Identity theft

About: Identity theft is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2284 publications have been published within this topic receiving 31700 citations.

Privacy FP-Tree

Abstract: Current technology has made the publication of people's private information a common occurrence. The implications for individual privacy and security are still largely poorly understood by the general public but the risks are undeniable as evidenced by the increasing number of identity theft cases being reported recently. Two new definitions of privacy have been developed recently to help understand the exposure and how to protect individuals from privacy violations, namely, anonymized privacy and personalized privacy. This paper develops a methodology to validate whether a privacy violation exists for a published dataset. Determining whether privacy violations exist is a non-trivial task. Multiple privacy definitions and large datasets make exhaustive searches ineffective and computationally costly. We develop a compact tree structure called the Privacy FP-Tree to reduce the costs. This data structure stores the information of the published dataset in a format that allows for simple, efficient traversal. The Privacy FP-Tree can effectively determine the anonymity level of the dataset as well as identify any personalized privacy violations. This algorithm is O (n log n) , which has acceptable characteristics for this application. Finally, experiments demonstrate the approach is scalable and practical.

The potential of using the forensic profiles of Australian fraudulent identity documents to assist intelligence-led policing

Abstract: The manufacture and distribution of fraudulent identity documents (IDs) is a pervasive and prolific crime problem, enabling the activities of organized crime networks and terrorist cells. As reactive policing methods are ill-equipped to handle the transversal and repetitive nature of document fraud, in 2012 Baechler et al. suggested a complementary method that uses the systematic profiling and comparison of fraudulent IDs to identify those produced by the same source. While this method has been successful in Europe, it is yet to be implemented worldwide, and there is currently little known about the Australian fraudulent document climate. In this pilot study, 43 fraudulent IDs from Sydney-based New South Wales police stations were examined. Adapting the method used in Europe, these documents were imaged, and their visual characteristics were extracted before being organized into an excel database and manually compared. The characteristics chosen are fundamentally linked to the manufacturing process, including the printing methods and replication of security features. Of the documents examined 88% were linked to at least one other document, and five series emerged. These results suggest that the Australian document market may be structured, and that there may be prolific offenders operating at its core, much like in Europe.

There Must be Thirty Ways to Steal Your ID

Abstract: This article outlines some thirty ways that fraudsters commonly commit identity theft and exploit stolen identities, with a little more information specifically on phishing using actual phishing e-mails to illustrate the techniques.