This totally made my day:

A Wisconsin college student filed a class-action complaint against Experian this week, claiming that the company's ubiquitous ads for FreeCreditReport.com led her to believe she could use the site to get a no-cost credit report.

Go figure! Someone believed that FreeCreditReport means you can get a free credit report? What are the odds!?

How this has gone on this long I'll never know. Even after 11,000 Better Business Bureau complaints the most that's been done to date was the very cool FTC spoof videos making fun of FreeCreditReport's TV ads where they did everything short of calling them crooks.

It's such an exquisite pleasure to watch this bogus company go down; let's hope this suit sticks.

Tags: Class Action, Freecreditreport.com, It's About Time

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer is my hero of the day.

"If these companies want to say — or sing for that matter — that they are giving people free credit reports, then they can't charge people $15 a month, simple as that," Schumer said. "For years, these companies have said with a smile that they will provide a free credit report — even though the government already requires a credit report be provided for free every year – and then suddenly, months later consumers get a bill in the mail for their credit monitoring services. My plan would finally bust up this scam and give consumers some honest choices."

Tags: Annualcreditreport.com, Charles Schumer, Credit Monitoring, Freecreditreport.com, Senator

Of course this isn't a problem limited only to Facebook, but the FBI issued a warning about the rise of hijacking scams. This is where a bad guy gets your login information through various means and then poses as you on your account. They'll send an urgent request for help or money to all your friends who may be fooled and comply (as in the case of Bryan Rutberg).

Tags: Account Security, Facebook, FBI, Hijacking, Social Networking Sites

I can't really state this often enough. There's only one place to get free credit reports and that's

AnnualCreditReport.com. Everywhere else is going to take your money and give you grief.

Freescore is that company that's been advertising with Ben Stein on TV and they've been at the same dirty tricks as all these bogus free credit score places. However, because of a blogger who posted that they're a "predatory bait-and-switch" and also pointed out that the parent company of Freescore is VERTRUE, INC who has a Better Business Bureau score of F for charging people unexpectedly and then hassling them to get their money back (quoted loosely from here).

Freescore decided to file a libel lawsuit that looks surprisingly bogus to Felix Salmon, a blogger at Reuters. Not only did they never accuse the blogger of posting anything false, but the only part of the post that could be considered libelous was a direct quote from Felix's blog in the first place!

Well, this nonsense is no surprise to anyone that's watched these companies taking people's money and providing nothing in return.

Remember, there is only one place to get free credit reports and that's

AnnualCreditReport.com. Anyone else that offers you free credit reports is lying or has a gimmick.

Tags: Ben Stein, Freescore, Lawsuit

I found this today online (thanks Bruce!). This story is about a guy who managed to duplicate the key used by Dutch police for their handcuffs.

The first main point to learn from this is that you have to be really careful when you walk around in public with identity badges or keys visible. They can be photographed at great distance and be duplicated at leisure (as in the example a while back where a researcher photographed a key on the ground from over 200 feet away and was able to make a working duplicate of it).

Second, he used a 3D printer to create the key from plastic instead of metal which was cheaper, easier and something most anyone can do (if they have or can get access to a 3D printer). It's worse because the key is plastic and won't trip a metal detector. But the issue that no one has talked about yet is the danger of the photo used to show off the key.

The person holding it (which I assume was the creator of the key) has fully visible fingers with ridge detail clear enough to possibly create a false fingerprint (just like he did with the key). In other words, by posting a photo showing his fingerprints, he may have just made the same mistake that the police did when they left their keys in the open to be photographed and copied.

Remember to always be careful when posting photos online.

Tags: 3D Printers, Fingerprint, Handcuffs, The CSI Game

I have no idea how I missed this, but it's great news regardless!

If you signed up with Lifelock and are unhappy with their service or guarantee or just want further info on the class action you can contact David Paris at Marks & Klein, (732)-747-7100.

I almost wish I had signed up for Lifelock so I could get involved.

Tags: Class Action, Lawsuit, Lifelock

If you've been following this breach, the key problem here is two part:

1) TJX is the parent company of several other companies including TJ Maxx. Each of those companies shared data with TJX creating a massive database (and a single target for the hackers).

2) TJX (and others) shouldn't have stored the credit card data in the first place and when they did, they should have used better security.

Though they'll blame "clever hackers" for the breach, the fault instead lies squarely with TJX who's business practice of storing credit cards against people's will along with negligent use of outdated wireless encryption (WEP) first created a giant target and then then left a gaping hole for the bad guys to bea able to go and get it.

Tags: Data Breach, Negligence, TJ Maxx, TJX, WEP, Wireless Security

This lady found Social Security Numbers on a state website. She's threatened to publicly release detailed instructions on how to find them like she did and to expose the SSNs of several important people in the state if they don't fix the problem.

A spokesman for the office responsible said:

The bulk of the "hundreds of thousands" of documents on the Web site are business filings, and only 5 percent or so are believed to include Social Security numbers

Why can't states realize that putting records online makes them available to the world instead of just local people? There's public information and global public information.

That aside, this lady is my hero and I hope she does post the data. I've often wondered how long it would take to solve some of our privacy woes if a few dozen members of congress had all their personal data posted on a website.

Tags: Senators, State Records, Virgina