Thursday, May 26, 2005
Editorial: Fighting identity theft
Bob Goodlatte's bill bans spyware or other tricks to make computer users yield sensitive data.
From the RoundTable blog
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A bill he co-sponsored would criminalize several computer techniques used to harvest information from individual computers for identity theft. Identity theft is illegal, but Congress has yet to pass laws against the technological methods used to acquire the information needed to steal someone's identity. Goodlatte's bill, which overwhelmingly passed the House, would establish a felony punishable by up to five years in prison to install spyware on a computer without the owner's permission. Spyware includes hidden programs, which often piggyback on downloadable games and other software, that can record and transmit passwords or other sensitive information typed into a computer.
The bill would also punish "phishers" and "pharmers." Phishers send out phony e-mails that direct users to equally phony Web sites that appear to be hosted by reputable financial institutions asking for information to verify accounts.
Pharmers use spyware to hijack a user's Web browser and direct it to the same kind of phony Web sites, hoping to trick people into entering bank accounts, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information that thieves can use to apply for credit in users' names, or even access money in their accounts.
Ensuring that today's laws reflect today's crimes is a worthwhile undertaking. But if Goodlatte were really serious about protecting Americans from identity theft, he should have withheld his support for recently passed ID legislation, which, by requiring states to maintain databases of digitized identity documents like Social Security cards, birth certificates and even utility bills, will create at least 50 vulnerable treasure troves to tempt identity-theft hackers.
Despite that inconsistency, the Senate, which ignored a similar bill passed by the House last year, should pass Goodlatte's spyware bill.
