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On Synthetic Identity Fraud

Posted by on October 15, 2018 at 3:46 pm

CHANCES ARE that identity fraud appeared the moment that presenting valid ID first became needful. Today’s inflated claims aside, The Balance’s Jack Stroup points out that in early U.S. history fake IDs were used to stuff ballot boxes. Since the advent of the minimum drinking age, underage youth out to purchase alcohol have resorted to ID fraud. And, of course, early credit cards […]

Caffeine for Data

Posted by on October 8, 2018 at 3:20 pm

No sooner did direct marketers commence salivating at targeting opportunities posed by that newfangled Internet thing … than the United States Congress and various regulatory bodies set about passing laws to hamper them.  Or, at least, that was the idea. Many rules are so plastic as to allow for a good deal of wiggle room—and marketers have […]

They loaded your card.
Now what?

Posted by on October 1, 2018 at 7:03 pm

THE GOOD news for your financial institution is that it’s fairly easy for clients to add your card to a digital wallet.  The bad news is that it’s fairly easy to add everyone else’s card, too. Or, they can bypass your card entirely with store cards paid via store websites. I need hardly point out […]

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month
And it’s not too late to put it to work

Posted by on September 19, 2018 at 1:55 pm

I am the first to admit that when it comes names of commemorative months, National Cyber Security Awareness Month isn’t the sexiest. Reducing it to the initialism NCSAM makes it easier to write, but not easier to pronounce—En-see-sam? Nik-sam? Ink-sam?—and it it doesn’t help in the sexiness department, either.  Perhaps that’s why, even though NCSAM has been […]

Not bad for a 20-year-old
Happy birthday, Google

Posted by on September 12, 2018 at 2:36 pm

Hard to believe: Google launched 20 years ago this month. By accident or design, its name is a misspelling of the number googol. If it was by accident, you have to wonder why founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn’t bother googling the correct spelling. Playing trademark roulette Not long after the Google’s appearance in 1998, google became […]