The biggest news this week revolves around hackers and identity theft as Apple IDs and one woman’s Medicare card were exposed to the world.
A DNC Flub Puts a Woman’s Identity at Risk
Last night, in the midst of former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, the camera cut away to an audience member holding up what is a familiar sight for the roughly 50 million Americans who participate in Medicare — a Medicare ID card.
While that ID card was a great image of what President Clinton was discussing, that simple act of airing a private citizen’s ID card, which displays one’s Social Security number as an identifier of their Medicare status, can seriously harm the identity of the citizen.
The video of the DNC attendee was aired on multiple stations covering the convention, including but not limited to PBS, ABC and MSNBC. The full video of the speech, including the medicare card moment, are also still up on YouTube.
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FBI Agent’s Laptop ‘Hacked’ to Grab 12 Million Apple IDs
Hacking groups Anonymous and Antisec published a list of what they claimed to be 1 million Apple IDs earlier this week, saying that they had acquired 12 million IDs from a laptop of an FBI agent.
While the FBI has denied that the agency was the source of the alleged data hack, the groups insist that the FBI had this data, along with other identifying information like cellphone numbers and addresses.
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Faith in Real Estate: Using Divine Intervention to Sell Homes
If all of this identity theft and hacking news is scaring you, turning to some more spiritual guides may help calm you. At least, that’s what some home sellers are turning to and they’re finding it rather effective.
In a fascinating story about unconventional sales tactics, Graham Wood takes a look at some of the divine strategies home owners are using to sell their homes faster. One woman buried a statue of St. Joseph in her yard and got an offer three weeks later. Some even suggest burning sage in the home to help clear the house and speed up a sale.
Image: NS Newsflash, via Flickr
Kali Geldis Kali Geldis is Credit.com's Deputy Managing Editor. She writes about a wide range of personal finance and credit topics. She previously ran MainStreet.com, the personal finance website powered by TheStreet. She has also worked for The Wall Street Journal as a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern and at The Huntington Herald-Dispatch as a reporter.
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because of identity theft and medicare fraud my credit ration is among the nation lowest 20 %, now they want money to fix it.
I don’t buy anything on a credit, never have, not in the last 40 years, and do not lan to, but the bad score benefits go to USAA, my auto insurance, who risk losing a client, as soon as the contract has expired, because of the phony credit bureaus with ties to the fed, financial scam banking cartels, and other myths, soon to disappear into time. Pay for a good credit rating ? Buy court room clout, go into politics to have a go at the lobbies money, its all about criminality making the laws our our land, refusing to enbrace instrumentation that would render them obsolete—I await the day when the worlds youth embrace anarchy and remove every vestige of Nobility, concealed behind predatory laws they makeup trying to impale the world on their dynasties, when all they face is their end , one way or another