The AP is reporting that AOL’s Chief Technology Officer has resigned and 2 other workers have been fired, after a privacy breach involving the intentional release of over 650,000 subscriber’s web searches.

From the article –

Although AOL had substituted numeric IDs for the subscribers’ user names, the search queries themselves contained Social Security numbers, medical conditions and other data that could be traced to an individual. In fact, The New York Times was able to trace user 4417749 to Thelma Arnold, 62, of Lilburn, Ga.

You can read the entire article @ 3 Leave AOL in Search-Data Fallout.

Here is an interesting identity theft story from the Associated Press about a criminal who stole an attorney’s identity and then attempted to represent clients in Pennsylvania.

The ID thief was caught after a prosecutor became suspicious when he received “legal” letters and phone calls from the man on the behalf of defendants.

You can read the AP story @ Criminal Steals Attorney’s Identity.

WikiHow has an excellent “how-to” entry on surfing the web and communicating online anonymously. A number of options are included in the how-to: from using public proxies in your web browser to using free anonymous surfing web sites and software.

You can read the how-to on anonymous web surfing @ How to Surf the Web Anonymously With Proxies.

In what could be one of the more unusual identity theft stories that we have ever read, the Associated Press is reporting on a waitress that was handed her own driver’s license, when she carded a female patron.

From the article –

WESTLAKE, Ohio — Maybe she should have paid better attention to her server.

Last week, a waitress at the Moosehead Saloon in Westlake, Ohio, asked a woman to show proof of age after the customer ordered a drink. When the waitress looked at the ID, she realized the customer’s ID was actually her own license, police said.

The waitress, a 22-year-old Lakewood, Ohio, woman, had reported her wallet stolen from a bar on July 9. Her driver’s license and credit card were in the wallet. The credit card had already been used for $1,000 in illicit purchases, police said.

You can read the entire AP article @ Waitress Shown Own License When Asking For ID.

The August 2006 issue of Wired Magazine gives this handy tip for permanently removing deleted files from your PC so that they can not be recovered by another person with file-recovery software.

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You do know that file-recovery software can resurrect everything you just emptied out of your Trash or Recycle Bin, right? It may look as if you’ve removed them from the hard drive, but the 1s and 0s of the so-called deleted files still exist. The only sure way to permanently erase sensitive material is to overwrite the disk space with new data.

PC

Go to www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php and download the free Eraser app, which uses a process rigorous enough to meet Pentagon standards.

Mac

Overwriting is easier on a Mac. (What isn’t?) Choose “Secure Empty Trash” from the Finder menu and the skeletons in your hard drive are toast.