Personal information is a commodity. Businesses around the globe specialize in aggregating this commodity and selling it for profit to interested buyers. These businesses are called data brokers, and they make their income by collecting as much information on you as possible. What types of data do data brokers collect?
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Many grocery stores offer club cards to give their patrons the chance to participate in discount prices and special offers, but what does a person give up in return? Grocery stores collect information about their shoppers through club programs for a variety of purposes. They may use the information to
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Business email accounts are as susceptible to scam attacks as personal accounts. Though a spam filter may do its best to weed out these malicious digital assaults from the daily onslaught of incoming email, some scams sneak past them. When they do, these cloaked villains do their best to fool
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Tuning in to the news recently, I watched the usual traffic, weather, and current event reports. Then, as if a new phenomenon emerged from a hidden abyss, a reporter discussed a recent rash of invasions committed against unlocked vehicles. Thieves are creatures of opportunity, and an unlocked vehicle is an
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It’s early on a cold winter morning. Your breath visibly billows out in front of you as you make your way to your car. When you arrive, you fumble with the keys in your gloved hands, but finally manage to unlock the doors. The car hesitates when you try to
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As connoisseurs of stuff, we collect things over the years we don’t really need. Clothes that we’ll never wear again without going back in time (perhaps not even then in retrospect). Worn shoes that need a generous amount of tape, glue, and wishful thinking to keep together. Knickknacks that collect
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Thieves have increased their attack on multi-unit dwelling mailboxes in recent years. These smash and grab criminals are going after such items as checks, credit card numbers, and other useful items. They want to cause you pain for their gain. Multi-unit dwelling mailboxes, or cluster box units (CBU), are a
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In the latest ploy by scammers to steal your hard-earned cash, criminals use the lure of a free vacation to convince targets to hand over their credit card information. What these thieves also obtain is involuntary permission to charge expensive trip features on these credit cards by convincing people to
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Criminals use email as an inexpensive, easy way to reach a large number of people quickly. Their promises of an easy payday can be tempting, but don’t let their tricks fool you into giving up your hard-earned resources. Here’s a sample email recently received from a scammer. The email has
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How to make your vehicle a less tempting target for thieves. Tuning into the new recently, I watched the usual traffic, weather, and current event reports. Then, as if a new phenomenon emerged from a hidden abyss, a reporter discussed a recent rash of invasions committed against unlocked vehicles. Thieves
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How old email accounts can rise from the dead. As we move through life, we may find that email account names outlive their usefulness. Email names such as “partymonster” or “superslacker” may be fine in high school, but entirely unsuitable when adding them as contact information to an important job
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