Important Safety Tip

It's just so hard to count these days and somehow the initial report of lost credit card, checking and drivers license information was under reported ever-so-slightly last month. It is now being reported that the DSW data which was stolen was 1.4 million credit card numbers which is ten times the previously reported amount.

Are online transactions safe? Yes they are, but you have to be careful how you do it. First, if you're buying stuff from the internet, and you are buying via credit card, look for an option described similar to "click here to retain credit card information on our server", or something along those lines. The goal is to make sure that whoever you are buying from does not retain your credit card information. If there is no option to opt out of storing your credit card info on their server, I'd be wary buying from them. Most web sites default to "no - do not retain credit card information". Just double check that.

Leading online discount broker Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Tuesday it has informed about 200,000 current and former customers that a backup computer tape containing their personal information has been lost.

Computers are funny critters. What you think is impossible is really possible, and likely. The reason is the same as the reason anything else happens.. because it can.

If there is a "failure" rate of .000000000000001%, you'd think you're safe, but if a computer proccess 10000000000000000 instances a day, you'll have a failure somewhere along the line.

That's before you throw in mallicious intent. By the way, I just pulled those numbers out of my ass, just to illustrate a point.

The fact of the matter is, all your personally identifiable information is stored as bits, on an oxide platter. Strange things happen. The problem is going to get worse as more and more of what we are becomes digital bits someplace.

Maybe this Republican Congress could take a look at the issue. Oh wait, they're busy threatening judges. If they did propose a solution, I'm sure it would be "faith based". What would Jeebus do?

** update **

If you run a spell check on "Jeebus", MS Word offers up "Jesus" as a correction. I found that amusing. Thank God for Homer Simpson.