Total Identity Protection

Q: My son lost his driver’s license tonite, how bad is this? What precautions can we take now?

A: First: Don’t panic. It’s not a terribly umon situation, and there’s always a chance a good samaritan will drop it in the mail or take it to the DMV. However, you also shouldn’t take any chances:

1) Some states want you to contact local police if your license is lost or stolen, so you may wish to try your local non-emergency line to report the loss.

2) It’s always possible that an identity thief could use it tomit fraud. You or your son should consider signing him up for identity theft protection, that way he can be alerted if someone attempts to open an account in his name. In fact, TrustedID has a family plan, which may be a good option for you. I don’t know how old your son is, but young people are favorite targets of identity theft since they don’t check their credit reports often.

Some states want you to contact local police if your license is lost or stolen.

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There were 662 data breaches in the United States in 2010, almost a 33 percent increase from 2009 according to a report by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC).   The 662 data breaches exposed a total of 16,167,542 records. It’s a seemingly staggering number, though the ITRC adamantly states in a press release that the statistic may in fact be drastically low.

The actual number is considerably higher because current regulations in the United States don’t require all data breaches to be disclosed, the group said. “Other than breaches reported by the media and a few progressive state Websites, there is little or no information available on many data breach events,” said the ITRC.

The Identity Theft Resource Center defines a breach as any event that potentially puts a person’s name, Social Security number, drivers license number, medical record or financial record (credit or debit card) potentially at risk either in electronic or paper format.

The 2010 report clearly shows that some companies listed the exact number of documents exposed in their incidents.

Other breaches, however, were not as transparent.

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The decade was filled with stupid criminals.  Here is a list of the top six stupid criminals.

Lawn Mower Getaway: AOL reports Sheriff’s deputies in Florida were searching a house for stolen property when they got a tip that one of the suspects was trying to make his escape nearby, according to TampaBay.com. Officers reportedly found him not far from his home attempting to flee on a ride-on mower.

Black Marker Burglars: The key to a successful robbery is not getting caught. These two clowns decided to use permanent marker as makeup.

I’ve Been Looking For That! Guy gets pulled over for a minor traffic violation and cops find pot in the car. Also in the trunk, cops discovered a bong inside a plastic shopping bag. Excited, the criminal thanked law enforcement officials for finding the water pipe, which he purchased for $150 and assumed a roommate, had stolen when he couldn’t find it.

MySpace Burglar: Kid breaks into a home and logs into the family’s home PC to his MySpace page.

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If you are an identity theft criminal on the lamb, you may as well skip hiding out in a run down Mexican village and go for someplace a bit more high end. Why not hide out in luxury and style, right? This is exactly what James Sadler, 66 of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, when the authorities were looking for him for bilking a Hilton Head woman out of $100,000. Get this, he was her financial adviser and convinced her to take out a second mortgage in 2006 for $100,000, which he was going to invest in low-risk securities.

Rather than investing her money, he ran off to one of the Europe’s most beautiful destination, the country of Malta. Situated centrally in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, Malta is an internationally renowned tourist resort that offers sunny weather, expansive beaches, a thriving nightlife and 7,000 years of intriguing history.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained an international arrest warrant for his arrest.

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Q: Does SugarSync guarantee to backup external, fixed hard drives on both PC and Mac?

A: Unfortunately this is not something that SugarSync is currently able to do, though according to their help section it is one of the top features they’re working on. If you want to back up external drives with oneputer only, we rmend Mozy (note that you should be sure to back up your external drive at least every 30 days, or Mozy will consider those files as deleted). Of course Mozy only covers the backup up of a singleputer, so if you’d wanted to backup a PC and a Mac, you’ll have to buy an additional account. You can also take a  look at IDrive which offers similar functionality and is made to handle multipleputers, though separate accounts must be purchased for eachputer.

According to the results of a recently released 2008 U.S. Justice Department study an estimated 11.7 million Americans (aged 16 and over) were victims of identity theft. The survey of 56,500 household residents is the first time the Bureau of Justice Statistics has collected data on these types of property crimes.

According to a press release from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only 23 percent of those victimized suffered some financial loss, but the total cost to society came to $17.3 billion during the two-year period of the study.

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