identity

Like many people, I'm worried about identity fraud. Not paranoid, just generally curious what the chances are that I could be victimized by things like mail theft. Sure, I could sign up for one of the fee-based identity fraud monitoring services like LifeLock or Debix, or I can get a credit report that might give me some clue that a credit card has been taken out by someone else in my name.

Now there is a Web site that offers an assessment of a person's identity fraud risk for free.

The My ID Score site was recently launched … Read more

Duplicate photos take up an incredible amount of unnecessary space on hard drives. However, many people leave them for fear of erasing an original. VisiPics is an innovative way to find these duplicates and safely know you are erasing the space-wasters.

This free program has a tangled interface that will take some experimenting to get used to. But once understood, it works fairly smoothly. Along the top are drop-down menus for files, actions, tools, and options, and all look fairly standard. Below, is a file tree and the meat of the program. Here, you will find an empty box with … Read more

The bad news is that global server revenue is down 25 percent in the last quarter, according to IDC, with Microsoft Windows server revenue down a whopping 29 percent.

The good news? Novell reported Thursday that its Linux Platform revenue climbed 25 percent year over year in the midst of one of the worst recessions in history. Talk about Linux swimming against the economic current.

Well, it's good news for some. Microsoft, of course, won't take any comfort in Novell's numbers, especially as recent Eclipse survey data suggests that Linux is eating into its Windows server and … Read more

Women are more affected by identity fraud than men are, according to a new survey that also found that it takes women longer to restore their identities but they also tend to change their behavior afterward.

In a survey of 808 U.S. households, half of which reported fraud, 28 percent of women said they had been victims of identity fraud compared with 21 percent for men.

This corresponds with a report in February from Javelin Research that found that women were 26 percent more likely to be victims of identity fraud than men.

In the latest survey, from fraud … Read more

Every time I use my credit card online I suffer a momentary feeling of angst, even though I know that it's still safer than handing my card over to an unscrupulous waiter. The impersonal nature of the Internet and the perception that I lose control of my data after I hit "submit" contributes to this lack of sense of security.

Also contributing to this paranoid feeling are all the reports of phishing scams, including IRS and tax-related scams; data breaches at retailers like TJX, where more than 45 million accounts were exposed; and payment processors like RBS WorldPay, … Read more

Typing your name into a search engine is a great way to find out what the Internet thinks of you--at least until the first page of results shines a spotlight on that embarrassing episode from your misspent youth. Now Google, though, is offering people who share their profile information with the search giant more control over how they appear in its results.

Google has a complicated algorithm for determining which Web sites show at the top of its search results, presenting the top 10 picks on its results page. But in what amounts to an admission that this doesn't … Read more

Secret Explorer wants to help you be more secure and find the information stored in Internet Explorer such as auto-complete data. However, this program sinks upon first opening, possibly encouraging users to look elsewhere for help.

This trial version, which only allows you to use the first two letters of a password, directly tells users in its Help menu that those used to Internet Explorer will find Secret Explorer familiar. We have been using Internet Explorer for years and discovered no similarities from the start. Secret Explorer opens up with a small Help screen that's so full of jargon … Read more

VeriSign's VIP (VeriSign Identity Protection) Access for Mobile is a free app that lets you add an extra layer of security to your typical Web log-ins from your iPhone and iPod Touch. Popular sites such as eBay, AOL, GEICO, and PayPal all support the app, which is currently only available for the iPhone. The VIP Access application works by creating credentials that are tied to your iPhone--based on your number--and confirmed through SMS. After confirmation, the app generates a unique, six-digit token that changes every 30 seconds based on an algorithm associated with the credentials created. It's extremely … Read more

One of the great things about working at a creative firm is that there's so much creativity around that it sometimes takes non-client-related work to fully channel it. From time to time, my colleagues at frog design embark on concept work for magazines to explore new territory and flex their skills.

The latest piece is a special project for Forbes' Special Report on Identity: The Troika card, a concept for a smarter Social Security card with a multifunctional screen that turns your identity card into a gadget. "Of the three forms of identification we have in the States--the … Read more