DoC's 2 cents worth ...
I was almost three minutes into a phone call from someone purporting to be from my credit card company when I had a sinking feeling when they asked for my dob & sin number. What if this person isn't who they say they are? My credit card company already has this information - why would they want me to give it to them on the PHONE! NOT!!
Since I'm a Webmaster, my name is on every search engine out there, so it's not hard to get info on me. So I challenged my caller with that thought. They easily rolled off a spiel about ""verifying my identity". I hung up and reached for my wallet to call my credit card companies 1-800 number. Sure enough they said I was lucky - their security hotlines had been "red" all night. There was an id theft ring at work in my area. I was lucky. My first instincts were to give out the info without thinking when the well-spoken young person rolled off my credit card number. WHEW!!
Recently I've also been getting more "Nigerian scam letters", Pay-Pal & eBay "phishing" scam emails. As a result I've been warning my Clients, Students & my numerous website visitors on the dangers of emails masquerading as legitimate ones designed to "reel you in" to giving up all your personal data.
Soooooooo ... I started to research the subject of personal security and identity theft protection. I learned a lot, and coupled with what I already knew about viruses, trojans, worms, spoofs, spyware & phishing scams decided to dedicate my newest website project to the subject of protecting yourself completely online and in real life like I now do.
HTH - "DOC"
