Social Networing Sites: Befriending Identity Theft

Identity theft is the stealing and use of someone’s personal information and is one of the fastest growing crimes in the nation (Dole, 2005). According to Federal Trade Commission estimates, identity thieves victimize approximately 10 million Americans every year at a cost of an astonishing $50 billion (2005). Identity theft has been going on for years now and is easily done with the help of today’s technology. According to the Federal Trade Commission, there are six common ways that identity thieves get a hold of personal information. The varieties of methods that are used are dumpster diving, skimming, phishing, changing the victim’s address, stealing, and pretexting (Federal Trade Commission). Once someone’s identity is stolen,

Identity theft is a major concern today in our country, millions of a person’s identity have been compromised for many of years. Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person’s personal information such as name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, credit card number, or other identifying information to take on that person’s identity in order to commit fraud or other crimes. Stealing an identity is, unfortunately, surprisingly easy to do and happens when you least expect it. Just by opening your mail, something that has personal information on it, throwing it in the trash. Therefore, a person can go through your trash and take all that information and use it against you to take on a new identity.

Figuring out if an identity is stolen is not easy only because it can be unknown until damage is dealt. This is why identity theft isn’t easy to stop. When most people report a crime, police arrive on the scene before serious damage is dealt, but when a thief steals a person’s identity, the victim can be unaware for quite some time before they realize the amount of money they lost. According to Tracey Whittaker and Anne Dilascio, in 2003, the average money lost from identity theft per person was $4,789, but in 2006 the average was less than $2000. The average out-of-pocket cost of identity theft victims in 2005 was

So many users of the internet blindly browse and post on these sites without any thought to the online identity they are creating for themselves. Shares, tweets, hashtags, likes, and comments all combine to make up an amalgamation of marketable information. In November of 2016, an average of six thousand tweets were made per second, and ninety-five million Instagram posts were made per day (Sayce; Parker). Facebook “has become the largest database of personal information ever collected,” says Richard, and Facebook takes advantage of this. With almost two billion users, Facebook has no shortage of information to gather (Sparks). They do this mainly for targeted advertising. There is no small profit to be made in this. In 2011 Lori Andrews wrote, “Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85% of it's total revenue.” However, Facebook and other internet corporations also relay data gathered on users to the

Identity theft is a significant problem to both citizens and financial institutions. The FTC estimates that over 27.3 million Americans have been the victims of identity theft in the past five years. The

In recent years, the world has seen significant changes in technology. With new technology come new challenges. One of those new challenges is identity theft. Identity theft can happen through the internet, ATM, emails, or even a phone. Identity theft can happen when any person(s) takes an individual’s information, such as their Social Security number, or even banking information for financial gain. “Close to 100 million Americans have their personal information placed at risk of theft each year when records in databases are lost, stolen or accessed by unauthorized individuals” (Information systems and technology, n.d.). Identity theft not only costs the person, whose

Some of the things you can do to minimize the chances of your identity being stolen would be to kep your important, personal papers in a an organized secure place at all times. Shredding personal papers and documents, and making sure that any personal information or account numbers are blacked out if they’re thrown in the trash. Always make sure to keep only any personal information

About 7% of United States has reported some sort of Identity Theft. Richer people who have over $75,000 in income each year have a 12% chance of 100% of getting affected then families with lower incomes each year. There have also been over 30 million Identities stolen since 2000. Identity Theft is only rising every day! To make it even worse, over 100 million Americans are at risk of this because of being unsecure. Identity Theft really needs to be stopped.

Stealing an identity is becoming increasingly easy due to technological advancements, but this crime does still happen using traditional methods. People don’t even think about identity theft until it’s usually too late. With the proper education, most ID theft cases can be prevented, but the methods of how it occurs need to be understood first. Personal information is frequently obtained from social media sites and online purchases. A study done by the University of Missouri-Columbia concluded that almost 30% of college students can’t identify a secure website (Norum & Weagley, 2006, p. 54). For presumably being the most tech savvy generation, that statistic is shockingly high. Not being able to recognize a secure site from an unsecure one increases the risk of having credit card numbers, names, and addresses stolen while making online transactions.

Identity theft is the fastest growing fraud crime in America (Finklea, 2009). Gaining knowledge in preventing theft will better the economy and lower the crime rates in America. There are reported 9.9 million victims of identity theft and this number is increasing rapidly as the years go on. It has been reported that an estimate of fifty billion dollars has been charged to our consumers every year due to identity theft (Finklea, 2009).

     The thieves, who now have the information they need, proceed with going on spending sprees at the expense of the victim. They open new accounts in their name and SSN, write bad checks against a checking account or run up the charges on a credit card, then leave them unpaid.

Identity theft is on the rise in the United States and Globally. The Federal Trade Commission advised that there are about nine million cases of identity theft. People who had their identity stolen often feel like they were violated. Any individual can have their identity compromised in numerous ways. Different institutions store personal information. There are several organizations that have social security numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers. Colleges and Universities have people personal information stored in their databases that could be hacked. There are several companies that offer options to people to protect their identity. Most credit card companies offer the option of identity

Identity theft continues to be a problem in the United States, yet research on identity thieves is limited. Both the theoretical and empirical literature on identity theft is in their infancy. As a result, not surprisingly, not much is known about this crime and its victims.

Just as there are positive effects of social media, there are also negative effects as well. False connections are often made on SNS. Ninety percent of students have Facebook which is constructed to be socially shared with any user. It may seem obvious that users of social networking cannot stray far from reality from his or her online identity, although the users can depict what he or she wishes to display (Moreno et al. 452). There are many young teenagers on social networking websites posting true personal information, but there are also many young teenagers who false information. In fact, many young users of social networking, especially boys, give false information (Moreno et al. 251). Manipulation can occur in order for young users to join that network. Many times younger users have to lie about his or her age which is not always approved by his or her parents (Moreno et al. 253). A survey was done from children ranging from eight years old to twelve years old to provide the results that those who lied about their age did so within a four year range of their actual age. Thus, they knew they had to use false information, so they provided it with care (Moreno et al. 256). Because of the easiness to create an account falsely, it also makes it simpler to deceive one another. Deception is used to attack another user potentially causing upsetting consequences. The deception taking place online from networking is typically used to mislead others (Tsikerdekis and

How do you secure your identity with the Internet developing faster than can be protected? Attempting to stay ahead of the hackers and attackers has been a contentious effort since the Internet’s earliest days as a research project. Today, after thirty years of prolific development, security concerns have only increased. Designing computer systems and devices which are capable of resisting attack from within, while growing and evolving at an epidemic rate is almost an impossible endeavor. Today, identity theft is the nation’s fastest growing white collar crime and preys upon the financial resources and reputations of its victims to include children and deceased. In many