Identity Theft

Wikipedia defines identity theft as "fraud involving someone pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits. " When a persons identity is stolen they will most likely lose large sums of money out of there bank account, because of the person using there identity to purchase many different things. Most people do not know this but there are actually, 5 different types of identity theft. They are:

- Business/commercial identity theft-(using another business name to obtain credit)

-criminal identity theft - which is when one person uses another persons name if arrested by police

- Financial Identity theft- when a person uses someone else's identity to obtain goods and services.

-identity cloning- When a person uses another persons information to assume his/her identity in life on a daily basis.

- medical identity theft- Stealing someones identity to obtain medical care or drugs.

Identity theft is closely monitored today specially to prevent terrorism.

People can steal a persons identity in a number of different ways... One way and probably the most popular way is to steal someones mail, that has the persons personal information on it. Another way is by stealing an individuals credit card... Today another popular choice is by advertising false jobs (specially through craigslist). With the economy the way it is now, and with all the people that are job-less. it makes it easy for this to happen. People post fake jobs and set up interviews... During the interview the interviewer will ask the applicant for there SS # and other personal information. The applicant will feel obligated to give this information to increase there likelihood of getting hired for this fake job.. It's important for people now a days, to keep there personal information to themselves, and NEVER give out your banking information....

Citibank has developed a identity theft protection plan that protect people against these fraudulent purchases... Something other banks are also beginning to do as they realize this problem is only increasing...

This topic is so close to me because my freshman year of college I had lost my Debit card on campus at my school... I did not notice until the next time I went to use my card, which sadly was 3 days later!!! Someone had found my card and used it to buy a video game system and other various electronics.... I had lost 75% of my bank account which was luckily only 600$, but for a college student, that is a lot!!! I contacted my bank, to cancel my credit cards and to see what was my next step. Unfortunately they could only refund me 50% of what was lost, but I guess that was better than nothing... It did teach me a valuable lesson of being more responsible, something Im almost glad that happened.

It was pretty impossible to catch the person who was using my card, I've heard stories of people who steal credit cards, then order merchandise over the internet and have it delivered directly to their homes!!! Therefore the police and other investigators go to the peoples homes and recover the merchandise and arrest the person.. That to me is being a pretty dumb criminal...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR1OUFmGq0E

Facebook

When my friends and I graduated high school, and entered our next journey in our lives (college) we didn't know if we would all stay in touch and remain friends. Some of us went to college throughout NY State others went our of state down south, others towards the west, others even left the country entirely. We promised we would all stay in touch, but could we really keep that promise?! With the invention of FaceBook, we could, and we have.

Facebook is a social networking website that is powered by facebook Inc. All a person needs to sign up for Facebook is an email address. Once you sign up for Facebook, you create your profile and include your likes, favorite movies, interests, etc. Once you've done that you need to find some of your friends and have them add to your list. Through Facebook people are allowed to search for past co-workers, friends, class mates, even family. Once a person finds the person they send them a friend request. After the friend request is accepted both people can read the others profile. They are allowed to send private messages to eachother as well as public messages on ones "wall". Also on Facebook people can provide there status update, in which you can let your friends know what your doing at that current time. I'm sure almost everyone at UB has Facebook so Im going to take a break from this and focus more on the history of Facebook.

Facebook was founded in 2004 by computer science students Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, at Harvard University. When it was first created, they limited the membership only to there fellow students at their campus. Next they expanded it to other college students in the Boston area (ex. Stanford). Next limited to only college students, then they included high school students, and finally ANYONE who is 13 years of age and older. Currently there is over 300 million members. However Facebook has also been blocked in some countries including China, Syra and Iran.

Facebook also allows users to create groups and join other groups that coincide with their interest. You can join political, sports, music, or other interest groups. You join the group and talk to other fans about the particular group. Also through Facebook if you are throwing a party you can send invitations to your friends through Facebook.

Facebook is a free to individuals who sign up which begs the question, how do the founders of Facebook make money!? They use the banners ads that you see throughout the website. Microsoft is Facebook's exclusive partner.

This past year facebook has launched a Facebook lite version that allows users to update there status, as well as look at friends status's using there blackberry, ipod touch, iphone, and other PDA"s....

One major problem with Facebook has been there outages. In 2007 an outage resulted in hackers allowing to get on to the site and reading other peoples mail and other personal information.

Facebook is now the most popular social networking site, and should remain at the top for a while now. They have run Myspace, out of the competition and should be able to do that to anyone else that tries to compete with them.

I'm very thankful for the creation of Facebook, because with it I am able to communicate with my friends from other colleges, throughout the world as well as know what they are doing that day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

www.facebook.com