Social Security Number by Pritesh

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the U.S. The U.S. Secret Service has estimated that consumers nationwide lose $745 million to identity theft each year. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, the average victim spends 607 hours and averages $1,000 just to clear their credit records.

Identity thieves employ a variety of methods to gain access to your personal information. They may get information from businesses or other institutions by stealing it; by bribing an employee who has access to records; hacking into records; or conning information out of employees. Once identity thieves have your personal information, they may use it to commit a fraud or theft in your name.

How can you tell if you have become a victim of identity theft? Some signs include unexplained charges or withdrawals from your financial accounts; bills or other mail stop arriving (the thief may have submitted a change of address); a credit application is denied for no apparent reason, or debt collectors begin calling about merchandise or services you didn't buy.

Your computer can be a goldmine of personal information to an identity thief. To protect yourself and your computer against identity theft consider:

* Updating virus protection software frequently. Consider setting your virus protection software to update automatically. The Windows XP operating system also can be set to check for patches automatically and download them to your computer. * Not opening files sent to you by strangers, clicking on hyperlinks, or downloading programs from people or companies you don't know. * Using a firewall program, especially if you use a high speed Internet connection like cable or DSL that leaves your computer connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. * Providing your personal or financial information through an organization's secured website only. While not fool proof, a lock icon on the browser's status bar or a URL for a website that begins "https:" (the "s" stands for secure), may provide additional security. * Not storing your financial information on your laptop, unless absolutely necessary. * Deleting all the personal information stored on a computer before disposing of it. A wipe" utility program to overwrite the entire hard drive is recommended. * Checking with an anti-fraud education organization such as CardCops (www.cardcops.com). Card Cops runs a web site designed to help consumers determine whether their credit card numbers may have been stolen. They monitor Internet "chat rooms" where identity thieves illicitly trade and sell stolen credit card numbers. CardCops turns the information over to law enforcement authorities, but also allows consumers to access their database to see whether individual card numbers may have been stolen. In the first two months of operation, the site identified more than 100,000 stolen credit cards.

As with any crime, you can not completely control whether you will become a victim, but you can take steps to minimize your risk by remaining diligent and by minimizing outside access to your personal information.

About the Author

Pritesh Das is a Internet Marketer. Click here to learn more about the author

Find People Com - How To Access Government Records Freely

Government records are useful to just about any person in the country. First, you can use them to extract information about yourself that could be required when you apply for a job like. These include your Social Security number or your birth certificate. They could also be useful to check up on another person's background through criminal record lookup, court dockets, bankruptcy records, and many others.

For this reason, government records are made freely available to any individual. All these people have to do is to file a request with the appropriate government agency in possession of the necessary data. Once the request has been approved, he or she will then receive the information that he or she has asked for.

How to Make Sure Your Request Is Not Denied

Even though these records are freely available, there are still some things to consider when you apply for release of these information. If you are asking for information about yourself and your family, then you will not expect to run into any possible problems with the federal or state government agency that holds the data.

However, if you are seeking information on someone outside your family, then you have to expect some barriers along the way.

First, when you are requesting for records pertaining to a certain individual, you must be able to prove in your request that you are not going to use the information for invading a person's privacy. You should be able to present a valid purpose together with your request for information.

Valid reasons would include the following:

* Background check prior to employment
* Confirmation of possible lost person contact
* Issues of security, like information on people of suspicious nature
* Bankruptcy records for a potential business partner

These are just some of the valid reasons for requesting government records on a person. The bottom line is to have a legal and ethical purpose for digging up a person's information.

Where to Find Government Records

One way to find government-held records is to approach the government agency directly. At most times, the information held by the agency can be obtained free of charge from you.

However, you may run through bureaucratic red tape along the way, which may delay you. This may prove to be difficult because some people who request for government information are businesspersons who are in urgent need of employees.

Another way to dig up government records on a certain individual is to use the Internet. The World Wide Web is home to hundreds of websites that offer their services of searching for government-held information on an individual's behalf. All you need to do to find these sites is to search for them using the search engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

There are two types of Internet-based record searching. The most prevalent is the paid searching service. These are companies that have been able to establish systems of extracting government records, and they offer these services for a fee.

The second type is the free record search. It is the opposite of the paid services, because you don't have to pay a fee in order to use their services.

Description
Government records are useful to just about any person in the country. Most people don't realize how useful and how easy to obtain this information is.

Depending on how often you search, many websites offer a membership or subscription that will provide you with unlimited searches in any category, branch of government and many other areas for a small and affordable fee. This is a great plan if you are doing a high volume of searches.

The search can be broad or specified by a county, state, or city. These are usually convenient self serving sites that let you start and finish the process completely online. You will not have to talk to anyone on the phone to sign up. A simple online and secure registration form will be required to begin. Government databases are free, but take a little longer as you would have to search every state. Good luck on your hunt for the information you are after.