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Identity Theft Research Paper

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Everywhere you go in today’s society, you can never get away from the internet. Ever since 1962, it has been a necessity in the world (“Computer History Museum”). Just like everything else, the internet has its good and bad parts. The capabilities of having unlimited usage of internet has hurt our society by identity fraud, pornography, and scamming. One of the major disadvantages of internet is how much information is out in the open for everyone to see. One of the biggest problems one will see is the problem of identity theft. In fact, recent studies show that identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the US. According to ftc.gov, “Identity theft happens when someone steals your personal information and uses it without your permission.” …show more content…
The amount of information one can see about someone else is scary. With just a click of a button, one can suddenly see the name, address, phone number, age, and so much more of any person they choose. Not only can a thief see that, they can also access your social security and back account information with just a few more searches. Another way one can steal someone’s identity is through credit cards. When ordering something online, one is immediately putting themselves at risk. When a thief gets ahold of that number, they can spend as much money as they want. Most banks understand that identity theft can happen, and will only make the customer pay a small percentage of what was stolen. Credit card theft makes up 27% of identity theft. No matter what one does, if a person uses the internet and puts any sort of personal information out there, it has a very well chance of being seen from someone. Another way many people steal identity is social media. On mostly every social media site that one visits, it will ask for personal information. This can range from age, birthday, city raised, current city, and full name. Some social media sites also have certain …show more content…
Spam is so popular in today’s society, it has a folder on most people’s emails just for it! When people get spam, they automatically delete it. Out of the millions of trillions of emails sent a day, it is estimated that 14.5 billion of those of days are spam. Spam causes many difficulties, but the one major thing it can do is cause viruses. One has always had a point where over half of their messages in their email are spam. With some of the messages, right when you open the message, your computer gets a virus. When one’s computer gets a virus, it can cause problems with what you are trying to do. If you have a very important project you are trying to do for work and you cannot because of spam, this could cost money and time. It has been proven that spam cost businesses $20.5 billion dollars annually. Another type of spam one is familiar with is spam on social media sites. One will always see a special advertisement that is too good to be true. One will click on it out of curiosity, and boom, there computer is exposed to spam! Everywhere you go on the internet, you are always at the risk for spam. The only way to stop this is by having software on the computer that blocks all spam. Otherwise, one might just need to be careful where they

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