[registrars] Privacy & Identity Theft

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All:

I know privacy and identity theft (wrt domain name hijacking) have been
hotly debated topics recently within the DNS space. Therefore, I thought the
following links regarding US Congressional hearings regarding
protection/theft of personal data would be of interest to the general list.

I believe that registrars, and the information that they gather from their
customers, make the following issue important. For those of you with just a
quick passing interest in this topic, the following article may be of
interest - http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5609324.html. Those with a more
detailed interest may wish to review the written testimony, as well as the
RealAudio archives of these hearings, see
http://banking.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=142
.

I found particularly insightful the comments of Senator Leahy regarding
criminals posing as legitimate businesses to obtain sensitive data. The
Senator's full written comments can be viewed online at:
http://banking.senate.gov/_files/leahy.pdf

The troubling events at ChoicePoint, Bank of America and now LexisNexis are
a window
on some of these weaknesses. ChoicePoint's bread-and-butter business
includes identity
verification and screening to help corporate America "know its customers."
Yet the
company failed to know its own customers and sold personal information on at
least
145,000 Americans to criminals posing as legitimate companies.

I think this fact should be considered by the various Whois task forces
regarding any discussion of tiered access.

Best regards,

Michael D. Palage