Pfffffffffftttt!
What that read, shitters?
Key quote:
"daily spending in Iraq is about $320 million. The figure for Iraq, Afghanistan, and related security measures is about $400 million a day."
"US defies own advice on Social Security numbers" by Associated Press | July 3, 2008
WASHINGTON - The government doesn't have to look very far to see who's ignoring its advice on preventing identity theft.
It's the government itself.
The nation's Medicare agency and the Pentagon want at least 52 million Americans to carry their Social Security numbers in their wallets, contrary to warnings by the Federal Trade Commission that people should avoid doing so.
At least 44 million Medicare insurance cards include the beneficiary's full Social Security number. The number also appears on 8 million Defense Department identity cards used by active duty and reserve forces and their dependents, and on identification cards issued to military retirees. The Pentagon plans to remove the numbers but won't complete the effort until 2014.
And the Internal Revenue Service still tells taxpayers to write their Social Security number on checks used to make payments. The IRS has no plans to change the system.
All this contradicts advice from the Federal Trade Commission, the lead federal agency for deterring identity theft.
"Protect your Social Security number. Don't carry your Social Security card in your wallet or write your Social Security number on a check," the FTC warned in a pamphlet sent months ago to every mailing address in the United States. The Social Security Administration offers similar advice.
Changing the identity numbers would cost Medicare less than two days spending for the war in Iraq. The Congressional Research Service, in an analysis of Pentagon figures, said daily spending in Iraq is about $320 million. The figure for Iraq, Afghanistan, and related security measures is about $400 million a day.
--MORE--"
Readers, why are the IRAQ COSTS tucked into an article on SS #s?!
WTF?!
And one wonders whose identities Mossad is going to steal for the next false-flag operation:
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hackers broke into Citibank's network of ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores and stole customers' PIN codes, according to recent court filings that revealed a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record.
The scam netted the alleged identity thieves millions of dollars. But more importantly for consumers, it indicates criminals were able to access PINs - the numeric passwords that theoretically are among the most closely guarded elements of banking transactions - by attacking the back-end computers responsible for approving the cash withdrawals.
The case against three people in US District Court for the Southern District of New York highlights a significant problem.
Hackers are targeting the ATM system's infrastructure, which is increasingly built on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and allows machines to be remotely diagnosed and repaired over the Internet. And despite industry standards that call for protecting PINs with strong encryption, which cloaks them to outsiders, some ATM operators apparently aren't properly doing that. The PINs seem to be leaking while in transit between the automated teller machines and the computers that process the transactions.
It's unclear how many Citibank customers were affected by the breach, which extended at least from October 2007 to March of this year and was first reported by technology news website Wired.com. The bank has nearly 5,700 Citibank-branded ATMs inside 7-Eleven Inc. stores throughout the United States, but it doesn't own or operate any of them.
That responsibility falls on two companies: Houston-based Cardtronics Inc., which owns all the machines but only operates some, and Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv Inc., which operates the others.
A critical issue is how the hackers infiltrated the system."And WHO they were.
"In its second move against computer hacking this week, the Justice Department announced the arrest of a trio of Israeli hackers suspected of breaking into computer networks belonging to U.S. and Israeli governments, as well as those of businesses and educational institutions in the United States and abroad."
