Is attending a webinar: Fighting Trafficking w/Power of DNA Analysis

Four reports completed today for clients from my cross-country trek! 

On The Road

I criss-crossed the country this week to manage the needs of four separate clients. Eight flights later and I'm nearly home. This week I'll be working on reports based on my field work, having done SCADA & CESCO assessments for specialty needs clients. 

Holiday Safety Shopping Tips - 

Protect yourself and your identity

It's that time of year when customers will be out in full force in the stores and spending online. I want to provide you a few tips to protect your information from identity thieves who will be ready and waiting for you as well as give general ideas for physical safety when shopping in a public venue.

Online Shopping


If we're anything alike, you eschew the grind of mall shopping and do the majority of your present purchasing in the comfort of your own home. Wine? Check. Laptop? Check. Credit card? Check. Forget about the crowds and craziness. Tips for shopping online while protecting your identity are pretty simple.

First, make sure your internet connection is secure. Are you using public wi-fi? Your information is not secure. Anyone sitting in that coffee shop or fast food restaurant can pull your financial information with the right knowledge and technology. Don't shop or bank from public wi-fi. Period.

Next, I recommend shopping well-known stores with good reputations. Anyone can throw a website up on the internet and charge you money for a product. Will they deliver? Check the reputation of any store where you've not shopped before. Google them. Ask your friends. If in doubt, do not buy. Same goes with eBay: check the seller's reputation. If they have poor feedback, don't buy from them.

Finally, Once you've found the store from which you'd like to buy, be sure your information is safe during checkout by noting the https:// on their website address or by a padlock in the lower right of your browser screen. The preference is that your information is encrypted when sent over the internet to the seller. Once again, staying with reputable sellers over the internet will likely bring with it encrypted checkout.



Public Shopping

I can't stress awareness enough when it comes to your surroundings. This applies both to your physical safety and protecting your identity and financial information from identity thieves. People often joke about forgetting where they parked their car, and yet its that lost person who looks great to muggers and thieves. If you're too busy trying to find your car or digging through pockets or purse to find keys or shopping list, attackers can peg you right off the bat as a victim. If you're just hopeless and all parking lanes look the same to you no matter what you do, then try downloading a parking locator app to your cell phone or at least park right under a light to cut down your time being lost. If in doubt, you can always take along a shopping partner. Finally, for those greatly concerned for their safety, ask for security to escort you to your vehicle, especially if you're weighed down with packages, which can also be a safety issue. If you note a flat tire on your vehicle, immediately re-enter the store and call for assistance from that safe venue. Thieves have often used a flat tire ruse to approach and "offer assistance"... and then attack.

Once in a store, we'd all like to think that we can trust the employees. Unfortunately, theft by employees is not uncommon. Scamming and identity theft by employees is also on the rise. Be sure not to be distracted during checkout and watch your checker. Whether at the grocery store or a department store, its simple for a checker to scan an item more than once, unbeknownst to the customer. Over an entire day, those little scans add up for the thief. Another scam to watch out for at the register is being short-changed. Simple and easy to detect. Finally, and most importantly, is watching what the cashier does with your credit card for the entire time its within their possession. Many customers simply hand over their credit card and begin chatting with a friend or the next person in line or checking their cell phone. During times of distraction like this, cashiers have total access to your credit card to scan for your order and then take down damaging information. For example, the old method of simply writing down the credit card information on front and back still work as well as using a piece of paper over the card and scratching a pencil over the raised numbers in order to steal the information. In the age of smart phones with cameras, however, its become painfully quick and easy to snap an image of the front and back of the card. Make sure you know where your card is at all times when its not in your possession.

Now you know to be aware of your credit card, but what about your wallet? Identity thieves are now capable of simply using a small RFID reader within your vicinity and pull your financial information from your credit card - even while its in your purse, pocket or wallet. To prevent against this there are a wide variety of wallets on the market to protect against scanning. From the small RFID aluminum wallets to the executive lined versions, there's no reason to ignore the threat. Get yourself an RFID protective wallet and protect your information. I recommend amazon.com to see a broad variety for men and women.

What about the old-school pick-pockets? They're still at work and the hustle and bustle make life easier for them. We're used to getting bumped occasionally during holiday shopping, expecting an "Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry". Occasionally, that "oops" moment is a bump and run of a pick-pocket, seeking your wallet. If anyone brushes against you, bumps you, etc, while shopping, be sure to check your wallet. Try not to let them see you checking your wallet in case it was a test run by a pick-pocketer's partner to find out where your wallet is on your person. If you carry a wallet in a pocket, try a front pocket while shopping. If you carry a wallet in a purse, be sure to close your purse and not leave it open to swift hands.

Finally, I'll reiterate that awareness is your best friend and knowledge is power. Put them together to keep yourself a bit more safe this holiday season.

Private Parts Exposed - Part One

In today's technologically advanced society, those in the know (or want to know) are constantly developing new ways to get at your private information. As a result, privacy laws are in a perpetual state of evolution in efforts to keep up with that technology. In the field of private investigation, we have to take continual steps to keep up with those laws to avoid ending up on the wrong side of them. If you're undertaking an investigation, you'd better keep up, too. As stated in previous blogs, I'm not an attorney. I have one on retainer. Get your own.

As the title suggests, when ones private information is made available for public viewing, it can feel like standing naked in Times Square. This blog post will hopefully cover ways to get at information on a subject and ways to hide your own "private parts".

We'll go over some simple, cheap and easy techniques for information gathering as well as some that are more costly, time consuming and advanced. The same goes for covering up your own tracks: there are simple and easy options as well as ones more cumbersome and time-consuming. Its all up to you. How much time and money do you want to spend to find out what you want to know or keep your private life private?

Setting all that aside for a moment, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not mention that there are individuals out there who will offer you for a price any information you desire. Beware of the laws. Beware of information brokers with fly-by-night businesses. Beware of governmental agencies setting you up for a sting. On a weekly basis, I hear from other private investigators who have been approached and asked to dig up information that would be illegal to obtain. One detective even commented recently that on one of these sting calls the caller ID showed "US Government". Stings are set up all the time in efforts to weed out unscrupulous information providers. Personally, I hope the government catches all the bad guys. Of course, they'll have to start using *67, caller ID blocking, if they want to do it right ;).

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This is going to come as a shock to some of you, but one of the biggest violators of your privacy will be YOU. I'm sure some readers are wondering how that can be the case since they're not peeping in their own windows at themselves or tapping their own phone lines. Seriously, so many clients are unaware when they come to us about the incredibly simple things they can do to limit their vulnerabilities and do some damage control after already exposing themselves, so to speak.

Let's take, for example, some of the big topics that're always in the news: social networking sites on the internet. Private investigators and attorneys LOVE social networking sites. They provide a treasure trove of information on individuals who are simply out to socialize, share histories and good times, and simply don't know how to use privacy settings.

Facebook has been all over the news for their privacy settings changes...and more changes...and changes to the changes. It can be hard to keep up on all of that. Personally, I recommend SOPHOS' Facebook Security tips , AllFacebook(which has a downloadable privacy guide), and Facebook Wall (an unofficial Facebook guide). Yes, there are other sites out there. If in doubt about your security on those sites, simply google "site name security tips" or "site name privacy settings", substituting your favorite site for "site name" ;).

So many court cases have been won, lost or settled out of court simply because someone decided to post the wrong comments, pictures, libel or threats. Be careful what you say online. Just because you're not face to face or "in real life" (IRL), doesn't make a threat or defamation non-existent.

Even employers are looking on social networking sites at potential and current employees. Employers will try to decide if you're a good fit with their firm or if that sick time you requested was really sick time or time theft.

And did you know that you can delete whatever you want from your page, but the history of what existed previously can be subpoenaed from the company that runs the social networking site? Its all still there on their servers for posterity...and litigation.

Consider your safety, too. Are you posting pictures of your children? Are they standing in front of their daycare or school where you can read the sign? Can anyone see these pictures and do you trust them?

Are you posting your vacation plans online? Do you trust everyone there? Many crimes have been reported where the offending party ended up being a trusted facebook "friend". Be careful to whom you give your trust.

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Another pitfall, which I've mentioned in a previous blog, is what gets thrown in the trash. Its incredible what people will throw away without a second thought. As a matter of fact, I learned more about my neighbors than I ever cared to know. Once my dog decided to play detective and do his own trash pull, bringing the neighbors' trash back to my yard to tear up and inspect.

Trash archeology, garbology, trash pull. Whatever you call it, one can glean a lot more than banana peels from a little stinky effort. Phone bills, credit card receipts and offers, prescription drug bottles. Think about it: when was the last time you re-filled your prescription, went to pick it up, and you were asked for ID? Pretty rare, isn't it? So if Joe Criminal finds your empty pill bottle in your trash, likes the flavor of the week, calls in your refill and picks it up? Nice.

Anything with Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or information that can be used by itself, or with other information, to identify a single individual, needs to be protected. If a criminal is able to pull a bit of information from one piece of your trash, a bit from another, etc...he may be able to use that information to exploit your identity, among other crimes.

Another interesting part of trash archeology, which can be a bit frightening to some, is the thought that one can establish a lifestyle profile from the effort. Although it would be ideal to make multiple trash pulls and examine them over a period of time, even one trash pull can provide enough information to get a general picture.

For example: Its fairly plain to spot if one has children. Kids generate a lot of child-specific trash. Eating behaviors are significant. One can take a look at several trash bags with microwaveable diet dinner packages and surmise that a single woman might live in that abode. Drinking, smoking, and even drug habits can become evident. Evidence of sexual activity, along with DNA samples, might be available. True, that's a bit gross, but its helpful in cheating spouse and custody cases.

Giving someone access to your private life via your trash can be limited, but its up to you to set those limits. My advice when it comes to throwing things away: if in doubt, shred it. If you can't shred it, burn it. Whatever the case, think about what you're throwing away before you toss it out.

Once you put your trash on your curb, "beyond the curtilage" as its referred to in legal terms, it is considered public domain. There may be some limitations based on local laws, so check those out with your attorney. However, when its on the curb, access is easy.

Besides burning and limiting the PII you toss, you can also keep your trash cans away from the curb. The preference would be inside your home, if you have that option, until as close to the time of trash pick-up as possible.

Otherwise, your trash may become another man's treasure.

To be continued...

Is My Daughter Dating An Axe Murderer? How to Run a Background Check on Anyone PART ONE

Reasons for a Background Check:

One of the most common inquiries we receive at our firm is to look into someone's background. Some clients need to know with whom their children are spending time. Others want to check out a potential spouse. The more financial savvy individuals are looking to find whether a potential investment is sound or if the deal may be a scam. Persons of a more litigious nature want to dig up the dirt before getting into the courtroom to either get something on the other guy, or make sure their own witnesses can stand up to cross examination. The number of reasons for a background check vary broadly.

Application of the Law:

As licensed investigators, we have to be aware of many laws which keep popping up to protect the privacy of our fellow citizens.

There's the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

Next is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/031224fcra.pdf

Another is the Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA)
http://www.accessreports.com/statutes/DPPA1.htm

There are more, but these are some of the major ones by which we need to abide when checking into someone's background for a client.

If you attempt to check into someone else's background on your own, you STILL need to abide by these laws. They're not just for private detectives. They're for everyone.

To put it plainly, these laws are there to make sure NO ONE can have access to another individual's specific personal information without a valid reason. To see those reasons, check out the links above.

How Can I Do It Myself?

What Do You Already Know?
The first thing I ask a client is to write down all of the information they already know about the subject upon whom they'd like a background check. This saves them cost since I won't be running down the same avenues they've already traveled in their search. More importantly, however, this helps the client to organize their needs, information, and helps establish other ideas for where to search for more facts.

Database Searches:
Well, you're not going to have access to our proprietary databases such as www.irbsearch.com, www.skipsmasher.com, www.locateplus.com, etcetera. So, what about those sites all over the internet which appear to offer a background check for around thirty bucks?

The difference between proprietary databases and the cheap online public access databases are that the proprietary ones typically update their information on a daily basis. However, if you're going to do this yourself, the public one might be worth a shot as a starting point. Be sure to note that some information may be outdated or incorrect. Always double and triple check your information for accuracy, especially when your subject has a common name.

Use the Power of the Internet:
The internet is a wonderful tool. Learn advanced search techniques. There's a very simple, but true, list of "do's" at:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2911_conduct-advanced-internet.html

For a deep web search, check out www.paterva.com . One could not ask for a better search and relationship connecting program than Paterva's Maltego Community Edition. I've been amazed at the depth to which this tool delves in its search to find information. The user interface is a bit difficult, but if you play around with it, the results will be worth the time and effort. The PI buddy who steered me to this "open source forensics and intelligence application" told me its even used by the CIA. True? I have no idea, but the program is awesome for our cause. Every investigator should add this data mining tool to their arsenal immediately. Hell, its free, too!

Social Networking Sites:
Don't miss the social networking sites. Although Facebook and MySpace are enormously popular, there are so many more like LinkedIn, Naymz, etc. Even your boss might be checking on your online activity on these sites. Opposing counsel and prosecutors use social networking site searches to gather evidence and more. Here's a great list of popular social networking sites for your search:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Another social networking site recently pointed out to me by a friend, which is not on the above list, is secondlife.com. Its new and growing fast as a virtual reality social networking site. Pretty cool, too. However, the first time I used it, I took the tour, then clicked randomly on the map and ended up in a virtual reality BDSM shopping center with no warning of the true nature of the content in advance. The moral of the story is to be careful where you click ;)

My family is urging me strongly to get off of the computer and join them for some family time. Therefore, this post is going to be a two-parter :)

Melinda Kidder
Licensed Private Detective
Columbia Investigations
Columbia Missouri
573-673-2485