Free Republic

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) is investigating what he calls a massive scheme to corrupt the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with fake public comments on net neutrality. In an open letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Schneiderman said the agency hasn't provided him with information "critical" to an investigation his office is conducting. Schneiderman said in a tweet his office has been investigating a "massive scheme" over the last six months to "corrupt the FCC's comment process on net neutrality by impersonating 100,000s of real Americans." In the letter, Schneiderman wrote that the process the FCC...

Dear John: A question: In the grand scheme of things, what is the point of having a password? Equifax gets hacked, Yahoo gets hacked. I don’t put my mother’s maiden name or my Social Security number on any of my password-protected accounts because those who do provide such information seem to get hacked. Passwords provide a false sense of security. Oh, and make sure your password includes letters, numbers and a certain number of digits, blah, blah, blah, so it is difficult to remember and difficult to compromise. Yeah, sure! M.K.

SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS   Hackers broke into the credit-report company Equifax and stole personal data on up to 143 million Americans. Individual actions can help control the damage. And collective action may lead to new safeguards. The Equifax breach, which occurred over 2-1/2 months, compromised personal data, including Social Security numbers. The incursion affects three-quarters of US adults with a credit score. Here’s a concise look at what happened, the variety of steps that consumers can take, and the pressure for new steps to guard credit data. Q: What happened? From mid-May through July, hackers exploited a weakness in the...

To determine if your personal information may have been impacted by this incident, please follow the below steps: Click on the below link, “Check Potential Impact,” and provide your last name and the last six digits of your Social Security number. Based on that information, you will receive a message indicating whether your personal information may have been impacted by this incident. Regardless of whether your information may have been impacted, we will provide you the option to enroll in TrustedID Premier. You will receive an enrollment date. You should return to this site and follow the “How do I...

Security data breach equifax Equifax data leak could involve 143 million consumers Posted 25 minutes ago by Ron Miller (@ron_miller) Data leaks have become so commonplace that it’s incredibly easy to become numb to them, but credit reporting service Equifax announced a doozy today that when all is said and done could involve 143 million consumers. This is bad. It was a treasure trove of information for the bad guys out there and included Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. As though that weren’t bad enough, 209,000 people had their credit card info...

I am embarrassed to post this, my first vanity after being registered lo, these many years. Last week, one of my credit card accounts was hacked. I received an email verifying that my login was changed, and to report it if I had not made those changes. I had not done so, and immediately called the credit card company. Apparently, someone posing as me had tried to logon, and requested to reset the password. they then changed my adress to one in Miami, FL. (this is where it gets interesting). The card company said they texted a code to my...

Tax season may be over, but next year’s taxes will be due before we know it—and at least 1.4 million Americans won’t know that their Social Security numbers are being used by illegal aliens. An Internal Revenue Service report that this is roughly the number of illegal aliens who are impersonating citizens when it comes to file taxes. To make things more maddening, they’re not allowed to work with the Department of Homeland Security on finding the identities of these people. Stephen Dinan at The Washington Times had more: Most illegal immigrants who pay taxes have stolen someone else’s legal...

Hundreds Vote Illegally in North Carolina after Court Bans Election Integrity Law FBI Court Filing Reveals Grand Jury Targeted Hillary Clinton JW Goes To Federal Court Monday on Another Obama Administration Email Scandal Hundreds Vote Illegally in North Carolina after Court Bans Election Integrity Law Obama Justice Department holdovers must be pleased with their work. In July 2016, they were successful in undoing North Carolina’s voter integrity laws in order to allow all manner of illegal voters the ability to cast ballots. Our Corruption Chronicles blog tells the story . Less than a year after a federal appellate court...

something or someone claiming to be an austin, texas branch of the irs recently (~3 weeks ago) sent me a letter. i should receive a refund from the irs due to overpayment by several thousand dollars. however, according to the irs, it is suspicious that i am really me. so it wants me to call them up on an 800 number, with two past 1040s and 22s in hand, so i can prove to them that i am me before they will believe the 1040 and send me my refund. they will allow a lawyer to be present ir i...

I hope someone can help me. My husband just received one of those scam calls that asks a question and gets you to answer yes. The caller records your yes and disconnects. Then they use that yes to agree to some contract.

Feel free to steal Ramos's identity No doubt you remember Jorge Ramos - the perpetually outraged, virtue-signaling, illegal immigration activist who pretends to be a journalist - from that time President Trump had him thrown out of a press conference. After it happened, Ramos enjoyed a few extra minutes of fame, made the anti-Trump media rounds, then faded back to his previous level of mid-range notoriety. Unfortunately, with the illegal immigration issue still front-and-center, Ramos rears his head every so often.

An Arizona woman who has lived in the U.S. for more than two decades was arrested Wednesday night after her regular check-in with immigration officials and has been deported to Mexico. She was sent to Nogales, Mexico, on Thursday, reports Katherine Fritcke of member station KJZZ. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos' deportation — which has been protested by dozens of activists, some of whom were arrested late Wednesday — is a glimpse of how immigration enforcement is changing under the Trump administration. She had had a deportation order against her for several years but was not considered a priority for deportation...

WASHINGTON — Americans are getting older, but not this old: Social Security records show that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have reached the ripe old age of 112. In reality, only few could possibly be alive. As of last fall, there were only 42 people known to be that old in the entire world. But Social Security does not have death records for millions of these people, with the oldest born in 1869, according to a report by the agency’s inspector general. Only 13 of the people are still getting Social Security benefits, the report said. But for others,...

A former Rhode Island state lawmaker has agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges, becoming the third former House member in 11 days to be charged with criminal conduct and prompting the U.S. attorney to decry the state’s political culture. The charges filed against Democrat Ray Gallison in federal court Monday include mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and filing false tax returns. Gallison, an attorney, acknowledged taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a dead man’s estate and other misconduct. “This says something about our political culture here, which I think should get our attention,” U.S. Attorney Peter...

Feds report 15,000 complaints since 2013 from people who say law enforcement or creditors mistakenly targeted them because someone else used their identity. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes, taking billions from American consumers each year. Now the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has uncovered a more insidious form of stolen identity that can also take your freedom. The Federal Trade Commission monitors identity theft crimes nationwide. The Investigative Unit combed through years of FTC complaint data and found nearly 15,000 reports since 2013 from victims of identity theft who mistakenly had criminal and civil actions waged...

The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday. Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled, and fell woefully short anyway. As a result most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up. “Taxpayers identified as...

Inspector General: IRS identified 1.1 million cases of The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a report Tuesday which found the IRS had identified 1.1 million cases of employment-related identity theft since 2011 but failed to notify the victims. As the IG’s press release makes clear, TIGTA pointed out this same problem to the IRS in a previous audit: Why is the IRS so hesitant to deal with this problem? Because most of the people committing the identity theft are illegal immigrants.

The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday. Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled — and fell woefully short anyway. As a result, most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up. “Taxpayers identified...

The U.S. Social Security Administration announced last week that it will now require a cell phone number from all Americans who wish to manage their retirement benefits at ssa.gov. Unfortunately, the new security measure does little to prevent identity thieves from fraudulently creating online accounts to siphon benefits from Americans who haven’t yet created accounts for themselves. ... “People will not be able to access their personal my Social Security account if they do not have a cell phone or do not wish to provide the cell phone number,” the agency said. ... Also, as one reader already pointed out...

The hack affected providers such as Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and MicrosoftCybersecurity professionals are warning anyone with a personal email account to change their passwords after stolen user names and passwords were being offered up for sale on the Internet, NBC News reported. Some 272.3 million accounts were stolen - and involve some of the biggest email providers, including Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and Microsoft, according to Alex Holden of Hold Security. "We know he's a young man in central Russia who collected this information from multiple sources," Holden told NBC News. "We don't know the way he did it or the...