>Despite the care I've taken over the years to prevent getting credit or
>other personal information stolen on BBSs and over the Internet, somehow
>someone got my checking account debit card number and my name and was able
>to open a membership on a pornographic Web site.

You are assuming that someone actually stole it over the internet.  There
are at least 6 other avenues that I can think of for getting a hold of
credit card information.

1. Someone at the credit card company.
2. Someone at any store you have shopped at.
3. Someone at your ISP.
4. Do you have a Cell-Phone? - Someone at the Cellular Phone company - or
store where it was sold.
5. Do you use pay-at-the-pump at the gas station, and maybe forgot your
receipt in the pump?
6. Do you ever get reimbursed for things you buy for your job?  Do they get
the receipt with the credit card # at the bottom.

You have to realize that credit card information is not that hard to get
for someone who has access to it.  I found this the hard way when I found a
$600.00 america online charge about 3 years ago.  Funny thing was it was a
brand new credit card that had been used only once at a local clothing
chain store.  We reported it to the management of the store but got no
where.  AOL finally removed the charge a short time after.

Not to say you are careless, as I am certainly not anymore but, I can think
of 3 times that I have gone to pump gas and the last person to pay with a
credit cards receipt is sticking out of the receipt printer on the pump.  I
could only imagine how many I could find if I walked into Sears and looked
in any garbage can in or outside the store.  Not to mention the malls
parking lot.

If you ever worked in retail you might remember that most stores keep a
journal tape of all transactions on each register.  A potential theif could
have a list of 150-500 cards by the end of a busy Saturday afternoon.  Your
name and the expiration date also appear on this journal tape.  Not to hard
for some little pervert to copy 10 or 15 off each weekend and open up porn
memberships all over the net.

I have always preached that the internet is one of the safer ways to
transmit your credit card.  I would say that 95% of sites out there are
using encryption and you credit card is in no danger.  I have a rule that I
follow - No encryption, no internet sale.

There is some lack of safety when using non-encrypted sites.  Everything on
the internet passes through one or more computers or routers (hops) along
the way from your machine to their machine.  Try the following to test it.
Go to a MSDOS prompt and type.

tracert www.amazon.com <enter>

See all of those hops, each of those is a point where your unencrypted
information can get stolen.  Although 95% of them are safe, You can't be
too careful.

>Could the list readers make suggestions on how someone could have gotten
>hold of this information either via the Internet or any other way?  How
>about some suggestions on how to track down an email address when the
>domain name exists but none of the well-known methods of finding the email
>address show anything?

As far as this, I wouldn't take the time to bother.  Anyone who is stealing
credit card info, is probably using a stolen credit card to obtain an
account on an ISP somewhere.  If you privately e-mail me the address I have
a few tricks that I can try.

-Rob





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