Forget your bank balance? It's available on the Internet

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Subject: Forget your bank balance? It's available on the Internet

Eric F. Bourassa, a privacy advocate at the Massachusetts Public Interest
Research Group, knows how difficult it is to keep personal financial
information personal. But even he was surprised at how easy it was for *The
Boston Globe* to obtain his private bank account information.  Trafficking
in confidential financial information is commonplace on the Web, with a
quick Google search turning up more than a dozen sites selling everything
from Social Security numbers to bank balances.  *The Globe* tested one of
the sites in September, paying $125 for Governor Mitt Romney's credit report
and in the process discovering a major security weakness in the nation's
credit reporting network.

In November, with Bourassa's blessing, the Globe began to explore the
shadowy world of asset search firms, which advertise that they can unlock
the financial secrets of virtually anyone. The mystery is where these firms
get their information. Does it come directly from financial institutions? Or
does it come through more indirect, possibly illegal, methods?

The Globe agreed to pay Ohio-based I.C.U. Inc., whose Web address is
Tracerservices.com, $475 for Bourassa's bank account information and his
stock and bond holdings. Not all of the information the Web site provided
was accurate, but the bank account information, with the balance listed
right down to the penny, was so close that it made Bourassa feel violated.
  [Source: Bruce Mohl, *The Boston Globe*, 4 Jan 2004]

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