In class this week we talked about identity theft and identity fraud, and how they are different from one another. It was mentioned that people tend to interchange identity theft and identity fraud simply because they don't now there is an actual difference, and in truth I have been one of those people.

Identity theft is the act of stealing another person's identity to obtain credit or access to resources in the victims name, to be used for personal gain. On the other hand, identity fraud is when you steal someone's personal information, obtained for the purpose of committing fraud. This typically used by people looking to create a false identity and documents. The main types of identity theft and fraud include financial, criminal, identity cloning, synthetic, and medical. Financial is using another's identity to obtain a SSN number, goods and or services. Criminal is when you pose as someone else when convicted. Identity cloning is something that is rare and mainly on the silver screen, but it is when you assume another persons identity in daily life. Synthetic is when you create an identity that is partially or even fully fabricated, and medical is when you use information that is not yours to obtain medical care or drugs.

One thing that we touched on that I found very interesting and important was the common sources of identity theft. People will go through your trash to obtain any sort of information they can use to help them in committing their crime. The personal information that everyone stores on their personal computer is another very common way for people to obtain your personal information and this is typically done by Phishing emails. Theft of a wallet/purse can easily lead to identity theft and fraud, as well as the information people put on Facebook, i.e date of birth, address, phone, etc.

I was once a victim of identity theft because I was careless and clicked a link on an email without truly looking at the URL. This enabled the individual to access my debit card information, and only after seeing that my bank account was $90 some lower then expected did I realize what happened. It was not a fun experience to go through, however it was a HUGE learning experience for me. Ever since then I will routinely check my bank account, and whenever I receive an email from a source that is unfamiliar I make sure everything in the URL is spelled accurately. Another thing I tend to do is listen to my gut, and if something feels off about the email I will rarely ever click on a link.

Nov. 6 Blog

In class we have been learning about another aspect of the internet community; Flaming and Trolling.
Flaming is regarding obscene and inflammatory text in that people will target someone and base all of their anger at them. We learned that the common outcomes/response to a person flaming is by signing off, not participating, or the user that is flaming will be removed.
Trolling is another aspect of the internet chat community and is very similar to flaming but much different. Trolling is when someone is intentionally disrupting an online community, where as flaming was targeting one specific user. Both of these methods are used to pretty much try and create chaos in internet chat forums.
In lab today we listened to a person talk about her experience with trolls. She commented on how they can be very rude, mean, and all around hurtful.  She pointed out that people who troll and partake in flaming typically stay behind their keyboards and won't actually approach or even say what they type in real life. However she spent much of her time talking about one specific troll that hurt her in a very serious way, but who she also ended up talking to in real life; something that is very rare.  She talked about how he used the recent death of her father to get under her skin, it worked, and how he knew that doing this was solely to hurt her. She asked him why he had wanted to be like that, and his response was pretty much she spoke to powerfully for a woman.

I constantly come across trolls and people flaming almost every day. I am a big sports guy and love to read ESPN and other sports articles.  I always go to the comment section to see what others felt about the article or the teams/players being addressed in the article. I will routinely come across roughly 10-12 trolls per article, it is a very big thing. These people typically don't get any replies because everyone has gotten so used to them.