(Preliminary, February 16, 2004 by Dennis Kennedy)

(Also see: The Security Program for Computing Presentation,
'Cooperative Effort', 'by the Numbers' and 'yet another $Trillion')

Apparently, both the use of email addresses and chat screen names are being stolen and used in the same way as credit cards have been in the past and present.
The obvious goal of the theft of either is to gain information.
Through email, information is gained by reviewing all messages in both your inbox and sent are sections (and any other sections that were personally created) as well as information on your mailbox.
Through chat sessions, information is gained by reviewing your frequent contacts (better known as your 'buddy lists').
However through either or both also brings the ability to use either your email or your (or other) screen names as Identity Theft, sending out messages or actually chatting - even with you or as you - towards gaining any information, but sending out mis-information.

As you enter into any chat session, be initially aware that the person on the other end of that chat just may not be the actual person with whom you have been conversing in the past!
And as you receive an email, be aware that the email may not have actually come from the addressed sender! (Especially by not 'saving' the sent copy of an email for example, when this is done, it is not very easily obvious at all.)
Both of these areas are New Major Breaches in Computer Security!

Obviously, this is a theft in the same way as the theft of credit, of social security numbers, etc. and these breaches in security have serious potential destructive capabilities to any individual or anyone that they would know.
However, these breaches in security have even more serious destructive capabilities to business and government as for example, the 'unrecorded' sending of an email would cause significant failures to occur to either an individual or especially to any business or goverment.
Both are areas that were designed to be addressed in the Security Program for Computing, especially for businesses and governments, but even for the individual, too.

Author: Dennis Kennedy
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