Identity Theft

I have chosen this short film as the base of my reflection about stolen identity. Maybe while watching it you have been wondering what does connect this film with the problem of privacy in the Web. I will try to explain it in few words.

Even though that the film is the parody of the movie and the problem of cloning, it shows that everyone can steal your identity  and such  situation may be danger, irritating and frustrating.  And this may happen via the Internet –it is enough to get just few information about you and someone can destroy your life.

This is the power of modern shape of the Net.

Do not you believe me? Here I would like to present some arguments confirming my statement.
First of all, I would like to ask what do we use Internet for?

• Searching the Information?  e.g. here YES
• Finding friends? e.g. here YES
• Staying in touch with  others?  e.g. here  or here YES
• Finances?  e.g.  YES
• Gossips?   e.g.  YES
• Education? e.g. YES

One word: EVERYTHING

And in all these areas you are a potential victim. I am not saying about the hackers –they have to be the specialists and have important reasons for stealing your identity. Moreover we use all the securities to save our dates. I suggest that the bigger danger for us are the people who we know personally in the real world.

To explain it I want to ask some other questions:

• Do your acquaintances have any photos of you?
• Do they know when you were born?
• Does anyone knows  your e-mail address, schools which you attended, interests etc?

I am convinced that the answers were: yes, yes, yes. So, what is the problem to create YOUR account wherever for them and to lead a virtual life in the name of you? It is obvious that such areas like finances are very well protected. However, the case of social media is completely free for those of your friends who want to do you harm. Such case happened to my friend.

Someone created HIS account on social portal . This person used the profile to send false messages to the other people. The result was that my friend had large problems with them and he did not know the reason. When he discovered the problem he had to create the real account and to rectify the situation.

I do not want to scare you or discourage to the Internet. I only want to give the information on such danger like identity theft  and sensitize you to such problem. Maybe we should give more efforts to check info which we get by the Net.