Goodbye 2007...Hello 2008

Over the holiday break, I found myself repeatedly explaining to both friends and family the difference between identity based fraud management tools and device-reputation based fraud management tools (I know, I know...who'd have thought this could be a "hit" ice-breaking topic at a holiday party?). But when people ask me, "so, what do you do?", and I say, "I stop identity theft and stolen credit cards." They immediately want to know, how can they protect themselves, including my father-in-law?

My father-in-law uses a MAC and I use a Windows tablet PC. As I stood there this morning looking down at our respective machines, I suddenly realized that after 20 years of having a relationship with him either one of us could positively identify the other one out on any street corner. But then I suddenly felt a growing sense of vulnerability; only 2-mouse clicks away (out in the virtual internet world) either one of us could so easily become the other one and nobody would be the wiser! We each know enough about the other, or have easy access to the personal documents (like wallets, drivers licenses, passports etc.), that the only thing standing in the way of such a crime, and is protected us one from the other, is the combination of personal ethics and mutual "trust".

But as I recall looking around the living room of various holiday parties this year, I suddenly realize that there were many people there neither my wife nor I even knew. Meanwhile, our coats and her purse lie in wait, amidst a mountain of other coasts and purses pilled high onto our hosts bed. I know I trust my close friends and family, but what about all these other people, the ones we are calling friends of friends of friends? How protected am I, online ??