Your IDs and privacy in cyberspace

Identity het if a common crime in cyberspace. Using information collected from multiple sources – and much of this information is readily available to the patient searcher, it is possible to become a “copy” of you that is good enough to allow others to pretend they are you.

 

This may have only minor impact – the Secretary General of Interpol, Roland Noble, was the victim of this when someone pretended to be him in Facebook, created a page and used it to make “friends” with other senior police officers around the world. This happened again in 2012 and the victim was a senior NATO military official.

 

Identity het becomes a serious matter when financial matters are involved and you – the genuine person – starts getting demands for payment for major expenditures.

 

Why is this is an issue?

Mainly because of disclosures made in goodwill without thinking of the possible consequences: credit card numbers and other important information sent in an e-mail, personal details revealed in blogs, chats, text messages, web pages and social media can all be used against you and cause you considerable trouble to unravel.

 

What you should do about it

Remember the words of the North African proverb: “a closed mouth catches no lies” (original: Dans une bouche fermée, les mouches n’entrent pas). Discretion works well and, to quote Benjamin Franklin, Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.