Every day I receive emails supposedly sent out from fatherdave.org, and sometimes they even have ‘a message from the team at fatherdave.org’, embedded in the email body! Some days I get hundreds of these, and if I’m receiving hundreds, there must be millions that are being sent out!
A couple of years ago, I never would have dreamed of writing an article, warning anybody about the dangers of identity theft. Mind you, back then I never expected to ever receive emails from someone pretending to be me, selling me viagra!
There are plenty of unscruplous people around who will try to adopt your identity in order to get what they want (normally money). And while it doesn’t help if you do what I do – publish not only your email address and phone number on your website, but also a map on how to get to your house on foot – trying to conceal your identity from everyone is not the answer either.
I appreciate that some people feel that they shouldn’t give any personal details to anybody, for fear that these details will be used against them, but that’s a bit like never getting into a car because you’re aware of dangers on the roads.
In truth, I hate the ‘privacy’ push. C’mon! We live in a community, which means that we need to work together, and if we’re going to work together, we’ll need to know something about eachother. Even so, the problem is that the mechanisms we’ve set up for the sharing of information are open to abuse, and my goodness, have they ever been abused! The Internet is a sad case in point!
It never ceases to amaze me how this great gift to human kind – the Internet – that has the potential to bring people together from around the world, seems to function primarily to spread B-grade jokes and porn around the office, and to sell viagra! And the painful thing for me is not only the number of people trying to sell me viagra, but the number of viagra-sellers pretending to be me!
Every day I receive emails supposedly sent out from fatherdave.org, and sometimes they even have‘a message from the team at fatherdave.org’, embedded in the email body! Some days I get hundreds of these, and if I’m receiving hundreds, there must be millions that are being sent out!
In truth, limiting the number of spambots that can harvest your email address is not difficult. Just make sure that you scramble your address before you allow it to be published online. I’ve got an excellent email scrambler you can download for free right here. Unfortunately, email-author impersonation is not the worse form of identity theft around, and I’m afraid you need someone more knowledgable than me when it comes to the more serious forms of identity theft.
Some of these more serious forms of identity theft include:
- people running up gas or electricity bills on your account
- hi-jacking your telephone account and using it to make long-distance phone calls
- criminals getting hold of your credit card details and making purchases
As I say, this is not my area of expertise, but I can certainly refer you to the ‘Inside Identify Theft‘ report if you want to be better prepared against these sorts of criminal invasions. I’ve even got a video review on the book that you can take a look at if you’re keen.
Of course, even the techniqes taught in the Inside Identity Theft report can’t protect you from the most serious forms of identity theft, such as when a government agency assassinates a foreign diplomat and then frames you for the murder. It happens on 24 all the time! We’ll just have to trust the Lord above that He will protect us from that one (possibly with some help from Jack Bauer) .
Rev. David B. Smith
Parish priest, community worker,
martial arts master, pro boxer,
author, father of four.
