Basically what would stop someone from getting QRCodes assigned to a url, 301'ing that url through an affiliate link, printing their QRCodes and slapping the stickers on price tags in major chain stores like BestBuy?
I'm not going to do this. I'm just curious if this is a vulnerability in them???
Is there any type of site out there that makes the intro?
We're in the public records industry and have heard about this numerous times very recently. They even gotten bold enough to offer you a choice of several background check sites, all of which they control of course.
For me it's Ctrl-T because I'm forever typing characters backwards. I use Bourne compatible shells so I'm not sure if that'd even work in tcsh???
“It doesn’t matter if I use my real name or not. If my name is John Smith then there’s no way Google can know which one I am, ergo it’s pointless.”
People making that argument are flat out wrong. I work in the public/private record and data broker industry. I’ve worked in it for 14 years. If I was Google and I had your real name here’s what I’d do:
1. I’d grab your IP address and trace it back to its location. Googles IP to Location database is probably the best in the world. It’s not 100% accurate but it’s good enough. So now I’ve got you as John Smith in Anytown USA.
2. I’d combine your name/location and run it against the header database.
Let me explain what a “header” a.k.a. “credit header” is.
A credit header is the top part of your credit report. It’s the part above the lines of actual creditor reporting. It contains:
• Your “real name” • Your aka’s (what your friends call you) • Your Social Security Number • Your date of birth • Your relatives names • Your current and previous addresses (with dates) going back 25+ years • Your current and previous telephone numbers
At this point the list of John Smiths is reduced dramatically. If I needed to narrow it down even further I’d take a look at your date of birth. If you have Gmail you may have already provided this to Google. There’s also a bazillion other places this is available.
Another place to deduce your approximate age is where you attended high school and what year you graduated. So now I’m looking for John Smith currently located in Anytown USA who once lived in Mytown USA and is between the ages of 38 to 40.
If I couldn’t find your date of birth I’d run your addresses and look for other people with the same last name living at that address. Then I’d scan your communications looking for people with that name.
On top of that if I have your phone number (think Gmail again) I can run that too.
Most of the time I’m GOING to find you EVEN if your name is John Smith.
From that point it’s as simple as cross-referencing data. I can run you against:
• Bankruptcies • Tax Liens • Judgments • Defaults • UCC Filings • Property Values • Relatives and their above information • And on and on and on
At this point I know who you are, who your relatives are and what kind of spending power you have. I have your whole life history. I can decide your level of influence while I keep tacking on additional information to your dossier. How much do you think that list is worth?
This level of sophistication is almost impossible for spam bots and fake profiles to duplicate.
For those that say “Well there are other countries, not just the US.” My answer is:
1. This type of information is available in many countries. It may not be as freely available but it’s there.
2. I don’t necessarily have to have this information from other countries. I can simply watch my initial network grow. If I have a “high influence” individual in the US and they communicate with you on a regular basis it’s pretty easy to deduce I should also assign you some value and on down the line. It’s easy enough in a global economy.
P.S. The credit header file has been ruled in court cases to NOT be part of a credit report therefore it is free of the FCRA laws preventing it’s access by unauthorized individuals. It can be free traded and sold. The last time I checked the file was less than $200,000 US plus the cost of updates. However many companies can get free access in exchange for reporting their data back to the bureaus.
On Sunday I opened up the App Store software on my Macbook Pro. I started browsing through applications and came across an app named Boom.
I did NOT visit the link to their website, I did not do a search for anything about them. I simply went on looking through the App Store at other software.
Yesterday I was reading HN in my NetNewsWire software and saw a article about "best practices for signup forms". I clicked the link, the article opened up in NNW's browser. Low-and-behold, there was a fetchback ad (the only ad) on the page for Boom software offering me a 25% discount on the purchase of the software.
Here is a screenshot http://www.flickr.com/photos/65099140@N04/5927227432/
Is this a coincidence? Maybe. But it's one heck of one, considering there's over 90,000 apps on the App Store, and Sunday was the first time I had ever seen or heard of Boom.
Maybe the software developer is tracking users via some script/code passing information through the App Store to them? I don't dev Mac apps so I'm not sure if/how something like that would be possible.
