer
virus, “phishing” scams, or paper documents thrown out by you or a business
(dumpster diving). (“Identity theft
resource center”).
“According
to the one of the educational online videos, identity theft is an unfortunate
fact of modern life. For example, who has my information?; Where is my bill?; I
did not buy that!.” (“What
Is Identity Theft?”).There are so many kinds of identity
theft such as financial identity theft, child identity theft, governmental
identity theft, medical identity theft, smart phone security, and social
network. In the article, “12.6 Million Reasons Why Identity Theft Matters” from
abcNews, which is written by Adam Levin, a chairman and cofounder of Credit.com
and Identity theft 911, “if you still believe identity theft is a marketing
gimmick, it's time to take a look at the Federal Trade Commission report
released this week. Identity theft is once again the top complaint in America,
as it has been for 13 years. Identity theft complaints surged by 32 percent in
2012 to nearly 370,000, and that number is intensified by the most recent
Javelin report, which puts the number of instances of identity theft at 12.6
million. Even Javelin's figure is probably way lower than the real number, when
you factor in all the cases that go unreported or categorized improperly.”
(Adam).
In
his article, Adam added, “Hackers, identity thieves and fraudsters of all
stripes have reached the conclusion that a stolen identity is a key that can
unlock all kinds of fraud: opening doors to millions of dollars in instant
profit, providing access to medical products, services and/or treatments on
someone else's dime, even offering up an innocent fall guy to law enforcement
officials all to eager to "get their man." Even if criminals weren't
relentlessly hunting for our personal information (which they are), the steady
stream of massive data breaches at companies and government agencies from the
Department of Veterans Affairs to Blue Cross Blue Shield to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to the South Carolina Department of Revenue to
Sony to Twitter to LinkedIn (to name a few) guarantee that at least some, if
not all, of your personal identifying information has already has been exposed
to folks who know how to take the particulars of your life to promote their
welfare.” (Adam).
Identity
thefts are occurred on both online and paper. So it is important not to throw
simply your bank statement, old bill, and financial records. According to the
article, which is titled, “Identity theft – it’s no joke”, written by Vonda
Vontil, social security public affairs specialist, “Identity theft is no joking
matter. Identity thieves victimize millions of people each year. Identity
thieves have some sly tricks to obtain your personal information. They do it
by: Stealing wallets, purses, and your mail; Posing by phone or email as
someone who legitimately needs information about you, such as employers or
landlords; Stealing personal information you provide to an unsecured site on
the Internet, from business or personnel records at work, and personal
information in your home; or Rummaging through your trash, the trash of
businesses, and public trash dumps for personal data.” (Vonda).
“The
internet is an unsafe place. Your data is at risk. Your right to privacy is
being violated. Your identity is going to be stolen, your credit ruined, your
career destroyed, your house burned down, your fields will be defiled and your
women will be pillaged. Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria! The net
has become a bleak place for people that do not practice safe computing
methods. Cybercrime is big business these days--it's no longer the domain of a
surly miscreant in a basement writing viruses that infect floppy disks. Now the
bad guys are organized, smart, and running their operations like a big
business. Most people are aware of the dangers, but not how to protect
themselves. The truth is, if a hacker wants to get into your system, usually
the only way to prevent that access is to completely cut the system off from
the internet. Even then, there's still a remote possibility that access can be
gained. Just recently, the US Department of Defense reported that a successful
network intrusion had been accomplished through the use of a rogue USB flash
drive. On a smaller scale, cyber thieves are interested in capturing
information about you: your credit cards, social security number, banking
information. The intent is obvious, of course. The worst part is that many
security attacks can come from known friends whose own systems have already
been compromised. While it is true that some computer operating systems are
more secure than others--Microsoft Windows being the most vulnerable by virtue
of its ubiquity and therefore interest to criminals--no one system is 100%
safe. The majority of security violations can be pinned squarely on the
shoulders of human error, through inattention, ignorance and even apathy.” "Personal
Computer Security: Using Uncommon Sense."
To
defend identity, Robert Lemos recommends getting annual credit reports from
three major credit bureaus by enrolling one of the following
- Security Blankets,
www.annualcreditreport.com
- IdentityGuard,
www.identityguard.com
- Lifelock, www.lifelock.com
- MyFICO Identity Theft
Security(FairIssac), www.myfico.com/Products/IDF/Description.aspx
Obviously, accessing to the internet
is running the risks. Most of the people know the danger of information theft
but don’t for protection. It is possible to access remote until you cut off
accessing to the internet by hackers. According to the US Department of
Defense, successful network intrusion can be done using a rogue USB flash
drive. ”Although the nature of our study requires that most of it be
classified, one of our key findings is entirely unclassified, and we hope it
will change the way the country acts in cyberspace. Simply put, computer users
must practice active cyber self-defense. This means that if users would allow
automatic, and generally free, software updates and maintained up-to-date
antivirus software, most cyberthreats could be defeated. If computer users
observed these basic "rules of the road" on the information
superhighway, all Americans would be safer from cyberattacks. America's
national and economic security depends on the resilience of our nation's
information networks. Every sector of the U.S. economy and component of the
U.S. government is, in some way, dependent on networked information technologies.
This ever-growing dependency makes us vulnerable to attack. To put the scale of
the vulnerability in perspective, the amount of data and intellectual property
stolen from U.S. business and government computer networks each year is
equivalent to the entire holdings of the Library of Congress. The intelligence
community already plays a vital role in the federal government's cyber security
strategy. The National Security Agency is a reservoir of unparalleled cyber
security expertise and talent. Throughout the course of our review, we were
impressed by NSA's capabilities and its commitment to protecting civil
liberties.
Cyber security, however, is not just
an intelligence issue. Our intelligence and defense agencies have a vital role
to play, but citizens can do a lot to protect themselves and the country from cyber
threats. About 20 percent of all malicious internet activity in the world
originates from computers in the United States -- three times more than any
other country. Much of this activity is directed by hackers known as
"bot-herders," who hijack and organize computers into virtual armies
of "botnets." Bot-herders are often in foreign countries, and they
use botnets to send out massive amounts of spam, often with malware attached,
in the hopes of stealing online banking passwords or other personal information,
and acquiring more bots. Computer users must practice active cyber
self-defense. Botnets can also carry out crippling attacks against Web servers
by overwhelming the server with requests. Your computer may be doing this right
now, without your knowledge. Most of the malware used to hijack computers and
steal personal information, however, is recognizable to antivirus software.
Many times it exploits vulnerabilities for which fixes, or patches, exist but have
not been applied.”(Whitehouse).
The
reason that the cyber thieves are trying to capture your information are
understood. So precaution is very important for all users. Opening email
attachment file from the unknown sender is not recommended. It will be better
staying away from porn web site. Make sure you always on the firewall even you
don’t have hardware firewall, most of the operating system are included their
built in firewall.
Scott
Raymond stated that we need to be aware of social engineering which uses the
human elements by hackers. Keeping password private is important. Avoid writing
the password on the post-it note. Hackers can send you email including some
website which is similar to your bank website by promoting something. Whenever
you receive this kind of email, never type your bank information on before
thinking twice. Otherwise they can access to your account. As the threat of
information theft is dangerous, it is important not to forget to do the best to
be safe, be careful, and be smart.
Sometimes,
no matter how we are trying to do the things carefully, your personal banker
can steal your bank information. According to the PC Word, one of the Bank of
America center employees, Brian Matty Hagen stole the client information and
tried to sell it for cash. Finally he pleaded guilty and he is going to face 30
years in jail and $ 1 million fine. “A Bank of America call center employee has
pleaded guilty to charges that he stole sensitive client information and then
tried to sell it for cash. Brian Matty Hagen pleaded guilty last week to one
count of bank fraud. According to court filings he allegedly recorded customer
account information when BofA customers called him for technical support at the
Florida call center where he worked. Prosecutors say he focused on high
net-worth customers and then unwittingly sold their information to an
undercover U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. Allegedly, he thought
that he was going to collect a percentage of the profits from what's known as a
credit bust-out scam -- meaning that the information would be used to
fraudulently line up new credit with other banks.” "Bank
of America Call Center Worker Pleads Guilty to Data Theft." This news alerts us to check our
credit report regularly as Robert Lemos mentioned above.
To
protect your identity; what is the most important to you is not an option, but
it is a duty. “Five easy ways to protect your identity is;
1. Read credit card statements
carefully and often.
2. Know your payment due dates.
3. Read your health insurance plan
statements.
4. Shred documents with personal
information.
5. Review your credit reports at least
once a year.” (“What Is Identity Theft?”).
CNN
reported that cyber self-defense must be practiced actively. If you run
automatic software updates, maintained up-to-date antivirus software, you can
be safer from cyber-threats and cyber-attacks. As U.S economy and component of
the U.S. government is all depended on networked information technologies,
Federal government’s cyber security is very important. The more dependencies
grow, the greater cyber-attacks occur. So, the intelligence community has taken
an essential role in cyber security.
Work
Cited
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Reasons Why Identity Theft Matters.”
Chairman
and cofounder, credit.com. abcNEWS.com,
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"Bank of America Call
Center Worker Pleads Guilty to Data Theft." PCWorld. N.p.,
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.
Dictionary.com.
Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2013.
Electronic Fraud Packet.
Digital image. Http://www.fnbames.com/home/about/privacy/id_theftsmart.
N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar.2013.
"Identity Theft
Resource Center®, Nonprofit Organization." Identity Theft Resource Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.
Lemos, Robert.
"Defending Your Identity." PCMAG. N.p., 21 June 2006. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.
Perera, Karl.
"Personal Identity." Building Self Esteem Tips. N.p., n.d. Web. 18
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"Personal Computer
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security-using-uncommon-sense/13878?tag=content;search-results-rivers>.
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Shelly, Gary and Misty
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What Is Identity Theft?
YouTube. YouTube, 28 June 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. .
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