Economics of Identity Theft »

Today, identity is more than anything, economic. The technology used to create, utilize and protect identities is increasingly ill-matched to the economics and uses of identities. Identity theft is the misuse of private authenticating information to steal money. Protecting identity requires privacy. Proving identity requires exposing information. Together, these points illustrate that the near-term search for cheap identity management is a formula for long-term fraud resulting in ever-increasing identity theft.

The Economics of Identity Theft: Avoidance, Causes and Possible Cures, a professional book, discusses privacy as multi-dimensional, and then pulls forward the economics of privacy in the first few chapters. This book also includes identity-based signatures, spyware, and the placement of biometric security in an economically broken system, which results in a broken biometric system. The final chapters include systematic problems with practical individual strategies for preventing identity theft for any reader of any economic status. In conclusion, four startling previews of the future are written as scenarios.

1 Identity In Economics, And In Context 1

2 Modern Technological And Traditional Social Identities 5

3 Identity Theft 17

4 Who Owns You? 33

5 Defeating The Greatest Masquerade 49

6 Secrecy, Privacy, Identity 61

7 Security And Privacy As Market Failures 73

8 Trusting Code And Trusting Hardware 83

9 Technologies Of Identity 87

10 Anonymous Identifiers 91

11 Digital Signatures 101

12 Strengths And Weaknesses Of Biometrics 109

13 Reputation 125

14 Scenario I: Your Credentials Please 141

15 Scenario II: Universal National Identifier 149

16 Scenario III: Sets Of Attributes 161

17 Scenario IV: Ubiquitous Identity Theft 165

18 Closing 173

19 References And Further Reading 175

20 Index 183