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American Idol’s Chikezie Eze Arrested for Identity Theft
Posted by Veronica Santiago Categories: Music, Television, Legal Issues,
UPDATE: Chikezie has been charged with attempted grand theft and misdemeanor identity theft.
Chikezie Eze isn’t smelling so good after being arrested last night in Beverly Hills.
The 10th place finisher from American Idol 7 was attempting to purchase bottles of cologne at Neiman Marcus when his credit card was flagged. Although Eze claims he doesn’t know why the previously unused card warranted a police response, something reportedly “untrue” on the application lead to him being booked for felony identity theft.
Chikezie - who has since been released on $50,000 bail - feels certain that the matter will get cleared up. “I haven’t done anything wrong myself and I’m pretty confident nothing is going to happen,” he told TMZ.
Read More 
| TV Guide
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Handheld Paper Shredder
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Misc. Tech,
Every time we throw out a bank or credit card statement, we carefully destroy the part that has our account number and toss it into at least two different trash bags. Would that we had the Handheld Paper Shredder. Running on 4 AA batteries (included,) it has 28 steel cutting plates and can handle up to 5 pages at a time. At a size of 5 x 5 x 25.5cm, you can carry it with you to take care of restaurant and ATM receipts on the spot. Pre-order for $35.96 and you will get an email notice when the shredder arrives.
Read More | Latest Buy
Study Shows Shoppers Wary Online
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Internet,
A recent survey of 3000 participants by the National Cyber Security Alliance found that 20% of online shoppers have either limited or stopped purchasing that way. The report also states that 4 out of 10 Americans will only visit websites that they are familiar with. Three quarters still use it for banking, trading stocks, or accessing medical records.
If you are one of those with online identity theft paranoia when it comes to banking, make sure that the site begins with https://. The “s” denotes a secure connection.
Read More | Tech Radar
Follow Up: Verizon makes good on our FiOS privacy woes
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Broadband, Editorial, Features, Internet,
A little under two weeks ago, we made a long-standing issue that we had with Verizon public. The fact that they had ignored our request to fix a huge oversight that resulted in our private FiOS account info to fall into the wrong hands for over 8 months was starting to upset us just a tad. We knew that if we shared it with you, our readers, that Verizon would have no choice but to respond quickly. At least, that was the hope.
Well, sure enough, after the story was picked up on The Consumerist as well as made it to the front page of Digg, we received a phone call. Then an email. Then another phone call. Then a couple more emails. Verizon Damage Control had stepped in.
Click to continue reading Follow Up: Verizon makes good on our FiOS privacy woes
Our Verizon FiOS customer service nightmare: Why won’t they protect my private customer information?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Broadband, Editorial, Features, Internet,
Seeing as we’ve been experiencing a ton of customer service issues with our Verizon FiOS service for the past 8 months, we figured it was time to put out a warning to you guys. After all, we typically hear that the FiOS Internet service is remarkably amazing, and people have been dumping cable in droves when FiOS becomes available in their area. Hey, there is good reason to. Where we are at, right outside Seattle, our choices are slow DSL, Comcast at 8.0 down and 768k up, or FiOS with a max speed of 30.0 down and 15.0 up (which is the plan we are on.)
Now let’s be clear here, we love the FiOS service. It works fantastically, it has never gone down in the 8 months we’ve been using it, and it’s, well, fast.
So what is the problem? To put it bluntly, Verizon has shown that they don’t care - at all - about protecting their users private, confidential information. Now, why would we make a statement like that? Check it.
Cyber-Lover Will Steal Your Identity
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet,
The Internet security company PC Tools has found a new software bot that is designed to flirt online on social networking sites for the purpose of ripping you off. Cyber-Lover will initiate conversation and respond in chat rooms up to 20 times an hour, and is apparently difficult to detect since it varies its profiles, vocabulary, and tones. Eventually, it will inquire as to your name address and phone number. It then seeks other info on the Net to include website, photos and blogs. While we don’t know of very many who chat using their real names, we are certainly glad that most of us try to remain anonymous whenever possible (hehehe.)
Read More | couriermail
Warning: Beware of Trojan USB Flash Drives
Posted by Lolita Beckwith Categories: Storage, USB,
We’d like to warn you about a new way to steal your online banking data. In London, an innocent-looking USB flash drive was found on the ground. The curious (and who wouldn’t be?), finder plugged it into their computer—and unknowingly installed a trojan, designed specifically to steal the user’s bank login and personal data, without warning. An investigation into the matter is underway, so hopefully more details will emerge soon. Now that we’re all much more savvy about phishing and identity theft, techie thieves are finding more and more covert ways to commit their crimes.
Read More | Channel Register via Coolest Gadgets
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