Choicepoint, March 24/25

(Posted by adam)

  • The Federal Reserve has joined the FDIC in ordering banks to notify customers of breaches.
  • Forbes reports that Choicepoint director Thomas Coughlin has resigned his day job at Wal-Mart: "A senior board member of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. resigned Friday following an internal investigation related to personal reimbursements, billing and company gift cards."
  • [Choicepoint CEO] Derek Smith has apparently received threats via fax, according to TV station WXIA Atlanta. Here's a cheat sheet for you:
    • Denying his job application because of a Texas criminal record: Entertaining.
    • Sending him Nigerian spam from a Kinko's in LA: Self-referentially ironically cool.
    • Sending threats: Not cool.
  • Scott Berinato has a column at CSO Magazine calling this the Waterloo of information security. (Is there a permalink to that column?)
  • The Christian Science Monitor has an editorial entitled "Locking Out Identity Thieves." The subtitle is "Why are data collectors blocking efforts to require notice of a security breach?"
    One problem that critics point out: Consumers might also limit their own ability to obtain credit. But that's a small price to pay for privacy and a more secure online identity.
The best way to see all my Choicepoint posts is probably the category archive for Choicepoint. [Update: added Berinato column, 2: Identified Smith]

Posted by adam on March 26, 2005 at 9:59 AM in Choicepoint . You can: comment, view comments (3), see trackbacks (0) or search Technorati.

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Comments

Who is Derek Smith?

Posted by: Simson L. Garfinkel | March 26, 2005 11:06 AM


The Alarmed link should be permalinked when the next column comes out. It should be something like: http://csoonline.com/alarmed/03142005.html

Posted by: DM | March 26, 2005 10:53 PM


Threats?

“You greedy rich white [expletive],” the hand-written message reads.

About three hours later, another fax arrived. The note was typed and sent from a known number in the 404 area code.

"I hope all your children die before you,” the message read.

Now, that ain't pleasant, but where's the threat?

Posted by: Jimbo | March 27, 2005 11:44 PM