Electronic recycling

We recently took an old computer and a few other broken electronic devices to the Hanover Area High School for the annual Luzerne County electronic recycling. I thought it was a good way to get rid of some junk in an environmentally safe manor as did some other people. Then I read this at Self Defense for Identity Theft :

If you still think that way today about disposing of that old PC, don’t! Yes you want to do the right thing, help out, be conscious of the environment, or any other good reason you may come up with for not just discarding it. But before you take that step, think about identity theft first. Your personal information from the last few years is somewhere on that hard drive. Sure you deleted it, formatted it, cleaned it, but to a persistent thief, they can dig up anything with a little effort, and they do.

And Michael gives us a few hints to protect yourself before you get rid of that old machine. He says you should chop the thing apart and take a sledge hammer to the hard drive then get rid of it.

Scumbags

Creative ones at that. This story in the TL today gets my blood boiling.

A scam aimed at the families of deployed military personnel has targeted at least one local family, and the American Red Cross is warning potential victims to be cautious when giving out personal information...one example of the scam involved a woman who called a military spouse claiming to be a representative from the American Red Cross. The caller said that the spouse on duty had been injured in Iraq and could not be treated medically until the proper paperwork had been completed...The caller then asked for the spouse to verify the soldier’s Social Security number and birth date. In this situation, the spouse caught on and refused to give out the information.

Calling the wife of a guy in Iraq and telling her that her husband has been injured knowing that after getting such shocking news she might let her guard might be down is a classic example of social engineering. Fortunately she knew that the Red Cross doesn't contact the family when someone has been injured, that's the job of the services. Identity theft is probably the least reported on crime in the US and it affects so many people.

Right on time I just got a phishing email.