Business Week Online has an article entitled You Are What You Post, about the backlash of people being so open online. Many employers do web searches on people they hire now and are finding web sites, blogs, MySpace accounts and so forth.

Schools are warning parents about Google’s danger to the MySpace generation, for whom the Internet functions as a virtual diary-meets-barstool confessional. Adolescents try on identities and new behaviors like sweaters. Only now they are trying them on in front of the world. A Pew Research survey found that more than half of all online teenagers are ripping, mixing, and burning their own content, usually placing their creations right alongside their names and photos. The teenagers on the “companies and co-workers” section of MySpace who are talking smack about employers like Blockbuster (BBI), Target (TGT), and Gap (GPS) are clearly unaware of the implications. “People need to realize that this is like putting stuff up on the 6 o’clock news,” says employment lawyer Garry G. Mathiason, a partner at San Francisco’s Littler Mendelson. “Once you’ve opened the drapes, people can see everything. They can see your past life.”

That’s why Dave Fonseca, a senior at the University of Massachusetts, pulled his Facebook profile down in December. “Employers are looking at these things,” he says. (It’s easy for people to get passwords and noodle around on the site.) Fonseca even knows the verb for people who get fired for what they put on their Web sites: “dooced.” The name comes from Dooce.com, the blog of Heather B. Armstrong, who got canned after writing about her job on her blog.

So you get an e-mail out of the blue that says something like:

PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of customers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity.

We are contacting you to remind you that on 16 March 2006 our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved.

To secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may require some additional information from you for the following reason:

We have been notified that a card associated with your account has been reported as lost or stolen, or that there were additional problems with your card.

This process is mandatory, and if not completed within the nearest time your account or credit card may be subject for temporary suspension.

To securely confirm your PayPal information please click on the link bellow:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

We encourage you to log in and perform the steps necessary to restore your account access as soon as possible. Allowing your account access to remain limited for an extended period of time may result in further limitations on the use of your account and possible account closure.

For more information about how to protect your account please visit PayPal Security Center. We apologize for any incovenience this may cause, and we apriciate your assistance in helping us to maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal system.

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

Welcome to the classic PayPal e-mail scam. These type of messages are sent out blindly to millions of e-mail addresses every day in hopes that folks will bite. If you actually have an active PayPal account, your first reaction might be to quickly click the link and log-in. Not so fast! There are two ways you can see if it’s a scam.

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Don’t be a victim of Identity Theft. Check your credit report at least once a year, or better yet, 4 times a year; once every season. Catching any strange activity early on will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

United States
Equifax - 1-800-685-1111 - www.equifax.com
Experian - 1-888-EXPERIA - www.experian.com
TransUnion - 1-800-888-4213 - www.transunion.com

In the US, you can get a free annual report by law. A site that makes it easy is www.annualcreditreport.com. You can also reach them by phone at 1-877-322-8228.

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Have you been a victim of identity theft? It could take a bit of work to clear your name. However, here are a few tips to make the process easier.

1. Contact the fraud department at all the credit bureaus. They should be able to place a “fraud alert” on your account, requiring creditors to call you before opening new accounts in your name.

2. Get your credit reports from all the major reporting agencies in your country and track the abuse. You should be getting your credit report at least once a year, to check for errors and fraud.

3. Contact the credit card company or bank where fraud is being commited and have them close or suspend the account. Explain what you feel has been stolen and when you think it started. They’ll be able to help you further from there.

4. Call your local police department and file a report detailing the fraud with as much information as possible. You may find that credit bureaus will be quicker to help you if you provide them a police report.

5. If you live in the US, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. They maintain a database of ID theft cases for their investigators.

6. Try to have all your identity documents reissued by issuing organizations and government.

For a while, the wireless Internet connection Christine and Randy Brodeur installed last year seemed perfect. They were able to sit in their sunny Los Angeles backyard working on their laptop computers.

But they soon began noticing that their high-speed Internet access had become as slow as rush-hour traffic on the 405 freeway.

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Most people who use e-mail now know enough to be on guard against “phishing” messages that pretend to be from a bank or business but are actually attempts to steal passwords and other personal information.

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