LimeWire and Identity Theft

There's been a great deal of talk lately about peer-to-peer file sharing and identity theft. The reason, as you may have heard, is popular file sharing network LimeWire having recently been used to access files on users computers and open fraudulent accounts with this information. On Friday, eight people were indicted fo using LimeWire to help with their identity theft ring. The three key players, Michael Sarrasin, Shawn Adams and Tamara Stesneyr, were indicted on November 30 on 115 charges. They allegedly accessed personal account information of LimeWire users and used the information to open fraudulent accounts at Denver banks. The victims' losses are estimated at about $70,000.

Now, I'm not going into my thoughts on peer-to-peer file sharing (that's not what this blog is for), but we all know our computers and the data on them become more vulnerable when we go online, which is why we have all our anti-virus software and firewall. However, when you participate in peer-to-peer networks such as LimeWire, you give other users access to certain data on your computer (supposedly the folders designated for it), and you may want to take extra precautions to protect sensitive data. Encryption programs like PGP and TrueCrypt are recommended.

I'm not going to tell people what to do online, but I will tell you to protect your private information.