Total Identity Protection

Q. I currently have a fax machine with its own fax number. If I move to online faxing, do I have to change my number?

A. Most Internet fax services allow you to keep your number. Some, such as RingCentral, let you choose a new number from a selection of available ones. Others, such as MyFax and MetroFax, assign you a number. However, you won’t be able to find out about your number specifically until you sign up: Some faxpanies won’t let you keep your number if you leave their service. So the rules of your original fax provider have a greater impact on whether you can keep your number than Internet fax services. Review your provider’s terms of service for more details.

Any true fan of Star Wars knows that Jar Jart Binks is one of the most despised Star Wars characters of all time. Our readers may recall that Jar Jar Binks first appears in The Phantom Menace as very bumbling and some would say annoying Gungan who set off a wave of almost vitriolic hatred from the true fans.  I think you all get the point:  Jar Jat Binks is not very well liked.  So if someone compares you to Jar Jar Binks, they are basically saying that you are not cool.  Yes, its a somewhat hurtful thing to say.

Well, world-renowned star Ronaldinho experienced this kind of diss, though in the arena of cyber space.  A hacker recently broke into his official web site and defaced it with images of Jar Jar Binks and Osama Bin Laden.  The hacker who claimed responsibility for this breach is a person by the name of Terrorist MC.

While we admit that Ronaldinho may resemble Jar Jar Binks in physical appearance, its not a very nice thing to do.

Read more…

Six people in California have been charged with defrauding banks out of more than $3 million dollars.

An indictment handed down by a federal grand jury charges the six individuals with 29 felony counts of bank fraud.

The suspects stole the identities of people with good credit scores to establish lines of credit and used the money for personal expenses.

According to the FBI, the group obtained personal information including dates of birth, Social Security numbers, credit profiles, FICO scores and driver’s license numbers.  They then used this information to complete fraudulent applications for business lines of credit at Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank branches.

The stolen identities also were used to create phony corporate officers of shell corporations that did not exist, the FBI said.

To fool bank employees who made on-site inspections, the defendants created fake offices where they posed as employees to make it look like the corporations were legitimate.

Once the applications were approved, banks deposited money into the accounts, usually in amounts of $100,000.

The defendants liquidated accounts in a few days, making checks payable to themselves.

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After Osama bin Ladens Death a flurry of internet scams hit the internet. Most notably scam emails with links to pictures, videos and phony Facebook messages with links to videos that don’t exist.

When clicking these links your PC can be infected with a RAT which is a remote access Trojan and all your information may end up in the hands of a criminal.

Bottom Line: Be wary of any unsolicited messages that claim to have news on bin Laden, and never click on links or attachments included in these messages.

Tips to Avoid Becoming a Victim:

1)    Never download or click anything from an unknown source. If you really think your friend is sending you a video clip, double-check with the friend to be sure before you click on the link.

2)    Before clicking on any links related to the news, check to see that the address is going to a well-established site. If it is a shortened URL, use a URL preview tool such as http://hugeurl.com/, to make sure it is safe to click on.

3)    The most common threats are links to spam and malware. Read more…

You opt for a mortgage loan when you do not have the resources to purchase your dream home or a property that you wish to buy. The property purchased is treated as collateral on the loan and incase you are not able to pay towards the mortgage; your lender can lawfully seize your property and sell it off to recover the loan amount. If you are in a financial mess and are not being able to make mortgage payments but wish to rescue your home or property from being seized or foreclosed, then you may consider an option called mortgage refinancing.

You must understand refinancing before you opt for it. Refinancing is the loan that is taken out to repay the mortgage that you have taken out. This loan too is taken against the same assets. The new loan has more favorable terms and is thus beneficial for you when you are in a bad financial state.

Some of the reasons or the advantages of refinancing that will help you decide in its favor are as follows.

1. Read more…

Most of us naively operate under the assumption that certain things we do (i.e. Facebook messages) are totally private and nobody can access this information.  Safe assumption, right?  Well unfortunately, Symantec just announced that that third-party Facebook applications had access to users’ accounts and profiles “for years meaning they could see your profile, photographs, chat messages and collect your personal information. Im sure many of you are saying oh I am not worried I have everything on Facebook set to private. Sorryeven the most savvy Facebook users were exposed as well.

The good news is that these applications may not have known that they could access this data. And, Facebook has confirmed that it plugged the leak. However as ZDNet pointed out, there are 20 million applications installed by users per day, meaning that the risk of your personal information being leaked was very high.

If you want to know how this happened from a technical standpoint, heres more from the ZDNet story:

Symantec explain how access tokens, or ’spare keys’ that are granted to you by Facebook, can be used to authorise certain actions on behalf of the user.

Read more…