Beware the growing menace of cameraphone ID theft
Add cameraphone identity theft to bluejacking, WiFi snarfing and other spurious "crimes" that the mainstream media want us to worry about. No, camphone ID theft doesn't involve someone snapping a pic of your face and using it to make an incredibly lifelike mask that they then use to impersonate you (though it would be a lot more interesting if it did). Instead, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, it happens when nefarious camphone users take covert shots of your credit card and then use them to steal your identity. And, according to the Sun-Sentinel, it's an epidemic. Citing such rock-solid authorities as "Cindy, the friendly and efficient supermarket cashier" and "a reader," the paper says that ID theft by camphone is "becoming commonplace in the disquieting world of identity theft, an insidious crime that victimized an estimated 10 million Americans last year." How common? Well, considering that the article cites just one individual who claims he was victimized (the reader, who says a pizza guy took out his phone while checking his card), it doesn't seem all that likely that this is a crime wave. But, then, who are we to argue with Cindy?
[Via Techdirt]
